The concealment of the perpetrators. Mechanisms of containment in memorial actions during the Transition

Authors

  • Iria Morgade Valcárcel Universidade de Santiago de Compostela

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.53351/ah74k668

Keywords:

memory actions, containment mechanisms, Transition, perpetrators, francoist violence, reconciliation

Abstract

This article examines whether mechanisms of constraint were deployed during Spain’s transition to democracy to prevent or discourage memory initiatives from transgressing the discursive limits of “reconciliation”, including the impunity of perpetrators. To this end, it analyses three memory initiatives in which the visibility of perpetrators was central: the commemorative activities of the Republican Convention of the Peoples of Spain, with Humberto Baena as its most prominent figure; the public identification of the perpetrators in Tui; and the large-scale renaming of Francoist streets in Ferrol. The study is based on a critical reading of documentary, press, and oral sources. The singularity and exceptional nature of these three case studies within the broader set of three hundred memory initiatives identified in the memorial process that unfolded in Galicia after Franco’s death allow for broader conclusions to be drawn about the nature of this process of remembrance. All three initiatives, in which perpetrators occupied a prominent position, were subject to coercive and repressive mechanisms. The intensity with which these mechanisms were deployed was directly related to the visibility of the perpetrators, which lay outside the accepted limits of how the past could be publicly remembered.

Thus, these three memorial actions in which the perpetrators figured prominently suffered from the implementation of coercive and coercive mechanisms aimed at preventing them. We consider that the high degree of intensity with which these mechanisms were deployed is precisely related to the visibility of the perpetrators, which was outside the limits of how they could be remembered.

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Author Biography

  • Iria Morgade Valcárcel, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela

    Doctora en Historia Contemporánea por la Universidade de Santiago de Compostela con la tesis «Sen rancor nin esquecemento: As accións da memoria traumática na Transición en Galicia (1976-1986)», en la que analiza las acciones colectivas e institucionales de memoria del golpe del 36 y la guerra que se produjeron en Galicia tras la muerte del dictador Francisco Franco y durante los siguientes diez años. Pertenece al grupo de investigación Histagra. Ha colaborado en diversas publicaciones colectivas como Golpistas e verdugos de 1936: Historia dun pasado incómodo, coordinada por Lourenzo Fernández y Antonio Míguez (Galaxia, 2018), o Sites of violence and memory in modern Spain, editada por Antonio Míguez (Bloomsbury, 2021). También ha publicado textos sobre la internacionalización del movimiento de memoria histórica (Tempo Exterior 40, 2020) y el tratamiento de la memoria en las aulas (Didáctica de las Ciencias Experimentales y Sociales 32, 2017).

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Published

2026-06-29

Issue

Vol. 15 No. 30 (2026): Perpetradores, políticas eliminacionistas, contextos y memoria colectiva en la España del siglo XX

Section

Special Section

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How to Cite

The concealment of the perpetrators. Mechanisms of containment in memorial actions during the Transition. (2026). Revista Universitaria De Historia Militar, 15(30), 77-103. https://doi.org/10.53351/ah74k668

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