Written barracks. On the production and circulation of Newsletters in the internment Camps of Southwest France
Authors
Adámez Castro, GuadalupeIdentifiers
Permanent link (URI): http://hdl.handle.net/10017/42446DOI: 10.5463/ejlw.7.280
ISSN: 1876-8156
Date
2018-06-19Bibliographic citation
European Journal of Life Writing, 2018, v. VII, p. 90-110
Keywords
Spanish Exile
Internment Camp
Written Culture
Handwritten Press
Document type
info:eu-repo/semantics/article
Version
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Access rights
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
Abstract
Around half a million of Spanish exiles crossed the French border in the Pyrenees between January and February of 1939. They were looking for shelter in preparation for the overthrow of the Spanish Second Republic. The reception of the exiles in France was rather hostile, and approximately a quarter of a million of them were locked up in internment or concentration camps that French authorities improvised by reactivating camps of WWI. The exiles became refugees whose political band was defeated, and they were deprived of freedom and forced to live in insalubrious conditions. The refugees used writing and culture as a strategy to resist, and as a means to hang onto their personal, familiar, social and ideological identities. As a result of their cultural activity, a wide range of newsletters and diaries were edited in the internment camps despite the scarcity of resources. The refugees used these writings as a way of entertainment but also to spread their own doctrines. Present communication analyzes some 20 newsletters produced by a variety of groups in the camps: political groups, which were mostly linked to the field of education, and also different intellectuals and members of the Brigades. The main goal of this work is to disentangle how the newsletters were produced, discuss the aims of the different publications and show how the texts were circulated and exchanged within the internment camps. Ultimately, the purpose of this work is to demonstrate the meaning of these clandestine communications for their authors and their readers and examine how the texts were used to reconstruct their lost identity. Entre enero y febrero de 1939 alrededor de medio millón de españoles cruzó
la frontera con Francia en busca de refugio ante la inminente derrota de la
República. La acogida que tuvieron en el país galo no fue ejemplar, aproximadamente 250.000 fueron recluidos en campos de internamiento o de concentración improvisados y reutilizados de la I Guerra Mundial. Convertidos en
refugiados, derrotados, privados de libertad y viviendo en unas condiciones
insalubres, todos ellos se sirvieron de la escritura y de la cultura como una
estrategia de resistencia, como armas para aferrarse a su identidad personal,
familiar, social e ideológica.
Fruto de esta actividad cultural son los distintos diarios y boletines que, a
pesar de la escasez material, se editaron dentro de los propios campos y que
los refugiados emplearon como medios de circulación de noticias, como forma
de entretenimiento y como vehículos de adoctrinamiento. El propósito de este
artículo es analizar una treintena boletines producidos por diversos grupos:
políticos, vinculados al mundo de la enseñanza, intelectuales, brigadistas, etc.
Mi objetivo es desentrañar cómo fue la producción de dichos boletines, qué finalidad tuvo su publicación y cómo fue su circulación y difusión de los mismos
dentro de los propios campos. De esta forma, quiero analizar qué significado
tuvieron tanto para sus autores como para sus lectores y cómo fueron usados
para reconstruir su identidad perdida.
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written_adamez_EJLW_2018.pdf | 3.494Mb |
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