Aprender a escribir para aprender a militar. Análisis de 18 dictados producidos por las Juventudes Socialistas Unificadas

Abstract

Among the numerous reforms made during the second Spanish Republic (1936-1939), Education system was, perhaps, what reflected in a better way the principles the new government wanted to spread. One of them was supporting cultural and educative politics that raised Spain to the level of other European countries. In this way, different initiatives were promoted in order to put an end to illiteracy, so they advocated for spreading education to reach every corner of the Spanish territory. The military uprising led by general Francisco Franco on July 18th, 1936 could not stop the educative motivation of the Republic, but the war soon started to conditionate educative and cultural programs on both sides, putting political issues into every single detail. This article analyses 18 dictates written during the first years of the Spanish Civil War by the Juventudes Socialistas Unificadas (JSU), kept nowadays in the Centro Documental de la Memoria Histórica in Salamanca. These documents are the starting point to explore relevant facts about popular education during the Spanish Second Republic and how it was held during the war. Besides, a linguistic and graphic analysis helps us to go into detail about the study of the writings made by ordinary people, which provides a deeper approach to the writing practices in fields sometimes forgotten by traditional historiography.