Presentación. El estudio del franquismo cincuenta años después de la muerte del dictador

Abstract

The journal Ayer has always been a platform for significant contributions to historiography on Francoism. It played a key role in transcending the Civil War as a boundary for studying contemporary Spanish history. Not only did it publish solid articles and key historiographical debates essential for understanding the dictatorship, but it also promoted dossiers addressing the period from various perspectives (notably in 1999, 2001, 2007, 2016, and 2022). This dossier seeks to continue that tradition on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of Francisco Franco’s death.

The dossier has multiple objectives. First, it aims to provide an updated historiographical account of what we know about Franco's regime, recognizing prior works, synthesizing interpretations, and offering conclusions on different periods and themes. Second, it focuses on some of the most pressing and vital aspects for understanding Francoism, analyzing themes such as violence, FET y de las JONS, and the challenging reconstruction of democracy through conflicts, associations, and social movements across the regime’s nearly four decades. Third, the contributions aim to underline what remains to be done and suggest possible avenues for future research.

The dossier seeks to cast a historiographical perspective on Francoism fifty years after the dictator’s death. There may still be a societal tendency to equate Francoism with the image of the dictator himself. With this contribution, we aim to move beyond that, directing our attention to the regime’s structure, policies, and society. It is, of course, impossible to synthesize all contributions made in five decades of study. Therefore, we propose an approach that, while acknowledging the groundwork laid during the final years of the 20th century, focuses especially on the evolution of historiography in the 21st century, with particular attention to the last twenty-five years. To this end, we will collaborate with researchers who, for the most part, began their work in the 2000s.

We propose the following structure: The first two articles will analyze the historiography devoted to the first phase of Francoism (1939–1959) and the second phase (1959–1975). Subsequently, we will include studies addressing key issues for understanding the dictatorship that have gained particular relevance in recent years: violence and repression; FET y de las JONS; and the construction of democracy during Francoism. All these articles will adopt a chronological framework encompassing the entire dictatorship.

Lastly, we would like to mention that we had hoped to include more female authors in this dossier. Specifically, we had planned for women historians to contribute to the articles on democracy and the second phase of Francoism. Unfortunately, both declined to participate due to academic commitments and their inability to deliver their texts before the summer of 2025.