Having consolidated his power in the late 1920s, Joseph Stalin long focused on internal affairs: the Five Year Plans, collectivization of agriculture, rapid industrialization, and modernization of the Red Army. Despite his penchant for domestic policy, from the summer of 1936 Stalin's Soviet Union was increasingly drawn into foreign affairs. This article explores Stalin's foreign policy on the eve of the Second World War. The Soviet Union's multiple failures in forging an anti-Fascist alliance with Britain and France, most notably in the Spanish Civil War, will be explored as the prelude to Stalin's eventual decision, in August 1939, to authorize the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
La trilogia de memòries de Llorenç Villalonga (1897-1980) proposada per Miquel López Crespí, narrades per l'alter ego de Villalonga, Salvador Orlan, planteja preguntes sobre la motivació i el lloc d'aquesta literatura pseudomemorialística, tant en el context local de Mallorca con en l'espai testimonial de manera més general. El segon dels dos volums publicats fins ara, Les vertaderes memòries de Salvador Orlan (2012), fa servir escrits autobiogràfics i pseudobiogràfics de Villalonga per a presentar una narrativa en primera persona exculpatòria i a vegades malhumorada els defectes estilístics de la qual ja fan poc probable que el subjecte es pugui guanyar l'afecte del lector. Aquest assaig estudia per què Villalonga, mitjançant la seva pròpia tradició del desconcert, podria semblar lliurar-se a la reescriptura però no a l'empatia, i suggereix que posicionar-lo com a cap de turc o víctima que encara ha de fer la reparació per la seva lleialtat a la Guerra Civil és èticament problemàtic i pragmàticament fútil. Conclou que aquesta contribució a la cultura de la memòria històrica respon en la mateixa mesura al mercat que a l'exigència política o a la necessitat de recordar. ; Miquel López Crespí's proposed trilogy of novelized memoirs of Llorenç Villalonga (1897-1980), as narrated by Villalonga's own alter ego, Salvador Orlan, raises questions about the motivation for and place of such pseudo-memorialistic literature, both in the local Mallorcan context and in the testimonial space more generally. The second of two volumes so far published, Les vertaderes memòries de Salvador Orlan (2012), draws on previous auto- and pseudo-autobiographical writing by Villalonga to present an exculpatory and at times petulant first-person narrative whose stylistic flaws alone seem unlikely to endear the subject to the reader. This essay explores why Villalonga, through his own tradition of mystification, might seem to lend himself to re-writing but not to empathy, and suggests that positioning him as a whipping boy/victim who has still to make reparation for his Civil War allegiance is both ethically problematic and pragmatically futile. It concludes that this contribution to the culture of historical memory responds as much to the market as it does to political exigency or a need to remember. ; La trilogía de memorias de Llorenç Villalonga (1897-1980) propuesta por Miquel López Crespí, narradas por el alter ego de Villalonga, Salvador Orlan, plantea preguntas sobre la motivación y el lugar de esta literatura pseudomemorialística, tanto en el contexto local de Mallorca como en el espacio testimonial de manera más general. El segundo de los dos volúmenes publicados hasta ahora, Les vertaderes memòries de Salvador Orlan (2012), usa escritos autobiográficos y pseudobiográficos de Villalonga para presentar una narrativa en primera persona exculpatoria y a veces malhumorada cuyos defectos estilísticos ya hacen poco probable que el sujeto pueda ganarse el afecto del lector. Este ensayo estudia por qué Villalonga, mediante su propia tradición del desconcierto, podría parecer entregarse a la reescritura pero no a la empatía, y sugiere que posicionarlo como cabeza de turco o víctima que todavía tiene que hacer la reparación por su lealtad a la Guerra Civil es éticamente problemático y pragmáticamente fútil. Concluye que esta contribución a la cultura de la memoria histórica responde en la misma medida al mercado que a la exigencia política o a la necesidad de recordar.
Collection of essays on the political, social and economic issues of the Balearic Islands. An analysis of the causes of the failure of Spanish nationalism
Moonstone: The Boy Who Never Was (Mánasteinn: Drengurinn sem aldrei var til, 2013) by Sjón tells of three eventful months in the life of Máni Steinn in the fall of 1918. In this short period the volcano Katla erupts, the Spanish flu rages and Iceland regains its sovereignty from Denmark. Building on Judith Butler's, Mary Douglas's and Michel Foucault's theories regarding the body as a cultural construct, this article focuses on body discourse as presented in Moonstone. According to Douglas there is a direct link between boundaries of the body and boundaries of society. Everything that endangers the stability of society's boundaries is considered social pollution. Foucault's theory on panopticism likewise identifies surveillance and discipline of citizens' bodies as means of maintaining society's social structure. Because Máni Steinn is queer, his body is considered abnormal according to the period's definitions on what constitutes a healthy and stable body. Aberrations from the "healthy", heterosexual body creates divergence within society's fabric. To regain the appearance of a "pure" society Máni needs to be hidden or banished from it. Yet the arrival of the Spanish flu to Reykjavík deconstructs conventional definition of the body and unravels the social hierarchy. The distinction between the healthy and the infected is obliterated, as the body becomes a site where irreconcilable opposites merge. During the turmoil of the Spanish flu boundaries of the body become as unstable as society's boundaries become fluent.
This article examines the repression following General Franco's unconditional victory in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). It argues that the surrender of the Republic did not alter the Franco regime's determination to punish its ideological enemies. The repression was based on a cruel irony: the defeated republicans were responsible for the civil war and thus guilty of the crime of 'military rebellion'. Nevertheless, although thousands were punished, the article challenges claims that the post-war repression implemented a programme of ideological extermination.
