Las ruinas de Belchite: crónica, memoria, posmemoria y fantasmagoría

Abstract

The ruins of Belchite have become a veritable lieu de mémoire of the Spanish Civil War. Images of the devastated town appeared frequently in movie theaters, illustrated magazines, on television, and in historical comic strips ever since the war ended and continue today. This article offers an overview of the way in which the images of Belchite have been used in different media in order to create an account of the war from the point of view coming out of a given historical context. Three phases are proposed. The first looks at the historical rendition elaborated by the Republican and Francoist chronicles published immediately after the fighting ceased. The second examines how Belchite was consolidated as a memorial site, through different strategies of interpreting the war between the 1950s up until the transition to democracy. The third phase considers how images of Belchite are used in several present-day, post-memorial interpretations of the war.