“Franco’s Children”: Childhood Memory as National Allegory

Abstract

Since late Francoism of the 1970s, Spanish novelists and filmmakers have continuously reconstructed childhood under the dictatorship.¹ In the new millennium, representations of Franco-era childhood have come into increasing prominence. This subject has recurred in literature, cinema, television, the Internet, exhibitions, and symposia.² The boom of Franco-era child images in contemporary Spain draws attention to itself, provoking a series of questions: In what way did the Spanish Civil War and the subsequent dictatorship affect children? What kind of Franco-era childhood stories have Spaniards recounted in the post-Franco epoch? When and how do these storytellers use their narratives to reflect upon the past and lay claim to the future? These are the fundamental questions underlying my exploration of “Franco’s children” in Spanish democratic transition. The phrase “Franco’s children,” on one hand, implies the status of the authors and filmmakers as those who survived the early Franco regime as children and recall their childhood as adults; on the other hand, it refers to the child protagonists who are set in wartime and the postwar period.