Contenu du sommaire : L'Europe du Sud (Espagne, Portugal, Grèce) : nouvelles approches historiographiques des dictatures et de la transition démocratique (1960-2000)

“Who Are the Greeks? Traces of War, Vestiges of Empire and Conflicting Memories in a European Nation State”. This article examines the debates that have taken place in Greece regarding national identity, a complex phenomenon given the respective roles of the Ottoman imperial heritage and membership in Europe. It notes the memory conflicts that have been born of the material and psychological traces of war left by the massive exchange of Greco-Turkish populations in 1923 and the 1945-49 civil war. It also considers recent historiographical developments regarding these questions and their impact on what has since 2000 become a very intense public debate.

“The Reconfiguration of the Memory of Portuguese Colonialism: Narrative and the Aestheticization of History”. The colonial empire is a central component of the official version of Portuguese national identity. In the aftermath of 25 April 1974, the independence process in the country's former colonies led to a reconfiguration of the manner in which the past is discussed. This article seeks to examine how new mediations and narratives were used to reconfigure this memory. To that end, it draws upon two case studies: the biographical construction of Eusébio da Silva Ferreira, a Mozambican football player and national hero; the heritage of modern Portuguese colonial architecture. The author seeks to show how these narratives, which were produced in specific fields of activity, played a role in preserving a discourse of colonial grandeur – itself a reflection of the institutionalization of these fields.

“Spain between Two Transitions ? From the Memory of the Civil War to that of the Post-War (1975-2007)”. Upon Franco's death in 1975, the memory of the civil war occupied a major place in public debate, both in terms of the legitimation of the dictatorial regime and the reevaluation of the left's tradition. The democratic transition led the memory of the civil war to be withdrawn from the field of political struggle, establishing a type of silence within memory policies that contrasted with the vigorous and still enduring memories of the larger society. This compromise persisted until post-civil war scores were settled; the rediscovery of the intensity of Francoist repression rendered null and void the transitional pact that had traded justice for the victims of Francoism in exchange for social peace. For all that, were the actors right in characterizing this as a “second transition”? Did the appearance of social demands for the “recuperation of historical memory” succeed in clarifying the ambiguous relationship that the Spanish entertained with the civil conflict and its consequences?

“ ‘The Portuguese People Is Counter-Revolutionary': The Perspective of the Spanish Press on the Portuguese Revolution of 1974-1975”. Spain's relationship with the Portuguese Revolution of 1974-75 was profoundly influenced by the situation of the Francoist regime. The latter found itself torn between the technocratic sector's support for liberalization and the associated rhetoric of “aperturista” (openness) and the maintenance of the status quo, as reflected in the discourse of inmovilismo. Since the state held a monopoly over audio-visual information, the press provided the only possible forum for dissent within the regime's public sphere. Given the latter's characteristics, there was a consensus regarding the need for moderation. In this sense, I consider the contrast – at the time, a recurrent feature of the dominant discourse of the Spanish press – between the “people” and the “masses” as categories. To a certain degree, this contrast defined media coverage of the revolutionary process in Portugal.

“The Forgotten Victims of the Spanish Transition to Democracy”. In the Spanish victim landscape, which has radically changed since the early 21stcentury, victims of the transition to democracy struggle to make their voices heard. Long forgotten, suffocated under the weight of the myth of a bloodless – and, thus, victimless – transition, they have today burst upon the public stage. By examining the dynamics of this process of victimization, the present article nevertheless seeks to show the extent to which they are incapable of constituting an effective collective. Torn between several victim causes – that of terrorism, Francoism and the Basque conflict, respectively – they are associated with a blurred victim perception typical of situations in which multiple conflicts have been superimposed upon one another. In this framework, received understandings lose their footing and collide with a tension that remains to be resolved in Spain – that between historicity and morality, a consideration of the temporalities of the real and the universalization of the victim's condition.

“Spanish Emigrant Women in the Second Half of the 20th-Century: Discourse and Everyday Life”. This article examines the trajectory of Spanish emigrant women in Europe over two decades: from the time of the creation of the Spanish Institute of Emigration in 1956 (Instituto Español de Emigración) to the end of the Francoist dictatorship in 1975. I focus on the everyday life of emigrants and the study of their migratory processes. To this end, I begin by examining discourse relating to feminine and masculine emigration, comparing them between themselves. I then consider two essential aspects of the everyday discourse employed by emigrants in their host countries: that relating to their integration into the working world and that relating to the ongoing education of children. In both domains, their experiences allowed them to simultaneously observe the feminine model of the “angel in the house” and achieve levels of personal autonomy unthinkable in Francoist Spain. In the final section of this article, I identify a number of aspects that must be taken into consideration in studying the history of migrations if one is to discern the specificities of the emigration of Spanish women in the second half of the 20th-century.

“Spanish Foreign Policy in the Late Francoist Period and Its Legacy in the Democratic Transition”. In the past decade, the themes, approaches and chronology of the historiography of Spanish foreign policy under the Franco dictatorship and the period of democratic transition have expanded. This article seeks first to review the main contributions of this historiography and the new research perspectives it has opened up. Its ultimate aim is to contribute to more in-depth study of the more nationalist and pragmatic foreign policy that characterized the final years of the Franco regime in order to explain several key aspects of the foreign policy of the democratic transition. Despite the ultimate isolation of the dictatorship, I argue that essential aspects of Francoist diplomacy were retained after 1975 : European engagement; policies of supporting the Latin American and Arab worlds; and the security relationship with the United States. While its guiding principles, resources and decision-making processes were indeed democratized, the main orientations of Spanish foreign policy were not fundamentally modified until 1986.

« "What Country other than Greece?" The Place of Greece in the Construction of Europe : An Historical Appraisal”. In a speech delivered on the occasion of the signing of an association agreement between Greece and the EEC in July 1961, the Vice President of the European Commission, Jean Rey, asked “What country more than Greece, which people more than the Greek people were worthy of becoming the Community's first associate?” This article offers an overview of Greece's participation in the European construction process. It seeks to assess the claim according to which this participation had political significance, not just for Greece itself, but also in what concerned some aspects of Europe's political configuration. To this end, it draws upon current historiography, which has in recent years increasingly taken an interest in the Greek case. An overview inspired by the discussions contained in the most recent studies allows one to historically evaluate the place occupied by Greece in the process of European integration since the signature of its association agreement in 1961.

“From the Local to the Transnational and then the National: The Contributions of the OECD's Archives to Urban History”. The urban changes that took place in France over the second half of the twentieth-century are often understood in terms of decisive state action. This centralizing reading, which has dominated urban history, can be qualified. The present article seeks to explore this prospect by considering the manner in which the idea of pedestrian zoning in city centers spread over the course of the 1970s. In metropolitan France, the state only played a secondary role in this process. The discovery of an OECD archival collection devoted to the phenomenon of pedestrian streets allows one to offer an interpretation of the spread of this idea. In this case, urban change appears to have resulted from experiments conducted in France and other countries at the local level by municipal governments. Identified by the OECD, this phenomenon gave rise to an international study that ultimately informed centralized state initiatives. Far from giving impetus to the movement, the state was a latecomer, one that, what's more, made opportunistic use of material that had been prepared by an international organization. From the 1970s onwards, the pedestrian question shows the complex interplay of local, national and transnational considerations in contemporary urban questions.

“Conflicting Memories and the (Very) Political Uses of History: The Case of the Archives of Francoism”. In Spain, what is referred to as the “recovery of historical memory” associational movement has since the start of the 21st-century sought to rehabilitate the memory of those defeated in the civil war (1935-1939) and under Francoism (1939-1975). In this context, archival conservation and availability are legal and political issues in which memory, history and the desire for justice compete with one another. During the Francoist period, this issue reflected divisions born of the civil war; once the dictator had died, it became an issue in the country's democratization. Although the archives of the dictatorship are not at present fully accessible, classified and catalogued, this article seeks to present several tools that may facilitate the researchers' task.

“André Ferrat and the Creation of the Algerian Communist Party, 1931-1936”. This article traces the political career of Andre Ferrat from his appointment as head of the Central Colonial Section of the French Communist Party in 1931 to his expulsion from the party in 1936. Drawing upon Comintern archives, it explores Ferrat's relations with the first Algerian communists, the French leaders of the PCF and Comintern officials. It shows that Ferrat played a crucial role in both the birth of the Algerian Communist Party and the emergence of the first "Muslim anti-imperialist Front" in Algiers in 1936. But it also reveals that his revolutionary ambitions were often at odds with the expectations of Algerian militants, for whom the anti-colonial struggle came first, and that his political action in Algeria was inseparable from his gradual alienation from the PCF and Comintern. It thus demonstrates that, despite the centralization and hierarchy characteristic of the communist apparatus, individual initiative was still possible for someone who knew the intricacies of the system and mastered the art of maneuvering.

« History of a two “sister parties” logo between France and Italy (1972-2016) ». 40-year history of a logo management by two « sister parties », Movimento sociale italiano (MSI) and Front National (FN) : between imitation and rejection, emancipation and domination of a political and ideological model, dependency and financial autonomy. Clearly, the adoption by the FN of the Italian flame firstly demonstrates the ideological and financial filiation that exists between the two far right parties. But the graphic modifications of the MSI and FN's logo have also been adapting to the two formations' respective political strategy and to their ideological positioning changes. Thus, the logos bring to light, between then and now, the symbolic, memory and identity issues embodied by the tricolour flame.

“Engagement and Historical Knowledge according to René Rémond ». Via an analysis of the writings of René Rémond, this article seeks to explore the manner in which engagement can inform the scholarly production of historians. A well-known specialist of the political and religious history of contemporary France, over the course of his existence Rémond constantly assumed responsibilities in very different fields: Catholic action movements, higher education, media and government commissions. These various experiences influenced his conception of the historian's activity and his choice of research orientations. They inspired his choice of objects of study and allowed him to understand the phenomena he observed by means of empathy and analogy.