Souffrances des corps, souffrances des territoires : la République espagnole en guerre se raconte

Abstract

This article seeks to analyse the linkages between «body, sex, violence and nation» in order to comprehend the way in which a discourse on nation and war from the republican point of view came to be forged during the Civil War period. Within the fabric of discourses on the nation at war, the discourse concerning ill-treatment of women’s bodies is at once functional, revealing and sensitive. It is functional in that it contains within it the makings of a discourse of mobilisation and of affirmation of a national consciousness and experience. It is revealing in that it demonstrates the reality of a sexually-oriented depiction of the nation at war which is couched in the form of a national heroics narrated from a feminine viewpoint. It is sensitive in that by showing the crude and often unbearable reality of the violence, it adds an emotional register to the discourse on the nation at war, rendering the «Suffering Republic» in words and images.

Keywords

• bodies
• emotions
• nation
• violence
• war Experience
• women