Embodying Antifascism: Military Culture and Military Identity in the Spanish Republican Army during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939)

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This project examines the efforts to form a radically new military culture within the Popular Army during the Spanish Civil War. Specifically, it will examine how (and with what results) the Republican faction attempted to construct a military culture and, with it, new categories of military identity rooted in the progressive political ideals of the Popular Front and the liberal traditions of the pre-war Republican military. It asks how such an ambitious cultural project was constructed from, and negotiated between, the constituent parties of the Popular Front, professional Republican military officers, and Republican civil society more broadly. On a lower level, it addresses whether these new conceptions of military identity (which entailed radically new conceptions of masculinity and citizenship) were co-opted and/or contested by Republican soldiers and asks how compatible this project was with alternative communal identities, such as regional origin, political affiliation, and primary group loyalty. These soldiers constitute one of the largest and, paradoxically, most poorly understood communities of the conflict. Rather than submerging these individuals within broader processes of state mobilisation and political infighting (as in much of the historiography) this project centres upon their voices, relationships, and agency and how these served to constitute a multiplicity of identities and cultures within the Republican Zone. In so doing, it will provide a nuanced image of the Civil War front-line beyond the simplistic dichotomy of idealistic volunteers and indifferent conscripts and demonstrate how ordinary Spaniards engaged with the much wider project of Republican state reconstruction. This will serve to challenge overly narrow conceptions of soldiering and militarism, demonstrating how such ideas have been culturally constructed and contested (particularly in revolutionary and post-revolutionary societies, such as the wartime Spanish Republic) producing new understandings of proper masculine behaviour and the importance of military service in society.