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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/2445/228339
Spain's Valley of the Fallen, Where Human Remains Disappear: A Funerary Monument for a Dictator
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This paper reflects on the Franco dictatorship's ideological use of the bodies of Spanish Civil War dead at the Valle de los Caídos (Valley of the Fallen) monument near Madrid. It examines how from 1958 onwards human remains were exhumed from cemeteries and mass graves across Spain and reinterred at the site, and it argues that, much like the setting and architecture of the memorial complex itself, they were used politically to make a distinction in Spain's national memory between the war's winners and losers. This served as the foundation for the necropolitical legitimacy of the Franco regime.
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GALLEGO VILA, Laia and SOLÉ, Queralt. Spain's Valley of the Fallen, Where Human Remains Disappear: A Funerary Monument for a Dictator. Journal of Contemporary Archaeology. 2021. Vol. 7, num. 2, pags. 227-242. ISSN 2051-3429. [consulted: 6 of June of 2026]. Available at: https://hdl.handle.net/2445/228339