Dr. Amalia Pérez-Juez, History and Archaeology professor and Director of Boston University in Madrid, recently visited our campus at CIS University to give a lecture on the archaeology of the Spanish Civil War. During her talk, she explained how that armed conflict changed the landscape of Spain with its battlefields, mass graves, and monuments.
“The Spanish Civil War transformed the landscape. Cities, like Gernika, were destroyed; others were rebuilt, like Belchite. There were trenches, mass graves, such as the ones in Valle de Cuelgamuros or Paracuellos del Jarama,” she shared.
Dr. Amalia Pérez-Juez, was the first GINA (Global, Imperial & National Affairs) guest speaker of the 2024 academic year. She shared pictures of some of her latest studies and archeological explorations on the Spanish Civil War with the attendees, including students and several CIS University professors.
She directed the first archeological exploration in Cerro de la Gavia, Madrid, where her team found numerous trenches close to the AVE train tracks. Inside the trenches, they discovered Cuban ammunition and vitamins coming from Russia, which helped them to determine that they came from the Republican side.
She also participated in an expedition to Merindales, in the north of Burgos, where they found many engraved stones from the Italian “Corpo di Truppe Volontarie” (CTV). The CTV included the more than 75,000 men Benito Mussolini sent to Spain to fight for the rebel cause, in support of Francisco Franco.
During her talk, professor Pérez-Juez explained that research on the archaeology of the Spanish Civil War has changed a lot since she started.
A Museum to preserve the historical heritage of the Spanish Civil War?
Dr. Amalia Pérez-Juez added that the remains from the Civil War are rapidly decaying, which makes their preservation urgent. Historians and archeologists like her are urging the Spanish authorities to preserve them.
She ended her talk by asking the audience whether they thought the government should preserve monuments and statues from the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and dictatorship (1936-1975) and whether they considered the possibility of displaying them in a museum or on the streets, where some of them still remain to this day.
The attendees agreed that a Museum on the Spanish Civil War would be useful, where visitors could learn more about the archaeology of the Spanish Civil War from both sides of the conflict.
This was the first of a series of talks sponsored by the GINA (Global, Imperial & National Affairs) Applied Humanities Research Group at CIS University, which will bring several guest speakers from different fields to our campus this semester.
