"Lanzas de tinta". Estudiantes de la Universidad de Zaragoza en la Comisaría de la Zona de Levante del SDPAN

This research analyzes the sociological composition of the Levante Zone Police Station of the National Artistic Heritage Defense Service (SDPAN), an organization created by the first Government of Burgos in charge of the repair and return of cultural property since April 1938.

Focusing the study on the operations and interiorities of the SDPAN, the contribution of twenty-five-year-old young people from the Faculty of Letters of the University of Zaragoza is revealed, some linked to youth groups and right-wing unions. These enlisted under the orders of the architect José María Muguruza Otaño, who, as Zone Commissioner, carried out his work between Zaragoza and Barcelona.

The students, coming from the middle classes of Aragon, accompanied by intellectuals, came together in a fascist youth environment, linked to Catholicism and the defense of private property. They promoted the power of the Church and, in turn, contributed to expanding the authority of the Ministry of National Education in the field of cultural heritage. Therefore, the proposal deals with the relationship between the cultural policies of the Franco regime and its sociological basis during the war and the immediate post-war period, focusing on the social and political block that provided content, in the field of heritage, for two first governments of Franc.

Thus, the proposal presents a case study that reflects how the university was integrated into the propaganda apparatus of the rebel side, analyzing at the same time the institution that supported Franco's patrimonial management in its beginnings. It is an analysis that allows us to understand the relationship between the vanguard agents of the SDPAN and the leaders of the rebel power: the Fine Arts Directorate of Eugenio de Ors Rovira and the Minister of National Education, Pedro Sainz Rodríguez.

This study proposes a contribution to the knowledge of the development of Franco's cultural policies through the history of some young people who joined the university and who, mobilized during the Civil War in favor of the SDPAN, found in the first Franco regime a position that projected towards the Catalan and Valencian territory.

Eduard Caballé i Colom, researcher Institut Català de Recerca en Patrimoni Cultural

For more information: https://trea.es/estudios-tematicos-y-perspectivas-multidisciplinares-sobre-la-dictadura-franquista/

Bibliography: CABALLÉ i COLOM, Eduard. (2024). "Lanzas de tinta. Estudiantes de la Universidad de Zaragoza en la Comisaría de la Zona de Levante del SDPAN". Rodríguez González, Javier (Dir); García Prieto, Beatriz y Alvite Díez, María Luisa Mateo Pellitero, Ana María (Eds.). La dictadura franquista. Estudios temáticos y perspectivas multidisciplinares. Gijón: Editorial TREA S.L., 2024. ISBN 978-84-19823-78-6, p. 411-426.

Photo: Publication cover