90 years since the 1936 coup: why we continue to remember
On 17 July 1936, a group of military officers rebelled against the legitimate government of the Second Spanish Republic. The uprising began in the Spanish Protectorate of Morocco, in cities such as Melilla, Tetouan and Ceuta. The following day, 18 July, it spread throughout Spain.
The coup plotters’ plan was to seize power within a matter of days, but they did not succeed. In some cities, such as Madrid and Barcelona, the uprising failed thanks to resistance from the population and forces loyal to the Republic. In others, such as Seville and Zaragoza, the rebel soldiers triumphed from the outset. The result was a country split in two: one Spain that remained under the Republican government and another that was already under military control.
It was this division that turned a failed coup d’état into a civil war. As they failed to gain total control of the country immediately, the conflict dragged on for almost three years, until 1939. It was a war with a heavy human cost: hundreds of thousands of people died on the front lines, as a result of political repression, or from hunger and disease caused by the conflict. And its end did not bring peace, but rather the beginning of almost forty years of dictatorship.
Ninety years on, we are still talking about those days. Not out of nostalgia for the past, but because its consequences can still be felt.
The dictatorship’s repression left thousands of victims: people who were executed, imprisoned or exiled. Many still lie in unopened mass graves and many families still do not know what happened to their loved ones. All of this is part of our collective memory, and it continues to demand truth, justice and reparation.
To remember the 1936 coup is to understand how democracy was shattered, so that we do not allow it to be shattered again. The Democratic Memory Act 20/2022 states this clearly: recognising the victims and restoring historical memory is an essential part of a country’s democratic quality. A society that knows its past is better prepared to defend its present.
That is why, at FIBGAR, we are working to ensure that this memory does not remain confined to the archives, but reaches people. And above all, the younger generations. This is why Memorízate was created, a project launched in 2016 with a simple aim: to compile democratic memory and bring it to life through the digital tools that young people already use every day.
Almost ten years on, the project has gathered more than 6,600 digital records and 48 video interviews with witnesses and relatives. These are first-hand accounts from people who lived through those events or grew up with their consequences. It is an archive that grows more valuable with each passing year, as the number of direct witnesses from that era continues to dwindle.
Ninety years after the coup, the challenge is to prevent this memory from being lost. With each passing generation, testimonies are lost that we will never be able to recover. At the same time, denialist and revisionist narratives are on the rise, minimising or denying what happened during the dictatorship. That is why passing on this memory — through testimonies, education and projects such as Memorízate — is now more urgent than ever.
Remembering 17 and 18 July 1936 is not a task for professionals alone. It is a responsibility shared between institutions, civil society and the public. At FIBGAR, we will continue to work to ensure that the memory of the victims is not lost, and that knowledge of what happened remains an active tool that acts as a guarantee of non-repetition, enabling us to build democracy.
