2022.11.01 现代西班牙

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现代西班牙
了解当代西班牙应阅读（和观看）的内容
关于内战、独裁统治和此后几年的六本书和两部电影
自由之路酒吧，Calle Corredera Alta de San Pablo 17。Madrid, Spain.Credit: Lucas Vallecillos / VWPics / Redux / eyevine更多信息请联系eyevinetel: +44 (0) 20 8709 8709-mail: info@eyevine.comwww.eyevine.com
2022年11月1日



每年有数以百万计的英语游客到访西班牙，他们被阳光、沙滩、Sangría以及某些文化所吸引。然而，这个现代国家却奇怪地鲜为人知。外人对它的看法往往被乔治-奥威尔和欧内斯特-海明威关于1936-39年内战的文章所固定，这场战争不仅是全球反法西斯斗争的一部分，也是保守派和现代派之间长达一个世纪的国内斗争中特别血腥的一幕。胜利者弗朗西斯科-佛朗哥作为独裁者，一直统治到1975年去世。此后，西班牙以非同寻常的速度发生了变化，在许多方面成为一个 "正常 "的西欧民主国家，拥有一个宽容、自由的社会。在过去的十年里，这种宽容和国家的政治制度经受了多种考验，包括2008年至2013年的经济衰退和加泰罗尼亚地区分离主义的崛起。事实证明，这两者都是有弹性的。本书和电影选集包括一些关于该国历史的扣人心弦的作品，以及从不同角度对当前民主时期的探索。


新西班牙人》。作者：约翰-胡珀。企鹅公司；480页；18美元和10.99英镑

本书于1986年首次出版，并于2006年进行了全面修订，至今仍是对现代民主西班牙最好的一般性介绍。现任《经济学人》罗马记者的胡珀先生在马德里向民主过渡期间进行了报道。他对西班牙的社会和文化以及政治和地区紧张局势有敏锐的洞察力。

叛逆者的锻造。作者：阿图罗-巴雷亚。伊尔萨-巴雷亚翻译。Steerforth出版社；768页；19.95美元。普希金出版社；14.99英镑

这部全景式的自传回忆录分三卷，最初在1941年至1946年期间以英文出版，当时作者流亡英国，直到佛朗哥死后才在西班牙出版。第一卷描述了巴雷亚的童年，他是拉瓦皮埃斯（Lavapiés）一个洗衣妇的聪明儿子，当时和现在一样，是马德里的一个贫困区。第二卷描述了他在摩洛哥的一场殖民战争中担任下级军官的情况，在这场战争中，军队的腐朽性被一场灾难性的失败所暴露。作为一名社会主义者，他最初对共和国事业的热情承诺在第三卷中变成了幻灭，这是对马德里内战的恐怖和迫使他流亡的共产主义控制的尖锐的个人描述。

西班牙之血》。罗纳德-弗雷泽著。Vintage；624页；17.99英镑

弗雷泽的这部关于内战的全面口述历史于1979年出版，是基于对各方参与者的长时间采访，当时他们还活着。其结果是对战争进程和共和党方面的社会革命进行了生动的描述，抓住了许多人在结果变得不可避免之前的希望和恐惧。


瞬间的剖析》。哈维尔-塞尔卡斯著。Bloomsbury；416页；18页和10.99英镑

本书是西班牙当代领先的小说家之一对1981年未遂政变的一次引人注目的新闻调查，政变的失败有助于巩固一个年轻的民主国家。塞尔卡斯先生解释了胡安-卡洛斯国王在化解政变中的关键作用，驳斥了最近关于他参与政变的说法。他的书也是对确保该国从佛朗哥的独裁统治成功过渡到现代欧洲民主的必然混乱的妥协的激动人心的辩护。(阅读我们的完整评论）。

苏格兰人和加泰罗尼亚人。联盟与分裂。作者：J.H. Elliott。耶鲁大学出版社；360页；30美元和20英镑

今年早些时候去世的约翰-艾略特是伟大的西班牙历史学家之一。我们称这本关于两个最近经历了独立运动的文化国家的比较史是 "开创性的和严格的公正的"。它指出，加泰罗尼亚和苏格兰的共同点包括利用神话化的过去以及马德里和伦敦政府的错误。该书对加泰罗尼亚最近发生的事件作出的悲哀判决是："一个繁荣、友好和外向的社会......转向内向，开始自我分裂。" 阅读我们的完整评论。

堕落之后。危机、复苏和新西班牙的形成。作者：托比亚斯-巴克。Orion；320页；17.99美元和10.99英镑

前英国《金融时报》驻马德里记者深入报道了2008-13年房地产萧条和经济滑坡的影响。巴克先生记录了大规模失业留下的深刻的社会伤痕，以及从愤青的反乌托邦抗议运动中产生的新的硬左派政党Podemos。其他章节探讨了加泰罗尼亚地区分离主义的兴起和巴斯克地区埃塔恐怖主义的结束。

沃尔沃》。导演：佩德罗-阿尔莫多瓦（2006）。

这也许是西班牙当代杰出导演的最佳影片，它体现了祖传农村对现代城市人的持久吸引力和大家庭的持续重要性，以及妇女在其中的核心作用。这一切都掺杂着一种特有的超现实主义色彩，与天主教对西班牙的想象力（如果不再是其信仰和行为）的深刻影响相对应。

阿尔卡拉斯。导演：卡拉-西蒙（2022）。

Alcarràs》是一位令人印象深刻的年轻导演拍摄的一部几乎是民族志的电影，记录了西班牙农村的变化，它涉及加泰罗尼亚莱里达附近的一个水果农场在现代化的力量下的损失，家庭的力量（再次）和非洲季节性劳工的幽灵般的存在，经济上至关重要，但被社会忽视。这部影片的特点是由非专业演员的当地人组成。
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"我们的前马德里记者迈克尔-里德撰写的《西班牙：一个现代欧洲国家的考验与胜利》将于2023年3月由耶鲁大学出版社出版。该书解释了以前被视为典范的西班牙民主如何在2008-13年的经济萧条后遭遇三波民粹主义（左翼的Podemos、加泰罗尼亚的分离主义和右翼的Vox），以及它如何在这些浪潮中幸存下来，而不是没有伤痕。



Modern Spain
What to read (and watch) to understand contemporary Spain
Six books and two films on the civil war, the dictatorship and the years since
Free Way Bar, Calle Corredera Alta de San Pablo 17. Madrid, Spain.Credit: Lucas Vallecillos / VWPics / Redux / eyevineFor further information please contact eyevinetel: +44 (0) 20 8709 8709e-mail: info@eyevine.comwww.eyevine.com
Nov 1st 2022

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Spain is visited by millions of English-speaking tourists every year, drawn by sun, sand, sangría and in some cases culture. Yet the modern country is oddly little-known. Outsiders’ views of it are often fixed by the writing of George Orwell and Ernest Hemingway about the civil war of 1936-39, which was not only part of a global struggle against fascism but also an especially bloody episode in a century-long domestic battle between conservatives and modernisers. The victor, Francisco Franco, ruled as a dictator until his death in 1975. Since then Spain has changed with extraordinary speed, becoming in many ways a “normal” western European democracy with a tolerant, free-wheeling society. That tolerance and the country’s political system have been tested over the past decade in several ways, including by an economic slump from 2008 to 2013 and by the rise of separatism in Catalonia. Both are proving resilient. This selection of books and films includes some gripping works on the country’s history as well as explorations of the present democratic period from different vantage points.


The New Spaniards. By John Hooper. Penguin; 480 pages; $18 and £10.99

First published in 1986 and fully revised in 2006, this is still the best general introduction to modern democratic Spain. Mr Hooper, who is now The Economist’s Rome correspondent, reported from Madrid during the transition to democracy. He writes perceptively about Spanish society and culture as well as politics and regional tensions.

The Forging of a Rebel. By Arturo Barea. Translated by Ilsa Barea. Steerforth Press; 768 pages; $19.95. Pushkin Press; £14.99

This panoramic autobiographical memoir in three volumes was originally published in English between 1941 and 1946, when the author was in exile in Britain, and not published in Spain until after Franco’s death. The first volume describes Barea’s childhood as the bright son of a washerwoman in Lavapiés, then as now a poor barrio in Madrid. The second finds him as a junior officer in a colonial war in Morocco in which the rottenness of the army is exposed by a catastrophic defeat. A Socialist, his initially enthusiastic commitment to the Republican cause turns to disillusion in the third volume, a searing personal account of the horror of the civil war in Madrid and the creeping Communist control that forced him into exile.

Blood of Spain. By Ronald Fraser. Vintage; 624 pages; £17.99

Fraser’s sweeping oral history of the civil war, published in 1979, is based on lengthy interviews with participants on all sides while they were still alive. The result is a vivid account of the course of the war and the social revolution on the Republican side which captures the hopes and fears of many before the outcome became inevitable.


The Anatomy of a Moment. By Javier Cercas. Bloomsbury; 416 pages; 18 and £10.99

This book is a compelling journalistic investigation by one of Spain’s leading contemporary novelists of the coup attempt of 1981, the failure of which helped to consolidate a young democracy. Mr Cercas explains the crucial role of King Juan Carlos in defusing the coup, debunking recent claims that he was involved in it. And his book is also a stirring defence of the necessarily messy compromises that secured the country’s successful transition from Franco’s dictatorship to a modern European democracy. (Read our full review.)

Scots and Catalans: Union and Disunion. By J.H. Elliott. Yale University Press; 360 pages; $30 and £20

John Elliott, who died earlier this year, was one of the great historians of Spain. We called this comparative history of two cultural nations which have recently experienced drives for independence “pioneering and scrupulously even-handed”. It notes that common elements between Catalonia and Scotland include the exploitation of a mythologised past and mistakes by governments in Madrid and London. Its sad verdict on recent events in Catalonia is that “a prosperous, friendly and outward-looking society…turned inward and began to tear itself apart.” Read our full review.

After the Fall: Crisis, Recovery and the Making of a New Spain. By Tobias Buck. Orion; 320 pages; $17.99 and £10.99

A former Financial Times correspondent in Madrid reports in depth on the impact of the 2008-13 property bust and economic slump. Mr Buck chronicles the deep social scars left by large-scale unemployment, as well as the creation of Podemos, a new hard-left party, out of the anti-austerity protest movement of the indignados. Other chapters look at the rise of separatism in Catalonia and the end of ETA terrorism in the Basque country.

Volver. Directed by Pedro Almodóvar (2006).

This is perhaps the best film by Spain’s pre-eminent contemporary director, drawing on the enduring pull of the ancestral rural pueblo for modern urbanites and the continuing importance of the extended family, as well as the central role of women within it. It is all leavened with a characteristic streak of surrealism, the counterpoint to the deep hold that Catholicism has on Spain’s imagination, if no longer on its beliefs and behaviour.

Alcarràs. Directed by Carla Simón (2022).

An almost ethnographic film by an impressive young director that chronicles change in rural Spain, “Alcarràs” concerns the loss of a fruit farm near Lleida in Catalonia to the forces of modernisation, the strength of the family (once again) and the ghostly presence of African seasonal labourers, economically vital but ignored by society. It features a cast of locals who are not professional actors.■
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“Spain: the Trials and Triumphs of a Modern European Country”, by Michael Reid, our former Madrid correspondent, will be published by Yale University Press in March 2023. It explains how Spain’s democracy, previously seen as exemplary, suffered three waves of populism (Podemos on the left, Catalan separatism, and Vox on the right) after the economic slump of 2008-13 and how it survived them, not without scars.