Revisionism (Spain)
[2] According to scholars who later confronted revisionism, this general setting changed in the mid-1990s; the new government of José María Aznar launched a bid to revise the dominant historiographic view of the recent past.
[8] Its supposed result was commercial success of 3 books[9] which appeared on the market between 1999 and 2003; written by an amateur historian and far-right propagandist Pio Moa, they focused on the Second Republic and the Civil War.
[13] According to some scholars, the second term of the Aznar government reinforced the revisionist efforts,[14] expressed e.g. as another education plan advanced by Real Academia de Historia.
[15] The anti-revisionist backlash climaxed in 2005–2006 as 3 books produced by professional historians and edited by Alberto Reig Tapia and Francisco Espinosa Maestre;[16] the volumes supposedly definitely dismantled the revisionist Moa narrative and at the time they were thought to have terminated the debate.
The next milestone was reached when in 2014 Stanley G. Payne published his biography of Franco (co-authored by Jesús Palacios Tapias); at that point some concluded that revisionism was embraced by the world's most distinguished Hispanists.
The former is deemed actually orthodox in its Francoist set of old-style schemes and traits,[39] immune to discourse, straight continuation of pre-1975 narrative and represented by authors of older generation like Ricardo de la Cierva, Vicente Palacio Atard and Fernando Vizcaíno Casas.
They roughly fall into two different categories.One is composed of loose essays, formatted for non-specialized reader and deprived of back matter, which usually forms part of scientific apparatus; this is the case of volumes published by Moa, Vidal, Martín Rubio or others.
Another one is composed of fully fledged historiographic studies aimed for more experienced if not professional audience; this is the case of books published by Álvarez Tardío, Villa García, del Rey Reguillo or others.
[citation needed] Works from both categories most frequently charged with revisionism are listed below, precedence given to volumes which stand most prominently as key vehicles of revisionist narrative.
One critic listed them in an ironic "decalogue of the revisionist": 1) pretend scientific neutrality; 2) disregard "structural history"; 3) try to demythologize the Republic; 4) present the Republic as exclusion; 5) blame the Left for radical revolutionism; 6) deny CEDA’s role of a Fascist Trojan horse; 7) claim that Bienio negro was not so black; 8) underline that violence was equal on both sides; 9) criticize memoria historica as having nothing to do with history; 10) glorify the transition, made possible by Francoism.
[86] Historians called revisionists are typically refused scientific credentials,[87] denied both to relatively young scholars[41] and to academic Hispanists who established their position during decades.
[95] The revisionists reportedly lack "modus operandi propiamente historiográfico",[45] fail "to provide a balanced assessment",[96] demonstrate bias,[97] distort history,[98] resort to "pseudo-scientific" methods, manipulation[99] and deliberate falsification,[100] create new myths,[39] tend to be hysterical[101] and cultivate their own "pedagogics of hate".
[108] They are linked to a range of political options and might be dubbed "historiographic Right",[109] "conservatives",[101] "neo-Conservatives",[110] "theo-conservatives",[111] "ultraconservatives",[112] "conservative/neo-Francoist",[101] "pro-Francoists",[95] "filofranquistas",[113] "regime's panegyrists and ideologized 'historians'",[114] "Francoist apologists"[115] and "authoritarians".
[157] On this basis they maintain that no such thing as revisionism exists,[158] that the term is artificial construction which bundles together various scholars and opinions, and that by means of similar arbitrary judgments even icons of anti-revisionism like Preston might be counted in.
The anti-revisionist authors are presented as driven by their own prejudice,[163] ideologically motivated,[164] "politically committed"[165] and named "small group of historians determined to defend at all costs the vision of a sacred and ‘heroic’ republican democracy".
[174] They reverse the charges and maintain that it is rather the "contrarrevisionistas" who demonstrate a Francoist heritage: unable of detaching science from politics, they reportedly view history in Manichean terms, refuse to acknowledge their analysis, and got locked in a schematic bi-polar logic.
[175] These revisionists attempt to reverse also other charges directed at them and similarly denounce their opponents in terms who they dine with and where they publish,[176] e.g. by noting that one of the most militant anti-revisionists is related to a Trotskyite periodical.
