TRAYECTORIAS DEL EXILIO: LA IDENTIDAD CULTURAL REPUBLICANA EN LA LITERATURA DE MAX AUB Y DE MARÍA TERESA LEÓN
Within the heterogeneous panorama of the Spanish republican exile of 1939, Max Aub and María Teresa León turn out to be two significant figures. Their commitment to the republican cultural memory converges in an intellectual production that aims at reaffirming the historical legitimacy of a democratic society project based on social justice and equality, and on international antifascist values. According to this perspective and considering the transnational development of diasporic itineraries and the historical interactions between the vicissitudes of the republican collective and the main conflicts of the 20th century, the literature of Aub and Teresa León acquires an aura of political exemplarity that reflects a counter-hegemonic meaning of global interest. So, the main objective of this work is to examine the literary work of the two writers with a focus on the ways in which they represent the conflicts between the dominant cultural identity and subaltern identities in the context of the Spain's social field resulting from the Civil War and from the Francoist dictatorship. This focus is also to be understood as functional to examine the ways through which the literature of these authors shows up the contradictions of their historical era and the related network of supranational connections. This thesis has been structured in six chapters. The first two are focused on the biographies and on the intellectual productions of Aub and Teresa León before the beginning of their exiles: the purpose is to study the origins of their involvement into the collective political and cultural project of republican Spain, as well as the first phases of the convulsive trajectories of their migration routes. For both writers, France will be the first place of destination, but, in the case Aub, he will be indelibly marked by his experience in the French prisons and concentration camps. Continuing with the chronological development, Chapter III aims to explain the essential features of the political and social commitment of the Spanish intellectuals of the 1939 diaspora, and to describe the social and cultural context of Mexico and Argentina, the countries where Aub and Teresa León respectively settled. Starting from these theoretical and conceptual foundations, the following sections of the thesis are structured on the basis of two turning points that conditioned the creative practices of Max Aub and María Teresa León both in terms of communicative necessity and factual limitations: firstly, the end of the Second World War –with the triumph of the Western liberal democracies–; subsequently, the year 1955, when Francoist Spain officially became a member of the United Nations, in the polarised scenario of the Cold War. In order to provide a rigorous and detailed view of their intellectual evolution, the works of both Aub and Teresa León has been categorised as follows: works published during the Second World War –Chapter IV–, works published during the transitional phase between the Second World War and the Cold War –chapter V– and, finally, works edited while the United States of America and Franco's Spain were building a closer relationship –chapter VI–, up to the entry of Franco's dictatorship into the United Nations. Furthermore, a brief sub-chapter has been devoted, as an epilogue, to analyse the two writers' stance on the process of stabilisation of the Franco regime within the so-called Western Bloc and on the prospects for dialogue with future generations regarding the value of political and cultural exemplarity of republican memory.
Memoria Histórica, Exilio republicano español de 1939, Max Aub, María Teresa León, Settore SPAN-01/A - Letteratura spagnola
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