El culto a los “Caídos” en la configuración ideológica del primer franquismoEl caso del cuartel de Simancas de Gijón

Resumen

As a part of its political consolidation and legitimation strategy, already started during its war against the Second Spanish Republic, the authoritarian regime soon led by general Francisco Franco rewrote the history of its birth in epic terms. In such context, those who died for defending the new order, the officially called “caídos” (“fallen”), became protagonists of heroic stories built up from the basis of real military episodes. This study approaches the characteristics of the aforementioned process through a particular case: the siege of Simancas quarters in Gijón. Despite of lacking in its moment of the popularity of other similary events, such as the sieges of the Alcázar of Toledo and the Nuestra Señora de la Cabeza sanctuary (the last in Andújar, Andalusia), the one of Simancas contains a great interest for the analysis of the mechanisms used by the francoism in order to consolidating its power. As for the sources, the paper mainly uses the press articles and propagandist literature wich pay attention to our subject of study during the war and, specially, in the postwar period.