Minnen av spanska inbördeskriget : Minneskultur och historiebruk kring svenska Spanienfrivilliga

Sammanfattning: After the Spanish civil war broke out, thousands of international volunteers travelled to Spain to help fight the fascist forces. Among these were over five hundred Swedes, of which around a third perished. Even though they are considered heroes in Spain and in the Swedish left, they are not greatly represented in Swedish history writing. Based on these assumptions, the primary aim of this essay has been to examine memory culture and history use in relation to the Swedish volunteers. First and foremost, I have studied their experiences in relation to Swedish society after the war. While there is great variance in their experiences, a few common and relevant factors have been made visible. These are primarily regarding difficulties getting jobs, persecution, abuse, and veterans being put in detention camps. Secondly, I have examined the memory culture in the Swedish left regarding the volunteers. Here, we can clearly see a tendency to use their stories to inspire modern activism and relating their fight against Spanish fascism to the contemporary struggle against similar tendencies.