Panel: RELIGIOUS CONSTRUCTIONS OF MORTALITY: INEQUALITY, NORMATIVITY, AND THE MEANING OF DEATH



652.1 - THE VALLE DE LOS CAÍDOS: BETWEEN POLITICAL MYTHOLOGY AND THE CULT OF THE DEAD

AUTHORS:
Piro P. (Centro Studi Don Calabria ~ Termini Imerese ~ Italy)
Text:
The Valle de los Caídos represents one of the most emblematic and controversial sites of historical memory in contemporary Spain. Conceived by the Francoist regime as a monument to national reconciliation, its genesis and symbolic function instead reveal a complex apparatus of mythological power construction. This contribution examines the Valle de los Caídos as a political-sacral space, in which architecture, ritual practice, and historical narrative converge to consolidate the figure of Francisco Franco as Savior of the Fatherland, endowed with a transcendent and providential legitimacy. Through the monumentalization of victory and the sacralization of the fallen, the complex reinforces an idea of the nation grounded in a mythical imaginary, within which the Civil War is reinterpreted as a foundational and redemptive event. The cult of the dead, embedded in a religious and militaristic framework, thus becomes a central instrument for establishing a symbolic continuity between sacrifice, wartime violence, and national identity. The Valle de los Caídos therefore emerges as a site in which political myth and funerary cult intertwine, producing a selective and profoundly ideologized memory of the past.