PROGRAMM

No single individual conditioned the contemporary history of Spain like General Francisco Franco (1892-1975), whose dictatorship lasted nearly 40 years. Seeing himself as a corrector of what he perceived as a wayward turn by a sick state, Franco’s assault on power began with a military uprising and was crowned by victory in a bloody civil war. Franco’s end was rather less spectacular: the dictator passed away in a hospital bed on 20 November 1975. None of his hierarchs and accomplices were ever arrested, imprisoned, or prosecuted. In conversation with the director of the Barcelona Center for Contemporary Culture JUDIT CARRERA, historian JULIÁN CASANOVA will explain why an unobstructed view of this traumatic past is still so difficult to achieve.

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JULIÁN CASANOVA is a professor of contemporary history at the University of Zaragoza and a visiting professor at Central European University Vienna. He is one of Spain’s foremost historians of the 20th century and best known for his expertise on the Spanish Civil War. His books have been published in Spanish and English. In 2025, Casanova published Franco (Editorial Crítica), a biography which argues that the dictator, despite his public omnipresence, remains largely unknown.