The Bones of Contention: The Secularization of Cemeteries and Funerals in the Spanish Second Republic

Citation

Kerry M (2019) The Bones of Contention: The Secularization of Cemeteries and Funerals in the Spanish Second Republic. European History Quarterly, 49 (1), pp. 73-95. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265691418817466

Abstract
The secularizing efforts of the Spanish Second Republic met fierce resistance from Catholics and the Church. Local authorities spearheaded secularization in an unclear legal context, yet they also attempted to mediate between different demands, while protecting Catholic sentiment and respecting property rights. Cemeteries and funeral processions were a key battleground in a ‘culture war’ which straddles the nineteenth-century preoccupation with the role of religion in the lives of Spanish citizens and the intensity of interwar conflict, the bitter struggles to occupy public space, and the mobilization of antagonistic conceptualizations of the ‘people’.

Keywords
cemeteries; culture wars; Second Republic; secularization; Spain

Journal
European History Quarterly: Volume 49, Issue 1

• Kerry-EHQ-2019