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GUILLERMO MARÍN reports of the provincial Falange chiefs drafted from 1939 onwards, designed to analyse the political and social situation of the city, show a complex panorama, marked by adhesions to the new regime under construction and its international references, but also of significant misgivings and disaffections. PART ONE: THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR (1936-1939) At the gates of the Spanish war: The coup d’etat in Vitoria and the mobilisation of troops The Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939 was one of the most important events in the history of Spain and the Basque Country in the twentieth century. The triumph of the insurgents in the war brought an end to the democratic regime of the Second Republic (1931-1936). News of the uprising of the rebel army (18-VII-1936) arrived soon in Vitoria, where the press — both the traditionalists (Pensamiento Alavés) and the liberals (La Libertad) — wanted to reflect, at first, the total calm that prevailed in the country despite the news from Africa. However, events happened quickly and, after several days of forced silence, the press echoed the new situation. Thus, while Pensamiento Alavés already identified with the insurgents, La Libertad tried to maintain an ambiguous position, indicating, without much enthusiasm, the changes produced in the local institutions’. The new times brought with them the establishment of new ways of manifesting adhesion to the rebel side. It was a series of symbols that would be used to unite the whole of society around the representatives of the incipient regime. Perhaps one of the most colourful elements that shaped this new symbolism was the Roman salute’. Together with this, the New Francoist state mobilised society around another series of symbols alien to Spanish cultural tradition, such as the German swastika or the Italian fascio littorio. All these elements were present in the main tributes that the regime celebrated to commemorate both this support, and the advances of Franco’s troops over their republican enemies’. * Javier Ugarte Telleria: La nueva Covadonga insurgente. Origenes sociales y culturales de la sublevaciôn de 1936 en Navarra y Pais Vasco, Madrid, Biblioteca Nueva, 1998, 411-431. 5 Pensamiento Alavés, July 20, 1936; La Libertad, July 22, 1936. $ Zira Box: Espana, ano cero: la construcciôn simbôlica del franquismo, Madrid, Alianza, 2010. 7 Ferran Gallego: El evangelio fascista. La formaciön de la cultura politica del franquismo (1930-1950), Barcelona, Critica, 2014. + 94 +
