History chair’s competitive examinations in national catholic university, 1939-1951

Abstract

During the first Post Spanish Civil War years, Franco initiated a purge of the universities causing the vacancy of many History chairs. Between 1940 and 1951, these vacancies were progressively filled with new professors. In the same period, new tenured positions for historians were also being created in universities all along the Spanish territory. The scientific discourse of these new professors was shaped by the same National Catholic values that inspired Franco’s dictatorship. This discourse also provided the Franco regime with an interpretation of the past that sought to legitimize it historically.