Four decades of research on Francoism. Conversation with Carme Molinero

Abstract

Carme Molinero, Professor of Contemporary History at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and President of the Association of Contemporary History (2021–2025), is a pivotal figure in Spanish historiography on the Francoist period and the Spanish democratization process. In this conversation, she reveals how her vocation for research took root during adolescence and was consolidated during her university studies in the 1970s, in a climate of intense social mobilization and significant challenges in conducting research on the Francoist era. Her early work focused on living conditions during the postwar period and anti-Francoist resistance, later expanding her research to the Catalan bourgeoisie and the dynamics of social mobilization during the late Francoist period and the early stages of the political transition. In 1993, she joined the Department of Modern and Contemporary History at the UAB, where she promoted the creation of CEFID (now CEDID), a pioneering center for the comparative study of dictatorships and democracies. In her most recent research, she has focused on the Transition and memory policies, advocating for the recognition
of the struggle against the dictatorship as an ethical foundation of Spanish democratic culture.