The women on the losing side following the Civil War received double punishment under Franco’s repressive regime: for being women and for being red. Jailed, banished and even assassinated, their treatment endangered the subsistence of the family unit in that at the same time it inflicted suffering upon the children, elderly and husbands (some of which were prisoners) who in many cases were wholly dependent upon the work of their mothers, daughters or wives.  Nevertheless, even though the regime made every effort to combat the freedom and rights of women, in many cases they were able to resist the regime using the arms at their disposal:  creation of support networks both inside and outside the prisons, defiance of the hunger policy with a whole range of strategies and key support roles for the guerrilla fighters hiding in the woodland. 

Of all the punishments imposed upon them, the worst of all was undoubtedly their silence. Accordingly, the journal Andalucía en la Historia published by the Andalusian Studies Centre now pays tribute to these women by recalling their history; recuperating the memory of the thousands of anonymous women sentenced by military tribunals, who were jailed and above all indoctrinated with the morals of national Catholicism to prevent them from reverting to their traditional role. Coordinated by the researcher Pura Sánchez Sánchez, the report Invisible Heroines, women between repression and resistance (1936-1939) published by the journal Andalucía en la Historia tells the story of these women, gives them names and surnames and reveals the mechanisms used to orchestrate a repression which differed for women and men. The report includes the collaboration of the researcher Carme Molinero of the Autonomous University of Barcelona, the lecturers of the University of Malaga, Encarnación Barranquero and Lucía Prieto, the historian specialising in the Civil War and the guerrilla fighters of Cordoba, Francisco Moreno, and the writer Llum Quiñonero.

 On the 125th anniversary of the killing of seven persons in Jerez de la Frontera accused of belonging to the Mano Negra Secret Society, Andalucía en la Historia throws light on this dark episode of Andalusian history which has been the object of mythification and conflicting interpretations. The lecturer of the University of Cadiz, Diego Caro Cancela, lays out the events occurring between 1882 and 1884 revealing that the supposed anarchist society only existed in the papers of the forces of law and order with the aim of ending the incipient workers’ movement which during those years began to emerge in the Jerez countryside. The journal also offers readers a free copy of the rigorous documentary directed by Paco Palacio which analyses and relives this dramatic episode in Andalusia’s history.

The publication goes over the 23 days which the poet Antonio Machado spent in Collioure in France before his death in an emotive article by Monique Alonso. With a direct and rigorous approach, the founder of the Antonio Machado Foundation in Collioure recalls the sad end of this poet from the time he arrived penniless at the Quintana Hotel, his last recitals and his death prior to the offers from the University of Cambridge to give classes or the USSR’s invitation as a guest of honour.       
The journal Andalucía en la Historia also recalls the influenza epidemic of 1918, which resulted in more than 40 million deaths all over the world, including many in Andalusia partly due to the arrival of the workers from the grape harvest in France, a country in the midst of World War I and in which the virus had spread quickly on the battlefield.     

Other topics in the latest issue include the role of the Archbishop of Granada Pedro Guerrero in the evangelisation of the Moriscans; the genesis of the General Brotherhood of Andalusia; the defensive heritage of Almería; the biography of Guzmán the Good, on the 700th anniversary of the death of the founder of the House of Medina Sidonia; the milestones of the modern architecture movement in Andalusia; the plundering of books from various Cadiz libraries during the Anglo-Dutch attack of the city in the late 16th century; the emergence of the souvenir industry and a tour of Cerro Muriano (in Cordoba) following the steps of Robert Capa and his Militiamen and the Andalusian photographer Juan José Serrano.