General Franco is at last going to be described officially as a dictator.
His official biography will be amended to say that Franco led the country for 36 years as a dictator.
Presently his regime is described as “authoritarian but not totalitarian”, noting also that he “became famous for the cold courage which he showed in the field”. Scant mention was made of the harsh repression during his time in power.
The change, announced by the state-funded Royal Academy of History, came in response to “unnecessary controversy” over the current depiction which many view as an apology for the regime.
Others hold that he ruled the country with an iron fist since taking over power at the end of the civil war in 1939 until he died in 1975.
Carmen Iglesias, the first woman director at the Academy, said the entry would be changed in the first digital edition of the biographical dictionary which is in production.
Attention was also focussed on some of Franco’s military supporters whose entries focussed on their military careers, overlooking any involvement in the massive number of killings which took place during the war and after.
Just forty years after Franco’s death the civil war which tore the country apart remains a difficult subject to raise or resolve among the Spanish.
