The Victorious Counterrevolution: The Nationalist Effort in the Spanish Civil War by Michael Seidman

Author:Michael Seidman
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Europe, Revolutionary, Politics & Social Sciences, Politics & Government, European, Economics, Business & Investing, International & World Politics, Historical Study, Historical Study & Educational Resources, Political Science, Social History, World, Economic History, Spain, History
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
Published: 2011-03-28T00:00:00+00:00

As had their nineteenth-century predecessors, chaplains offered religious medallions (detentes) to their men to ward off death and injury. The detentes proved extremely popular with Spanish and even Moorish soldiers, who called them "bullet stoppers." Troops requested Catholic devotional objects-crucifixes, rosary beads, medals of saints, scapulars, and assorted icons, which were believed to bring good luck-as much as they demanded other objects such as pen and paper, watches, and cameras. Mothers, wives, and girlfriends gave their soldiers scapulars and crucifixes for protection. In contrast to the "pornographic postcards" possessed by soldiers in the Republican zone, religious postcards were distributed and sent to family members, especially mothers who appreciated images of Christ, the Virgin, and other female saints. A dying soldier requested that his medal of the Virgin be returned to his mother and his Sacred Heart to his father. The wearing of religious icons facilitated connection of a more skeptical male population to their more devout female relatives and friends. Nuns mailed icons to their favorite officers. Carlist soldiers often displayed so many medals that they resembled pilgrims marching to a holy site. Certain units of legionnaires ritually kissed their chaplain's cross before entering battle or after being wounded.29

Faced with the intensely irrational and violent environment of war, many soldiers came to believe in the miraculous powers of religious medals and images. In war even Protestant and Jewish soldiers, whose religions manifest powerful currents of iconoclasm, have adopted talismanic behavior and attached special value to amulets and other pious trinkets. As the Americans say, "there are no atheists in foxholes." Out of fear of discovery and consequent punishment, religious Republican soldiers and civilians hid their amulets. If captured, the trinkets could serve as a safe conduct pass to an enemy who might be more lenient with Catholic prisoners of war. Priests in particular recounted countless stories of medals and other amulets stopping otherwise lethal bullets and bomb fragments. Chaplains had the unenviable task of mailing the many medals that had failed to perform miracles to family members of the

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.