Fallen Militiawomen in the Spanish Civil War: The Identity of the Unknown Fighters

Abstract

This article focuses on the women who served as volunteers in the Republican anti-fascist militias during the Spanish Civil War. Using unpublished sources from army pension records, it aims to offer an understanding of the volume and global profile of these ‘militiawomen’ by analyzing their leading role on the front line and moving beyond their well-known symbolic and countercultural value in challenging the normative femininity of the 1930s. Their story forms part of the context of political violence of the first half of the twentieth century and the genealogy of female combatants which ranges from the Mexican ‘soldaderas’, to Russian and Finnish combatants in 1918 and on to the female guerrilla fighters and anti-Francoist Maquis. Ultimately, it intends to demonstrate that the link between women and armed action did not constitute an intrinsic element of the war of 1936–1939, but instead is best understood as a conscious decision of citizens who advocated revolutionary action based on their ideology and identity of class and gender.