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Who are the academy's history boys?

Women and young historians are scarce at the institution which has fallen foul of controversy over its hagiographic description of Franco in a new publication

The weeklong storm of criticism against the Royal Academy of History (RAH) over the alleged bias of its Diccionario Biográfico Español - a 50-volume compendium of biographies of relevant Spaniards - has left its director completely unaffected, it would seem. Gonzalo Anes y Álvarez de Castrillón, 77, continues to defend the dictionary and its most controversial contributors, including the historian who wrote Franco's entry and failed to describe him as a dictator.

"My responsibility was to organize the dictionary," says Anes, adding that he has never once thought of resigning. "I did it through academic committees. I was not aware of who was tasked with drafting which biography. I can't be in control of 43,000 entries."

"I was not aware of who did each text. I can't be in control of 43,000 entries"
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Asked why nobody reviewed the biographies before publication [except the copy editors], Anes argues that if committee members and biographers had reviewed the texts, "these would never have gotten published."

Luis Suárez, the historian who offered to write the article on Franco, was for years the only person the dictator's family allowed to consult the material in the Francisco Franco Foundation. The result is a hagiographic text in which the dictator is never once referred to as such, but always as "Generalísimo" or "Head of State."

Other controversial entries include that of conservative Valencia Mayor Rita Barberá, written by one of her own aides, and of General Alfonso Armada (a leader of the failed 1981 coup), written by his son-in-law.

Several prestigious historians who were not involved with the project said that the vision offered by the Diccionario of some historical figures is biased. Shortly after the interview with Anes, the RAH decided that, for the digital edition of the compendium, "a permanent committee will be created to set the procedure for improving and revising" the texts, and that changes to the paper format will be implemented "as quickly as possible."

The RAH has been described as a closed circuit where the same cars are always racing and the same teams always winning. So says Verónica Sierra, a historian at Alcalá University and author of a book about children's experiences during the Civil War. "It (the academy) remains feudal and bourgeois, elitist and anachronistic."

Of its 36 members, 15 are over 80 years old and there are only three women. Its director said that the Academy needs more women, but that "a historian needs many hours to conduct research in the archives. And alas, for women those thousands of hours are spent raising their children and being housewives."

Several historians believe that the institution's ideological slant explains the pro-Franco feeling in some of the Diccionario entries. "Many members of the Academy are deeply steeped in Franco's political culture and this becomes more apparent in contemporary history," says Santos Juliá, an expert in 20th-century history and a biographer of Manuel Azaña, the Spanish president during the Civil War (1936-1939). Juliá was passed over when it came to writing Azaña's biographic entry.

As a matter of fact, none of the RAH members are specialists in contemporary history, "an obvious shortcoming," says Juliá, lamenting a lack of younger historians with more moderate views.

There is a publication that helps understand who's who in the Academy. The Akal Dictionary of Spanish Contemporary Historians, published in 2002, provides detailed descriptions about historians' careers and political affinities because, says its co-writer Ignacio Peiró, this information is key to understanding their work.

"When ideology prevails over history, the history comes out so-so," he says. This volume states that RAH member Eloy Benito Ruano, 90, was a "Francoist who belonged to the Political-Social Brigade." The RAH director, Anes, is described as "liberal and a democrat." Luis Suárez Fernández 87, author of the controversial Franco entry, is also described as a "Francoist."

"Because he had Franco's material and documents at his disposal, he devoted himself in a hagiographical manner to the figure of the dictator and of recent Spanish history," the text on Suárez Fernández reads.

In his recently published Franco. Los años decisivos (1931-1945) (or, Franco: the decisive years), Suárez Fernández writes that "left-wing propaganda had to meet two goals: to close the outside world's eyes to the cruel and numerous assassinations being carried out in the red zones, and to discredit an army that was starting to show the necessary impetus to achieve victory despite being outnumbered [...]. It was foreign journalists who contributed to fabricating a darker image of the Civil War than what it was really like."

A press release issued last Friday regarding the RAH plenary session that analyzed the mistakes of the Diccionario Biográfico Español failed to reflect the strained debate among the academicians. One of the attendees said that many members manifested their unwillingness to either be "censored" or to themselves censor "competent historians." But four academics - Miguel Artola, Luis Antonio Ribot, Josefina Gómez and Feliciano Barrios - were critical. Some asked for a complete makeover of the Diccionario with corrections of glaring mistakes. One expressed "shame" at seeing academicians ignore their own guidelines of objectivity, rigor and silence regarding personal opinions. Another member of the RAH said he felt embarrassed for Luis Suárez, the Franco biographer, who also wrote a gushing entry on Opus Dei founder Escrivá de Balaguer. Suárez did not attend the plenary meeting.

In the end, the academy decided to review the texts and create a committee to oversee some of the entries in the online edition of the Diccionario, which the state has pumped 6.4 million euros into since 1999.

Gonzalo Anes, head of the Royal Academy of History, leafs through a copy of the controversial <i>Dictionary of Spanish Biography.</i>
Gonzalo Anes, head of the Royal Academy of History, leafs through a copy of the controversial Dictionary of Spanish Biography.LUIS SEVILLANO
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