notes Introduction 1. In the “dying village community” in southeastern Greece studied by Juliet Du boulay, “one of the main factors deciding emigration was the lack of population itself, for once the population falls below a certain optimum level it ceases to have regenerative faculties within itself and so cannot survive” (1974, 254). 2.As with so many place-names in Catalonia,spellings vary:Cellera,sellera, or sallera. the stream is variously Merança, Meransà, Merdança, Merdença, etc. 3. Prados solano 2004, 13. 4. Generalitat de Catalunya 2002, 14. 5.Instituto nacional de estadistica 2006,http://www.ine.es;Martinez i Illa 1986, 67; Donaghy and newton 1987, 4. 6. Generalitat de Catalunya 1990, 80, and 2002, 14. 7. bayer’s detailed study of the Garrotxa village of tortellà, ten kilometers north of Mieres (population 713 in 2002), indicates a very similar demographic history, notably the top-heavy age-sex pyramid. 8. Institut d’estadística de Catalunya [hereafter IDesCAt], september 3, 2005, http://www.idescat.net/dequavi/Dequavi?tC=444&V0=6&V1=16& lang=en. 9. besalú and Feu 2003, 93. 10.The Economist 1992,5;CIA Factbook,http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/ factbook/geos/sp.html. 11. http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/sp.html. 12. “[U]na tímida recuperació demogràfica” (besalú and Feu 2003, 96). 13. oliva and buxton 1986. 14. I wrote this up as a magazine article (Robertson 1965). 15. Pla 1974. 198 / notes to Pages 19–30 16. Robertson 1978. 17. of particular relevance to this project are Robertson 1991, 1994a, 1994b, 1996, and 2001. 18. nancy scheper-Hughes, at one time the focus of controversy about her candid account of a community in Ireland, has concluded: “I have come to see that the time-honored practice of bestowing anonymity on ‘our’ communities and informants fools few and protects no one–save, perhaps, the anthropologist’s own skin” (2007, 208). 19. the translations of Catalan texts are mine, and I have paraphrased in english the words of Mieres informants, originally in Catalan and Castilian. My reference in matters of orthography and basic definition has been the wonderful two-volume english/Catalan dictionary of salvador oliva and Angela buxton (1985, 1986), tailor-made for the needs of researchers like me. Chapter 1 1. see Hobsbawm’s account (1969, 96–108) of the anarchist “bandit” Francisco sabaté Llopart, alias “el Quico” (1913–60). 2. Reported in El País, June 23, 2006. 3. In his study of aging in the late 1980s, Josep Fericgla (1992, 254) asked his sample of people over sixty-five, “What is the worst memory of your life?” About 40 percent of the Catalans said “the Civil War.” this was by far the worst of a list of bad memories, which included personal issues of divorce, widowhood , ill-health, and other troubles. For about 10 percent of the sample, the best memory in a list that included such joys as “relations with family in general,” the birth of children, and marriage was “the end of the Civil War.” narotzky and smith record the shock of their discovery in Alicante of “the ‘totalness’ of that awful period. For some, this post–civil war period was the end of an era; for others, a period of frenzied opportunity; for still others a period of hunger and fear—and all of these were layered one on another” (2006, 27). 4.Writing on “Popular Culture in ‘the Years of Hunger’” in spain, Helen Graham notes that “the space left by the self-repression of collective memory was filled with food and other consumables” (1995, 241–42). 5. Lisón-tolosana 1966, 5. 6.see Richards and earlham (2005,1) on the “simplistic Manichean myths” about partisanship in the Civil War. 7.According to Hugh thomas,in the early stages of the CivilWar the church was attacked because it had been involved in politics since 1931,because of “widespread subordination of priests to the upper classes,” and because of the “provocative wealth” of many churches. nevertheless, “the onslaught on the church in [34.230.35.103] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 10:22 GMT) notes to Pages 30–32 / 199 Catalonia and Aragon astonished many who lived there. Few suspected that anticlericism was so strong” (1977, 269, 272). Harding reports that in Ibieca (Aragon ) there were assaults on the church and its symbols, though the clergy were spared. “Under the anarchist regime there were no Catholic burials, weddings, baptisms, or masses. At burials, women...