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ANARCHIST IDENTITY DURING THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR

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Date Issued:
2018
Abstract/Description:
During the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), anarchist groups were able to exert a significant influence in revolutionary politics through agricultural and industrial collectivization, communes, militia resistance, and participation in government. Many historians have explained anarchism through the lens of ideology, a doctrine based upon a structure of authority. This thesis, however, explains anarchist power and unity during the Spanish Civil War as a matter of identity, as a meaningful sense of self. Spanish anarchists defined themselves through the process of negation – the act of defining who you are by defining what you are not – by their opposition to authority, to religion, to feudalism, to capitalism and fascism, to communism, and to anarchism. The anarchists also affirmed who they were as individuals and as communities through three values: yearning for absolute freedom, the capacity for absolute fraternity removed from centralized authority, and absolute egalitarianism – the unreserved equality of all individuals.
Title: ANARCHIST IDENTITY DURING THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR.
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Name(s): Elmo, Joseph, author
Ely, Christopher, Thesis advisor
Florida Atlantic University, Degree Grantor
Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College
Type of Resource: text
Genre: Thesis
Date Created: 2018
Date Issued: 2018
Publisher: Florida Atlantic University
Place of Publication: Jupiter, Florida
Physical Form: application/pdf
Extent: 72 p.
Language(s): English
Abstract/Description: During the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), anarchist groups were able to exert a significant influence in revolutionary politics through agricultural and industrial collectivization, communes, militia resistance, and participation in government. Many historians have explained anarchism through the lens of ideology, a doctrine based upon a structure of authority. This thesis, however, explains anarchist power and unity during the Spanish Civil War as a matter of identity, as a meaningful sense of self. Spanish anarchists defined themselves through the process of negation – the act of defining who you are by defining what you are not – by their opposition to authority, to religion, to feudalism, to capitalism and fascism, to communism, and to anarchism. The anarchists also affirmed who they were as individuals and as communities through three values: yearning for absolute freedom, the capacity for absolute fraternity removed from centralized authority, and absolute egalitarianism – the unreserved equality of all individuals.
Identifier: FAUHT00012 (IID)
Degree granted: Thesis (B.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College, 2018.
Collection: FAU Honors Theses Digital Collection
Note(s): Includes bibliography.
Held by: Florida Atlantic University Libraries
Sublocation: Digital Library
Persistent Link to This Record: http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FAUHT00012
Use and Reproduction: Copyright © is held by the author with permission granted to Florida Atlantic University to digitize, archive and distribute this item for non-profit research and educational purposes. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires permission of the copyright holder.
Host Institution: FAU
Is Part of Series: Florida Atlantic University Digital Library Collections.

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