Onvoltooid verleden. Spanje onder en na Franco. (Unfinished Past. Spain under Franco and after Franco.)

Conference (in Dutch) with guest

Vincent Scheltiens Ortigosa.

Interview by Widukind De Ridder.

The last Public History Meeting of 2025 will be held at CegeSoma on Wednesday, 10 December. On this occasion, Vincent Scheltiens will present his new book, published on 12 November 2025, ‘Onvoltooid Verleden. Spanje onder en na Franco’.

Fifty years ago, Spanish General Francisco Franco, one of Europe's longest-reigning dictators, died. After a civil war and nearly four decades of dictatorship, Spain became a parliamentary monarchy after his death. The winners and losers of the civil war silently agreed to leave the traumatic past behind. This dark chapter was turned without being collectively read.

Internationally, this transition was praised as a mature consensus between two previously sharply divided Spains. Within Spain, however, this consensus also led to impunity for the crimes committed during the civil war and the dictatorship. It also laid the foundation for systemic flaws with which the country still struggles today.

Today, there are few countries where the unresolved past surfaces so often and so strongly in political and social current affairs as in Spain. To understand this, we need to tell the story of that traumatic past, the dictatorship which is largely forgotten abroad. In ‘Onvoltooide verleden’ (Unfinished Past), Vincent Scheltiens looks back on that transition process from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s, with all its possible ramifications to the present day.

At a time when democratic and social rights and freedoms are being targeted globally by authoritarian forces, the question arises if a transition like the one in Spain can also happen in reverse: consensually slipping from democracy to dictatorship through amnesty and amnesia.

The author will discuss this with Widukind De Ridder, before engaging in a debate with the audience. This conference is part of the ‘Public History Meetings’ organized by CegeSoma in collaboration with the non-profit organization ‘Friends of CegeSoma’.

Vincent Scheltiens Ortigosa is PhD in history, affiliated with the University of Antwerp's Power in History - Centre for Political History, where he is also visiting professor. He writes about nationalism and national identity construction, the political history of Belgium, the history of the left, and the contemporary history of Spain. His previous publications include 'Met dank aan de overkant. Een politieke geschiedenis van België', 2017, and, in collaboration with Bruno Verlaeckt, ‘Extreemrechts. De geschiedenis herhaalt zich niet (op dezelfde manier)’ , 2021.

Widukind De Ridder holds a PhD in history (VUB). His research focuses on socio-economic history and the history of political thought (19th and 20th centuries). As a researcher at FED-tWIN Belcowar, he divides his time between CegeSoma/State Archives and the Moderniteit en Samenleving, 1800-2000 (MoSa) research unit at KU Leuven.