The Purge of Schoolteachers in the Province of A Coruña

Abstract

This article offers an overview of the purge of public schoolteachers in the province of A Coru.a from 1936 to 1942, which led to sanctions being imposed on a large part of these teachers. The article focuses first on the repression carried out by the military and academic authorities, concentrated in the months of August and September of 1936. It goes on to examine the repression conducted by the purge apparatus between 1937 and 1942, differentiating the repercussions of this process on male and female schoolteachers. The geography of the repression is also described, using the municipality as the unit of analysis. The procedures against Xosé Toba Fernández and de Palmira González López during the purge are reviewed. The main sources used were the Official Gazette of the Central Government and the Official Gazette of the Province of A Coruña, which allowed us to quantify the process and the procedures -essential to gaining insight into the dynamics and meaning of the purge.