Abstract

ANDINA DIAZ, Elena. Nurses of the nationalist side during the spanish Civil War: An approach to the situation through the book "Princesas del Martirio" (Concha Espina). Index Enferm [online]. 2004, vol.13, n.47, pp.61-65. ISSN 1699-5988.

Concha Espina writes the book Princesas del Martirio at the turn of the 40s, in the last century. This is a book in honour of three nurses, who were killed during the Spanish Civil War. The three nurses, who were voluntaries of The Red Cross in Astorga (León), were called to attend the sick and injured people in Puerto de Somiedo (Asturias), in October 1936. Involuntarily, they found themselves involved in a Bolshevik incident, were taken prisoners and finally shot. In this paper, we draw the inspiration from this book, which allow us to reconstruct what we think would be the likely image of the "ideal nurse" of the nationalist side during the Spanish Civil War. The method we use is based on the presentation and analysis of the original text, were we mainly focus on the aspects related to the image of nursing. We interpret the evidence provided taking into account the socio-political situation at that time.Due to the importance that other elements might have in helping to reconstruct the image of the nationalist nurses during the Spanish Civil War -such as poems, monuments or streets with names related to the three nurses-, we have taken them into account, so that we can provide a more general and accurate idea of the relationship between ideology and professional acknowledgment.