Professor Pedro Rújula has spent the last thirty years of his career helping to open new perspectives on the role of the wars of the early 19th century, which began with the Napoleonic invasions, and their effects on the field of history (1) and their repercussions on our present (2).

Pedro Rújula recently coordinated the book The Popular Dimension of Politics in the Origins of Early Modern Ages, published by the prestigious University of Valencia Press (PUV). To analyse the themes of war, patriotism and the people, Rújula has drawn on the work of several researchers who took part in the international conference also organised by Rújula at the University of Zaragoza, entitled “The popular dimension of politics: ideas”, including researchers such as José María Portillo, Pierre Marie Delpu, Xosé Ramón Veiga and Ramón Arnabat, as well as the entire group listed in the index (see below).

In this book, María Zozaya-Montes delves into material culture in the chapter ‘Fans as political objects: Blowing powers and revolts (1789-1824)’. Specifically, it focuses on objects that promoted violence in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. To study this, María Zozaya starts with the process of constructing memorials, promoted on a large scale by the French Revolution, in which symbolic violence against property or people was exalted. She illustrates this phenomena with the destruction promoted by the Bastille fortress, which served as the basis for constructing a new memory of the French Revolution associated with violence and its popular character. She studies how numerous objects, such as fans, portray and glorify little-known scenes today: specifically, scenes of violence and dragging. In the case of those centred on the storming of the Bastille, Zozaya deals with the protagonist of many of them, the guard of that prison, famous in Europe as the repressive bastion of absolutism, due to the venality of his father’s profession. After presenting the French case, with violent scenes designed for fans (some of which were confiscated by the Inquisition’s censors after crossing into Spain), Maria Zozaya turns to similar models in the Spanish case. She deals with the imagery of the glorification of violence, again through the phenomenon of dragging and humiliating people (or dolls and puppets that symbolically represented them) during popular festivals, which she points out served as a model for these specific forms of revolutionary violence.

Finally, María Zozaya analyses, in an unprecedented range, the glorification, in the context of the popular festivals of the majos of Lavapiés in Madrid in the 18th century, of the dragging and mockery of people or dolls – best known from Goya’s painting “pelele” – as proposed by some popular traditions to symbolically put an end to “the traitor”. Zozaya uses the festival of Judas and similar festivals in northern Europe as examples, in which they even simulated cutting off the heads of figures of authority. In conclusion, Maria Zozaya considers that fans with this type of imagery incited collective violence – specifically, dragging – as a popular form of protest, following models of previous traditional festivals of dragging people, related to rites of cleansing and renewal, which spread to the communities that celebrated them annually, symbolically marking – and attacking – people they considered traitors and dangerous to the community. Therefore, these were demonstrations that conveyed demands with popular political roots, in this case, disseminated through objects.
A sample of the text comming soon
Index of the book: Popular dimension of politics on the origins of Early Modern Age
INDICE/ INDEX
Introducción
Pedro V. Rújula López, La dimensión popular de la política en los orígenes del mundo contemporáneo, pp. 1-9
La guerra
Pedro V. Rújula López, La sustancia política de las armas. Movilización popular en la España de 1808, pp. 9-18
Víctor Sánchez de Zavala, El ejército liberal. Entre la miseria económica y el aprendizaje de la política (1814-1824), pp. 19-38
Álvaro París Martín, «Los mismos perros con distintos collares». Milicia Nacional y Voluntarios Realistas entre revolución y contrarrevolución (1820-1833), pp. 39-62
Ramon Arnabat i Mata, La guerra realista (1820-1823). Una experiencia de politización popular contrarrevolucionaria, pp. 63-86
Alessandro Bonvini, Los voluntarios bonapartistas en las guerras de independencia hispanoamericanas,1815-1830, pp. 87-114
Xosé R. Veiga Alonso, Las tropas del carlismo, pp. 115-138
Ignacio García, «Más brillante es la espada que las cadenas». El conflicto armado como espacio y tiempo de politización en Europa (1848-1849), pp. 139-164
El patriotismo
Francisco J. Ramón Solans, «El más moral de los instintos». Patriotismo católico durante la guerra de la Independencia, pp. 165-191
Dario Marino, La patria en el lenguaje político napolitano de la revolución de 1820, pp. 193-208
Josep Escrig Rosa, El iturbidismo popular, pp. 209-226
Jordi Roca Vernet, La popularidad del patriotismo regional. Del panteón nacional a los panteones provinciales de los hombres célebres en España, 1844-1868, pp. 227-258
David San Narciso Martín, El «hambre popular» de la Corona. Los viajes reales y el recurso al pueblo en la legitimación moderna de la monarquía española, 1814-1868, pp. 259-288
Gian Luca Fruci, Entre Marianne y La Pepa. La constituyente italiana en la cultura visual del largo 48, pp. 289-308
Carmine Pinto, Revolución nacional y movilización popular en la Italia del Risorgimento (1810-1871), pp. 309-334
El pueblo
Pierre Marie A. Delpu, Del pueblo mártir a los mártires del pueblo (Europa del Sur, siglos XVIII-XIX), pp. 335-363
Pierre Géal, El pueblo en los funerales políticos (España, 1808-1868), pp. 365-388
Mónica Garcés, Cuando reina la incertidumbre. Rumores y política en los albores de la guerra de la Independencia, pp. 389-414
María Zozaya Montes, Los abanicos como objetos políticos. Aireando poderes y revueltas (1789-1824), pp. 415-440
Andrés Vicent, El primer carlismo y el pueblo. Política romántica, cuestión militar y debate constituyente (1833-1845), pp. 441-468
Hernán Rodríguez Vargas, Instruir al «pueblo» para legitimar la República. Textos, objetos e imágenes durante el Sexenio Democrático, pp. 469-492
José María Portillo Valdés, Paradoja constitucional de la política popular, pp. 493-516.
Referencias:
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Pedro V. Rújula, Religión, Rey y Patria: los orígenes contrarrevolucionarios de la España contemporánea, 1793-1840, Marcial Pons Historia, 2023. ISBN 978-84-18752-76-6 (review by Josep Escrig, here )
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Pedro V. Rújula, La Guerra de la Independencia española a la luz del bicentenario: Usos públicos y tendencias historiográficas, en ¡Abajo la tiranía!: América y España en revolución, 1776-1835, Manuel Chust Calero (dir.), José Antonio Serrano Ortega (dir.), 2018, ISBN 978-84-7737-685-9, págs. 183-230. Also: Pedro V. Rújula, Sonia Sánchez Giménez, Cristina Mallén Alcón, “La historia en los museos de Aragón”, Her&Mus: heritage & museography, ISSN 2171-3731, Nº. 8, 2011, págs. 49-57. Seemore at dialnet
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Pedro Víctor Rújula López, La dimensión popular de la política en los orígenes del mundo contemporáneo, Valencia, PUV, Print Universidad de Valencia, 2025, ISBN 978-84-1118-622-3, págs. 9-18 (nota: https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/libro?codigo=1009888
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4) María Zozaya-Montes, «Los abanicos como objetos políticos. Aireando poderes y revueltas (1789-1824)», La dimensión popular de la política en los orígenes del mundo contemporáneo, Valencia, PUV, Prensas de la Universidad de Valencia, 2025, pp. 415-440. Muestra: https://dspace.uevora.pt/rdpc/handle/10174/39609
Soon a sample in Dspace.
Read this entrance in Spanish/Leer esta entrada en español
This work of Maria Zozaya-Montes was founded since August 2024 at the University of Évora, CIDEHUS (FCT UIDB 000057/2020), under the project with the DOI by FCT of Portuguese Republic:
This research integrates the project «Seeking Political Culture in collective life: sociability, emotions, memories, material culture, relationships of fraternity and violence. The informal implementation of the Liberalism System in Portugal (1807-1930s)» PR Maria Zozaya- Montes. DOI: 10.54499/2023.06129.CEECIND/CP2849/CT0006
2023.06129.CEECIND/CP2849/CT0006
This study by María Zozaya Montes integrates the project VICES and AMAPOL: «Collective Violence at the Peninsular War» VICES, IP José María Cardesín, «Violencia colectiva y protesta popular en las ciudades españolas», funded by Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades de España (2020-2024), Spain, Agencia Estatal de Investigación/ 10.13039/501100011033
Also, integrates the project AMAPOL, Aspects du Martire Politique, IP. Pierre Marie Delpu (Maison de Velasquez).
Maria Zozaya works at CIDEHUS Research Centre of University of Évora (Portuguese Republic) that since 2025 has the funds of the project FCT CIDEHUS UID/00057/2025, DOI https://doi.org/10.54499/UID/00057/2025.











