Warriors and theologians. Holy war and fascist martyrdom in the crusade literature about 1936

This paper contributes, from the analysis of primary narrative sources, to the study of the mechanisms of identification with the francoist cause in the Spanish Civil war. From a broad conceptualization of the notion of Crusade, it looks at the whys of their widespread acceptance. Then, it proposes some of the interpretative keys to understand its success as a language to define, in a context of total war, us and them.