La memoria del invasor. El monumento a los prisioneros en la isla de Cabrera y otros ejemplos de escultura pública napoleónica en España

Wars, like other traumatic events that affect societies, have been abundantly commemorated in public space. In the Spanish case, the memory of the Napoleonic invasion (1808-1814) constitutes one of the most significant examples, if not the major one, for all its associated monumentality. It is reckoned that there are more than 350 cases of public memory commemorating that period across the whole country, dedicated to events, but also to heroized individual figures. Most of them are stone-made representations with the aim of spreading the symbols of the fight against the invader from the Spanish side. However, there are around fifteen works which express the will of remembering the troops who were occupying the country. These will be the main topic of this article, which will pay special attention to the first and most important: the monolith erected in 1847 in memory of the war prisoners who were held in the Balearic island of Cabrera after their defeat in the battle of Bailen, in 1808. Research has been conducted using primary sources coming from different archives, together with press sources — both Spanish and French, historical and contemporary. Monographies and other secondary sources have been considered. They encompass local and global perspectives, and also art history. Despite the short number of existing monuments, the paper studies and analyses several representations and aims when these memory antennas were erected.