¡No Pasaran! The Image of Spain and the Image of the Enemy in a Soviet Information Photo Album of 1937

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

The paths of Russia and Spain crossed several times in the 20th century. The Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939 has always been and remains a topic that attracts the attention of experts and influences the development of a multifaceted cultural dialogue between the two countries. The events of those years contributed greatly to shaping the image of Spain in the Soviet Union. In recent decades, a number of works have been published, exploring not only the image of Spain in the USSR in the 1930s, but also the image of the enemy, which emerged as the first direct military confrontation with fascist regimes took place. An important topic analyzed in these works is the tools of visual securitization, which involves the formation of the enemy image by visual means. This paper is based on the materials included in the photo album ¡No pasaran! They will not pass! published by the Central Committee of the Komsomol in 1937. This source traditionally falls into the category of photo journalism. It is a type of source that is not examined much in literature, yet it is interesting as it combines visual images and verbal characteristics that reinforce stereotypical perceptions and key mythologems relevant to that period. The material illustrates how the image of Spain took shape in the USSR during the Civil War and how the image of the enemy emerged before World War II. The album was published as part of a pro-Spain campaign in the Soviet Union, when the Republican faction was still believed to win soon. The verbal content of the album is stronger than the images in terms of impact, although it is usually the visual content that is more impactful. Unlike poster art with its potential for visual securitization, a photo album, which combines extensive textual material with low-quality images, reinforces stereotypical ideas by combining these two sources of information, with the obvious dominance of the former.