Spanish Civil War Research Articles

The Spanish Civil War from Exile: Testimony and Fiction in Heroes and Beasts of Spain by Manuel Chaves Nogales

ABSTRACT This article illustrates the application of Manuel Chaves Nogales’ journalistic techniques within the context of fictional narratives based on actual historical events. It offers a comprehensive and insightful framework for understanding his accounts of the Spanish Civil War. In his book, Heroes and Beasts of Spain, Chaves Nogales presents accounts written during his exile in Paris and first published in Chile in 1937, at the height of the war. Though written as fiction, the stories are based on real events, and the author himself claimed that they constitute accounts of his own experiences that ended up being more faithful to the truth than he would have liked them to be. The stories have the significant merit of taking a detached view of the political conflict and recounting the excesses and atrocities committed by both sides.

Exploring the Potential of Genome-Wide Hybridization Capture Enrichment for Forensic DNA Profiling of Degraded Bones

In many human rights and criminal contexts, skeletal remains are often the only available samples, and they present a significant challenge for forensic DNA profiling due to DNA degradation. Ancient DNA methods, particularly capture hybridization enrichment, have been proposed for dealing with severely degraded bones, given their capacity to yield results in ancient remains. Background/Objectives: This paper aims to test the efficacy of genome-wide capture enrichment on degraded forensic human remains compared to autosomal STRs analysis. Methods: Six highly degraded human bones from the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) were quantified with Quantifiler™ Trio and amplified with GlobalFiler™. Independently, partially UDG-treated double-stranded DNA libraries were generated and shotgun sequenced to screen for endogenous human DNA content. Subsequently, libraries were enriched with the Twist Bioscience “Twist Ancient DNA” reagent enrichment kit, which had not been previously tested for forensic purposes. Results: The results show that the samples behave similarly with both approaches (well-preserved samples yield good results). However, capture enrichment provides some new relevant insights, suggesting that its implementation in current NGS forensic platforms could be beneficial. Conclusions: Shotgun results show that the analyzed samples exhibit the same characteristics as ancient DNA samples in terms of DNA fragmentation and molecular damage, which may enhance the value of this approach when authenticating the endogenous DNA of forensic samples.

Dolores Ibarruri returns

The material is devoted to a review and analysis of the memories of D.Ibarruri and her daughter A.Ruiz Ibarruri, published in Spain in 2023. D’Ibarruri’s work the “Only way” has already been published in the Soviet Union and it is dedicated to the political path of “Passionaria” until the end of the Spanish Civil war. A.Ruiz Ibarruri’s unpublished memoirs cover most of the time — up to her return with her mother to Spain in 1977.

Radio, Exile, and Feminisms: Spanish Republican Women Writers in Buenos Aires

Abstract: In this article I explore how radio served as an important platform in the intellectual and feminist trajectories of Spanish Republican women writers living in exile in Argentina after its vast expansion as a form of mass media in the 1930s. Radio took off around the country at a particular moment for feminisms, when women were asserting their social and political rights and becoming more active in the public sphere. This moment coincided with the arrival of intellectuals exiled following the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) and their incorporation into the cultural market. Through a study of writers María Teresa León’s (1903–1988) and María Martínez Sierra’s (1874–1974) participation in cultural activities on Radio El Mundo in 1942–1943 and Radio Nacional in 1959, respectively, I examine their relationship with the medium and how contact with this new communication technology led them to transform the kinds of cultural products they created in order to develop their feminist ideas through radio broadcasts. I argue that although this radio archive has received scant critical attention, recuperating and analyzing it allows us to complicate our view of the relationship that exiled women had with their host culture and to have a broader understanding of the Republican exile.

Head Shaving: Archives and Repertoires of Shame

Abstract: In this article we address the intersection of the archive and sexual violence by examining the Francoist practice of shaving the heads of Republican women during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) and at the start of the dictatorship. We question the limits of the archive to record actions or embodied narratives that leave few material traces, and about the conditions under which memories that are saturated by violence and trauma can be excavated. We analyze two of the few extant photographs: in them we see how the processes of performativity that accompany acts of violence unfold and expand over time. The photographs reify or represent shame and silence, but they also make remembering possible. The ways in which the photographs have circulated heighten the unstable, fragile nature of these haunted archives.

Wpływ wojny domowej w Hiszpanii na aktywność terenową Komunistycznej Partii Zachodniej Białorusi i jej sympatyków w latach 1936–1939

The Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) activated many political circles operating in the Second Republic. It also influenced the activity of the communist movement and, after the dissolution of its structures in 1938, its former activists and sympathisers. The article is devoted to the manifestations of the field activity of communist structures and the influence of the Iberian Peninsula conflict on that part of the Belarusian society which favourably received the message formulated by local communists or coming directly from the USSR. Issues such as the propaganda illumination of the war in Spain, the reception of recruitment slogans for the army of the Republic, and the problem of inspiring a financial effort in its favour are addressed. The echoes of the Spanish conflict, considered in the context of the functioning of the KPZB and its supporters, make it possible to conclude that this was an important but not a priority direction in the Communists’ activities. At the same time, they were part of the trend of growing pro-Soviet sentiments observable among the Belarusian community of the Second Republic.

Spain in Our Ears: International Musical Responses in Support of the Republic during the Spanish Civil War. Ed. by Igor Contreras Zubillaga and Eva Moreda Rodríguez

<i>Spain in Our Ears: International Musical Responses in Support of the Republic during the Spanish Civil War</i>. Ed. by Igor Contreras Zubillaga and Eva Moreda Rodríguez

A place for laughs in Hell. Martínez de León’s cartoons: republican humour in the Spanish Civil War

In this article, we analyse the cartoons of Andrés Martínez de León, published in El Sol during the Spanish Civil War. Despite the war’s brutality, humour emerged as a vital tool, serving both as propaganda and a connection to pre-war normalcy. Martínez de León’s cartoons exhibit sharp satire, offering profound insights into the conflict. Our primary goal is to resurrect the work of this influential Andalusian graphic journalist and explore the narrative and visual techniques he employed. Through content analysis, we uncover how humour became a daily means of resistance, providing solace and commentary amidst the chaos and fear of war.

Book Review: Crosses of Memory and Oblivion: The Monuments to the Fallen in the Spanish Civil War (1936–2022) by Miguel Ángel del Arco Blanco

Book Review: <i>Crosses of Memory and Oblivion: The Monuments to the Fallen in the Spanish Civil War (1936–2022)</i> by Miguel Ángel del Arco Blanco

The War Routes in the European Tourist Market During the Spanish Civil War

During the Spanish Civil War, War Routes with tourist itineraries were organized in the area controlled by General Francisco Franco. They began to operate on 1 July 1938 and ran throughout the whole of the following year. The objective was, on the one hand, to create a new tourism product essentially aimed at the European market in order to attract tourists and obtain foreign currency. On the other hand, these itineraries formed part of a propaganda campaign which sought to spread the virtues of the new regime that was under construction in order to counteract the campaign being carried out against it abroad by the legitimate regime of the Republic. This new tourism product was promoted among the principal European travel agencies, although it generated poor economic results. This article studies the promotion of these itineraries, the travel agencies that were interested in them, the banks that acted as intermediaries and the results of the initiative.

Fighting Fascism on Empire’s Doorstep

Abstract From 1936 to 1939, the Cuban magazine Mediodía brought together Communists, socialists, and other progressives in a common battle against fascism, imperialism, and racism. Published in Havana, Mediodía was centrally concerned with Cuban domestic politics, in particular with struggles for democratic representation and for racial and gender equality. But for the magazine’s editors, these battles could not be disconnected from the broader turbulence afflicting the world in the 1930s, from the Spanish Civil War to the Japanese occupation of China and the Nazi threat in Europe. As a case study in imaginative radical publishing, Mediodía would be worthy enough of scholarly attention. But it also provides a compelling window onto Cuba’s Popular Front politics of the 1930s. Not only were the antifascist, antiracist convergences reflected in Mediodía’s pages formative for a generation of Cubans; they also anticipated the ideological alliances that shaped the island’s trajectory after the 1959 revolution.

Rehearsal for Deep Song

Rehearsal for Deep Song recreates Martha Graham’s choreographic piece Deep Song, the last dance that she, as a mother of Modern Dance, performed alone in 1937 in response to the Spanish Civil War startling pictures of the performance reached the United States at the time, through different media. This project focuses on the analytical study, through pictorial mimesis, of the sequence of movements proposed by Graham in her choreography in order to deal with the Spanish conflict. Working with oil paint on long strips of canvas designed and prepared to represent sequences of movement in an exercise close to stop-motion, it develops a creative process based on an expanded concept of the idea of historical frieze. Its aim is not only to learn other ways to cope with the images of violence that news and social media are able to expose us to today but also to contribute to the renewal of the genre of historical painting through a working methodology that emphasizes the power of recreation (re-enactment) of the pictorial medium rather than restricting it to the mere realm of representation. Graham entitled her dance in reference to Federico García Lorca’s poem ‘Poema del Cante Jondo’ published in Madrid in 1931 and translated into English as ‘Poem of Deep Song’.

The Narrative Rhetoric of the Spanish Civil War: Examples from the Works of Three Left-wing Artists During the War

The Spanish Civil War, which broke out on July 17, 1936, has great significance throughout history. This civil war was a rehearsal for the Second World War that broke out later. Different national forces and different ideologies clashed and collided fiercely in Spain. This article will start with three left-wing artists who participated in the Spanish Civil War in different ways, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, and Robert Capa, and analyze how these artists' works spread the special narrative of the Spanish Civil War. This article will use a documentary analysis approach to analyze the connotations that these three artists want to express through their different works. This article will also analyze how these artists played an important role in consolidating anti-fascist and anti-war consensus through their unique media.

Edward K. Barsky (1897–1975): Surgery, activism, and the Spanish Civil War

Edward K. Barsky (1897–1975) was born and raised in New York City and became a surgeon at Beth Israel Hospital. During the political upheaval of the 1930s, Barsky became passionate about the cause of the Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War, as the democratically elected government came under siege by insurrectionists led by General Francisco Franco. Barsky transformed his beliefs into action as a founder of the American Medical Bureau to Aid Spanish Democracy, where he led a medical mission to the Spanish frontlines from 1937 to 1939. In Spain, Barsky organized American hospitals and operated under fire, contributing to significant advances in battlefield medicine. After the fall of the Republic in 1939, Barsky returned to the United States and his career as a surgeon in New York while also dedicating himself to the cause of Spanish refugees. His political activities, however, made him a target of political persecution by the House Un-American Activities Committee, and he ultimately lost both his freedom and his medical licence. Barsky was a surgeon, scientist, humanitarian, and activist, and his life illustrates the often complicated ties between politics and the practice of medicine.

Beyond pain and sorrow: Dysphemistic use in wartime funeral cards

As little attention has been paid to dysphemism in death-related discourse, the goal of this study is to analyze the dysphemistic language in a sample of funeral cards, i.e., personalized keepsakes distributed at memorial or funeral services, of Nationalist Spaniards, including both combatants and civilians, who were killed in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and, by doing so, have access to the motivations and purposes underlying dysphemistic use in wartime funeral cards. The inductive, “bottom-up” analysis carried out demonstrates that dysphemism is used to express a negative evaluation of the political enemy through intense and emotionally charged language that refers to the cause and circumstances of the death, on the one hand, and to those responsible for the death, on the other. In this way, dysphemism creates a narrative atmosphere charged with contempt and hatred toward the political enemy and thus becomes a strategic tool of ideological propaganda.

Political discontent in Spain, diagnosis and solutions

The starting point is the presence of a widespread feeling of political confrontation and division among Spanish citizens. This is compounded by dissatisfaction with and distrust in a system that is perceived by many as elitist and out of touch with real needs. Several factors related to this perception of politics are explained and quantified. On the one hand, there are economic elements, such as the stagnation of GDP per capita, the persistence of a relatively high at-risk-of-poverty rate, and the rates of material deprivation. And in all these elements, a significant territorial inequality can be observed. There are significant differences between Spain, France and Germany over the period considered. On the other hand, political factors determine much of the public debate in Spain: Historical memory and the Spanish Civil War, as well as the terrorism of ETA and other terrorist groups. The emergence of new parties is analyzed, especially VOX. Finally, the enormous difficulty of finding a territorial structure of political power that would bring together the consensus of most political forces. It is necessary to find formulas for fiscal federalism that will make it possible to move away from the current decentralization of spending without the Autonomous Communities having their own tax capacity. This study concludes by pointing out the relevance of all these problems and the need to find solutions through democratic debate and deliberation with agreements.

The role of women during the Spanish Civil War

This study explores the multifaceted roles of women during the Spanish Civil War, examining the diverse perspectives delineated in academic literature. Leveraging scholarly articles sourced from Web of Science and Scopus spanning from 2013 to 2022, we analyse temporal trends, author demographics, scholarly impact, journal prominence, and thematic content. Our investigation culminates in the classification of contributions into six overarching themes: humanitarian aid and healthcare, biographical narratives, communication dynamics, experiences of exile and refugee communities, women’s mobilisation and ideological engagement, and the harrowing realities of repression and violence inflicted upon women. Furthermore, our findings reveal that research predominantly originates from Spain and is disseminated through Spanish-language journals. However, there exists a notable interconnection with the United States, evidenced by the participation of prominent North American authors and publication in non-Spanish journals. This research offers insights into the multifaceted roles of women during the Spanish Civil War and their academic representation.

Balancing efficiency and equity. Consumer cooperatives in Barcelona (Spain), 1898–1936: An economic and financial-ratio analysis

Economic theory tends to link the emergence of cooperatives with moments of economic crisis, and to regard them as less efficient than investor-owned firms. This work aims to test these premises by analysing the economic and financial performance of fourteen consumer cooperatives in Barcelona (Spain) from the late nineteenth century to the beginning of the Spanish Civil War in 1936. Economic and financial ratios are analysed, based on the cooperatives’ balance sheets, in order to identify strengths and weaknesses. The main conclusion is that these organisations could operate efficiently, although they found it difficult to grow and become more competitive.

The “Indios” of Spain and the Mexican Revolution: Racial Ideologies and the Labor of Internationalist Solidarity

This article examines the influence of the Mexican Revolution (1906–40) on Spanish anarchists’ views on racial and class solidarity. Whereas recent transnational studies of the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) have highlighted the conflict's lingering imprint on Latin American politics and society, this essay explores why Spanish anarchists interpreted the Mexican Revolution as an insurrection led by Mexico's Indigenous communities. It argues that such readings of the conflict, most of which were advanced by non-Indigenous revolutionaries, both challenged and reinforced racialized notions of social and political upheaval. This article therefore demonstrates how these views challenged orthodox interpretations of social revolution while exposing the obstacles to building internationalist solidarity among laboring classes in postimperial and postcolonial societies.

Heritage Education of Memory: Gamification to Raise Awareness of the Cultural Heritage of War

This study focused on the use of gamification, specifically the UrbanGame activity, to enhance heritage education related to the bombings of the Spanish Civil War in Alicante. The research aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of active methodologies in raising cultural heritage awareness among university students, particularly those in primary and secondary teacher training programs. The methods included the design and implementation of the UrbanGame, followed by surveys to collect quantitative and qualitative data on students’ perceptions, satisfaction, and learning outcomes. The results indicated that meaningful learning showed a positive trend towards content comprehension, and that motivation and concentration significantly influenced learning outcomes. Additionally, the UrbanGame activity promoted memory and cultural heritage by emotionally connecting students with local history, providing future teachers with innovative pedagogical tools for their teaching.