ABSTRACT The Cuban Revolution nurtured its emerging influence in the world through official and unofficial state visits of exiled Spanish Republicans. Private letters, memoirs, press and archival sources show how visitors helped further the cause of left-wing solidarity. This article breaks with the established historiographic approach of analysing Cold War relations between Cuba and Spain through the deeds of Marshall leaders or networks based on regional affinities. Visits of cultural brokers and political refugees reveal how lesser-known figures vied for closer ties to the revolutionary leadership and how exiled Spanish women who visited the island engaged the issue of revolutionary ‘womanhood.’

This article reassesses the relationship between the British government and British commercial interests during the Spanish civil war. It has often been argued that British economic interests inclined the government toward non-intervention, effectively favouring Franco’s insurgents over the Spanish Republic. However, records from the Spanish Emergency Committee (SEC) – a little-known and hitherto unstudied committee formed by British insurers operating in Spain – reveal a more nuanced picture. Initially, the SEC pursued ‘mercantile neutrality’, avoiding state involvement and playing little if any role in the British government’s policy of non-intervention. But as their efforts to protect their interests failed under increasing Francoist pressure and a worsening European political context, they turned to the British government for support. The SEC’s experience highlights the complexities of state–capital relations during the inter-war period and the difficulty of defining ‘national’ interests in times of crisis, showing how business archives can provide new insights into key debates in international history.

Abstract This article explores how Spanish anarchists responded to Mexico during the first years of the Mexican Revolution and during Spain’s own revolutionary experiment in the Spanish Civil War (1936–39). It first examines the representation of the Mexican Revolution in the Spanish anarchist press and the emergence of debates regarding Mexico’s Indigenous peoples between those anarchists who maintained Eurocentric cultural hierarchies and those who were open to non-European examples—a debate that was sharpened by the cataclysm of World War I in Europe. The second half of the article explores how anarchists amplified Mexico’s antifascist solidarity with the Spanish Republic in the late 1930s, when its fellow European democracies had abandoned it. This further decentered the anarchist worldview and enabled reflection on the two countries#x2019; postcolonial relationship. As a case study, the article highlights an early example of a major European working-class movement looking to a former colony first for revolutionary inspiration and later for antifascist solidarity, several decades before the “Third Worldism” of the global sixties. However, rather than assuming that this kind of decentered international solidarity is an inevitable outcome of radical politics, the article foregrounds the nuanced and contested terms on which it was articulated.

The article examines the news on the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) publiched in the leading Turkish newspapers – «Cumhuriyet», «Akşam», «Ulus» and «Tan». The analysis of the news makes it possible to draw conclusions about the ambiguity of the coverage of events in Spain in the Turkish press. On the one hand, there was support for the Republican troops and the government in the left-leaning newspaper «Tan». On the other hand, the Kemalist official newspapers («Cumhuriyet», «Ulus», etc.) conveyed a neutral position. These trends reflected the attitude in Turkey towards the issue of the Spanish Civil War – if the leftist forces were entirely in favor of solidarity with the Spanish Republic, the Ankara government was detached from this problem by implementing the principle of "Peace within the country, peace throughout the world" (in Turkish. «Yurtta sulh, cihanda sulh») in practice.

Introduction. The subject of the study is the participation of Soviet pilots, navigators, and other aviation specialists in the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1937. Methods and materials. The first study on the participation of Soviet aviation and aviators in the Spanish Civil War dates back to 1937. Military experts made attempts to generalize the experience of using aviation in the modern war at that time. In the 1950s and 1980s, veterans of the Spanish events published their memoirs, carefully filtered by Soviet censorship. The gradual declassification of archival documents since the 1990s has become the basis for the creation of serious studies on the participation of Soviet aircraft and volunteers from among the flight personnel in the Spanish Civil War. The purpose of the publication is to analyze and present new documentary materials on this issue related to the publication of the first three of the eight collections of documents of the Intelligence Directorate of the Russian Red Army under the general title “The Red Army and the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939,” using historical-comparative and historicaldescriptive methods. Analysis. The study established the tactical and technical superiority of Soviet combat aircraft – fighters “I–15,” “I-16,” and high-speed bomber “SB” – over similar aircraft of German and Italian production, which fought on the side of the opponents of the Spanish Republic. The dominance of Soviet pilots in the Spanish sky during the specified period has been established, which is confirmed by the ratio of enemy aircraft shot down and their own lost. It is emphasized that, along with the description of the course of hostilities and their results, Soviet pilots, navigators, and aviation engineers presented to the Red Army their ideas on improving the tactical and technical characteristics of Soviet combat aircraft. It is noted that since the second half of 1937, Soviet pilots have gradually lost their superiority in the skies of Spain due to the appearance of new Germanand Italian-made combat aircraft from the enemy. This is confirmed by reports in the Intelligence Directorate of the Red Army and reports of military operations. The article considers the issue of excessive combat load of flight personnel and its negative impact on the health of pilots and navigators, as well as issues of the political and moral-psychological state of flight personnel who experienced certain problems associated with an unusual social environment for a Soviet person. Both the commissars and the flight crew state the necessary level of combat discipline, at the same time noting the presence of various excesses. The question of the relations of Soviet military specialists with Spanish colleagues is considered; their friendly nature is emphasized. Results. In general, from 1936 to the first half of 1937, the Soviet aviation surpassed the German and Italian in both the quality of equipment and the skill of the flight crew, as evidenced by the ratio of Republican and Francoist aircraft shot down during that period in air battles. However, as the Francoists received new types of aircraft, the Republicans lost their advantage. Another reason for the loss of air superiority since the second half of 1937 was the replacement of experienced Soviet pilots by untrained youth. Participation in the Spanish War was the first serious test for both the young Soviet aviation as a whole and for individual pilots. In the skies of Spain, Soviet pilots showed miracles of heroism, trying to neutralize the numerical superiority of enemy aircraft. The excessive combat load of the flight crew affected the physical condition of pilots and navigators who did not have conditions for proper rest in 1936–1937. With all the difference in the assessments of the moral and psychological state of the flight crew by the commissars and the pilots themselves, it is necessary to note a generally high level of discipline in the presence of certain deviations.

The musician and priest Joan M. Thomàs i Sabater (1896–1966) was the promoter of the Chopin Music Festival launched in Majorca in 1931, coinciding with the establishment of the Spanish Republic, to commemorate the Polish musician’s stay on the island during the winter of 1838/39. The event was part of the modernist and Catalanist regeneration programme that, in line with the changing tides in Spain, propelled the intellectualism of Majorca at the time, with the aim of projecting their idea of a modern and European Majorca capable of attracting new visitors. However, the initiative sparked some opposition from conservative Catholics, who did not view favourably Chopin’s rather non-religious figure and his companion on that trip, the writer Aurore Dupin, known as George Sand, questioning why it should be a priest who wished to remember them. Despite the musical success of the Festival during the years of the Republic, controversy resurfaced at the beginning of the Civil War, when Thomàs, then a professor at the Conservatori de Música de Majorca, underwent Francoist purging. Among other accusations, he was charged with wanting to commemorate the journey of Chopin and Dupin and their extramarital relationship. The figures of the pianist and – especially – the writer were seen by the most reactionary elements of the new regime as contrary to the moral values and misogyny of Spanish fascism, and therefore Chopin, in this context, did not deserve to be celebrated.

ABSTRACT This article examines the reciprocal images that were created and circulated in Mexico and Spain regarding the republican experiences that took place in both countries, using as a source the press and other printed material. The analysis follows an Atlantic perspective, which emphasizes the closeness of ideas over the national spaces. The aim of this examination is twofold. On the one hand, it seeks to show how these reciprocal images contributed to the definition of distinct republican models among publicists who were sympathetic to this political culture in both countries, as well as to identify which models gained greater prominence in the context of the liberal parliamentary crisis in which this work is set. On the other hand, it aims to highlight the usefulness of the rhetorical device of the specular narrative to propose ideas that, if expressed directly, might have been controversial.

The purpose of this article is to analyze the international situation in the first half of the 1930s as a leading factor influencing the foreign policy of the Soviet Union towards the Spanish Republic and China in 1936-1937. The scientific novelty of the study lies in identifying the reasons for the USSR’s abandonment of the policy of collective security, which was pursued by Moscow at the turn of the 1920s-1930s, and the transition to indirect participation in the wars in Spain and China. The article summarizes the experience of Soviet, modern Russian, and Western European (Great Britain, Spain) historiography. The study conducts a comprehensive comparative analysis of the interrelationships between the European and Eastern directions of Soviet foreign policy during the period under review. The authors of the study came to the following conclusion. In the early 1930s, the USSR pursued a course of integration into the system of international relations. Moscow sought to ensure peace through the implementation of collective security plans in Europe and the Far East. By the mid-1930s, the Soviet Union became convinced of the duplicity of the policies of the leading powers, which sabotaged the Kremlin’s initiatives and actively cooperated with the ruling regimes of Germany, Italy, and Japan, which were not only preparing for new wars, but also began territorial seizures. This became the basis for a serious adjustment of Moscow’s policy, which was expressed in direct support for Spain and China, which became objects of external aggression.

The policy of the British Conservative government towards the SpanishCivil War reflected the general policy of appeasement of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.It was influenced by a belief that the legitimate Spanish Republican Governmentwas the puppet of extreme left Socialists and Communists. Accordingly, theBritish Cabinet adopted a policy of benevolent neutrality towards the military insurgents,with the covert aim of avoiding any direct or indirect help to the PopularFront Government. The official British line on the Spanish crisis was one of non-intervention despiteawareness of the scale of German and Italian aid to the military rebels. The contradictionsand deceit behind non-intervention were finally exposed by the humiliationssuffered by the British government during the war in the Basque Country inthe spring and early summer of 1937. Franco’s attempts to prevent the delivery ofsea-borne food supplies to a starving Bilbao challenged the Government’s responsibilityto protect British merchant shipping. At first, London accepted the rebel contentionthat they had effectively blockaded Bilbao and that Royal Navy protection ofmerchant shipping constituted intervention on the side of the Republic. On the basisof information supplied by the Times correspondent, George Steer, a campaign wasmounted in parliament and the press which forced the government into a humiliatingvolte-face. La política del gobierno conservador británico hacia la Guerra Civil española era reflejo de la política general de apaciguamiento mantenida hacia la Italia fascista y la Alemania nazi. Dicha política estaba influenciada por la creencia de que el legítimo gobierno republicano español actuaba como una marioneta de los socialistas y los comunistas de extrema izquierda. En consecuencia, el gabinete británico adoptó una posición de neutralidad hacia los insurgentes militares con el objetivo encubierto de evitar cualquier tipo de ayuda, bien directa o indirecta, al gobierno del Frente Popular. La postura oficial británica sobre la crisis española fue la de no intervención, a pesar de ser conscientes de la ayuda alemana e italiana a los rebeldes militares. Las contradicciones y el engaño mantenido tras esa postura de no intervención del gobierno británico, quedaron finalmente expuestos por las humillaciones sufridas durante la guerra en el País Vasco en la primavera e inicios del verano de 1937. Los intentos de Franco para evitar la entrega de suministros por mar a un Bilbao asediado por el hambre, desafiaron la responsabilidad del gobierno británico de proteger su flota mercante. En un principio Londres aceptó el bloqueo de Bilbao por los rebeldes y el hecho de que la protección por parte de la Armada Real a los buques mercantes constituía una intervención a favor de la República. Basándose en la información proporcionada por el corresponsal del Times, George Steer, se emprendió una campaña en el Parlamento y la prensa que obligó al gobierno a una humillante vuelta de tuerca.

A shortage of scholarship exists on US private chartable aid organisations and their efforts to help exiles of the Spanish Civil War. Notably, if the literature on US private aid groups is scant for the Spanish conflict, the research is simply non-existent for refugees who made their way to Cuba or the women in the United States who facilitated aid for these refugees. Thus, this essay addresses a crucial lacuna in the historiography by examining how US aid groups dealt with the crisis on the island. Buoyed by files in the American Friends Service Committee archive and my research in Cuba, I reveal that the confluence of Cuban state hostility against Spanish exile settlement, US private aid´s penchant for advancing a ‘national’ image abroad, and the author Ernest Hemingway´s close relationships to the ‘loyalist’ cause and its exiles, resulted in a selective distribution of aid by mostly women at ‘neutral’ private aid organisations.

The article examines the relationship between art and politics in the context of the World Exhibitions of the late 1930s, with particular attention to Soviet cultural strategies and the impact of the Spanish Civil War. An analysis of the relationship between art and politics in the interwar period shows that in the context of political instability, international exhibitions became an important platform for demonstrating influence and power, as well as promoting ideological attitudes. Using the examples of the Paris (1937) and New York (1939) World Exhibitions, it is shown how the Soviet government used architectural and artistic solutions to shape the image of the success of the socialist path of development and create a powerful counterweight to the aggressive image of Nazi Germany. Having considered the methods of organizing the expositions of the pavilions of the World Exhibitions as tools of cultural diplomacy, it is possible to especially note the significance of the chosen architectural solutions demonstrating the synthesis of aesthetic attitudes with ideological messages. It was through exhibition strategies and visual representations that the USSR positioned itself in the interwar period as a progressive state of the future, opposing itself to both the capitalist system and the fascist threat. The Spanish Republic tried to form a similar image, where the tragedy of the civil war determined the content of cultural policy and artistic representation. However, unlike the USSR, the government of the Spanish Republic failed to fully implement the tasks set. The time of instability and the premonition of an impending catastrophe forced visitors to seek support and hope in the image of a bright future formed by the Soviet pavilion, trying to avoid the fate of Spain.

This article aims to analyze the reception and route of refugees through Portugal in the context of the Spanish Civil War, a territory that, due to its geographical proximity, was especially sought as a place of refuge by countless Spaniards to protect themselves from war and persecutions. Due to its authoritarian nature, Salazar´s regime proved reluctant to receive them and developed a repression directed at these refugees, considered “undesirable,” visible in the increase of the number of border posts and their reinforcement and in the collaboration between different authorities, namely PVDE (State Surveillance and Defense Police), GNR (Republican National Guard), PSP (Public Security Police) and GF (Fiscal Guard), leading to their concentration in large national prisons. In the context of the phenomenon of the Spanish Republican refugees in Portugal, this article also discusses the role played by the Portuguese population and by some elements of the authorities in the assistance provided to Spanish refugees, as well as the repression that was driven by Salazar’s regime.

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.

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.

Este ensayo estudia dos obras de César Vallejo y, de forma complementaria, una posible correspondencia con el marqués de Sade. En Trilce (1922), se estudia la crisis del lenguaje a través de la construcción verbal, lo escatológico y la dialéctica creación-destrucción a partir de la experiencia carcelaria. La ruptura verbal “libera” de la cárcel al poeta preso. En España, aparta de mí este cáliz (1939), se estudia la transformación del “cadáver” en un proyecto para la vida desde un discurso triple que combina lo poético, lo político y lo religioso a favor del movimiento revolucionario republicano español. La comparación entre el intelectual popular creyente del siglo veinte y el pornógrafo aristócrata revolucionario del decimoséptimo muestra dos poetas del lado oscuro de la modernidad.

Reseña de This Ghostly Poetry. History and Memory of Exiled Spanish Republican Poets de Daniel Aguirre-Oteiza.

On March 15, 2024, Aquilino Mata Mier, honorary president of the Association of Republican Pilots (ADAR, division Cat-alonia-North-Balearic Islands), laureate of the international award of the St. Andrew the First-Called Foundation “Faith and Loyalty”, passed away. Events of the Spanish conflict 1936-1939. for many years remained one of the main topics of Russian-Spanish scientific and public dialogue; it was dur-ing the civil war that the closest ties between our countries developed. The memory of the USSR's assistance to the Spanish Republic is still preserved by the Spaniards, and one of the keepers of this memory was Aquilino Mata Mier. It is difficult to overestimate the contribution that, thanks to his energy, enthusiasm, conviction in the significance of the work he is engaged in, Aquilino Mata made to the preservation of historical memory of the events of 1936-1939, as well as to the maintenance of Russian-Spanish scientific interaction and the preservation of bilateral ties in difficult modern conditions.

The Spanish Republican exile is a subject that, despite having an extensive bibliography, still presents many questions. José Francisco Mejía's book delves deeper into the knowledge of a little-known aspect of exile, such as the role played by some Latin American countries in the creation of an institutional framework that served as a channel for the Republican exile in order to try to ensure that the fall of the Nazi-fascist totalitarianisms would drag down the Franco dictatorship that they had helped to establish.

This article analyses from a gender perspective six testimonial stories produced by women in Spanish Republican exile: Éxodo. Diario de una refugiada española (1940), by Silvia Mistral; Memoria de la melancolía (1970), by María Teresa León; Los diablos sueltos (1975), by Mada Carreño; Memorias habladas, memorias armadas (1990), by Concha Méndez; and De Barcelona a la Bretaña francesa y La hora del odio (2014), by Luisa Carnés. T he study examines how each of these exiles thinks about and translates the various facets of their corporeality into confessional literature. In this sense, the reflection on beauty or sexuality, the awareness of the ageing body or the recognition and/or denial of identity through the symbol of the mirror will be some of the recurring motifs that the authors use to address the corporeal in their works.

The paper examines early Soviet reception of Ernest Hemingway's works. The research is based on the readers’ letters to Goslitizdat (State Publishing House) from the funds of the Russian State Archive of Literature and Arts (RGALI). A small collection of letters (1935–1936) shows readers’ reaction to the first Hemingway’s Soviet book editions: a short story collection Death in the Afternoon (1934) and Fiesta (1935). The readers unanimously condemn Hemingway for his “decadent” prose and Goslitizdat for publishing such “absurd” and “harmful” books. The only exception is a short positive review of the novel A Farewell to Arms (1936) sent to Goslitizdat in 1937. To uncover the reasons for the negative readers’ reception one should turn to the literary criticism of the 1934–1935, especially the essays by Ivan Kashkin who introduced the new author to the Soviet reading audience. A comparative analysis of readers’ feedback and critical discourse shows that the ambivalent and even contradictory image of the writer created by the critics made the readers think of Hemingway’s works as “decadent”, “bourgeois” and alien to Soviet people. Another reason was the innovative nature of Hemingway’s modernist prose which seemed obscure, confusing and unintelligible; the Soviet reader obviously preferred “clarity” and “simplicity” of Erskine Caldwell’s or Theodore Dreiser’s realistic writings. The situation changed by the 1937, when Hemingway was praised by both Soviet critics and readers as an anti-fascist writer, a heroic defender of the Spanish Republic.