‘Spain in our Ears: International Musical Responses in Support of the Republic during the Spanish Civil War’

The bombardment of civilians from the air was a regular feature of the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1939. It is estimated some 15,000 Spaniards died as a result of air bombings during the Civil War, most civilians, and 11,000 were victims of bombing from the Francoist side that rebelled against the Republican government, supported by German and Italian aviation that joined the rebellion against the Republic. In Catalonia alone, some 1062 municipalities experienced aerial bombardments by the Francoist side of the civil war. In cities across Spain, municipal and regional authorities developed detailed plans for civilian defense in response to these air campaigns. In Barcelona, the municipality created the Junta Local de Defensa Passiva de Barcelona, to build bomb shelters, warn the public of bombings, and educate them on how to protect themselves against aerial bombardment. They mobilized civilians around the concept of ‘passive defense.’ This proactive response by civilians and local government to what they recognized as a war targeting them is an important and under-studied aspect of the Spanish Civil War.

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The Second Spanish Republic in soviet and russian studies: specificity, problems, interpretations

Latin-american Historical Almanac ◽

10.32608/2305-8773-2021-32-1-324-368 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 32 (1) ◽

pp. 324-368

Author(s):

Ekaterina Grantseva ◽

Keyword(s):

Civil War ◽

Spanish Civil War ◽

Soviet Period ◽

Second Republic ◽

Interdisciplinary Approaches ◽

Second Spanish Republic ◽

History Of ◽

The Republic ◽

Cultural Dialogue ◽

Ideological Attitudes

For many years, representatives of Soviet and then Russian historical science paid special attention to the period of the Second Spanish Republic and, especially, to the events of 1936-1939. The Spanish Civil War was and remains a topic that attracts the attention of specialists and influences the development of a multifaceted Russian-Spanish cultural dialogue. There are significantly fewer works on the peaceful years of the Republic, which is typical not only for domestic science, but also for the historiography of this period as a whole. Four key periods can be distinguished in the formation of the national historiography of the Spanish Republic. The first is associated with the existence of the Republic itself and is distinguished by significant political engagement. The second opens after 1956 and combines the continuity with respect to the period of the 1930s. and, at the same time, striving for objectivity, developing methodology and expanding the source base. The third stage is associated with the period of the 1970s-1980s, the time of the restoration of diplomatic relations between the USSR and Spain, as well as the active interaction of historians of the two countries. The fourth stage, which lasted thirty years, was the time of the formation of the Russian historiography of the Second Republic, which sought to get rid of the ideological attitudes that left a significant imprint on the research of the Soviet period. This time is associated with the active archival work of researchers and the publication of sources, the expansion of topics, interdisciplinary approaches. Among the studies of the history of the Second Republic outside Spain, Russian historiography has a special place due to the specifics of Soviet-Spanish relations during the Civil War, and the archival funds in our country, and the traditions of Russian historical Spanish studies, and the preservation of republican memory.

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Disloyalty and Logics of Fratricide in Civil War: Executions of Officers in Republican Spain, 1936-1939

Comparative Political Studies ◽

10.1177/0010414018774373 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 52 (7) ◽

pp. 1028-1058 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Theodore McLauchlin ◽

Álvaro La Parra-Pérez

Keyword(s):

Civil War ◽

Civil Wars ◽

Spanish Civil War ◽

Armed Groups ◽

Data Set ◽

Political Actors ◽

Unique Data ◽

Political Forces ◽

The Republic ◽

Military Politics

Violence within armed groups in civil wars is important and understudied. Linking literatures on civil war violence and military politics, this article asks when this fratricidal violence targets soldiers who try to defect, and when it does not. It uses a unique data set of executions of officers on the Republican side of the Spanish Civil War. The article finds that while much of the violence appeared to target those who actually tried to defect, many nondefectors were likely shot too, due most likely to a pervasive stereotype that officers in general were disloyal to the Republic. This stereotype was used as an information shortcut and was promoted by political actors. Accordingly, unlikely defectors were likelier to be shot in locations in which less information was available about loyalties and in which political forces that were suspicious of officers as a group were locally stronger.

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Argentine Neutrality, Mediation, and Asylum During the Spanish Civil War

The Americas A Quarterly Review of Latin American History ◽

10.2307/979506 ◽

1963 ◽

Vol 19 (4) ◽

pp. 383-403

Author(s):

Joe Robert Juárez

Keyword(s):

Civil War ◽

Spanish Civil War ◽

Popular Front ◽

Left Wing ◽

Francisco Franco ◽

Constituent Assembly ◽

Vested Interests ◽

The Republic ◽

The Right ◽

The Church

Civil War broke out in Spain in 1936. Following eight years of dictatorship by General Primo de Rivera, who had acted with the approval of King Alfonso XIII, elections were held in June, 1931, for a constituent assembly. The election returns brought in a republican-socialist majority, which forbade the king’s return, confiscated his property, and proclaimed Spain a republic. The republic had enemies on both the right and the left. The large landholders, the army, and the Church had vested interests which the republic proceeded to attack. On the left, the anarchists and socialists became more /radical, competing for the loyalty of the Spanish workers. The republic’s problems were compounded by the traditional separatist movements of Catalans, Basques, and Gallegans. Power shifted from the left in 1931 to the right in 1933, and, finally, in February, 1936, to a “popular front “government. The Popular Front, however, proved to be a coalition for election purposes only. Largo Caballero, the leader of the left wing of the socialists, declined to serve in the moderate Azaña cabinet. In July, 1936, army, monarchist, clerical, and Carlist groups joined with the Falange to bring about a counter-revolutionary coup under the leadership of General Francisco Franco. The Civil War had started. It was to last for three brutality-filled years.

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A Spanish Genocide? Reflections on the Francoist Repression after the Spanish Civil War

Contemporary European History ◽

10.1017/s0960777305002304 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 14 (2) ◽

pp. 171-191 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

JULIUS RUIZ

Keyword(s):

Civil War ◽

Spanish Civil War ◽

Second World War ◽

World War ◽

Franco Regime ◽

Military Justice ◽

The Republic ◽

Relative Decline ◽

Post War ◽

Second World

This article considers whether the Franco regime pursued a genocidal policy against Republicans after the formal ending of hostilities on 1 April 1939. In post-war Spain, the primary mechanism for punishing Republicans was military tribunals. Francoist military justice was based on the assumption that responsibility for the civil war lay with the Republic: defendants were tried for the crime of ‘military rebellion’. This was, as Ramón Serrano Suñer admitted his memoirs, ‘turning justice on its head’. But although it was extremely harsh, post-war military justice was never exterminatory. The article stresses that the institutionalisation of military justice from 1937, following the arbitrary murders of 1936, contributed to a relative decline in executions. Although the regime's determination to punish Republicans for ‘military rebellion’ inevitably led to the initiation of tens of thousands of post-war military investigations, only a minority of cases ended in execution. This was especially the case from January 1940, when the higher military authorities ended the autonomy of military tribunals over sentencing. This reassertion of central control in January 1940 was part of a wider policy to ease the self-inflicted problem of prison overcrowding; successive parole decrees led to a substantial and permanent decrease in the number of inmates by 1945. Allied victory in the Second World War did not mark the beginning but the end of the process of bringing to a close mass military justice.

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Revolutionary Exhumations in Spain, July 1936

Comparative Studies in Society and History ◽

10.1017/s0010417500011348 ◽

1985 ◽

Vol 27 (2) ◽

pp. 241-260 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Bruce Lincoln

Keyword(s):

Civil War ◽

Catholic Church ◽

Spanish Civil War ◽

Large Numbers ◽

The Republic ◽

The Church ◽

The Catholic Church

In the first weeks of the Spanish civil war, there occurred massive popular assaults against the Catholic Church in those cities which did not fall to the Nationalists rising, the Church having been widely (and correctly) perceived as hostile to the Republic and sympathetic to the generals who sought its overthrow. As rumors of priests firing on the populace from church towers circulated wildly, churches and convents were rapidly sacked and burnt. Supporters of the Republic killed religious personnel in large numbers—certainly well into the thousands—while desecrating and destroying church paraphernalia and cultic objects en masse.

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La política al margen de la política (Julián Besteiro, 1936 – 1938) = Politics Outside Politics (Julian Besteiro, 1936 – 1938)

Espacio Tiempo y Forma Serie V Historia Contemporánea ◽

10.5944/etfv.32.2020.27081 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 179

Author(s):

Óscar Medina Rojo

Keyword(s):

Civil War ◽

Spanish Civil War ◽

Socialist Party ◽

La Paz ◽

Coup D'etat ◽

The Republic

Julián Besteiro es un político clave para entender la España que transita desde la crisis de 1917 hasta la Guerra Civil, y como tal ha sido ampliamente estudiado por la historiografía. Sin embargo, su figura se nos presenta algo desdibujada desde finales de 1935, cuando deja de publicarse Democracia (principal órgano de expresión de su corriente socialista), hasta su participación en el golpe de estado contra Negrín de marzo de 1939. El presente artículo intenta mostrar que este periodo de su vida no fue de total inactividad política, ya que aun desde fuera de los puestos de responsabilidad, intentó ejercer su influencia dentro del socialismo español; en concreto se analiza su actuación en dos momentos clave: el semestre anterior al estallido de la Guerra Civil, y la crisis socialista de 1938. Para algunos de sus contemporáneos, la opción Besteiro existió en diferentes momentos y para diferentes puestos, tales como presidente de la República en 1936, o presidente del PSOE y miembro de un Gobierno de la paz en 1938.AbstractJulián Besteiro is a key politician to understand Spain from the crisis of 1917 until the Civil War, and as such he has been widely studied by the historiography. But there is a period less known in Besteiro’s life: the years running from the closure of Democracia (the main publication of his wing of Spanish socialism) at the end of 1935, to his involvement in the coup d’etat that would overthrow Negrin’s government in March 1939. This article attempts to show that this period in Besteiro’s life was not of total political inactivity: even from outside the positions of responsibility, he tried to exert his influence within Spanish socialism; in particular, this article analyses Besteiro’s stand in two key moments: the semester prior to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, and the crisis of the socialist party in 1938. For some of his contemporaries, the Besteiro option existed at different moments and for different roles, namely as President of the Republic in 1936, President of PSOE and member of a government to negotiate peace in 1938.

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El ideario político de Roy Campbell y la representación de la Guerra Civil española en su obra poética*

Futhark. Revista de Investigación y Cultura ◽

10.12795/futhark.2013.i08.06 ◽

2013 ◽

pp. 87-103

Author(s):

Luis Javier Conejero Magro

Keyword(s):

Civil War ◽

Political Ideology ◽

Spanish Civil War ◽

Poetic Representation ◽

The Republic ◽

Degree Of Degradation

In this article, Roy Campbell’s poems inspired by the Spanish Civil War are revisited and re-examined. Their war images and literary references to this conflict are analysed in the light of the poet’s own political ideology. The conclusion is that the contrast between the exaggerated idealisation to which the rebels and their deeds are subjected, and the degree of degradation that those in favour of the Republic reach in their poetic representation is such that it transforms most of its lines into a quasi-Manichean or moralityplaylike pamphlet

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The Spanish Republic’s Diplomatic Mission to Moscow during Civil War. Part 1

Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University History ◽

10.21638/11701/spbu02.2021.113 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 66 (1) ◽

pp. 212-225

Author(s):

Daniel Kowalsky ◽

Keyword(s):

Civil War ◽

Soviet Union ◽

Spanish Civil War ◽

Unique Role ◽

Spheres Of Influence ◽

The Press ◽

History Of ◽

The Republic ◽

Poster Art ◽

Roll Out

The Spanish Civil War played a unique role in the Soviet Union’s geo-political strategies in the second half of the 1930s. The conflict marked the first occasion that Moscow had participated in a foreign war beyond its traditional spheres of influence. But Soviet involvement in the Spanish war went far beyond the sale of armor and aviation to the beleaguered Spanish Republic. While Moscow organized and supported the creation of the International Brigades, on the cultural front, the Soviets sought to roll out a broad program of propaganda, employing film, poster art and music to link the destinies of the Slavic and Hispanic peoples. If scholars have succeeded in recent years to rewrite the history of many components of Soviet participation in the Spanish Civil War, diplomatic relations between the Republic and Moscow remain an unexplored theme. This is the first instalment of a two-part article, unpublished official documents, as well as memoirs, newsreels, private letters and the press, to offer the first narrative history of the Republican embassy in Moscow. The diplomatic rapprochement between the USSR and Spain in 1933 is explored as a prelude to the exchange of ambassadors following the outbreak of the Civil War in summer 1936. The appointment of the young Spanish doctor Marcelino Pascua to a newly recreated Moscow embassy is examined in detail, up to autumn 1937. This article allows the reader hitherto unavailable access to the daily trials, disappointments and occasional breakthroughs experienced by the Spanish Republican ambassador in Stalin’s Soviet Union.

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‘Soirées de Barcelone’: towards a performing version

Tempo ◽

10.1017/s0040298200005337 ◽

1996 ◽

pp. 22-27

Author(s):

Calum MacDonald

Keyword(s):

Monte Carlo ◽

Civil War ◽

Spanish Civil War ◽

Preliminary Report ◽

Present Issue ◽

Work In Progress ◽

Ballets Russes ◽

Original Title ◽

History Of ◽

The Republic

These observations form a long-delayed epilogue to my article ‘Soirées de Barcelone: a Preliminary Report’ in Tempo 139 (December 1981), where I outlined the history of Roberto Gerhard's Catalan ballet, a major score which was then (and remains now) virtually unknown save for the performance of some excerpts. For the work's conception, and its commission from Colonel de Basil's Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, readers should consult that article, and the article by Julian White in the present issue. This was the work-in-progress – apparently still at that stage bearing its original title Les Feux de la Saint Jean – which Gerhard took with him when the climax of the Spanish Civil War and the fall of the Republic forced him into exile in France in January 1939. He continued to work on it during the following five months he spent in Paris and Meudon.

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