scholarly journals Frida Stewart in Spain: Administering humanitarian aid during the Spanish Civil War

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 227-240
Author(s):  
Linda Palfreeman ◽  
Jon Arrizabalaga
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Humanitarian Aid ◽  
Military Coup ◽  
Social Conscience ◽  
Women’S Experiences ◽  
Women's Experiences ◽  
International Solidarity ◽  
Republican Government

When a failed military coup provoked civil war in Spain in July 1936, the Spanish government made a worldwide plea for assistance. More than 2500 British men answered the call, taking up arms in defence of the democratically-elected Republican government. While this show of international solidarity has been widely documented, much less attention has been given to the massive response made by British women. Thousands of women organized nationwide campaigns to send aid to Spain. One of these women was Frida Stewart (1910–96), a young musician with a strong social conscience. As is the case with so many other women, Frida’s recollections, her memoir and correspondence, upon which the following essay is closely based, constitute a valuable historical resource for the analysis of women’s experiences during the war and give voice to those whose stories have previously gone unheard.

scholarly journals Becoming Communist

Aspasia ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-166
Author(s):  
Rochelle Goldberg Ruthchild
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Women’S Experiences ◽  
Women's Experiences ◽  
The Soviet Union

Kelly Hignett , Melanie Ilic, Dalia Leinarte, and Corina Snitar, Women’s Experiences of Repression in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, London: Routledge, 2018, xiii, 196 pp., $123.09 (hardback), ISBN 978-1-138-04692-4.Lisa Kirschenbaum, International Communism and the Spanish Civil War: Solidarity and Suspicion, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015, xiii, 278 pp., $29.99 (paperback), ISBN: 978-1-131-622690-2.

Local Government, Passive Defense and Aerial Bombardment in Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War, 1936–9

2021 ◽  
pp. 002200942199789
Author(s):  
David A. Messenger
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Regular Feature ◽  
The Public ◽  
Republican Government ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Civilian Defense ◽  
Regional Authorities

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.

Loach on Loach

1998 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Social Conscience ◽  
Film And Television ◽  
Ken Loach ◽  
Tv Production

Ken Loach is one of Britain's most distinguished, and respected, film-makers. His career embraces both film and television. His landmark TV production of Cathy Come Home caused such an outcry over the plight of the homeless that Shelter was established in response. His film work is as remarkable as his television work. He makes tough, uncompromising films about a beleaguered working class – but with a poetry (as in Kes) and with a humanity soaked in humour (as in Riff Raff and Raining Stones). His work has been feted, especially on the Continent where Riff Raff received the Felix award (Europe's equivalent of the Oscar). Raining Stones won the Jury Prize at Cannes and the Best British Film of the Year award, and Land and Freedom, his film about the Spanish Civil War, won the International Critics prize at Cannes. Loach on Loach is an exploration of Ken Loach's cinema of social conscience, making much use of interviews and conversations with the man himself.

One Man's Education: A Testimony to Internationalism

1985 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-109
Author(s):  
Bill Bailey
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Abraham Lincoln ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Union Organizer ◽  
Republican Government ◽  
The U.S

Bill Bailey was working as a union organizer in Hawaii in 1936 when the Spanish Civil War broke out. Fascist troops led by Franco rebelled against Spain's democratically elected Republican government. The U.S. government declared a policy of nonintervention that prohibited the shipment of arms to the Republican Loyalists and banned travel to Spain. This policy contributed to the Fascist cause and outraged many Americans, including Bailey. Early in 1937, Bailey joined a group of American volunteers forming the Abraham Lincoln Battalion, an unpaid and nonprofessional troop of men and women who chose to fight with the International Brigade alongside the Republican Loyalists. In this article, the complexity of internationalism is expressed through Bailey's commitment to support the Spanish democracy, a decision in which he places the international cause of fighting fascism above his nation's choice not to participate. Bailey shares his memories of that period and describes his reasons for choosing the path that led him to Spain.

scholarly journals Anti-Fascism, Anti-Communism, and Memorial Cultures

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Todd Bernhardt
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Comparative Study ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
National Origin ◽  
World War ◽  
International Solidarity ◽  
Global Study ◽  
Origin Myths ◽  
Military Units

The International Brigades were volunteer military units that fought for the Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1938. Some 40,000-45,000 men fought in the International Brigades as an act of anti-Fascism, international solidarity, and national preservation. Although many historians have examined the volunteer soldiers’ motivations, wartime experiences, and reintegration into their home societies on a national basis, there has not yet been a global study of veteran reintegration and memorial culture. This global comparative study demonstrates that a state’s acceptance or rejection of their Brigade veterans was dictated by a global anti-Fascist and anti-Communist divide. In nations that underwent an ideological shift from anti-Fascism to anti-Communism after World War II, the veterans were repressed as potential threats and denied access to state-sponsored memory. In response to this exclusion, the veterans created their own memorial cultures. In nations that retained or renewed their commitment to anti-Fascism, the veterans were welcomed into the pantheon of state heroes as these states incorporated the Brigades into their national origin myths.

Nicola Chiaromonte e la guerra civile spagnola

2012 ◽  
pp. 157-174
Author(s):  
Cesare Panizza
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Life Experience ◽  
Military Coup ◽  
Popular Resistance ◽  
Andre Malraux ◽  
The Military

This essay reconstructs the involvement of Nicola Chiaromonte in the Spanish Civil War. For very short this experience was in fact an episode of great importance for his biography(life experience). Chiaromonte was an anti-fascist which was exiled in France. In August 1936 Chiaromente went to Madrid convinced that the defense of the Spanish republic coincides with the beginning of an international mobilization against Fascism. There he becomes a bomber with the air squadron organized by his friend the writer Andre Malraux. At the end of November he returned to France because he feels exhausted revolutionary hopes that had animated the popular resistance to the military coup, also because of the increasingly important role assumed by the Communist International in the republican camp.

scholarly journals Hildreth Meière: Connections to Spain Before and During the Spanish Civil War

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-94
Author(s):  
Mónica Orduña Prada
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Humanitarian Aid ◽  
Vice President ◽  
The United States ◽  
Humanitarian Assistance ◽  
Art Deco ◽  
American Spanish

The prestigious American Art Deco artist Hildreth Meière provided humanitarian assistance to the victims of the Spanish Civil War and in the Second World War. Acting as the vice-president of the American Spanish Relief Fund created in 1937 and run by P. Francis X. Talbot, S. J. with the goal of helping people affected by the war in the Franco zone, and to also deliver medicine and medical supplies from the United States through diplomatic channels. She visited Spain in 1925, 1938 and 1961. On the first trip she came to see the works of Spanish painters and made contact with important aristocratic families of the time (the Duke of Sotomayor, the Marquises of La Romana and Arcos, the Duchess of Vistahermosa, etc.). In 1938 she started humanitarian aid, collecting money and donations from New York society for orphans of the civil war and acted as a propaganda distributor for the Francoist cause in the United States. On this occasion she met with people familiar with the situation in Spain to solve the problems of humanitarian aid: Luis Bolín, Pablo Merry del Val, Cardenal Gomá, Carmen de Icaza, and Mercedes Sanz Bachiller. Meière actively participated in providing humanitarian aid in the Franco zone during the years of the civil war while also acting as a staunch supporter of the Francoist cause. After the civil war she continued her collaboration to alleviate aid deficiencies in Spain by facilitating the transport of anesthetics, medicines, surgical materials, etc, but her perspective towards Francoism was changing and gradually her ties to Spain weakened. It was only three years before her death in 1961 that she made one last trip to Spain.

scholarly journals Against Anarchy and Hitler: French Nationalism and Spanish Civil War

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 166-182
Author(s):  
V. E. Molodiakov
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
Political Problem ◽  
History Of ◽  
Republican Government ◽  
Charles Maurras

Combination of internal political and social crisis with armed conflict in the neighbour country behind the less dangerous frontier without any possibility of obtaining fastly any real aid from allies is one of the worst possible political scenarios in the time of peace. France faced such a situation in 1936 after her Popular Front’s electoral victory and the beginnig of military mutiny in Spain provoqued by further escalation of internal political struggle. Mutiny developed into civil war that, beeing local geographically, became a global political problem because it troubled many great powers and first of all France. This article depicts and analyzes position and views on Spanish civil war and its antecedents of French nationalist royalist movement «Action française» leaded by Charles Maurras (1868–1952) and her allies in next generations of French nationalists – philosopher and political writer Henri Massis (1886–1970) and novelist Robert Brasillach (1909–1945). All of them from the first day hailed Spanish Nationalist cause and were sure in her final victory so took side against any French help, first of all military, to Spanish Republican government, propagated Franco’s political program, denounced Soviet intervention into Spanish affairs and “Communist threat”. Staying for Catholic and Latin unity French nationalists were anxious to prevent Franco’s rapprochement with Nazi Germany that they regarded as France’s “hereditary emeny” notwithstanding of political regime. Trips of Maurras and Massis to Spain in 1938 and theirs meetings with Franco were aimed to demonstrate this kind of unity with silent but clear anti-German overtone. Brasillach’s “History of War in Spain” (1939) became the first French overview of the events from Nationalist point of view.

scholarly journals Two Conflicting Irish Views of the Spanish Civil War

Oceánide ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 29-35
Author(s):  
Luis Alberto Lázaro Lafuente
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Narrative Strategies ◽  
Irish Catholics ◽  
Heated Debate ◽  
The Media ◽  
Republican Government ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Police Commissioner

The Spanish Civil War sparked a heated debate in the recently created Irish Free State, as the Republic of Ireland was then called. A country that had also gone through an eleven-month civil war after the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 was again divided between those who supported the left-wing democratic Spanish Republican government and those who favoured Franco’s “crusade” against atheists and Marxists. In fact, some Irish volunteers joined the International Brigades to confront Fascism together with the Spanish Republican forces, while other more conservative Irish Catholics were mobilised to fight with Franco’s army against those Reds that the media claimed to be responsible for killing priests and burning churches. Both sections were highly influenced by the news, accounts and interpretations of the Spanish war that emerged at that time. Following Lluís Albert Chillón’s approach to the relations between journalism and literature (1999), this article aims to analyse the war reportages of two Irish writers who describe the Spanish Civil War from the two opposite sides: Peadar O’Donnell (1893–1986), a prominent Irish socialist activist and novelist who wrote Salud! An Irishman in Spain (1937), and Eoin O’Duffy (1892–1944), a soldier, anti-communist activist and police commissioner who raised the Irish Brigade to fight with Franco’s army and wrote The Crusade in Spain (1938). Both contributed to the dissemination of information and ideas about the Spanish conflict with their eyewitness accounts, and both raise interesting questions about the relations between fact, fiction and the truth, using similar narrative strategies and rhetorical devices to portray different versions of the same war.

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