Scots and the Spanish Civil War
Scots and the Spanish Civil War

Author: Raeburn Fraser Raeburn

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Published: 2020-09-25

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1474459501

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Few causes before or since have inspired such passion, determination and sacrifice than the Spanish Civil War (1936-9). This book explores the many ways in which Scots responded to the war in Spain, covering the activists and humanitarians who raised funds and awareness at home, as well as the hundreds of Scots who journeyed to Spain to fight as part of the International Brigades. Their stories reflect much larger narratives of the rise of European fascism, the networks and cultures of international communism and the wider modern phenomenon of transnational foreign fighters.Scots and the Spanish Civil War is a groundbreaking study of Scottish involvement in one of the 20th century's most famous and divisive conflicts, drawing on newly-declassified government documents and international archives in Spain and beyond. As well as shedding new light on Scottish politics in the 1930s, Fraser Raeburn argues that this case study - part of the largest wave of foreign war volunteering in the 20th century - can help us understand other such mobilisations, past and present.

Homage to Caledonia
Homage to Caledonia

Author: Daniel Gray

Publisher: Luath Press

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 9781906817169

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The Spanish civil war was a call to arms for 2,300 British volunteers, of which over 500 were from Scotland. The first book of its kind, Homage to Caledonia examines Scotland's role in the conflict, detailing exactly why Scottish involvement was so profound. The book moves chronologically through events and places, firstly surveying the landscape in contemporary Scotland before describing volunteers' journeys to Spain, and then tracing their every involvement from arrival to homecoming (or not). There is also an account of the non-combative role, from fundraising for Spain and medical aid, to political manoeuvrings within the volatile Scottish left. Using a wealth of previously-unpublished letters sent back from the front as well as other archival items, Daniel Gray is able to tell little known stories of courage in conflict, and to call into question accepted versions of events such as the 'murder' of Bob Smillie, or the heroism of 'The Scots Scarlet Pimpernel'. Homage to Caledonia offers a very human take on events in Spain: for every tale of abject distress in a time of war, there is a tale of a Scottish volunteer urinating in his general's boots, knocking back a dram with Errol Flynn or appalling Spanish comrades with his pipe playing. For the first time, read the fascinating story of Caledonia's role in this seminal conflict.

No Pasarán!
No Pasarán!

Author: Pete Ayrton

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2016-09-06

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 1681772701

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From the homefront to the heat of battle, the first truly international Spanish Civil War anthology. Hope, resignation, despair, sadness, humor, confusion, ruthlessness, compassion, kindness, generosity and love inhabit Pete Ayrton's anthology of writings from the Spanish Civil War: there is little sense of triumphalism among the bewilderingly diverse Republican and Nationalist coalitions, all shades of which are represented here. Previous collections privileged the writings of the International Brigades over those of the Spanish, sometimes excluding them altogether. ¡No Pasarán! corrects the balance: by far the largest contingent of its thirty five writers are Spanish, including Luis Buñuel, Manuel Rivas, Javier Cercas, Arturo Barea, Joan Sales, and Chaves Nogales. The other writers offer contrasting perspectives of participants in the conflict from America (among them John Dos Passos, Muriel Rukeyser and Langston Hughes); Italy (Curzio Malaparte and Leonardo Sciascia); France (Jean-Paul Sartre and André Malraux); Germany (Gustav Regler); Russian (Victor Serge), Great Britain (including Arthur Koestler, George Orwell and Laurie Lee), Cuba, Argentina, and Mexico. Acclaimed editor Pete Ayrton brings together hauntingly vivid stories from a bitterly fought war. This is writing of a high order that allows the reader to witness life from the front lines of this momentous conflict.

The Spanish Civil War, the Soviet Union, and Communism
The Spanish Civil War, the Soviet Union, and Communism

Author: Stanley G. Payne

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2008-10-01

Total Pages: 416

ISBN-13: 0300130783

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In this compelling book Stanley G. Payne offers the first comprehensive narrative of Soviet and Communist intervention in the revolution and civil war in Spain. He documents in unprecedented detail Soviet strategies, Comintern activities, and the role of the Communist party in Spain from the early 1930s to the end of the civil war in 1939. Drawing on a very broad range of Soviet and Spanish primary sources, including many only recently available, Payne changes our understanding of Soviet and Communist intentions in Spain, of Stalin’s decision to intervene in the Spanish war, of the widely accepted characterization of the conflict as the struggle of fascism against democracy, and of the claim that Spain’s war constituted the opening round of World War II. The author arrives at a new view of the Spanish Civil War and concludes not only that the Democratic Republic had many undemocratic components but also that the position of the Communist party was by no means counterrevolutionary.

Unlikely Warriors
Unlikely Warriors

Author: Richard Baxell

Publisher: Aurum

Published: 2012-09-06

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 1781310823

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When a Nationalist military uprising was launched in Spain in July 1936, the Spanish Republic’s desperate pleas for assistance from the leaders of Britain and France fell on deaf ears. Appalled at the prospect of another European democracy succumbing to fascism, volunteers from across the Continent and beyond flocked to Spain’s aid, many to join the International Brigades. More than 2,500 of these men and women came from Britain, Ireland and the Commonwealth, and contrary to popular myth theirs was not an army of adventurers, poets and public school idealists. Overwhelmingly they hailed from modest working class backgrounds, leaving behind their livelihoods and their families to fight in a brutal civil war on foreign soil. Some 500 of them never returned home. In this inspiring and moving oral history, Richard Baxell weaves together a diverse array of testimony to tell the remarkable story of the Britons who took up arms against General Franco. Drawing on his own extensive interviews with survivors, research in archives across Britain, Spain and Russia, as well as first-hand accounts by writers both famous and unknown, Unlikely Warriors presents a startling new interpretation of the Spanish Civil War and follows a band of ordinary men and women who made an extraordinary choice.

Positive Stories For Negative Times
Positive Stories For Negative Times

Author: Sabrina Mahfouz

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2021-02-04

Total Pages: 202

ISBN-13: 1350233382

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Five exciting new plays for young people written specifically in response to a world in the midst of a pandemic, accompanied by a handbook from Wonder Fools theatre company with guidance for staging the plays either online or live in the space. Commissioned as part of Wonder Fools' national participatory project Positive Stories for Negative Times, these five plays offer a variety of stories, styles and forms for ages 8-25. These original and innovative plays are: Is This A Fairytale? by Bea Websater A new play that rips apart the traditional fairy tale canon and turns it on its head in a surprising, inventive and unconventional way. Ages 8+ Hold Out Your Hand by Chris Thorpe A dynamic text asking questions about place, where we are now and the moment we are living through. Ages 13+ The Pack by Stef Smith A playful and poetic exploration about getting lost in the loneliness of your living room and trying to find your way home. Ages 13+ Ozymandias by Robbie Gordon and Jack Nurse A contemporary story inspired by Percy Shelley's 19th century poem of the same name, exploring power, oppression and racism through the eyes of young people. Ages 16+ Bad Bored Women of the Rooms by Sabrina Mahfouz A storytelling adventure through the centuries of women and girls who have spent a lot of time stuck in a room. Ages 18+ The accompanying handbook includes step-by-step guidance on how to produce the plays either online or live in the space, and bespoke exercises and instructions on how to approach directing each play.

Scots and Catalans
Scots and Catalans

Author: J. H. Elliott

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2018-08-21

Total Pages: 355

ISBN-13: 0300240716

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A landmark account that reveals the long history behind the current Catalan and Scottish independence movements A distinguished historian of Spain and Europe provides an enlightening account of the development of nationalist and separatist movements in contemporary Catalonia and Scotland. This first sustained comparative study uncovers the similarities and the contrasts between the Scottish and Catalan experiences across a five-hundred-year period, beginning with the royal marriages that brought about union with their more powerful neighbors, England and Castile respectively, and following the story through the centuries from the end of the Middle Ages until today’s dramatic events. J. H. Elliott examines the political, economic, social, cultural, and emotional factors that divide Scots and Catalans from the larger nations to which their fortunes were joined. He offers new insights into the highly topical subject of the character and development of European nationalism, the nature of separatism, and the sense of grievance underlying the secessionist aspirations that led to the Scottish referendum of 2014, the illegal Catalan referendum of October 2017, and the resulting proclamation of an independent Catalan republic.

Memories of Resistance
Memories of Resistance

Author: Shirley Mangini

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 1995-01-01

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 9780300058161

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She discusses the factors that provoked the war and how they affected Spanish women - both the "visible" women who during the turbulent 1920s and 1930s tried to become part of mainstream politics and the "invisible" women who came to the fore during the revolutionary years of the Second Spanish Republic from 1931 to 1936 and became activists in the protest against the military insurrection of 1936.