President Obama has finally received his long-promised gift. The January 1937 portrait by Catalan photographer Agustí Centelles of a young Afro-Cuban volunteer who had headed for Spain from New York, where he was living as a political exile, has made it to the White House, Catalan Television reports. Centelles' sons, who had originally...
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The English-language edition of El País reports on the publication of a new Atlas of the Civil War in Catalonia, featuring 400 maps with detailed information on the events of 1936-39:
Everything is documented with military precision, down to the road networks, the railroad lines and the cities' street names. Where does all this...
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This month's Socialist WebZine pays tribute to Milt Wolff, the last commander of the Lincoln Battalion:
Mr. Wolff also battled fiercely for civil rights and against the Vietnam War. He even offered the services of the aging veterans of the Lincoln Brigade to the North Vietnamese leader, Ho Chi Minh, who...
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More sad news: we've just learned that Maynard Goldstein passed away earlier this week, joining Matti Mattson and Nate Thornton in the group of veterans we have lost this year. Maynard published a memoir, "Baseball in España," in a recent issue of the Volunteer. He also spoke eloquently at the October 16th "Songs...
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Matti Mattson, veteran of the Spanish Civil War, died while in hospice at JFK Hospital Atlantis, Florida, on January 11, 2011.
Mattson was born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. He completed one year of high school and then studied at the B.F. Brown Junior High School, where he took an elective course in printing. He then worked...
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Arts & Letters Daily just picked up Dan Kaufman's long piece in the Nation on the Spanish Civil War photography (the "Mexican Suitcase") on display at the International Center of Photography. (Earlier coverage here; pdf here.) The show’s stunning, must-have, 2-volume catalog is now for sale at...
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Renowned Lorca scholar Christopher Maurer--editor of the poet's Collected Poems--was doing research in the music division of the Library of Congress when he came across a manuscript of one of the poems of Poet in New York, including a set of previously unknown verses. The Guardian has the goods:
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From the Hollywood Reporter:
Alex de la Iglesia's A Sad Trumpet Ballad took 15 nominations for the Spanish Film Academy's Goya Awards, ... De la Iglesia's film, set against the Spanish Civil War and focusing on two circus clowns in love with the same person.
More here; see also the Volunteer'sToday's selection from the archives of the Village Voice covers an anti-war demonstration in November 1971:
Why are you marching? I ask the only three blacks who had showed up at the assembly point for blacks, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, and Asian-Americans. Why? I ask the head of an eight-man Chinese dragon...
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"Relatives of local veterans of the Spanish Civil War are campaigning for a war memorial in Hull," the BBC reports:
Eight men from Hull volunteered to fight for the Republican forces when the conflict started in 1936. ... The eight men are commemorated by a small plaque in Hull City...
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The Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives (ALBA) is an educational non-profit dedicated to promoting social activism and the defense of human rights. ALBA’s work is inspired by the American volunteers of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade who fought fascism in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). Learn more at our website or
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New information about the New Zealand-born Spanish Civil War surgeon Doug Jolly (1904-1983) has emerged following the recent publication of his biography, Frontline Surgeon.
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On September 24, 1945, Dr. Barsky delivered this speech during the Spanish Refugee Appeal rally at Madison Square Garden.
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In 1944, Barsky wrote A Surgeon Goes to War, an 18-chapter memoir of his time in Spain, which was never published but can be consulted at NYU’s Tamiment Library. This is the first chapter.
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Self-effacing and shy though he was, Dr. Edward Barsky’s experience in Spain made him an outspoken activist, tireless organizer, innovative frontline surgeon, and political prisoner. “Eddie is a saint,” Hemingway wrote. “That’s where we put our saints in this country—in jail.”
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The Volunteer is thrilled to honor Dr. Barsky on the fiftieth anniversary of his death.
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For Edward Barsky, political and humanitarian activism were two sides of the same coin. Those who persecuted him begged to differ.
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The time she spent in civil-war Spain loomed large in the life of Martha Gellhorn, the St. Louis-born war journalist. “The truth is that Martha could not stop thinking, feeling, and writing about her Spanish experiences.” “Objectivity bullshit.” That’s what Martha Gellhorn (1908-1998) called the journalism of her day. Her letters to personalities like...
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Among the thousands of Jewish volunteers who joined the International Brigades were many descendants of the Sephardim. What was it like for them to “return” to Spain? Three case studies: Lini de Vries, César Covo, and Samuel Nahman, aka Manny Harriman.
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How the 22-year-old Jewish American dancer Janet Riesenfeld performed flamenco to help raise money for the Second Republic under fascist attack.
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Why did Jawaharlal Nehru, future prime minister of India, visit civil-war Spain in 1938? As it turned out, the triangular relationship between Britain, Spain, and India had deep cultural and geopolitical implications.
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ALBA's project to provide a complete list of the more than 2,800 individuals who left from U.S. territory to fight with the Spanish Republic
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