"I have to say no to all sorts of good people ..." Pete Seeger, who will be playing at a Puffin-hosted ALBA benefit event in two weeks (order tickets here, press release here), describes his Sunday routine for the Times' Michael Wilson:
It’s almost a bad joke in...
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Jeff McAleer reviews "Popular Front," a new board game developed by Numbskull set during the Spanish Civil War:
Popular Front recreates this conflict in 90-minute strategy game form, leading players to compete against their ideological counterparts not only for military positioning, but for political victory. Players must be...
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Ángel Gurría Quintana reviews The Wrong Blood, Manuel de Lope's newly translated Spanish Civil War novel, for the Financial Times:
The Wrong Blood ... is set in the Basque country, near the French border, in what one character calls “the most eccentric corner of Spain”. ... The greatest...
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How to "create a new historiography of an event that has been saddled with oblivion, repression, ideological baggage, and, now, personal reminiscence"? Ruth MacKay writes in the latest issues of the History Workshop Journal on the Spanish Civil War as a challenge for historians, covering recent developments and polemics:
today something...
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Marjorie Baumgarten sees the award-winning new film at FantasticFest:
Amid an epic love story, the film also functions as a parable about the Spanish Civil War and the Franco dictatorship, themes that are practically a subgenre of the Spanish cinema. Beginning in 1937, the film opens with a preamble...
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An article and television report by Stephanie Simon for New York 1 (2-min. video can be viewed here):
"We opened up the boxes, you know, didn't know what to expect. And in fact, there were about 165 rolls of nitrate film, which is highly flammable and combustible. But there...
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Iskra1916 reports on the commemoration of Socialist Spanish Civil War volunteers from Belfast:
the Republican Socialist ex-prisoners group, Teach Na Failte and the Lower Castlereagh Community Development Group, in conjunction with the Consensus Programme, met today for a tour of
"Activist judges like Garzón, Andreu, and Pedraz have created a big diplomatic headache for the Zapatero government." An overview of this past two years' developments at Project Censored: Media Democracy in Action:
In October 2009, under great pressure from the United States, the government of Spain decided to limit its own...
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A feature in Fabulous magazine on women war journalists, including Martha Gellhorn:
Described by her biographer as a woman who "smoked, drank and travelled with abandon" and used sex to get the best stories, American Martha Gellhorn had an epic career spanning 60 years. She wrote of the human suffering...
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Marlene Sidaway from the International Brigade Memorial Trust writes with sad news (listen to Sam here):
We are very sorry to have to tell you that our much loved and respected Chairman, SAM LESSER (RUSSELL), has died at the age of 95.
Sam was a founding-member...
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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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