Some Relevant Books

11: Epilogue || Map of 1936 Uprising >>

    For critical bibliographies, see two volumes, both by Graham Shields, in the excellent “World Biographical Series” published by CLIO Press (Oxford and Santa Barbara). They are Vol. 60, Spain (2^nd. Edition, 1994, pp. 451) and Vol.193, Madrid (1996, p. 253). Both include discussions of books, mostly in English, covering the period 1931 to 1939. A detailed bibliography of the authors discussed in this volume would cover hundreds of pages and be of interest only to scholars. They are referred to the online World Catalog. Of the making of books about the Spanish Civil War there is no end, of which this book is one more proof. Here are only a few titles, some selected because they are little known: It should be stressed that the length of the note on each is no indication of their merit, but rather of the unusual way each relates to the theme of this book.

Ben-Ami, Shlomo. The Origins of the Second Republic in Spain. Oxford University Press, 1978, pp. 365.

style="margin-right:4.5pt;text-align:justify;text-indent: .5in;tab-stops:0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in">A volume in the series “Oxford Historical Monographs”, this is a detailed account of the period prior to April 1931, the  municipal elections, and  the first six months of the republic.

Martin Blinkhorn, edit. Spain in Conflict 1931-39: Democracy and its enemies. London: Sage, 1986, pp. 278.

style="margin-right:4.5pt;text-align:justify;text-indent: .5in;tab-stops:0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in">This collection of essays studies three themes: the Republicans and the Left, the Conservatives and the Right, and foreign involvement in the Civil War.

 Brenan, Gerald. The Spanish Labyrinth. Cambridge University Press, 1990, pp 384.

style="margin-right:4.5pt;text-align:justify;text-indent: .5in;tab-stops:0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in">First published in 1943, and subtitled “an account of the social and political background of the Spanish Civil War,” this book has had a profound influence since it was a graphical account by one who lived in Spain and sympathized with the Republicans.

 Brown, Gerald G. A Literary History of Spain: The Twentieth Century. London: Ernest Benn, 1972, pp. 176.

    This is the sixth of eight small volumes in “A Literary History of Spain.” The Introduction, “Spain 1900-39", based largely on Raymond Carr, Spain (1808-1939) (q.v.), gives the political background for the literature. Unwittingly, by its account of the grotesque nature of  modernismo, it supports the thesis of this book, namely that writers generally were a rather silly crowd, quite incapable of leading the republic as they claimed to do. Unwarranted confidence and ill-used freedom produced their crop of literary contributions to the flimsy euphoria of pre-1914 Europe and the lunacies of the Jazz Age.” In comparison, the dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera seems wise and tolerant. The book is divided into four chapters, devoted respectively to the novel, poetry, drama, and literature since the Civil War.

Carr, Raymond. Images of the Spanish Civil War. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1986, pp.192.

    A collection of photographs of the Spanish Civil War published to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the outbreak of it. See the following section on relevant films.

Carr, Raymond. The Civil War in Perspective. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1993, pp. 328.

    This very useful book properly attributes Spain’s problems to class inequality, and he confirms the thesis of this book by attributing the failure of the Republic to factionalism and lack of purpose.

    Cortada, James W.  Historical Dictionary of the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1982,  pp. 1982.

A valuable and well-organized reference work, with more that 800 entries.

Elwood, Sheelagh. The Spanish Civil War. Oxford: Blackwell, 1991, pp. 126.

A clear and useful summary, with no claim to presenting a case for either side.

Crispin, John. Oxford y Cambridge e Madrid. La Residencia de Estudiantes (1910-1936) y su entorno cultural. Santander: La Isla de los Ratones, 1981. Pp. 171.

    Since only 500 copies of this book were printed it is little known. The author, a professor at Vanderbilt University, tells the story of the Residencia from its founding in 1910 up to the Civil War, when the buildings were taken over by first the Republican Government and then, with the blessing of the Franco government, by the Opus Dei, the great enemy of the founders of the Residencia. Since the Franco regime the buildings have been used as a research institute.

   The title of the book was an expression used by Cambridge Hispanist J.B. Trend, a devotee of the Residencia. Don Alberto failed in his attempts to revive the Residencia, but a 1978 decree of the Ministry of Cultura declared the Residencia to be a historical-artistic monument of national interest. This spurred Professor Crispin to write this short history of it, based on documents and interviews with old Residentes. He stresses the fame achieved by writers like Nobel laureate Juan Ramón Jiménez, Federico García Lorca and Emilio Prados, artists like Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel, and scientists like two Nobel laureates, Santiago Ramón y Cajal and Severo Ochoa, as well as Paulino Suárez, Pío del Río Hortega, and Juan Negrín, best known for his political leadership during the Civil War.

    He pays special attention to García Lorca, presumably because his field is literature, but also because of the prestige poets enjoyed in Spain at that time. There are frequent references to the poets’ reading their poems to a group or to another poet, but I never saw that. I suspect that the custom had died out by the time I arrived at the Residencia in 1934. In fact, the only time I heard poems recited was in a train in Andalucia, but I suspect the simple fellow reciting the poems had not written them himself. The book also refers to the theatrical group La Barraca which García Lorca founded and which toured the towns of Spain. I heard about it, but apparently that too had ceased operation when I was in the Residencia.

    Crispin stresses the importance of the quarterly review Residencia, which appeared from 1926 to 1934. That too died as I arrived. I suspect that the political situation was so tense that these cultural activities no longer attracted much attention. Crispin used the magazine for the information it gave about the history of the Residencia. It was never revived, although in 1963 a special issue of the magazine appeared in Mexico, but it was essentially commemorative.

    The book ends with articles from the commemorative issue, the last being by Jiménez Fraud himself. The book, like those of Don Alberto, is entirely apologetic. It is a eulogistic record. The Residencia was dead, and criticism would have been out of place, especially in the presence of its founders. De mortuis nihil nisi bonum.

Fraser, Ronald. Blood of Spain: Oral History of the Spanish Civil War. London: Pimlico, 1994, pp.640.

   First published in 1979, this is a fascinating collection of accounts by over 300 individuals of their experiences and observations in the Civil War.

Garosci, Aldo. Gli intellettuali e la guerra di Spagna. Turin: Einaudi, 1959. Pp. 482.

    This is volume 254 in the series “Saggi”, which deals mostly with history. A Spanish translation appeared in Madrid in 1981. The author is really a high-level journalist, and this volume developed out of some radio talks he gave. It is evidence of his keen interest in the subject and his deep sympathy for the intellectuals, most of whom were exiled by the Civil War. Only a few returned to live their last years in Spain. Its main interest for us is that, as the title indicates, it focuses on the intellectuals, and is virtually unique in this regard. The first of the two parts is devoted to Spanish writers; especially interesting is chapter eight on “historiography and the Spanish enigma”. Spaniards intellectuals have devoted much scholarly effort to analyzing Spanish history to see what went wrong. The second, shorter part, is devoted to foreigners; there is a chapter on Pravda correspondent Mikhail Kolzov, with whom, soon after his arrival in Madrid, I had dinner with at the home of Ernest Grimaud de Caux. He was really a top agent, as many Soviet “correspondents” were. For one written by a non-specialist, this detailed book is noteworthy, even though the author is so sympathetic to the intellectuals that he shows little critical judgment.

Guinard, Paul. L’Espagne (1963, pp. 392). In series “Nous partons pour.”, published by the Presses Universitaires de France, Paris.

   Guinard, an art historian and a friend of mine, wrote books on Spanish painting, El Greco, and above all Zuebarán. For this guide book, he crisscrossed Spain as few have done, visiting out of the way monuments little described elsewhere.

Alberto Jiménez Fraud (1883-1964) y La Residencia de Estudiantes (1910-1936). Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1987. Pp. 60, 12" x 14".

   This is essentially a photo album describing the cultural activities of the Residencia, especially the lectures by distinguished foreigners. The photographs, with captions, are arranged under these headings: Literature and Thought, Theater, Music, Cinema, Art, Architecture, Travel, Archeology, Sciences, Sports. The aim is to give the impression that the Residencia was an island of Western culture and thus played an important role in the cultural history of Spain.

    Two preliminary sections are of special documentary value. The first (pp.13-18) is a year by year chronology from the birth of Don Alberto in 1883 to his death in 1964. Here are some interesting details. He was the third son of his father’s second wife, a French woman named Henriette Fraud born in Lyons (Fraud is not a common French name.). Don Alberto was attached to her, as is evident from a photo of the two. I never met her, but I attended her funeral. Presumably she was ill when I first arrived at the Residencia. It is not stated what happened to the first wife, or if there were any children from the first marriage. There are frequent references to the Malaga group of friends, several of whom went to Madrid and helped found the Residencia, but virtually nothing is said of Don Alberto’s brothers. His wife, Natalia B. Cossío was born in Galicia in 1884. When the Civil War broke out, Alberto and Natalia moved to Cambridge and then to Oxford, where he taught until he was 72. He then became a U.N. translator, working still in Oxford, where in 1960 he published privately “Some words on the 50th anniversary of the Residencia de Estudiantes” (which was founded in 1910). He and Natalia returned to Madrid in 1964 in an attempt to revive the Residencia, but in April he died in Geneva, where he had gone in connection with his work as a U.N. translator. He is buried in Madrid’s civilian cemetery.

Jiménez Fraud, Alberto. Residentes. Semblanzas y recuerdos. Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1989. Pp. 147.

    This small volume, published by Don Alberto’s heirs, has a prologue by Alberto Adell, datelined Copenhagen. Presumably he is an old Residente who left Spain, like Don Alberto, at the outbreak of the Civil War. He explains that he has brought together items which Don Alberto wrote while he was at Oxford in exile, all dealing with the Residencia. .Given any opportunity., Don Alberto would write or talk about the Residencia, always stressing the contribution it had made to Spain’s intellectual life. There is an underlying theme. The Residencia was founded by young Andalusian intellectuals appalled by the poverty of the Andalusian people, which the sumptuous fiestas of Seville, at which the wealthy flaunt their affluence, cannot disguise. They realized that this social injustice was typical of all Spain, so they moved to Madrid and, from the Residencia, carried out a series of cultural missions throughout the country. They formed what in Spain was called a peña, a group of friends who met regularly to discuss anything deemed significant. These groups normally met in cafés, but the Residencia provided a better setting. Don Alberto was effusive in his praise of the members of his group, which critics called a mutual admiration society. However, the articles reveal Don Alberto’s distress at seeing his lifework destroyed and the group now mostly in exile, with all the suffering that implied. The remarkable thing is that Don Alberto does not utter an unkind word about those who wrecked Spain and his work. It was a manifestation of his unusually kind nature. It may have been the silence of contempt. He returned to Spain in the hope of recreating the Residencia, and he may have realized that any criticism would make enemies who could block his efforts.

    There are fourteen essays, published in La Nación of Santiago de Chile, El Nacional of Caracas, Cuadernos Americanos of Mexico and the commemorative issue of Residencia published in Mexico in 1963. They are devoted to one person: General [?] Bruce who led the first serious attempt to conquer Everest; H.G. Wells, who shared the hope of popularizing history and culture; “Lord”[John Maynard] Keynes, a charmer who rated two articles; Paul Valéry, who, when Don Alberto’s lamented the hostility of the Spanish clergy to the Residencia, countered that the Protestant revolution had split the unity of Europe—not exactly a helpful reply; Emilia Pardo Bazán, about the only woman in the group, the only practicing Catholic, and, like Cossío and his daughter Natalia, from Galicia (hence their friendship); García Lorca and other poets; Miguel de Unamuno who died in Salamanca after defying Franco in a historic scene; the philosopher Ortega y Gasset; Antonio Machado who died in exile just as Cambridge University offered him a post; Manuel García Morente who, after years of exile in Argentina, returned to Spain and spent his last days in a monastery near Pontevedra; Count Hermann Keyserling, then well-known for his Travel Diary of a Philosopher; and the cosmopolitan Argentinian Victoria Ocampo There is an appendix of letters to Miguel de Unamuno; Jiménez Frau spelled his name Giménez, as was common in those days. The book ends with a collection of photographs and humorous sketches illustrating the text.

Jiménez Fraud, Alberto. For Historia de la Universidad Española and Visita a Maquiavelo, see Chapter 7, “La Residencia de Estudiantes.”

Jackson, Gabriel. The Spanish Republic and the Civil War, 1931-1939:  Princeton University Press, 1965, pp. 578.

   Jackson has also written A Concise History of the Spanish Civil War. London: Thames and Hudson, 1980. The two books give a concise account of the period.

Low, Robert. La Pasionaria: The Spanish Firebrand. London: Hutchison, 1992, pp. 1992.

    “Firebrand” is a kind word. “Demagogue” would be more accurate description of Dolores Ibarruri (1895-1989), a Communist with the mentality of an ETA terrorist who took refuge in the Soviet Union. She was reviled by the right. I simply regard her as an extreme exemplar  of the mentality which revealed the weakness of the republic.

Macdonald, Nancy. Homage to the Spanish Exiles: Voices from the Spanish Civil War. New York: Human Sciences Press, 1987, pp 358.

    Some half million Republicans sought refuge in France after the fall of the Republic. Nancy  Macdonald founded Spanish Refugee Aid to help the more than 100,000 in need. This is the story of that generous effort.

Martínez Caviro, Balbina. Cerámica Española en el Instituto de Valencia de Don Juan. Madrid: Instituto de Valencia de Don Juan, 1978. Pp. 200, 307 illustrations.

    My account of the Instituto de Valencia de Don Juan in Madrid mentions its Spanish pottery collection, described in this book. It came from the collection of the Condesa de Oñate and also from the excavations at Medina Azzahara, near Cordoba. Regarding these important excavations, see Paul Guinard, pp. 69ff. The collection also has collections of pottery from Talavera de la Reina and of the “gilded” pottery of eastern Spain, especially, Manises.

Payne, Stanley G. Spain’s First Democracy: the Second Republic, 1931-1936. University of Wisconsin Press, 1993, pp. 477.

    Stanley Payne is the American scholar who has contributed most to our understanding of the Spain of the twentieth century.  With careful  documentation he reveals the weakness of the republic which led to its downfall.  His conclusions are similar to those of Burnett Bolloten, and my own observations as given  in this work coincide with his.

Payne, Stanley G.  He is the dean of American historians of modern Spain. Born in 1934, he completed his Ph. D at Columbia University in 1960 and is Hilldale-Jaume Vicens Vives Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.   He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a corresponding member of the Real Academia Espanola de la Historia.

He is a prolific writer. Among his thirteen books are "Politics and the Military in Modern Spain" (1967), "The Spanish Revolution" (1970), "A History of Spain and Portugal" (1973), two vols., "Basque Nationalism" (1975), "Fascism: Comparison and Definition" (1980), "The Franco Regime 1936-1975" (1987),  "Spain's First Democracy: The Second Republic, 1931-1936" (1993), "A History of Fascism 1914-1945" (1996), and "Fascism in Spain 1923-1977" (2000).

The Spanish Civil War (1936-39), viewed as a prelude to World War II, aroused a general interest in Spain which was very much alive when Payne began his research. It is impossible to understand the Spanish Civil War without considering the republic proclaimed in 1931 which led up to it. Unfortunately the intricacies of the Spanish politics of that period had less appeal for the general public that the bloody war itself, which Hemingway's For whom the bell tolls, both in its original novel form and in its movie version, both stimulated and capitalized on.
        For the scholar, Payne's book Spain´s   First democracy: The Second Republic, 1931-16, is indispensable. The title ingeniously suggests that the first republic (1973-4) was not a democracy. Indeed, it was not. It collapsed in chaos after a year, and the monarchy was restored. In a way, the same happened to the Second Republic, which was succeeded after the Franco dictatorship by the monarchy of King Juan Carlos. Many Spaniards said that democracy was a form of government not suited to Spain, which we hope is wrong. What does appear to be correct is that Spain functions much better under a monarchy than under a republic. After 13 (!) chronological chapters on the history of the second republic, the book ends (chapter 14)  with "Why did the Republic Fail?"

Payne's latest book is Fascism in Spain (1999, pp. 601). The University of Wisconsin Press is to be commended for adding this to its list of Payne books at a time when interest in Spain has ebbed. The book is relevant to the present period, when critics of the José María Aznar government brand is as fascist, Franquista, or reactionary. It is none of these. For the period of the Second Republic, Part II, "José antonio Primo de Rivera and Falange Nacional, 1933-1936" is especially relevant. The role of the intellectuals is discussed in chapter 3, "The Fascism of the Intellectuals." Far from suggesting that there was a strong fascist movement among the intellectuals, Payne discusses the degree to which they were not. His book concludes with these words: "Native fascism was extremely weak in Spain, whose political culture and historical development prior to the Civil War had generated fewer fascistogenic qualities than most other European countries."

Pike, David Wingeate.

Preston, Paul. Las tres Españas del 36. Barcelona: Plaza & Janés, 1998. Pp. 472.

    This book has had an extraordinary success. It won the 1998 Así Fue Prize for the best history book, and in one month there were four printings! This is evidence of Spain’s extraordinary interest in the Civil War, which is very much on everyone’s mind as the country strives to strengthen the democracy it had won twenty years earlier. In 1998 there were impressive ceremonies in the Congress building marking the event. The guest of honor was King Juan Carlos who had saved democracy by resisting a group of Civil Guard officers who had invaded the building in an attempt to restore the dictatorship.

    The three Spain’s of which Preston speaks are the republicans, the franquistas, and the nonpartisan. He describes the period through accounts on representatives of the three groups: Francisco Franco, José Millán Astray, José Antonio Primo de Rivera, Salvador de Madariaga, Julián Besteiro, Manuel Azaña, Indalecio Prieto, and Dolores Ibarruri. Each account has a pithy subtitle. Naturally for me, as his disciple, the chapter on Madariaga, subtitled “A Quixote in politics,” has a special interest. Most books about the Spanish Civil War are rather pedestrian affairs, but the bibliographical approach makes for excellent reading, which, combined with solid scholarship, explains the book’s immense success among both specialists and the general public. Preston is the author of many studies on the subject, including Franco: A Biography (1993) and The Coming of the Civil War (second edition, 1994). Preston, a professor at the London School of Economics and well-known as a commentator, shows great skill in interpreting historical documents so well that he seems like an eye-witness. It is a skill few historians posses.

PICASSO. It should be evident that I detest Picasso and his gang, and everything they stood for. John Richardson is writing a four-volume study of  him . What a way to spend one´s life! In addition, he has written about Picasso and Douglas Cooper. This review is by Kenneth Baker (S.F. Chronicle Book Review, 1/22/00).

    Picasso, Provence, and Douglas Cooper By John Richardson Alfred A. Knopf;  318 pages; $26.95

    John Richardson has been widely and justly applauded for the first two books of his planned four-volume biography of Picasso. But Richardson disconcerted admirers when, already in his mid-70s, he announced that he would set aside the biography for a while to write a memoir of his 12-year relationship with Douglas Cooper, once the world's greatest collector of cubist art.

    Fortunately, ``The Sorcerer's Apprentice'' turns out to be anything but tangential to Richardson's Picasso project. It is a wry, richly anecdotal account of the people and circumstances that positioned Richardson, socially and intellectually, to become Picasso's foremost historian.

    Richardson's intimacy with Cooper was clearly formative enough — and Cooper himself formidable enough — to merit a book-length account. Cooper was intelligent, witty, spiteful, tyrannical and sufficiently wealthy and confident to act on his discerning taste for Parisian modernist painting.

    When they met, Richardson was a handsome, rudderless young man, hoping to find a niche for himself as a writer in postwar London. Cooper, 13 years his senior, was a socially connected ``evil queen,'' already renowned for his collection.

    ``I was twenty-five . . . and, in those days, extremely insecure and out to please,'' Richardson writes of his first physical encounter with Cooper. ``Alcohol overcame my initial revulsion. A kiss from me, I fantasized, would transform this toad into a prince, or at least a Rubens Bacchus. However, Douglas turned out to be as rubbery as a Dali biomorph. No wonder he was mad at the world. This realization triggered a rush of compassion, which enabled me to acquit myself on this ominous night.''  It was Richardson who underwent a transformation. Touring the great museums and private collections of Europe with Cooper, living among his Cubist masterpieces and meeting some of the most cultivated and some of the most outrageous people of the day was an education to be had nowhere else.It also doomed their relationship, although Cooper's own temperament probably would have in any case. ``That he was even more corroded with resentment, envy and rage'' at the end of their companionship than at the beginning ``was no cause for pride,'' Richardson writes.

    Crucially, Cooper could not tolerate Richardson's growing acumen. At one point, when they examined photographs together of purported Leger paintings just bought by an American collector they knew, Richardson voiced his certainty that they were fakes. ``There was a terrible silence,'' Richardson writes, ``during which Douglas's pink face turned the color of a summer pudding. `What a little expert we've become.' And then came a shriek like calico ripping — comical but also alarming. `How dare you pontificate to me about Leger!' he yelled. `Those paintings are absolutely authentic.

    Get out, get out . . .' And then he took another look at the photographs, and I realized that he realized I was right and he was wrong. Things would never be the same again.''    Some years earlier, Cooper's purchase of the tumbledown chateau in Provence in which he and Richardson lived for most of their time together had made them country neighbors of Picasso's and Braque's. Proximity and early training as a painter, ``albeit a bad one,'' allowed Richardson to develop his own friendships with these modern masters, again contrary to Cooper's wishes.  Here was the key to Richardson's insider's view of Picasso's work habits and, no less important, of the artist's social style. ``I would watch with fascination as (Picasso) manipulated anyone who seemed susceptible into an emotional response to him and his work,'' Richardson writes. ``He would switch on the magnetism and let his ego feed on whatever critical understanding, starstruck admiration, or devotion could be extracted from those around him. At the end of the day, Picasso would have made off with everyone's energy; it would fuel a night of work in the studio. No wonder we guests would be left in a state of nervous exhaustion.''  Inevitably there are stretches of mere high gossip in Richardson's memoir, but, as in his Picasso project, his language is alive throughout, whether in a key of confession, caricature, tribute or analysis.  Kenneth Baker is The Chronicle's art critic.

Solsten Eric and Sandra W, Meditz, Spain, a country study. Washington, D.C.: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, 1990. Pp. 406.

    This is a volume in the excellent country studies, supported by the Department of the Army. Unfortunately, as an economy measure (!), the department withdrew its subsidy. Unless help is found elsewhere, this means the end of a major series of publications. While this volume summarizes the history of Spain, the stress is on the current situation, so for the period 1931-36 it is not too detailed. There is a good bibliography.

Hugh Thomas. The Spanish Civil War. New York: Harper, 1961. Pp 720. Revised and enlarged edition 1977.

    Hugh Thomas is a scholar who has the knack of writing on big, timely subjects. This volume appeared when the Spanish Civil War was still a subject of general interest and when the publication of eye-witness accounts had provided a good documentary basis for scholarly accounts. Even so, their popular success of this book is hard to explain. It is a detailed, blow-by-blow account of a complex struggle in a country about which most Britishers knew little, a struggle in which most of them did not wish to become involved.

    A civil war is a war, and Hugh Thomas treats politics as background for war. He was originally a military historian, teaching at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He visited all the main battlefields in Spain and studied the details of the battles. At the same time he read extensively in five languages. Maps illustrate the course of the campaigns. Since he was born in 1931, he was only five when the was began and only thirty when he wrote this book. It started him on a career which led him to Reading University, where he became Chair of the Graduate School of European Studies. Since 1976 he has been a visiting professor at several universities, and has been decorated by the Spanish government. The British Conservative government made him a life peer.

   While in his account of the Spanish Civil War he strives to remain neutral, he seems to favor the Republican cause. He describes Lord Plymouth’s Non-Intervention Committee as ineffective, and he attributes the Republic’s defeat to squabbles among its leaders and to the aboulia of Azaña. The book naturally ends on a sad note. Vae Victis!

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11: Epilogue || Map of 1936 Uprising >>