Spain 1936 Year Zero

Marking the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, this volume takes a close look at the initial political moves, military actions, and consequences of the fratricidal conflict, and their impact on both Spaniards and contemporary European powers. The contributors re-examine the crystallization of the political alliances formed in the Republican and the Nationalist zones; the support mobilized by the two warring camps; and the different attitudes and policies adopted by neighbouring and far away countries. 

Situating the Iberian conflict in the larger international context, scholars challenge the multitude of hitherto accepted ideas about the beginnings of the Spanish Civil War. This discussion is aimed at including lesser known by investigating the civil war’s impact on countries such as Argentina, Japan, and Jewish Palestine; and from the lesser heard voices of women, intellectuals, and athletes. Original contributions are devoted to the Popular Olympiad organized in Barcelona in July 1936, and Japanese perceptions of the Spanish conflict in light of the 1931 invasion to Manchuria.

Raanan Rein is the Elías Sourasky Professor of Latin American and Spanish History and Vice President of Tel Aviv University. He is the author and editor of more than thirty books. In 2016 he won the Reimar Lust Research Award (co-sponsored by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation/Fritz Thyssen Foundation).

Contents

The Editors and Contributors
Introduction
Raanan Rein and Joan Maria Thomàs

1. 1936: The Eruption of Revolutionary Antifascism in Spain
Michael Seidman

2. The Pioneers of International Defense of the Republic: The Athletes of Barcelona’s Popular Olympiad
Raanan Rein

3. The Political Evolution of the Nationalist Zone in 1936: The Construction of the Francoist State
Joan Maria Thomàs

4. Spanish Fascists and Nazi Germany, 1931-1940: From Fascination to Intervention
Xosé M. Núñez Seixas

5. Women and the Spanish Civil War: The Radical Months
Inbal Ofer

6. Taking sides: Salazar’s Estado Novo, the Nationalist uprising and the Spanish Civil War
Pedro Aires Oliveira

7. Italy 1936: From Consensus to First Doubts about the Regime
Luciano Casali

8. From Marginalization to Mobilization: The Soviet Union and the Spanish Republic
Daniel Kowalsky

9. An Engagé in 1936 Spain: Commitment and its Discontents in Rafael Alberti’s Philo-Sovietism
Silvina Schammah Gesser and Alexandra Cheveleva Dergacheva

10. Solidarity and Non-intervention: France and the Spanish Civil War
David A. Messenger

11. Chimerical Thoughts? Winston Churchill and Spain
Emilio Sáenz-Francés San Baldomero

12. The Impact of the Spanish Civil War on Imperial Japan, 1936-1940
Haruo Tohmatsu

13. Argentina’s Diplomatic and Naval Asylum Policy in the Spanish Civil War
Leonardo Senkman

14. Spanish Destiny: Renzo Giua and Giustizia e Libertà
Manuela Consonni

Index