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Viva la quince brigada.
In 2003, after doing my stint as a hospitalero at Rabanal, I was invited to the November workshop of the CSJ at Christ Church in Blackfriars.
Wandering around after lunch I found the other hall was hosting a reunion of survivors of the IB - have never felt so humble in my life.
@mla1 , here are two suggestions: by Maria Duenas, a novel that would ballpark translate as The spiy from Tangiers. Super best seller, not great writting but an entertaining novel that starts and ends in Spain and takes you from just beforw to just after the Civil War. I read it in French, I'm sure kt must have also been translated to English. The other is by Victoria Hislop and the original title is The Return. It starts like a bit of a "chickflick" two Brits go to Spain to taken dancing flamenco lessons blabla, but then one meets a bar owner who starts telling her the history of people in a photo that hans in the wall in the bar. That's when you start getting a sense of how the Civil War affected individuals in their private lives. Or couse it ends back in the present back to the chick flick but the heart of the novel is interesting.Thanks for posting this. On my first camino I wished I had known more about the civil war as we walked by memorial markers and plaques.
I have been looking for good spanish novels - translated - about the civil war to take with me next week on the vdlp. If anyone has any recommendations, I'd love to hear them.
Of course first novel that comes to my mind is For Whom the Bell Tolls.Thanks for posting this. On my first camino I wished I had known more about the civil war as we walked by memorial markers and plaques.
I have been looking for good spanish novels - translated - about the civil war to take with me next week on the vdlp. If anyone has any recommendations, I'd love to hear them.
I didn't post a link to the obituary initially because I thought it was perhaps too politically charged,
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/03/u...r-of-abraham-lincoln-brigade-dies-at-100.html
But when John McCain posted a tribute, I thought that sort of balanced things out.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/25/o...version=Full®ion=Marginalia&pgtype=article
I was in Spain when Aznar conferred Spanish citizenship on all members of the Lincoln Brigade and remember reading very moving reports of the many elderly men who came to collect it.
Buen camino, Laurie
Thank you Laurie,I didn't post a link to the obituary initially because I thought it was perhaps too politically charged,
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/03/u...r-of-abraham-lincoln-brigade-dies-at-100.html
But when John McCain posted a tribute, I thought that sort of balanced things out.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/25/o...version=Full®ion=Marginalia&pgtype=article
I was in Spain when Aznar conferred Spanish citizenship on all members of the Lincoln Brigade and remember reading very moving reports of the many elderly men who came to collect it.
Buen camino, Laurie
Thanks, I also noticed that on a previous thread, it's on my short list.'Ghosts of Spain' by Charles Tremlett is also a very informative and interesting book. I'm reading it at the moment, thanks to a recommendation on another thread.
I find that after two visits to Spain it seems to me that there's a strange reticence here about acknowledging that part of Spanish history. (just reread TaijiPilgrim's post and understand more. So tragic!)
Thanks, I also noticed that on a previous thread, it's on my short list.
As you enter Galicia there is a house that flies the flag of the old Republic. Unfortunately I have not seen it. Meant to look out for it last time but forgot. By the way, did you know that the Republican forces reinvigorated by their success in the Maquis fighting the Nazis, invaded Spain in 1947, one of the attacks going through Roncesvalles. Because of the dictators complete and utter control of the media, very few people in Spain, even to this day have no idea it happened. The last of the guerilla leaders who refused to surrender was tracked down and murdered in the street by civil guards in 1960.In order to pay respect for all men/women that fought in Voluntarios Internacionales de la Libertad (International Brigades) I have walked on my Caminos for past two years with International Brigades flag/patch on my castro cap (see photo attached, taken at Cabo Finisterre after completion of my 2015 Camino combo).
Much to my surprise never had any problems about that even with Catholic priests. On the contrary, I've had many very interesting chats with locals and other Spaniards on the trail on that topic. Even nuns at monastery in Mora smilled when they (just two of them to be exact) saw it and asked me to recommend them to Santiago once in SdC. So I did.
No pasaran!
Thank you, Kanga. I guess.I think we are straying from Laurie's original post which was a homage to sacrifice by those who joined the Lincoln Brigade.
The reluctance to discuss the Civil War, and the events that preceded it, is because it is contentious. It is a simplification to say one side was right, the other wrong. Terrible attrocities were committed by both sides. If your parent, brother, sister, aunt, uncle was executed in cold blood, by one side or the other, you may hold passionate views, to this day.
The forum rule "no political discussion" will be enforced.
Thank you, Laurie. On Carlos Nunez' album called "Discover Carlos Nunez" is a powerful song about the 5th International Brigade. When I volunteered at an English immersion program in Spain, we were told we could speak with our Spanish counterparts about any topic EXCEPT the Civil War. The reason was that it still is so close to the hearts of many Spaniards, who lost family members and whose relatives and friends suffered under the Franco regime. Indeed, one of my English friends somehow got onto the topic and found herself caught between two Spaniards with passionate but opposing points of view.
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