Langston Hughes in Spain
Idealism vs realism as a Stalinist hack copes with the Italian bombing of Barcelona but struggles to explain why Moorish peasants are slaughtering Spanish workers in the battle for Madrid.
Tag: Guerra Civil
Politics, the art of confusion
A borrowed verdict on the current public utterances of Spanish officials, and a suggestion that the Catalan national question may be about to be resolved in the same way it was in 1918-23.
¡Viva España!
A drunk-sounding Peacock Band playing accordions, bones, and mouth organs in a pub in Chelsworth, Suffolk the early 1970s.
Fiesta mayor programmes and Zapatero
Party political prejudice, or yet more historical memory bollocks?
Wellington vs Glasgow Rangers’ International Brigadiers, and the origins of “No pasarán” and “No surrender”
Nominations for the noblest British fighter in a Spanish war, and speculative revisions of the history of two idiot idioms.
The green of the louse/Lo verde del piojo
An etymological hop from kite-flying with Juan Marsé back to Concha Piquer’s greatest hit.
Rehabilitation of Hitler’s “traitors”
German and Spanish approaches to rehabilitation of what may or may not have been anti-fascists.
Stanley Payne on Baltasar Garzón
Beware gypsies bearing gods
The Santa Majestat in Caldes de Montbui.