A detailed history of the commemorations of US activist involvement
in the Spanish Civil War, based on a combination of archival and
ethnographic evidence. Nostalgia can serve as a vital tool in the
emotional reconstitution and preservation of suppressed histories,
rather than sentimentally privileging the past at the expense of
present concerns and limiting a culture's progressive potential.
Between 1936 and 1938, responding to a military coup in Spain led
by Francisco Franco with the support of both Hitler and Mussolini,
over 2700 US anti-fascists joined 30,000 volunteers from around the
world to form the International Brigade. They came together to
defend the democratically elected Spanish government against this
early manifestation of the fascist Axis. After three bloody years,
Franco's rebellion succeeded, and his dictatorship lasted until his
death in 1975. From the moment the first American volunteers
returned home, and to this day, they have been holding
commemorative events recalling the struggle. For nearly seventy
years, the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade have cited and
re-cited their activist past in theatrically eclectic, highly
emotional commemorative performances, a site for both nostalgia and
progressive politics. Literary recitations, scripted dramatic
pieces, songs, films, photographs, and celebrity appearances have
been juxtaposed with speeches, fundraising, and a rigorous
attention to pressing political and social concerns of the day. The
history and content of these events isdetailed and analyzed here
based on a combination of archival and ethnographic evidence. The
exemplary role of songs from the war, as both nostalgic triggers
and historical artifacts, is also examined. Commemorations of
theSpanish Civil War have provided necessary anchors for a period
in U.S. history when views now thought extreme were an accepted
part of mass political discourse. Through this rich,
inter-generational performance practice, a marginalized, vernacular
political minority has deployed radical nostalgia as a necessary
corrective to an official culture disinterested in America's
leftist past, and threatened by its implications. Peter Glazer is
Associate Professor in the Department of Theater, Dance, and
Performance Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
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