Thanks to the periodical review Humanities and Social Sciences Latvia for their interest and publication of my article within the Volume 24, Issue 1 (Spring-Summer 2016). It is a honor to tribute to the spread of Latvian History.
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Len Crome / BJPsych Bulletin
Mihails Švarcs wearing a captain peaked cap of the Spanish Republican Army / Latvijas Kara Muzejs (an identical copy can also be found in RGASPI)
The role of the Latvian women who participated in the Spanish Civil War is a very important topic for this blog. It provides us a more complete social picture of this phenomenon. Despite most of the Baltic volunteers were men, there were also some tens of women by their side. Nowadays it is possible to put faces to their names. Their stories deserve their own lines.
Between December 1936 and January 1937, Franco’s army launched a second major operation in order to capture Madrid. Unlike the previous offensive, this was an ”enveloping operation”, the idea was to cut the communications between the capital and the Republican northern front in Guadarrama by capturing A Coruña Road (current A-6 road). The operation had three different phases, until January 7, 1937, when the rebel troops finally captured the villages which enclosed the route of this road. In this important battle was killed Jūlijs Jenšs, a Latvian who commanded the Thälmann Battalion. Continue reading
Eduards Upesleja. Spain, 1937 / Latvijas Cīnītāji Spānijā (1966)
Eduards Uspeleja was a 24-years old political activist when he volunteered for Spain. He was born in Liepaja but grew up in Jelgava. There he carried out his most intense political life, very related to the Arts field. When he began, by 1936, the military service, he had already written more than 10 articles on the Latvian left-wing newspapers ”Brivais Jaunatne” (Free Youth) and ”Cīnas” (The Fight). He was assigned to the artillery battalion of the Latvian National Army placed in Kurzeme. From his fragmented memoirs* we can infer that he felt isolated and afraid in the army. However he concluded his military service by fall 1937 and returned to Jelgava. Continue reading
Nowadays it becomes evident that the feat of the International Brigades has been aim of certain degree of mystification, distorting surely their genuine social picture. Of course, it is a difficult task for the historian to make a general outline of the -approximately- 35.000 volunteers from 54 countries (out of the 56 independent and recognized countries within the League of Nations in 1936). But it is possible to point out some general characteristics and features about their socio-political roots: they were men and women from different races, social classes, religious beliefs and political convictions who considered Spain as the first open battlefield again International Fascism.
Group of Polish miners from the mines of northern France. Albacete Bullring, 1936 / Archives of the University of Salford Manchester
Before getting started analyzing the Latvian volunteers, let’s summarize some of their basic features and characteristics:
Isadore Levitt, April 1938 / ALBA Photo number 11-0147. Tamiment Library/ Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives
Isadore Leavitt (commonly known as Jack Cooper since the 30’s) was another Latvian Jewish immigrant in North America who fled with his parents from their hometown, Riga, during the end of the Tsarist rule. Continue reading
Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives / RA Fond 545, Opis 6, Delo 862.
Elias Begelman (1912-1959) was born into a Jewish family in Riga, from where he immigrated with his family and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. By the end of 1936, telling his mother he was going to Chicago for job reasons, Begelman joined the first group of American volunteers that departed from the United States in December 1936. It was composed Continue reading
BRĪVPRĀTĪGIE 