Loach on Loach

1998 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Social Conscience ◽  
Film And Television ◽  
Ken Loach ◽  
Tv Production

Ken Loach is one of Britain's most distinguished, and respected, film-makers. His career embraces both film and television. His landmark TV production of Cathy Come Home caused such an outcry over the plight of the homeless that Shelter was established in response. His film work is as remarkable as his television work. He makes tough, uncompromising films about a beleaguered working class – but with a poetry (as in Kes) and with a humanity soaked in humour (as in Riff Raff and Raining Stones). His work has been feted, especially on the Continent where Riff Raff received the Felix award (Europe's equivalent of the Oscar). Raining Stones won the Jury Prize at Cannes and the Best British Film of the Year award, and Land and Freedom, his film about the Spanish Civil War, won the International Critics prize at Cannes. Loach on Loach is an exploration of Ken Loach's cinema of social conscience, making much use of interviews and conversations with the man himself.

scholarly journals Frida Stewart in Spain: Administering humanitarian aid during the Spanish Civil War

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 227-240
Author(s):  
Linda Palfreeman ◽  
Jon Arrizabalaga
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Humanitarian Aid ◽  
Military Coup ◽  
Social Conscience ◽  
Women’S Experiences ◽  
Women's Experiences ◽  
International Solidarity ◽  
Republican Government

When a failed military coup provoked civil war in Spain in July 1936, the Spanish government made a worldwide plea for assistance. More than 2500 British men answered the call, taking up arms in defence of the democratically-elected Republican government. While this show of international solidarity has been widely documented, much less attention has been given to the massive response made by British women. Thousands of women organized nationwide campaigns to send aid to Spain. One of these women was Frida Stewart (1910–96), a young musician with a strong social conscience. As is the case with so many other women, Frida’s recollections, her memoir and correspondence, upon which the following essay is closely based, constitute a valuable historical resource for the analysis of women’s experiences during the war and give voice to those whose stories have previously gone unheard.

‘Fae nae hair te grey hair they answered the call’: International Brigade Volunteers from the West Central Belt of Scotland in the Spanish Civil War, 1936–9

2015 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-114
Author(s):  
Fraser Raeburn
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
Political Connections ◽  
The West ◽  
Central Belt ◽  
West Central ◽  
Political Communities

Despite making up over ten per cent of the British volunteers in the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War (1936-9), Scots from Glasgow and the surrounding districts have been overlooked in many accounts of the British involvement in the conflict. In seeking to explain the disproportionate numbers of volunteers from this region, the influence of factors such as economic conditions, political structures and institutions, ideology and community are examined with reference to individuals’ decisions to volunteer in Spain. It is argued that as well as the more severe impact of the inter-war slump in the region, it was Glasgow's distinctive working-class cultures, which placed great importance on grassroots political communities, with an emphasis on social as well as political connections, that led to Communist Party recruitment efforts being especially successful.

scholarly journals Engaños y errores en el Homenaje a Cataluña

2018 ◽  
pp. 97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Preston
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
George Orwell ◽  
Insufficient Information ◽  
Reliable Analysis ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Ken Loach

Resumen: Homenaje a Cataluña, de George Orwell, se incluye habitualmente en la mayor parte de las listas de importantes libros sobre la guerra civil española. Sin embargo, no es sino un vívido testimonio presencial de únicamente dos pequeños fragmentos de la misma. Exhibe una escasa comprensión de la política española o catalana y no presenta un análisis creíble de la más amplia política de la guerra y, en particular, de sus determinantes o condicionantes internacionales. La noción que le subyace es que el aplastamiento de la revolución en Barcelona contribuyó a la derrota final de la República. Pero esta “explicación” obvia la contribución de Franco, Hitler y Mussolini así como la pusilanimidad y los intereses propios de los gobiernos británico, francés y norteamericano. Basada en las opiniones muy sesgadas de los anarquistas y poumistas así como en su ignorancia del contexto de la guerra los análisis y predicciones de Orwell desorientan al lector. El objetivo de este artículo estriba en llevar al ánimo del mismo la idea de que la visión que contiene el libro es con frecuencia errónea porque está fundamentada en una información insuficiente y prejuicios.Palabras clave: Guerra civil española; hechos de mayo, Barcelona, Orwell, POUM, PSUC, PCE, Juan Negrín, trotskistas, anarquistas, partido laborista independiente, estalinismo, Brigadas Internacionales, Madrid, John McNair, Ken Loach, Espionaje.Abstract: Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia is included in most lists of important books on the Spanish Civil War despite being simply a vivid eye-witness account of just two fragments of the war. It demonstrates little understanding of Spanish or Catalan politics and does not present a reliable analysis of the broader politics of the war and particularly of its international determinants. Its underlying notion that the crushing of revolution in Barcelona would contribute to eventual Republican defeat makes it too easy to forget the contribution of Franco, Hitler, Mussolini, and the pusillanimous self-interest of the British, French and American governments. Based on the partisan views of anarchist and POUM comrades as well as ignorance of the wider context, Orwell’s analysis and prediction is misleading. This article aims to raise awareness that the views expressed in his book are often wrong because they are based on insufficient information and prior prejudice.Keywords: Spanish Civil War, May Days, Barcelona, Orwell, POUM, PSUC, PCE, Juan Negrín, Trotskyists, Anarchists, I.L.P, Stalinism, International Brigades, Madrid, John McNair, Ken Loach, Espionage.

The Rise

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deirdre David
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Social Injustice ◽  
Active Member ◽  
Political Novel ◽  
Central Characters

Deeply troubled by social injustice, Pamela became an active member of the Labour Party, writing newsletters and marching in protests against the Spanish Civil War and Franco. In 1935 she met an Australian journalist, Gordon Neil Stewart, whom she married in 1936; her mother, Amy, lived with them after the wedding. Neil and Pamela travelled together in France just before the war (where Neil had lived for a few years after leaving Australia) and she continued to write short stories and novels. Her most memorable fiction in these years is The Monument (1938), a political novel sympathetic to the working class and passionately critical of prejudice, particularly that directed against Jews, and the first novel in her ‘Helena’ trilogy, Too Dear for My Possessing (named for one of the central characters). It is set in Bruges, a city she dearly loved.

Through the prism of Spain. Socio-economic causes of different outcomes of Russian and Spanish civil wars

2017 ◽  
pp. 142-155
Author(s):  
I. Rozinskiy ◽  
N. Rozinskaya
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
World War I ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Statistical Data ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Russian Civil War ◽  
World War ◽  
Common Features ◽  
Economic Well Being

The article examines the socio-economic causes of the outcome of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1936), which, as opposed to the Russian Civil War, resulted in the victory of the “Whites”. Choice of Spain as the object of comparison with Russia is justified not only by similarity of civil wars occurred in the two countries in the XX century, but also by a large number of common features in their history. Based on statistical data on the changes in economic well-being of different strata of Spanish population during several decades before the civil war, the authors formulate the hypothesis according to which the increase of real incomes of Spaniards engaged in agriculture is “responsible” for their conservative political sympathies. As a result, contrary to the situation in Russia, where the peasantry did not support the Whites, in Spain the peasants’ position predetermined the outcome of the confrontation resulting in the victory of the Spanish analogue of the Whites. According to the authors, the possibility of stable increase of Spanish peasants’ incomes was caused by the nation’s non-involvement in World War I and also by more limited, compared to Russia and some other countries, spending on creation of heavy (primarily military-related) industry in Spain.

The Spanish Reception of Le Sacre du Printemps (1913–1936)

2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-66
Author(s):  
Idoia Murga Castro
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Original Work ◽  
Silver Age ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Ballets Russes ◽  
Rite Of Spring ◽  
Le Sacre Du Printemps ◽  
Cultural Expansion

Centenary celebrations are being held between 2016 and 2018 to mark the first consecutive tours of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in Spain. This study analyses the Spanish reception of Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring) (1913), one of its most avant-garde pieces. Although the original work was never performed in Spain as a complete ballet, its influence was felt deeply in the work of certain Spanish choreographers, composers, painters and intellectuals during the so-called Silver Age, the period of modernisation and cultural expansion which extended from the end of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the Spanish Civil War.

Kate O'Brien and Virginia Woolf: Common Ground

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-142
Author(s):  
Aintzane Legarreta Mentxaka
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Virginia Woolf ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Political Alignments ◽  
Literary Influences ◽  
Kate O'brien

Convergences in the work of Kate O'Brien and Virginia Woolf range from literary influences and political alignments, to a shared approach to narrative point of view, structure, or conceptual use of words. Common ground includes existentialist preoccupations and tropes, a pacifism which did not hinder support for the left in the Spanish Civil War, the linking of feminism and decolonization, an affinity with anarchism, the identification of the normativity of fascism, and a determination to represent deviant sexualities and affects. Making evident the importance of the connection, O'Brien conceived and designed The Flower of May (1953), one of her most experimental and misunderstood novels, to paid homage to Woolf's oeuvre.

“The heart above the ruins”: Miriam Waddington’s Poetry, the Spanish Civil War, and Jewish Canadian Literature

1969 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Robins Sharpe
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
World War ◽  
Canadian Literature ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Subject ◽  
War Consequences

The Jewish Canadian writer Miriam Waddington returned repeatedly to the subject of the Spanish Civil War, searching for hope amid the ruins of Spanish democracy. The conflict, a prelude to World War II, inspired an outpouring of literature and volunteerism. My paper argues for Waddington’s unique poetic perspective, in which she represents the Holocaust as the Spanish Civil War’s outgrowth while highlighting the deeply personal repercussions of the war – consequences for women, for the earth, and for community. Waddington’s poetry connects women’s rights to human rights, Canadian peace to European war, and Jewish persecution to Spanish carnage.

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