Review article
The Testimonies of Dalmatians in the Spanish Civil War
Blanka Matković
; London, United Kingdom
Abstract
During the Spanish Civil War, the republicans were supported by numerous international brigades consisting of volunteers from 54 countries, among them approximately 1500 volunteers from the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Out of this figure, approximately 150 Dalmatians, mostly from Imotski, Zadar, Šibenik and Split, fought in the war as well. The majority of them arrived to Spain from France and Belgium, where the most of them worked in the mines. The attempt to transfer from the Split surroundings around two hundred Dalmatians, inhabitants of Zagreb and Slovenes at the beginning of 1937 failed. Volunteers from Yugoslavia fought on the Madrid, Aragon, Levanto and Catalonian battlefields. After the retreat from Spain, the majority of the volunteers were captured at the camps St. Cypriene, Argeles, Gurs and Vernet, where around thirty of them are believed to have died due to severe life conditions. Several valuable testimonies of the Dalmatian “Spaniards”, in safekeeping at the State Archives in Split, witness to this fact.
Keywords
volunteers from Dalmatia; Communist party; Spanish Civil War; 1936 – 1939
Hrčak ID:
94494
URI
Publication date:
29.12.2012.
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