The Spanish Civil War started in 1936 when pro-fascist Nationalists under the leadership of Francisco Franco, encouraged by the Roman Catholic Church and the country's landed aristocracy, staged an armed rebellion against Spain's democratically elected but emphatically Socialist-leaning coalition government. Why was the Civil War in Spain relevant for what happened afterwards in Europe? In your narrative historical book, you describe how the first internal conflict of Spanish Republican troops struggling against the fascist dictator Francisco Franco takes on a bigger focus.
Amanda Vaill Image: Xanthe ElbrickĬompared to World War I and II, knowledge of the Spanish Civil War (July 17, 1936-April 1, 1939) is not particularly widespread. To provide the Spanish viewpoint, without which I couldn't have written the book, I included Arturo Barea, whose career as a writer began as a result of his dangerous and courageous work in the war.Īnd to counterbalance these men - because the Spanish Civil War was also the first conflict in which women served in the military and as combat journalists - I wrote about the three women involved with them, each of whom did work that was just as outstanding: Martha Gellhorn, Gerda Taro, and Ilsa Kulcsar.įinally, I took as an inspiration something Hemingway said: "It is very dangerous to write the truth in war." Each of these men and women was trying, after his or her fashion, to tell the truth about something very complicated, and the ways in which each succeeded, in their work and in their lives, was a story I wanted to write. To bring the conflict and its coverage to life I chose to write about two of the most celebrated artists involved in it: Ernest Hemingway - whose most successful book, "For Whom the Bell Tolls," was based on his war experience - and Robert Capa, whose reputation was established by the extraordinary photographs he took during it. It was the first major conflict to be covered on the spot, at the front lines, by journalists and photographers.Īs an ideological conflict between the right and the left, it attracted not just run-of-the-mill war correspondents but a number of the most important writers and cultural figures of its day, all of them determined to cover what one of them, the journalist Claud Cockburn, called "the decisive thing of this century." Why did you choose these perspectives when writing about the Spanish Civil War?Īmanda Vaill: I've long been attracted to the ways in which culture changed over the course of the 20th century, and the Spanish Civil War seemed to offer an especially dramatic look at that. DW: In your nonfiction book "Hotel Florida: Truth, Love, and Death in the Spanish Civil War" you write about three couples that participated in the war, which began 80 years ago on July 17, 1936: The writers Ernest Hemingway (pictured, center) and Martha Gellhorn are the most famous ones, followed by photographers Robert Capa and Gerda Taro.