Resources

The list below is a very small selection from the vast and ever growing materials on the war. The emphasis is on first person accounts and general history of Canadian involvement.

General Histories of Canadian Participation in the Civil War

There are three important histories of the Civil War written from a Canadian perspective:

Victor Hoar was an academic and produced the most detailed of the three histories, The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion: the Canadian Contingent in the Spanish Civil War (written with the research assistance of Mac Reynolds). In style it is a conventional military and social history, particularly strong on providing clear chronology and sorting out the often confusing events. He also gives more information on what was happening in Canada than Beeching. (Copp Clark Publishing, Toronto, 1969, reissued by Carleton University Press, 1989)

W.C Beeching was volunteer himself and a postwar leader of the Saskatchewan Communist Party. His book, Canadian Volunteers: Spain, 1936-1939, quotes first person accounts to a much greater extent and through them gives a greater sense of the character of the participants themselves. The battle descriptions are well organized and it has a number of maps. It also includes a particularly useful description of the Spanish background in a preface by James Napier McCrorie. Beeching tends to focus exclusively on the experience of the volunteers in Spain with little reference to events in Canada..

Mark Zuehlke’s The Gallant Cause: Canadians in the Spanish Civil War 1936-1939 is the most unusual of the three. Zuehlke is a professional writer who describes his approach as literary non-fiction, “shaping the narrative around the limited point of view of the participants.” His book is compelling reading from the beginning of the narrative with various volunteers thinking through their reasons for travelling to Spain to his harrowing account of the final battles. Its strength, putting us so strongly in the minds and experiences of the participants, does however at times leave the reader without the clear narrative sequence provided by Hoar’s book. (Whitecap Books Ltd., Vancouver/Toronto 1996)

Mark Zuehlke’s book might be the best choice for the reader looking for a single account but all three books are well crafted and all three contribute material of interest.

First Person Accounts

Kardash, William (Lt.): I Fought for Canada in Spain
Kardash was a tank officer. He was seriously wounded at the Ebro, losing a leg. He later became a Winnepeg alderman. New Era Publishers, Toronto [1938]

Alvarez, Manuel , The Tall Soldier
Alvarez was young boy saved by the action of a Canadian Volunteer. His book is a memoir of the war and of his attempt (successful) to find Jimmy Higgins, the man that saved his life. It is a well written and vivid memoir. Virgo Press, Toronto [1980]

Others

Biggar Peck, Mary: Red Moon Over Spain
Canadian Media Reaction to the Spanish Civil War 1936-1939
Steel Rail Publishing, Ottawa, Ontario; [1988] ISBN 0-88791-037-8; PN4908.P43 1988 946.081 C88-090361-9

Editors: Volpe, Nicola & Albari, Maha: Sealed In Struggle: Canadian Poetry & the Spanish Civil War
There were no Canadian Poets who fought in Spain, but many wrote about it and some of the combatants also subsequently wrote poems about their experience. This anthology is an important gathering of their output.
Center for Canadian Studies, Universidad de la Laguna, Canary Islands/Spain; [1995] Anthology/limited non-commercial printing

Allan, Ted & Gordon, Sydney: The Scalpel, The Sword
Biography of Norman Bethune McClelland & Stewart, Toronto [1952]

Thomas, Gordon & Morgan Witts, Max: Guernica: The Crucible for World War II
How Hitler’s Air force Destroyed a Spanish City for Franco in Practice for World War II
Stein and Day, New York [1975], Scarborough House, Chelsa, MI USA [paperback 1991] ISBN 0-8128-8513-9

Poetry

To my Son in Spain, by Aku Paivio. The best known poem dedicated to one of the volunteers. Aku Paivio was a Finnish Canadian poet, writer and journalist. His son Jules traveled to Spain at the age of 18 and distinguished himself in the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion, ending the war as a Captain. Returning to civilian life he became an architect and educator, and was responsible for the erection of two of the monuments to the Battalion in Canada – at the Ontario Legislature and in Ottawa.

I Dreamed in Spain a Beautiful Dream, by Lee Burke, Mac-Pap Veteran.

Red Moon, by Norman Bethune. Bethune is the best known of the Canadians to serve in Spain. A doctor, he traveled there in 1936 to organize mobile transfusion units, an innovation at the time. He served during the siege of Madrid, helped evacuate hundreds of civilians from Almeira as the city was overrun and continued on the front lines throughout the war.

A Nightingale’s Song, by Frank (Slim) Blackman, Mac-Pap Veteran. This poem was written March 1989 about the concentration camp at San Pedro de Cardeña, Spain where he was a prisoner of war.

Speeches

Farewell to the International Brigades in Spain, Dolores Ibarruria. This most famous of Civil War Texts was delivered by Ibarruria, a deputy in the Republican government, known a La Passionaria, to the International Brigade as it was disbanded in 1938.

Honourable Adrienne Clarkson, Governor General of Canada: unveiling of the monument to Canadian participation in the Spanish Civil War, October20, 2000.

Texts On Individual Brigadistas

The Centenary of Pablo de la Torriente Brau by Moe Fishman, veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Battalion. Pablo de la Torriente Brau was a Cuban volunteer who died in the Spanish Civil War.

Links

The Abraham Lincoln Brigade maintains a website that contains, among other things, a complete archive of their journal, The Volunteer, a mine of information and articles on both the Battalion and the war.

Friends and Veterans