Family members of former combatants and historians debate on the soviet participation in the Civil War
Palau de les Heures, in Mundet Campus of the University of Barcelona, is holding during May 29 and 30, a series of international conferences on the soviet participation in the Spanish Civil War, entitled “La participació soviètica a la Guerra dʼEspanya 80 anys després” (Soviet participation in the Spanish Civil War, 80 years later”. Children and grandchildren of soviet aviators who came to fight as volunteers to defend the republic will talk about their family experiences. These stories will be combined with sessions given by Spanish and Russian historians. The objective is to get deep in a topic that is “unknown and not explored, still wrapped by stereotypes and myths”, according to the director of the conferences and UB lecturer, David Iñíguez.
Palau de les Heures, in Mundet Campus of the University of Barcelona, is holding during May 29 and 30, a series of international conferences on the soviet participation in the Spanish Civil War, entitled “La participació soviètica a la Guerra dʼEspanya 80 anys després” (Soviet participation in the Spanish Civil War, 80 years later”. Children and grandchildren of soviet aviators who came to fight as volunteers to defend the republic will talk about their family experiences. These stories will be combined with sessions given by Spanish and Russian historians. The objective is to get deep in a topic that is “unknown and not explored, still wrapped by stereotypes and myths”, according to the director of the conferences and UB lecturer, David Iñíguez.
These conferences, organized by the Research Group Teaching and Learning of Heritage, Museum Studies and New Technologies (DIDPATRI) of the UB and the Association of Aviators of the Republic (ADAR), together with other entities, want to show the last projects on the relations between the USSR and the republican Spain in fields such as diplomacy and politics, material and human aid, support and military advice, etc. Russia has a great volume of information on these topics, collected in archives of several institutions. The conferences will count with the participation of academicians from institutions such as the Belgorod University and the Lomonosov Moscow State University, the Institute of Universal History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, and the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History, among others. The objective is to set a meeting between historians from Russian and local universities to exchange knowledge and experiences.
Another aim is to point up the personal stories of the soviet volunteersʼ family members. Therefore, some experiences will be shared, such as Dmitry Tolstosheinʼs, grandson of the aviator Ivan Panfilov, who is working on his grandfatherʼs biography, volunteering aviator in Spain, combatant in the Second World War, and later prisoner and survivor in Mauthausen. The screening of two unpublished documentaries made in Russia will take place during the conferences: El pilot sovietic Eugeniy Antonov en la Guerra Civil dʼEspanya 1937-1938 (Soviet pilot Eugeniy Antonov in the Spanish Civil War 1937-1938) and La Guerra Civil dʼEspanya. La petjada espanyola. (The Spanish Civil War. The Spanish footstep). The conferences, which count with the participation of Pavelló de la República CRAI Library of the UB, will finish with a guided tour in the air-raid shelter in Palau de les Heures, which was residence of the President of Generalitat Lluís Companys during the Civil War.