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"Mother Spain, we love you!" Neonationalism in Anarchist Literature during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939)
| At first sight, the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) seemed to be the perfect occasion to translate into action a longstanding, utopian dream of the Spanish Anarchist Movement: the dream of art and literature as a free, collective practice that would mirror the process of the Social Revolution as much as it would become part in this process itself. Anarchist literature did indeed change with the beginning of the Civil War - but not in the way pre-war anarchist theorists expected. Anti-nationalism, a characteristic feature of the Spanish Anarchist Movement ever since the 19th century, almost totally disappeared from their poems, plays and short novels. Instead, a number of influential, non-professional writers - Antonio Agraz, Gregorio Oliván, Félix Paredes, Alonso Somera...- painted a portrait of Spain that in its glorification of Spanish natuire, history and spirituality at times could barely be distinguished from Francoist wartime literature. This indicates a significant change in the ideological hegemony of Spanish anarchism during the wartime period. The consequences can still be detected in anarchist post-war publications such as Porque perdimos la guerra [Why we lost the war](1940) by Diego Abad de Santillán: A nationalist argumentation was no longer taboo in libertarian circles in Spain. The paper will present the largely unknown neonationalistic literature of anarchist writers during the Spanish Civil War and will try to explain the reasons for their remarcable ideological "shift".
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