The Soviet cultural offensive in Republican Spain, 1931-1939

If its internationalization was a key feature of the Spanish Civil War, the improbable role of the Soviet Union was long misunderstood. Recent scholarship has resolved many problems, yet little attention has been paid to the cultural-propagandistic landscape of a bilateral relationship forged in the context of a bloody internecine conflict. This chapter explores the Soviet Union’s broadly conceived cultural offensive in the Spanish Civil War, examining the specific problems and transnational potential for the Soviets in disseminating musical propaganda, cinema, poster art and literature. The extent of the Soviet cultural propaganda in Spain had no precedent and would never be surpassed, for it reflected the peculiarly potent collision of the Russian avant-garde with a traditional Iberian vernacular that itself was undergoing rapid transformation. Research will be based on unpublished materials from declassified collections in the Russia and Spain, film archives in both countries, published memoirs and the press.