A group of activists of the Russian section of the International Workers' Association (IWA-AIT) worked together to organize an exhibit and the presentation of scientific papers to mark the 80th year since the Spanish Revolution. The venue was the Centre of Social and Political History (GPIB, a branch of the State Public Historical Library) in Moscow.
viewing exhibit at the GPIB
The commemorative events began on April 9 2016 with a lecture by historian Vadim Damier, author of a two-volume monograph on international anarcho-syndicalism between the two world wars. Damier described the history of the Spanish anarcho-syndicalist movement and the social revolution which it carried out on the Iberian peninsula. His lecture is available on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QbiPMXAmkE
In April the Centre of Social and Political History was host to an exhibit of books and other materials devoted to various aspects of the Spanish Civil War, under the rubric Spain 1936 – 1939: prologue to World War II, or the last war for idealists (curator – Andrey Fyodorov, an activist of the Russian section of the IWA-AIT). It should be mentioned that the Library's resources include newspapers published by the Spanish anarchist movement during the Civil War, works by well-known theoreticians of anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism, and also research studies devoted to the history of the Spanish Civil War and the history of Spanish anarcho-syndicalism.
On May 21 2016 the Centre hosted a colloquium on the theme The Spanish Civil War: the View from the 21st Century. Papers were presented dealing with sources and historiography (Dmitry Rublev, Konstantin Semenov, Yuriy Fetisov), and also with problems of social memory (Tatyana Lyannaya).
The intention is to publish the papers presented.
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