Presents from Madrid

Paraskeva Clark (1898–1986) painted Presents from Madrid in 1937. This still life presents a collage of objects that Dr. Norman Bethune had sent her from Spain, including traditional Spanish sheet music, a CNT (The Confederación Nacional del Trabajo) kerchief, an International Brigade cap, and the January 1937 issue of the magazine Nova Iberia. It was Clark’s first politically inspired work, and she would be an active supporter of the Canadian Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy.  Other visual artists, such as Nathan Petroff (1916-2007), Harry Mayerovitch (1910-2004), and Laurence Hyde (1914-1987) created works about the Civil War, and the Spanish conflict contributed significantly to Canadian artists taking a political turn. 

The impact of the Spanish Civil War on Canadian culture went well beyond visual arts; lasted beyond the end of the war; and continues into the 21st century.  

As with visual art, the impact of the Spanish Civil War on Canadian prose and poetry was immediate. Many poets wrote about Spain during the war: Among the first works were Miriam Waddington’s “The Exiles: Spain” and Dorothy Livesay’s "And Still We Dream", both published in 1936.  Those who followed them include many of the most important names in modern English Canadian poetry, including A.M. Klein, Irving Layton, and E.J. Pratt. 

Only two novels appeared before the end of the conflict. Charles Yale Harrison’s satirical Meet Me on the Barricades features an oboist in the New York Symphony with a weak heart who daydreams about fighting in Spain appeared in 1938 and the following year Ted Allan, who reported on the war from Spain, published This Time a Better Earth, which follows unemployed Bob Curtis as he serves in the International Brigades.  

The Spanish Civil War occupied a significant place in Canadian prose fiction in the 1950s. Hugh Garner, who served in the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion, published Cabbagetown (1950) and The Stretcher Bearers (1952).  Mordecai Richler’s first novel, The Acrobats (1954), is set in Franco’s Spain and the Spanish conflict is also central to Hugh MacLennan’s The Watch that Ends the Night (1958). Nostalgia for a Spanish Civil War he didn’t experience is also prominent in Richler’s Joshua Then and Now (1980).  The Civil War has inspired a number of novels published in the 21st century. Most recently, the war and especially the social revolution that shook Catalonia, are the point of departure for Stephen Collis’ experimental 2013 novel, The Red Album. 

The most famous Canadian cultural figure to engage with the Civil War is undoubtedly Leonard Cohen (1934-2016). Both his poetry and music were deeply influenced by Spain: the work of Federico García Lorca, who was murdered shortly after the start of the conflict, and flamenco, which Cohen studied as a teenager. His 1979 song “The Traitor” deals directly with the Spanish Civil War. 

In contrast, French-language poets, writers, and artists have not incorporated this tragic event into their works. Although some writers witnessed the Spanish Civil War, they did not use it in their novels. For instance, Gabrielle Roy was in Southern France and saw Spanish refugees, but she never published about what she witnessed except in her autobiography, La détresse et l’enchantement (Enchantment and Sorrow) in 1984.