Editoriales bajo las bombas

Abstract

This article analyzes various publishing initiatives during the Spanish Civil War. Both sides published numerous propagandistic texts, albeit from opposite ideological positions and using different infrastructures. It emphasizes the context and the intensity with which these publications were produced, including the issuance of new stamps, many of poor quality and short-lived; the continuance or re-utilization of existing printing firms; the influence of official organs; and the reprinting of classic editions. Despite material problems and the shortage of paper the presses worked at the same rhythm as artillery and aircraft, as befitted this «total war». Different discourses proved as crucial in the propaganda war as on the battlefield. In the Republican zone the publishing effort continued the cultural work of the Republican reform project and contributed to the expansion of a militant popular culture. However, in the rebel zone publications served to justify the military coup as part of the myth of a «Crusade». Although the contents of all the publications at that time had to bow to the pressing needs of the war, denouncing the atrocities of the other side and calling for the unity of the combatants, through eyewitness literature and epic poetry, good-quality editions appeared, magnificient writers collaborated, and many works exhibited high aesthetic and intellectual quality. Without doubt such activity was much more intense and brilliant on the Republican side, because the main publishers were located in its zone and because most intellectuals supported the legitimate government from the beginning; not to mention the contempt of the rebel side for cultural questions and its own ideological and propaganda aims. In fact, from the beginning they censored all the public libraries, burned books, and forbad publications under a strict censorship designed to erradicate the «dismal habit of thinking».