Current Search: Spain--History--Civil War, 1936-1939--Refugees--Great Britain--Personal narratives. (x)
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Title
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Writing to Exist: Transformation and Translation into Exile.
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Creator
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Martin, Angela F., Erro-Peralta, Nora, Florida Atlantic University, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of Languages, Linguistics and Comparative Literature
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Abstract/Description
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Silenced for almost half a century, testimonies of those who lost the Spanish Civil War are now surfacing and being published. The origin of this dissertation was the chance discovery that Martín Herrera de Mendoza, a Spanish Civil War exile living in the United States, was truly a Catalonian anarchist named Antonio Vidal Arabí. This double identity was a cover for the political activist dedicated to the fight for change in the anarchist workers’ union CNT (National Confederation of Workers)...
Show moreSilenced for almost half a century, testimonies of those who lost the Spanish Civil War are now surfacing and being published. The origin of this dissertation was the chance discovery that Martín Herrera de Mendoza, a Spanish Civil War exile living in the United States, was truly a Catalonian anarchist named Antonio Vidal Arabí. This double identity was a cover for the political activist dedicated to the fight for change in the anarchist workers’ union CNT (National Confederation of Workers) and the FAI (Federation of Iberian Anarchists). He founded the FAI chapter in Santa Cruz de Tenerife and planned a failed assassination attempt on General Franco’s life in an effort to avoid the military takeover in 1936. This dissertation is the reconstruction of Antonio Vidal Arabí’s life narrative. It is based on the texts written during his seventeen-month stay as a refugee in Great Britain. Copies of his writings were left in a suitcase with a fellow anarchist who he instructed to have sent to his family upon his death. In 1989, “The English Suitcase” was delivered to his children in Barcelona. Based on his own account, this study follows his service as an intelligence agent for the Spanish Republic during the War. When it was over, he attempted to evacuate his family from France, to save them from the threat of the Nazi invasion and reunite with them in England or America. The analysis of the letters he wrote to his wife and children in France documents how he hid from Franco’s spies using his dual identity. In his letters, always signed as Martín Herrera de Mendoza, he invents a persona in order to help his family. The present study narrates his transformation into the persona he created and the events that brought about his translation into his “other.” Antonio Vidal Arabí’s bilinguism and biculturality is underlined as the main factors in his change into Martín Herrera de Mendoza. His was a voyage into exile documented by his own words; a story of survival and reinvention.
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Date Issued
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2017
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PURL
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http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004803, http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004803
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Subject Headings
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Herrera de Mendoza, Martín--Correspondence., Spain.--Ejército Popular de la República., Spain--History--República, 1931-1939., Spain--History--Civil War, 1936-1939--Personal narratives., Spain--History--Civil War, 1936-1939--Refugees--Great Britain--Personal narratives., Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Canary Islands : Province)--Personal narraatives., Anarchists--Spain--History--20th century., Exiles' writings, Spanish--20th century.
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Format
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Document (PDF)
