An online exhibition remembers the Spanish Civil War Culture Militias

The exhibition shows original information guarded at the UB about Culture Militia, to remember the 80th anniversary of its creation.
The exhibition shows original information guarded at the UB about Culture Militia, to remember the 80th anniversary of its creation.
Culture
(16/01/2017)

This year is the eightieth anniversary of the Culture Militia constitution, created by the Ministry of Public Instruction of the Republic during the Spanish Civil War, to teach soldiers how to read and write. To remember this date, the Historical Archive of the University of Barcelona organized an online exhibition entitled “Les Milícies de la Cultura a la Guerra Civil espanyola” (Culture Militias in the Spanish Civil War”.

The exhibition shows original information guarded at the UB about Culture Militia, to remember the 80th anniversary of its creation.
The exhibition shows original information guarded at the UB about Culture Militia, to remember the 80th anniversary of its creation.
Culture
16/01/2017

This year is the eightieth anniversary of the Culture Militia constitution, created by the Ministry of Public Instruction of the Republic during the Spanish Civil War, to teach soldiers how to read and write. To remember this date, the Historical Archive of the University of Barcelona organized an online exhibition entitled “Les Milícies de la Cultura a la Guerra Civil espanyola” (Culture Militias in the Spanish Civil War”.

The exhibition wants to share how in 1937, thousands of people -mostly teachers, but also workers from different fields, age and origins- were massively mobilized by the literacy campaign for the army, promoted by the Republican Government. “We have to think that most soldiers couldnʼt communicate with their families through letters because they didnʼt know how to read, just like most Spanish people”, says the head of Information and Archive Management of the University, Pepa Sánchez.

The University of Barcelona, which led the Catalan and Balearic University District at that time, has a collection of personal archives which correspond to militiamen and women who participated in the campaign, as well as related information to these militias between the Rector Bosch i Gimpera, the Minister and some professors of the institution. A selection of these documents is now available in this online exhibition.

The exhibition was organized in different sections: the first one puts the Culture Militas within their historical context; the second one allows checking eighty-four original documents -containing pictures- kept in the University fund, as well as the complete list of militiamen and women; and last, the third part includes statistics created out of the data from the documents. “Everything is part of a historical context presided by the will of the republican education authorities to promote culture, a project in which the University of Barcelona, as the highest representative of education in Catalonia, fully participated” concludes.