The UB pays tribute to brigadier Robert H. Merriman with a replica of his monument, which will be installed at UC Berkeley

News | Culture
(28/11/2024)
The bas-relief replica in Corbera d’Ebre dedicated to Robert Hale Merriman, commander of the Lincoln Battalion during the Spanish Civil War, travels this month to the University of California, Berkeley (United States), where it will be installed at the beginning of next year. This action is part of an initiative of the UB’s DIDPATRI research and innovation group, which strengthens the link between historical memory and the university environment.
News | Culture
28/11/2024
The bas-relief replica in Corbera d’Ebre dedicated to Robert Hale Merriman, commander of the Lincoln Battalion during the Spanish Civil War, travels this month to the University of California, Berkeley (United States), where it will be installed at the beginning of next year. This action is part of an initiative of the UB’s DIDPATRI research and innovation group, which strengthens the link between historical memory and the university environment.

The original monument, made by sculptor Mar H Pongiluppi, was unveiled in 2019 in Corbera d’Ebre, where Merriman and other Lincoln Battalion commanders allegedly lost their lives during the Battle of the Ebro. Marcos Mandojana, the US Consul in Barcelona, attended the inauguration. The new replica will be installed at UC Berkeley, where Merriman had studied and worked as a professor before joining the brigades to fight during the Spanish Civil War.

DIDPATRI has funded exclusively this piece and has coordinated the project with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives (ALBA) and the Department of Spanish and Portuguese of UC Berkeley. The latter have adapted a small square in the campus to house the sculpture, with a large rock that will support the bas-relief. The Delegation of the Government of Catalonia in the United States and Canada has facilitated its transport.

​​​​​​​Robert Hale Merriman (1908-1938) is a key figure in the history of international engagement against fascism. He graduated in economics at the UC Berkeley, where he also worked as a professor, and spent two years training in the reserve officers’ training corps. In early 1935, he left to study the Soviet agricultural model, and while he was living in the Soviet Union, the Spanish Civil War broke out. In 1937, Merriman went to Spain, where he trained other volunteers and was elevated to the rank of Chief of Brigade Staff of the 15th International Brigade, which included the Abraham Lincoln Battalion of American volunteers.

The most popular version is that he was taken prisoner in Corbera d’Ebre and shot on 2 April 1938. Many years later, his wife co-wrote, with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Warren Lerude, the book American Commander in Spain: Robert Hale Merriman and the Abraham Lincoln Brigades (1986). Merriman met Ernest Hemingway during the war, and the writer apparently used him as a model for the character of American university professor Robert Jordan in the well-known novel For Whom the Bell Tolls.


 
The UB research group DIDPATRI is promoting this historical memory project to recognize the leader of the Lincoln Battalion and former Berkeley professor, whose sculpture will be located on the Berkeley campus.

​​​​​​​During 2018, an interdisciplinary research team formed by researchers, archaeologists and local scholars and coordinated by DIDPATRI tried to locate the remains of Robert Hale Merriman. The location work was carried out in the area of Corbera d’Ebre, but was ultimately unsuccessful. As a result of the study, which became a unique model of public archaeology and research, the documentary Els darrers dies de Robert Hale Merriman (The Last Days of Robert Hale Merriman) was made.

The University of California, Berkeley, renowned for academic excellence and social commitment, has been a connecting point for the ideals of freedom and justice that Merriman and other brigade members supported. The installation of the replica monument on campus symbolizes not only the recognition of Merriman’s legacy, but also the academic and cultural collaboration between the UB and UCB.

This project, which combines historical memory and research, highlights the role of universities in the preservation and dissemination of a crucial part of contemporary history. Through initiatives such as this one, the UB stands out as a leader in research and as a promoter of projects that connect the past with the present and reinforce universal values such as solidarity and commitment to human rights.
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The bas-relief will be officially unveiled early next year at an event that will bring together academic and cultural representatives to pay tribute to Robert Hale Merriman and the ideals for which the American Brigade members stood.


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