Miguel Ángel Jaramillo
This Section was created with the documentation confiscated from a wide range of organisations and persons supporting the Republican cause, and was organised into “series”, with the greater part of the same being classified by their geographical origin (i.e. PS Madrid), and also by subjects, such as Press and Propaganda, or by ownership of the archives, as in the case of private Documentation.
The photographs that featured in these series did not always receive the same treatment, The majority were gathered to form one huge collection, which in a «link to document gallerymanner of speaking is the “Photograph series”, but certain pre-existing groupings were maintained, being separated or not, depending on the case, from the rest of the documentation that was seized at the same time.
Amongst the latter, noteworthy are a number of small collections that were identified by their origin, although no description was provided of their content. They are the following: that of the Revista de Aeronaútica (Aeronautics Journal), that of Leopold Peril, that of P.C.E. Sector Oeste, Madrid – Spanish Communist Party Western Sector, Madrid, (“Alianza” newspaper), those of the A.U.S., or the plates depicting scenes of children evacuated from Bilbao to France and England.
There are, finally, single or sets of photographs that remain integrated within the documentation of which they formed a part, as applies to those of the Spanish Pavilion at the International Exhibition in Paris, included in PS Madrid, those of the Association of Friends of the Soviet Union, in PS Barcelona, or those that feature in the “Private documentation”.
Political-Social photograph collection
It seems that it was initially no more than a requisitioned collection. This is according to the first reference to the photographs that we have, prior to 1944, whereby there were18 folders with 321 photos of enormous interest, grouped into subjects. Their content was as follows:
– Constitution of the Government of the Republic.
– Members of the Government of the Republic.
– Military uprising in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia.
-About the militia.
– Photographs of the Army of the Popular Front on Land, Sea and Air.
– Spain’s agricultural and industrial wealth.
– Proof of foreign intervention in the Spanish Civil War.
– Effects of the bombings.
– Casualties of the bombings.
– Scenes of despair following the bombings.
– The war at the front.
– Portraits.
– Spain’s rearguard struggle.
– Cultural scenes.
– Spain’s ties with other countries.
– Various.
The description provided of each photograph is limited to the information that generally appears on the back of each one, whose origin, though not exclusively so, probably stems from the seizure of some body or organisation of Republican propaganda, as a portrayal is made of the activities of that side and of the evil deeds of the enemy.
Following the creation, in 1944, of the Delegación Nacional de Servicios Documentales – National Delegation for Documentary Services, this collection was reorganised, with the photographs existing up until then becoming submersed by thousand of new ones, consisting almost entirely of people, which were gradually being added. These included cuttings, engravings or drawings taken from all sorts»link to document gallery of publications, making it clearly apparent as to the main purpose of the entire work of the Organisation, namely information on individual persons.
The origins of the photographs are quite clear, although they are not always easy to determine in each specific case, as some were related to others. Firstly, the ID cards or files of all kinds of organisations, ranging from labour parties to the militias, from which they were detached or cut out, provided the vast quantity of small-sized photo portraits. Secondly, those organisations responsible for propaganda, which provided those that depict the activities or the visits on the Republican side, such as the educational services or visits to the fronts. Thirdly, there are those that seem to have been taken from the premises or printers of all kinds of publications, magazines and newspapers, which had huge amounts of graphic material on file, not only of leading Republican figures, but also of those who were lesser known, whose activities were limited to a more localised area, in which they did indeed appear .
These explanations concerning the origins are confirmed by some fifty photographs that were not included in the collection and on the back of which we are provided with information on both the authors as on the owners or editors. Amongst the former, Díaz Casariego, Alfonso, Sagi, Mayo, Piñeiro, Espiga (Bilbao), P. Luis Torrens (Barcelona), and J. García Benedito (Valencia). Amongst the latter, besides the photos of the “Heraldo de Madrid”, the following stamps may be observed: “Secretaría de Propaganda. Información”, “Prensa Gráfica S.A. Archivo fotográfico”, “Federación Ibérica de Juventudes Libertarias”, “Altavoz del Frente. Sección de Fotografía. Foto Mayo”, “CNT. Oficina de Información. Sección Gráfica Barcelona”, or “Euskadi Roja. Organo del Partido de Euskadi”.
All the photographs were collected in thirty-eight folders, undergoing a prior process that was hardly conducive either to their preservation or to the provision of information, as understood by modern standards. On the one hand, they were cut out and stuck onto folio-size cards and, on the other, though not in all cases, pre-existing collections or series were broken up, concealing the information on the author, date and content that is to be found on the back of many of them. Instead, a caption was added to most of them, listing the corresponding name and, occasionally, the charge.
In physical terms, the photographs lack any form of systematic organisation, although within the general disorder a number homogenous groups do stand out, characterised by their origin, their subject matter or a combination of the two. Here, the same working approach is revealed as for the written documentation in the Political-Social Section where, irrespective of the origin, the important feature was the re-creation of the names that were identified, based on a simple signature.
A differentiation can be made in the groups, between those that refer to individuals and those that refer to events, subjects or some other motif. The following are some of those featuring in the first group:
– Writers and figures from the world of culture (folder 4)
– Militiamen (f. 11, 12 or 21).
– Republican figures (f. 16).
– Individuals registered as “fascists” on police files (f.16)
– Members of the Security Forces, commissioners, deputy commissioners and officers (f.17 and 18).
– Women (f.21).
– Guardias del Patrimonio de la República – Guards of the Heritage of the Republic (f. 23, 27 and 28).
– Portraits and scenes of the children evacuated to the Soviet Union (f.35 and 36).
The vast majority of these people feature in a file containing over 18,000 name-cards, which omits all references other than those corresponding to individuals. Each card is headed by the surnames of those portrayed, and in some cases mention is made of their charge or status, although these are in the minority . The next item of data is the signature, the numbers of the folder, sheet and photograph, subsequently, but not always, indicating whether it is a cutting, a drawing or a photograph, this final detail is of interest in view of the fact that the first ten folders largely hold cuttings from newspapers, magazines, books and pamphlets.
The other group of photographs that may be found in the Collection of the Section consists of those that, for the most part, belonged to the original collection of the Delegación del Estado para Recuperación de Documentos (National Delegation for the Recovery of Documents), which was disorganised, leading to the disappearance of any kind of classification according to subject matter. They are the following:
– Siege of the Alcázar of Toledo (folder 34).
– Bombing of Valencia, Gandía and Sagunto (f. 38).
– International Brigades (f. 2, 5, 6 and 9).
– Republican Cartagena. Events and characters (f. 34).
– Durruti (f.38).
– Eibar . The Revolt of October 1934 (f. 33).
– Army of the Republic (f.7, 8, 30).
– Scenes of the war (f.9, 28, 29, 30, 33, 34, 37 y 38).
– Public meetings and demonstrations (f. 29, 30, 36 and 38).
– Central Committee of the Communist Party (f. 33).
– Surrender of the Cuartel de la Montaña (f. 34).
– Revolt of October 1934 (f. 33).
– USSR. Soviet characters and way of life (f.31 and 32).
– Album belonging to some communist organisation (f. 37).
Only five descriptive cards exist for these last ones, placed at the beginning of the large file of names, referring to Eibar, the Red Army and Russian photographs.
As a complement to this collection, there are the various albums of propaganda created with photographs by the Republican bodies responsible for this matter.
Miguel Ángel Jaramillo is the ex-Director of the General Archive of the Spanish Civil War
