The Democratic Memorial presented this Friday at the National Archive of Catalonia, in Sant Cugat del Vallès, a database with 37,002 antifascist militiamen who fought in the Civil War between 1936 and 1937.
The National Archive of Catalonia, located in Sant Cugat del Vallès, was the venue for the presentation of an unprecedented historical tool: a database that collects the profiles of 37,002 antifascist militiamen from Catalonia who fought during the early months of the Civil War, between 1936 and 1937. The information has been extracted from the well-known Papers of Salamanca and is part of the Democratic Memory Bank.
A census of volunteers with a high degree of politicisation
The historian Gonzalo Berger, leader of the research initiated at the University of Barcelona in 2015, explained that the register includes names, surnames, place of residence, and political or union affiliation of the militiamen. Of them, 95% were men, while women represented the remaining 5%, around 1,500, a figure that Berger describes as “significant” for the time.
The study reveals that 39% of the militiamen received the endorsement of the CNT to go to the front, while 25% sympathised with the PSUC and 10% with ERC. The rest were distributed among other parties and unions. Berger highlighted the “high” degree of politicisation of these volunteers, who went to fight on their own initiative.
The columns and the front of Aragón
The database also details which of the 150 columns formed each militiaman served in and when they joined them. Furthermore, it has recorded the front to which they were assigned, with the Aragón front being the main one, with 72% of the volunteers deployed to that area.
The director of the Democratic Memorial, Jordi Font, emphasised that democratic memory “is also built by making knowledge accessible,” as this preserves the “collective legacy” and strengthens “a critical and documented view” of the past. For her part, the director of the National Archive of Catalonia, Pilar Cuerva, described the census as a “great contribution” that is expected to continue expanding.
Open access for citizens
The documentation is already available for anyone interested through the Democratic Memory Bank. Residents of Sant Cugat and the rest of Catalonia can consult the profiles of these militiamen, learn about their trajectories, and contribute to keeping historical memory alive. The presentation event took place this Friday, coinciding with the 90th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, a reminder of the importance of preserving the past to build a critical and documented future.
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