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The Norwegian writer Nordahl Grieg with the Swedish journalist and activist Kasja Rothmann and the Danish poet Sigvard Lund in Madrid's Plaz ...

Centro Documental de la Memoria Histórica

http://pares.mcu.es:80/ParesBusquedas20/catalogo/description/12901107

Identity statement area

Supplied Title:

The Norwegian writer Nordahl Grieg with the Swedish journalist and activist Kasja Rothmann and the Danish poet Sigvard Lund in Madrid's Plaza del Ángel during the sessions of the II International Congress of Writers for the Defence of Culture.

Reference number:

GUILLERMO_ZÚÑIGA,151 [Original reference number]

Date of creation:

Between 1937-07-05 , Madrid (España) - Between 1937-07-08 , Madrid (España)

Level of description:

Unidad Documental Simple_en

Reference code:

ES.37274.CDMH//GUILLERMO_ZÚÑIGA,151

Location in the archive classification scheme

Centro Documental de la Memoria Histórica

3. COLECCIONES

FOTOGRAFÍAS

Colección de fotografías de Guillermo Zúñiga Fully Digitized

Context

Archival History:

Biography / Administrative history:

Pioneer of scientific cinema in Spain and Argentina, as well as founder and first president of the Spanish Association for Scientific Cinema and Image (ASECIC, by its initials in Spanish). Guillermo Zúñiga was born in Cuenca in 1909. In 1932 he graduated in Natural Sciences from the Central University of Madrid. Shortly afterwards, he started teaching at the Ramiro de Maeztu High School. He also participated in the first two "Misiones Pedagógicas" (Pedagogical Missions), Ayllón (Segovia, 1931) and Navalcán (1932). In this town he shot "Boda lagarterana en Navalcán". As a scholarship holder from the Spanish National Natural Science Museum by the Committee for Extension of Studies he filmed "Por Marruecos", about the ethnography and nature of the African country. In 1934 he was appointed director of the scientific cinema section of Captain Iglesias to the Amazon with the ship "Artabro". However, this mission was not conducted after the sinking of the ship in the Spanish Civil War. During this conflict he collaborated in the filming of the republican newscasts "España al día" and "Gráfico de la juventud". Then, he went into exile in France, where he befriended Jean Painlevé, pioneer of scientific cinema.

In 1947 his friends in Argentina, Gori Muñoz, Alejandro Casona, and Rafael Alberti got him an employment contract in San Miguel Film Studios. He collaborated with some of the best Argentine directors such as Lucas Demare or Hugo del Carril. Between 1953 and 1956 he taught film production and cinematography and film as a means of research at the Instituto Argentino de Arte Cinematográfico de Buenos Aires (Argentine Institute of Cinematographic Art of Buenos Aires).

In 1957 he returned to Spain and soon after was appointed managing director of the production company UNINCI. From 1967 to 1972 he was scientific professor at the Escuela Oficial de Cinematografía in Madrid. As of 1964 the production company Zúñiga Films made scientific documentaries that obtained numerous national and international prizes. In 2011 he was awarded the gold medal of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CISIC, by its initials in Spanish).

Name of other related agents:

Centro Documental de la Memoria Histórica (Salamanca, España) - Coleccionista

Reuter, Walter (1906-2005) - Autor

Zúñiga, Guillermo (1909-2005) - Custodio/Gestor

Content and Structure

Scope and Content:

On June 25, 1935 the First International Congress of Writers in Defense of Culture was held in Paris, showing an international commitment in defense of culture. Faced with the advance of fascism, especially with Hitler's entry into the German government, most European intellectuals developed an anti-fascist position and, to a large extent, turned to the left. For some authors such as André Malraux, the strategy deployed by the USSR through the International and certain Soviet agents was a key factor in the development of antifascist groups and activities in the field of European culture.

The International Association of Writers in Defense of Culture was created during this Congress, chaired by an International Committee composed of Henri Barbuse, Romain Rolland, Andre Gide, Heinrich Mann, Thomas Mann, Maksim Gorki, Edward Morgan Forster, Aldous Huxley, Bernard Shaw, Sinclair Lewis, Selma Lagerlöf, and Ramón María del Valle-Inclán, who was unable to attend it, in charge of continuing to galvanize the debate, solidarity, and coordination. Writers assumed the public commitment to fight for peace and repudiation of antifascism.

After the fascist uprising against the Second Republic, Spain was the privileged focus attention of the International Association. Its members collected all the material assistance to the republican cause of which they were capable. Many of its members came to Spain and some of them joined the International Brigades. In this context, the holding of the Second International Congress of Writers in Defense of Culture in Spain was proposed and approved.

The Second Congress took place between 4 and 17 July 1937 in Paris and in three cities in republican Spain (Valencia, Madrid, and Barcelona) during the Spanish Civil War, with the support of the Alliance of Antifascist Intellectuals. The republican governmental initiative arose from the Ministry of Public Instruction and Fine Arts of Spain, performed by the communist Jesús Hernández Tomás, who appointed Emilio Prados from Malaga, Arturo Serrano Plaja from Madrid, and Juan Gil-Albert from Alicante as secretaries.

The Second Congress was inaugurated by the President of the Republican Government, Juan Negrín, on 4 July 1937 in the Meeting Room of Valencia City Council. Sessions were also held in Madrid (on 5-8 July) and in Barcelona (on 11 July). It was closed in Paris on 16 and 17 July 1937. Manuel Aznar Soler, Professor of Contemporary Spanish Literature at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, considered that it was "the most spectacular act of intellectual propaganda implemented by the Ministry of Public Instruction and Fine Arts during the Spanish Civil War". The call was answered by 238 delegates from 38 countries in different political situations and with different personal ideologies. It was not the same to come as a member of the Soviet or Mexican delegations (countries that were actively helping the Spanish Republic), than to do so from countries such as Denmark or Norway that were still "neutral"; nor was it identical to arrive from the United States than from exile, or from the war front as a combatant of the International Brigades (e. g. Ludwing Renn or Gustav Regler), or of the Republican army (e. g. Miguel Hernandez or Gustavo Duran), than to fight fascism only with their quills and writings.

Among the writers who arrived in Republican Spain in order to participate in the Second International Congress of Writers in the Defense of Culture in the summer of 1937 were Norwegians Nordahl Grieg, war correspondent journalist Gerda Greep, and Danish poet and translator Sigvard Lund, who are portrayed by Walter Reuter in Madrid's Plaza del Ángel, in front of the Reina Victoria Hotel and recently arrived from Valencia. They were accompanied by Ludwing Renn and their friends the Cubans Nicolás Guillén, Félix Pita Rodríguez, or the Chinese Se-U.

Nordahl Grieg had already reached the hall of fame in his native Norway thanks to his works. Gerda Grepp, daughter of a journalist and the ex-president of the Norwegian Labour Party, has been considered the first Norwegian woman who has worked as war correspondent. Gerda collaborated with other Norwegian correspondents in Spain, such as Grieg and Nini Gleditsch in the foundation of the Swedish-Norwegian Hospital in Alcoy (Alicante) in 1937, innovative in its time, which emerged in the context of the Spanish Civil War as an initiative of solidarity from both Norway and Sweden. In these two countries committees were created with the purpose of helping Spain and encouraged by progressive social and political organizations that raised funds for humanitarian aid to the people of Spain. The Danish Sigvard Lund was an inseparable companion of the polyglot author of "Spansk sommer" during the Norwegian's first stay in Spain, both in the bombed Valencia and in the besieged Madrid and Barcelona.

The photograph by German anti-fascist photographer Walter Reuter and the three prominent Scandinavian anti-fascist writers could be dated around 6 July 1937, date on which Nordahl Grieg (Norwegian national poet and the main voice of resistance during the Nazi invasion of Norway) gave his speech in the auditorium of the Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid, after the discourse of his friend Nicolás Guillén.

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