Španělský komunistický exil za železnou oponou
Spanish Communist Exile behind the Iron Curtain

Summary/Abstract: In her book "Españoles tras el Telón de Acero: El exilio republicano y comunista en la Europa socialista" (Madrid, Marcial Pons Historia 2018), the Spanish historian Matilde Eiroa seeks to draw a vivid image of the political and social trajectory of the Spanish anti-Francoist exile in the countries referred to as people’s democracies after the Second World War. The author builds on a solid knowledge of specific cases and individual countries but in her conclusions she goes beyond the borders of individual states. The book therefore fulfils its synthetic ambitions and represents a fundamental contribution to the study of the Spanish Republican and Communist exile as such, not just its “Eastern segment” (although it is precisely this segment which is chronically under-researched). The monograph can be of crucial importance for the research of related topics and for related disciplines, since for many exiles a stay in the Eastern bloc helped to “cure” their illusions of communism, after which they decided to relocate with their families to other parts of the world. The review is followed by excerpts from the book, selected and translated by the reviewer; they describe the stay of Spanish emigrants in Communist Czechoslovakia, where the leadership of the Communist Party of Spain in exile was based in the first half of the 1950s.

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