I primi volontari italiani nella guerra civile spagnola: genesi e nascita della Sezione Italiana della Colonna Ascaso

Abstract

The issue of the volunteers during the Spanish civil war has always been an evocative topic. As related to this, a lot has been written about the International Brigades, yet little attention has been devoted to those volunteers that acted outside the context of the brigades. In this article, I will focus on the experience of the first Italian Antifascists, since their arrival in Barcelona during the summer ’36. Anarchists and activists of the movement Giustizia e Libertà made up the major part of them. They established the first column of soldiers that fought in the Spanish civil war, the so- called Sezione Italiana della Columna Ascaso. The relevance of this formation lays mainly in its early appearance as regards to the International Brigades, organised only some months afterwards. The main promoters of the group were the anarchist Camillo Berneri and the leader of Giustizia e Libertà, Carlo Rosselli. In my lecture, I will dwell upon the delicate negotiations between the Italian antifascists, and between them and the leaders of the Catalan libertarians. These negotiations resulted in the formation of the Italian column.