Militiamen or planes dropping bombs. They might nicely be the drawings of the youngsters of Bakhmut or Mariupol, however these are virtually 90 years previous. The Arxiu Històric de Barcelona has introduced the unpublished drawings of a whole lot of girls and boys in the beginning of the Civil War in Barcelona. The exhibition ‘L’Arxiu en guerra. The Casa de l’Ardiaca and the Reading Room for Infants in the course of the Civil War’ is open to the general public till November 4th.
The drawings have rested in field quantity 26, amongst invoices from the historic archive, till a librarian, Maria Meseguer Domènec, opened it. She then found that town’s archival fund, inaugurated in 1917, had opened a pioneer studying room for kids in the course of the first months of the warfare.
The investigation has culminated in one of the emotional exhibitions within the Catalan capital. Descendants of these kids are discovering their creations by visiting the exhibition.
Curiosity opened a field that resisted the warfare
It all began with {a photograph} of some kids, in black and white, on the entrance to the archive: “When I went to work, I puzzled what these kids have been doing right here, that is an archive for historians, journalists and researchers. Not a kids’s library,” recollects Meseguer.
The solely surviving {photograph} of the studying room of the Arxiu de Barcelona ARXIU DE BARCELONA – PÉREZ DE ROZAS
He started to analyze and amongst invoices and supply notes he discovered field quantity 26, marked ‘Children’s Reading Room’: “Inside there have been a thousand drawings made by kids and a list of books that have been separated for them. There have been additionally normal and each day attendance statistics,” he says.
Nearly 500 minors handed by means of the room that was open between September 10, 1936 and February 15, 1937, when the bombardments of the civilian inhabitants started: “The director of the archive, Agustí Duran i Senpere, noticed that summer season that the youngsters have been taking part in very violent video games and determined to create a studying room to maintain them away from the local weather of warfare,” says the librarian.
Several areas have been created within the Catalan capital to alleviate the results of the army coup on July 18 amongst kids. “The most essential was the creation of the Consell de l’Escola Nova Unificada, linked to the CNT. Religious colleges had been suppressed and kids have been about to go to highschool. There have been additionally initiatives linked to the Generalitat or the UGT,” says historian Daniel Venteo, curator of the exhibition.
busy studying room
The room was open from Monday to Saturday within the morning and within the afternoon, till the faculties reopened, and it started to perform solely within the afternoon,” provides Venteo. It had a capability for sixty minors however the capability was typically exceeded: “On the each day attendance sheets, typically there have been extra. In truth, the one surviving {photograph} was crammed with many kids standing with no room to sit down,” he says.
The historian believes that the studying room was additionally attended by kids from different components of Spain, as refugees from Alcalá de Henares: “The arrival in Catalonia of kids from the Republican facet was fixed that summer season,” he says. Some of them died within the 1938 bombardments of the Sant Felip Neri sq. by Italian aviation.
The studying room took benefit of the archive’s kids’s assortment. In these years, the library and the newspaper archive collected every thing that was revealed in Barcelona. They learn classics comparable to Alice in Wonderland and Treasure Island: “The stock contains Maya the Bee however that guide was misplaced, we imagine {that a} little one favored it and took it dwelling,” Meseguer says with amusing. They additionally learn magazines like Tebeo, Pocholo and Pirulí. And geography and animal books.
This quantity of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ was one of many books that customers of salaniusdiario.es learn.
Meseguer was capable of converse with Montserrat Negre, one of many women who used the room: “I spoke in 2020 in the course of the pandemic and I used to be 95 years previous. She was the daughter of the doorman and was the curator and restorer of the archive. She instructed me that the room was run by Aureli Capmany -father of the novelist Maria Aurèlia Capmany- and by volunteers. And when Aureli counted her rondallas, no little one wished to go dwelling,” she explains. Montserrat died earlier than seeing the exhibition.
Militiamen on their solution to the entrance
The little ones left a thousand memento drawings: “The combine of kids’s characters with the warfare is hanging. They put a CNT cap on Popeye. There are drawings of bombings and militiamen, from the Republican facet, as a result of that summer season many males marched to the entrance,” he explains.
Drawings of Popeye with a CNT cap, bombardments and a CNT-FAI ship attributed to Emili Arribasniusdiario.es
“The drawings have been organized in notebooks and envelopes recognized with a discreet title, ‘readers’ works’, which have gone unnoticed for many years,” says Venteo. They have been hidden amongst invoices and budgets from the archive: “We imagine that this administrative denomination was supposed to outlive in the course of the darkish post-war years, since they have been stuffed with communist, anarchist and revolutionary symbology,” he provides.
Drawing of a militiaman, attributed to Pepita Lópezniusdiario.es
Two guests acknowledged their dad and mom within the exhibition
The curators of the exhibition are actually searching for these kids who visited the studying room: “We know it’s troublesome as a result of if anybody remains to be alive, they are going to be over 90 years previous,” Meseguer acknowledges. Those who’ve visited the exhibition have been kin of these kids who gave their names by probability: “A customer acknowledged her mom and her aunt on the record and a person acknowledged her father. They didn’t know that their dad and mom got here right here to learn. We have been all excited,” she recollects.
“The exhibition pays tribute to these kids who suffered the Spanish Civil War and to all the youngsters who are actually affected by it all around the world. After all, right here, in Ukraine and Russia, kids and adults are victims of wars carried out by unscrupulous politicians,” says Venteo. The Arxiu Històric de la Ciutat de Barcelona is now searching for methods to convey its assortment nearer to kids and adolescents in Barcelona as its predecessors did 87 years in the past.
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