The historian Francisco Sevillano finds in the Negrín Archives unpublished documentation on the organization of the war propaganda from the republican side which reveals the importance that Negrín attached to him as president of the Council of Ministers.
“From the 37th, Negrin “He assumes direct control of war propaganda through the press office, it’s new, it was not known and I found it here,” says the researcher after visiting the Negrín archives, in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
He is also professor of contemporary history at the University of Alicante and has studied political propaganda during the Spanish Civil War since his beginnings as a researcher with his doctoral thesis.
He first devoted his efforts to the rebel side, then, already immersed in the pulpit project, he decided to broaden his attention to the republican side. He is currently preparing a monograph on this subject.
For this purpose, he searched for information in different archives of the Spanish peninsula, among which he cites the contemporary collection of the National Historical Archives, the Military Archives of Ávila, the Documentary Center of Historical Memory of Salamanca, the archives of Euskadi and those of Catalonia. “This pilgrimage brought me a lot of information but there were significant gaps,” he emphasizes.
The shortcomings that the professor speaks of refer to the Ministry of Propaganda which was created in 1936 – with Carlos Esplá from Alicante at its head – and remained such until 37, when it was extinguished for lack of resources; and especially to the Undersecretariat of Propaganda, which existed under the two Negrín governments.
Based on information found in the Negrín archives, Sevillano also highlights “a very little-known aspect” of the role played by the press office which reported to the president of the government. “Negrín made it a propaganda office under his direct control. With reports every few days, he redirects propaganda, including that of the undersecretariat (which still exists). The press office no longer only disseminates information on the foreign and national press, but it is also a propaganda office which gives slogans, which establishes projects, which gives guidelines for certain celebrations, notably in 38.
The President of the Government is concerned about international public opinion, particularly that of France, Great Britain and the United States, the great powers, because he still hopes to be able to influence it and put it in favor of the republican cause. In the documents consulted in the Negrín Archives, Professor Sevillano found reports on the work in progress, where it is confirmed that foreign propaganda is deficient and that the undersecretariat is ineffective.
Details also on the precarious means from which they suffer. Benigno Rodríguez, Negrín’s personal secretary, says they only have one typewriter. “He says it’s malfunctioning and he brought it from home; We are talking about the head of government, who is in Barcelona at the time.
The Paris Universal Exhibition of 1937, in which the Presidency of the Government participated decisively through the financing of the Spanish pavilion, where, among other contents, the “Guernica”, finished by Picasso, was shown for the first time in the world .to paint in the name of the government itself. Immediately after Paris, a new committee was created to prepare for the 1939 New York World’s Fair with the same goal, but the end of the war also frustrated this hope.
Francisco Sevillano decided to go to Gran Canaria after consulting the catalog of the Negrín Archives that appears on the Juan Negrín Foundation website, which gave him hope that the information he was looking for would be found here. “I came with doubts, I thought: ‘at least I will enjoy the city and the island’, but I have been busy every morning because there is a volume of important information. “I was surprised by the quality and quantity of information, and they told me more could be opened up.”
