Dean Swift

The International Brigade(s)

A Brigade section training; note the extreme youth of many of the volunteers / iwm.org.uk

Volunteers from countries foreign to Spain rushed from around the world to aid the republican cause during the Spanish Civil War (1936 – 1938). Contrary to popular literature’s view, the Brigades were not packed full of European and American playwrights, intellectuals and novelists. Most volunteers came from the working classes. Ernest Hemingway came, but as a war correspondent. Stephen Spender and George Orwell came, but were kept as far away from the front as possible, because the propaganda value of their possible capture to the Nationalist forces would have been great. Poets W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood watched from a safe distance, as indeed they did again, this time from California, during the Second World War. (more…)

Coup de Shanghai

/ historyplanet.wordpress.com

In 1927, Jiang Jieshi a.k.a. Chiang Kai-shek (q.v.) tried very hard to eliminate the Chinese Communist Party, which we will call the CCP. This is hard to understand because in his expedition to unite China, he was an ally of the CCP in the United Front. The majority of his conservative supporters were frightened of communist influences in the Nationalist Party, and wanted to get rid of it. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-08-21T18:38:15+00:00 August 21st, 2013|History of China, History of Japan, History of the Far East, World History|0 Comments

Some more eccentricities of pronunciation

Some more eccentricities of pronunciation

Spanish television announcers are lax when it comes to telling the viewers about the films they interminably show. Perhaps they do it on purpose, though I doubt that. This might have something to do with the fact that Spain is the only Spanish-speaking nation in the world where they still dub foreign language films into Castilian. No Latin-American country does this. They use sub-titles. Someone asked a Minister in the Thirties why Spain does this. The reply was appropriate for the Thirties, but not for the Noughties and after: “If we used sub-titles the people won’t understand the film, as few can read”. Can this explanation still stand today, after decades of compulsory education? (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-08-21T16:28:38+00:00 August 21st, 2013|History of the Cinema, Humour, Today|0 Comments

Who was Richard Sorge?

/ russianspectrum.com

He was a German-born spy who served in the trenches during the Great War. Like many others who survived this hell on earth, he admired Communist efforts in Russia to change the world’s ideologies, and joined the Communist Party, for which he worked as an agent for the Comintern in Shanghai. His cover job was as editor at a German news agency. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-08-21T08:56:14+00:00 August 21st, 2013|A History of North America, Asian History, German History, History of Japan, History of the Far East, World History|0 Comments

The sailors rise at Kronstadt!

The Red Army crossing the sea ice on the way to Kronstadt / thecommune.co.uk

Russian sailors at Petrograd (which had been St. Petersburg) were among the first of their countrymen to become revolutionaries, when they set up their own soviet in 1905. They played an important part in the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-08-20T10:16:54+00:00 August 20th, 2013|Russian history, World History|0 Comments

Alfred von Tirpitz

/ globalsecurity.org

German admiral, Secretary of State for the Navy, philosopher, organiser and devoted enemy of Britain, Alfred was born in 1849 and lived to the age of eighty. All his adult life he was a supporter of Weltpolitik, which depended on the acquisition of colonies, and the construction of a navy big enough and strong enough to protect them. Disliking the size of the British Navy, he proposed huge fleets precisely to prevent Britain from blocking Germany’s entry into world markets. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-08-19T09:26:44+00:00 August 19th, 2013|British History, French History, German History, Russian history, World History|0 Comments

Pope Pius the Twelfth

/ acatholiclife.blogspot.com

Eugenio Pacelli was born in 1876, and was elected Pope in 1939. He came from a familyprominent for its loyal service to the Vatican. He was ordained priest in 1899 at twenty-three. By 1901 he was already entrenched in the Vatican administration. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-08-18T11:59:51+00:00 August 18th, 2013|Church history, German History, History of Rome, Italian History, Jewish History, Philosophy, South American History, Spanish History, World History|0 Comments

Who were the ‘Recusants’?

A genuine Priest’s Hole / friendswithinchrist.blogspot.com

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By Dean Swift| 2013-08-16T17:02:19+00:00 August 16th, 2013|British History, Church history, French History, German History, Today, World History|0 Comments

Protestant

Martin Luther / evangelicancalvinist.blogspot.com

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By Dean Swift| 2013-08-16T11:11:13+00:00 August 16th, 2013|British History, Church history, English History, German History, History of Rome, Philosophy, Scottish history, Today, World History|0 Comments

French ‘salons’ in the 17th century

Madame de Rambouillet / en.wikipedia.org

Aristocratic French ladies presided over salons invariably held in their extensive drawing rooms in the capital or at Versailles. Though all these ladies shared homes(with their husbands and children) in the countryside, they would never have dreamed of conjuring up such fashionable centres of cultured discourse in the rustic torpor of those dreamy chateaux. It was Paris, or Fontainebleau or Versailles for them. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-08-14T09:11:57+00:00 August 14th, 2013|French History|1 Comment

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