Spain and Italy
Introduction
In the Spanish and Italian collections at the IISH, the anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist movement of the 19th and 20th centuries are predominant. Over the past 70 years, the anarchist, Spanish, and Italian collections have always been combined in one department at the IISH. This harmonious union started when the Institute was established in 1935. The primary function of the IISH - saving archives and materials under political threat - became acute at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936.
The archives of the powerful Spanish anarcho-syndicalist movement survived Franco and Hitler because they were safeguarded in a depot of the Institute. In the slipstream of these collections, many other archives of anarchist origins came to the Institute after the war. Important postwar acquisitions included the archives of the Spanish exile organizations and the collection on the Comissiones Obreras CCOO in the 1960s and 1970s. The majority of the Spanish collections is directly related to the Civil War and the consequent exile of the Left. A Guide to the Spanish Civil War Collections at the IISH provides a survey of all these materials.
Likewise, the Italian collections at the IISH are primarily anarchist. The papers of the socialist leader Filippo Turati are a notable exception.
The collections may be accessed in various ways. The archives index contains individual archival descriptions and a list of all archives by country: Italy, Spain, or the country of birth of a participant in the Spanish Civil War or organization involved. Books, periodicals, and image and sound materials are retrievable via the library catalogue. In addition, the archives index, library catalogue, and other data collections may be consulted via a single search.
Full text of the description of the collections on Spain and Italy is also available as a pdf-file (105 Kb).