Library and Documentation Collections
Of course the IISH library contains dissertations, monographs, and journalistic impressions of the social history of Spain and Italy. In addition to archives, publications of the social movement itself, such as periodicals and leaflets, are available for research on this subject. This material - especially from Spain - is abundant and may be retrieved through various types of searches in the IISH library catalogue.
A unique collection of 19th century Spanish and Catalan anarchist periodicals was gathered by the Montseny family and channeled to the IISH by Max Nettlau, e.g., La Federacion, the (Bakunist) bulletin of the Centro Federal de las Sociedades Obreras in Catalonia (1872), and the issue of La Tramontana (1881) pictured here. This magazine was named after a wind that was to blow away all institutions. The collection of books, brochures, and periodicals relating to the Spanish Civil War is very large. Following the restoration of freedom in Spain after Franco's death in 1975, countless publications about the history of the Spanish workers movement surfaced. The IISH library contains many of these items. The political context of the events surrounding la transición (as the change in 1975 is known) is also documented. Examples include the formation of leftist parties and the movements struggling for autonomy, such as the ETA. The La Novela Ideal/ La Novela Libre collection contains more than 600 novels, most of them written by libertarians. Many publications in this series were written by the prominent anarchist Federica Montseny, who deplores the position of women in Spain.
Unlike the organizational simplicity of the Spanish workers movement, with hubs in Madrid and Barcelona, its Italian counterpart is very complex and has many regional centers. Collecting such non-centralized material is difficult. Nevertheless, our collection of publications is an excellent resource for research and covers all movements and aspects of the workers and agrarian workers movements. The library collection of Ugo Fedeli sheds light on all political currents in the first half of the 20th century.
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