Ernest Hemingway on the lines with a Mosin-Nagant during the Spanish Civil War. Photo by Hemingway’s companion Robert Capa, dated November 5th, 1938. What better way to research a book than to actually join the war you are going to write about?
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Oh Hemingway! I was so saddened after learning that he shot himself. A man of such experience and intellect brings life to a close because the pain was not worth it?
Spanish civil war is such an intriguing topic. No historical study has pulled on my heartsrtings like it. It made me understand what tragedy is really like.
Although Hemingway certainly went to the front lines I don’t believe he was an actual combatant. I realize you have some poetic license in the headline (and as the subject involves “Papa” literary license is surely due!)
Looks like the photo that the rear sight is flipped up, perhaps Papa was having the rifle explained to him by the soldier next to him?
I am a huge Hemingway fan and I have never seen this photo before. Do you mind revealing the source. Excellent photo! Thank you for sharing. We may never know if he was actually engaging the enemy, but knowing papa he was firing and not posing.
Great photo! I’ve been researching the Spanish Civil War for some twelve years now, love Mosin Nagants and I’m also a big Hemingway fan.
Like Matisse Enzer already pointed out, Hemingway didn’t join the war as a combatant. He was there as a journalist (reporting for the American Newspaper Alliance). Some of his writing later on created some friction with American IB veterans.
Anyway, for anybody interested in Robert Capa’s Spanish Civil War photographs, there’s a nice little book called “Heart of Spain” that includes all his work from that period that is now part of the Reina Sofía Museum collection (I was lucky enough to see it in person during one of my research trips to Spain).
Interesting photo, Ian. Thanks for posting it. The work of Ernest Hemingway in Spain during the Civil War, as well as other reporters sent there, was covered in detail by Paul Preston in his “We saw Spain die: foreign correspondents in the Spanish Civil War” (London: Constable, 2009). Incidentally, the photograph by Robert Capa chosen by the publishing house to illustrate the cover was shot in the same day and location as the one above.
Viva La Quinte Brigada!
-Christy Moor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6RMeJqlAFk
LYRICS
Ten years ago I saw the light of morning
A comradeship of heroes was laid
From every corner of the world came sailing
The Fifteenth International Brigade.
They came to stand beside the Spanish people
To try and stem the rising fascist tide
Franco’s allies were the powerful and wealthy
Frank Ryan’s men came from the other side.
Even the olives were bleeding
As the battle for Madrid it thundered on
Truth and love against the force of evil
Brotherhood against the fascist clan.
Chorus:
Viva la Quinta Brigada,
No Pasaran, the pledge that made them fight
Adelante was the cry around the hillside
Let us all remember them tonight.
Bob Hilliard was a Church of Ireland pastor
From Killarney across the Pyrenees he came
From Derry came a brave young Christian Brother
And side by side they fought and died in Spain.
Tommy Woods age seventeen died in Cordoba
With Na Fianna he learned to hold his gun
From Dublin to the Villa del Rio
He fought and died beneath the Spanish sun.
(Chorus)
Many Irishmen heard the call of Franco
Joined Hitler and Mussolini too
Propaganda from the pulpit and newspapers
Helped O’Duffy to enlist his crew.
The call came from Maynooth, “support the Naziss”
The men of cloth had failed yet again
When the Bishops blessed the Blueshirts down in Galway
As they sailed beneath the swastika to Spain.
(Chorus)
This song is a tribute to Frank Ryan
Kit Conway and Dinny Coady too
Peter Daly, Charlie Regan and Hugh Bonar
Though many died I can but name a few.
Danny Boyle, Blaser-Brown and Charlie Donnelly
Liam Tumilson and Jim Straney from the Falls
Jack Nalty, Tommy Patton and Frank Conroy
Jim Foley, Tony Fox and Dick O’Neill.
Capa was not above staging a photo. His famous photo of a Republican soldier being slain turned out to be one of several takes. Either the guy kept dying until he finally croaked photogenically, or there was some funny business going on.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1201116/How-Capas-camera-does-lie-The-photographic-proof-iconic-Falling-Soldier-image-staged.html
There are still Capa fans that defend it with the nonsense that it speaks a “higher truth”
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/04/22/robert_capa_falling_soldier_hotel_florida
On the other hand, Capa went to Omaha Beach on D-Day. There’s little proof that he got out of the LCM he was in, but he managed to get thoroughly shaken (who wouldn’t?) and most of his photos were ruined in the darkroom. Those few photos you’ve seen of soldiers wading ashore into the smoke… those were Capa’s.
Here’s another Capa fanboy on the D-Day photos:
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2014/06/photographer-robert-capa-d-day