The descendants of Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion They have just given a million dollars to the University of York (Toronto) to create a permanent chair of Spanish history.

The benefactors, constituted as a foundation, are the children and grandchildren of members of the Canadian International Brigade who fought against Franc and on the side of the Republic.

The gesture of this foundation went completely unnoticed in Spain, but not in the United States and Canada. In fact, the donation had a big impact among historians, who appealed to government and big business for funds to “teach Spanish history” in North America. Traditionally, the governments of the country of origin and its big companies pay.

This claim has already been transferred to Moncloa in a “urgent” six years ago. The Generalitat of Catalonia took it seriously and teaches history in its own way in the United States. Help was also requested from various multinationals. But there has been little progress since then.

Hence the surprise when historians learn that a foundation of members of the international brigade has volunteered to finance the creation of one of these chairs, which will now train students and new teachers.

Antonio Cazorla-Sanchez, professor at the University of Trent (Canada) brings the details of this episode. A seasoned researcher, he was one of the historians who, mainly in 2017, but still today, rolled up their sleeves to fight the “black legends” and the “cliches” that the Catalan nationalists propagated there in the American press. Because separatism has gone to great lengths to create academic positions from which these ideas are disseminated. And this is the crux of the problem.

Cazorla is part of the Association for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies (ASPHS), whose members have, among other tasks, the teaching of history in a “non-ideologized and impartial” way. However, permanent academic positions to teach Spanish history have declined “rapidly” in recent years.

“Great teachers are retiring and no one is replacing them. Spain is losing power and influence in academia. If we lose this space, others will occupy it and teach our history in their own way,” says Cazorla.

This teacher, at all times, assures that it is not a “propaganda battle”: “Spain, unlike separatism, does not need propaganda, but to tell its reality. We are a great country and a top-notch democracy. for those who need to lie or hide”.

Government and corporate silence

The donation of the members of the international brigade, according to Cazorla, should “make the government and some of the big Spanish companies blush”. In short, to all those organizations that have turned a deaf ear to the claims of these historians.

During process – conceives Cazorla – the work of his separatist counterparts has been “very active”, which has helped to sow a distorted history in certain spheres of influence in the United States, but also in society in general.

Clara Ponsati, councilor of Puigdemont convicted in her time for the crime of sedition, was a professor at the rotating chair of Georgetown, of which she “encouraged the right to decide”. Cazorla also highlights how “Catalan language” readers in Canada wave the estelada and spread among their students this story that shapes the autonomous community as a nation.

Here is a raw fact, without adjectives: in North America, ten years ago, there were twenty professors of Spanish history. “Today there are far fewer,” Cazorla explains. As for France and Germany, they each have more than two hundred expert professors in their country.

In recent years, for example, several such institutions have been opened by Greek and Jewish donors. Contrary to “Spanish inaction” – reveals Cazorla – the Generalitat of Catalonia “has made important donations” to Chicago, Stanford and the City University of York.

And it is not only the absence of new professorships that is worrying, but the retirement – ​​without subsequent replacement – ​​of many current professors. Cazorla ironically challenges readers: “Think of the great Hispanists. Most are retired or deceased.” You have just retired, for example, Adrian Shubert, partner of Cazorla, author of the great biography on Espartero. deceased Hugues Thomas, Richard Herr, Edward Malefakis, Gabriel Jackson…None have been replaced.

Already at the time of Mariano Rajoy, a group of historians with a vision similar to that of Antonio Cazorla turned to the government in search of funding. There were no results. In 2018, this same petition was moved to Irene Lozano, who was in charge of Sánchez at Marca España. There has been no progress either. Until the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion hands them a mirror: a million dollars for a permanent chair.

In proportion to its population, Canada is the country that has contributed the most members to the International brigades, only behind France. They were people, in general, from the working class and the recruitment was done, above all, by the Communist Party.

Cazorla reiterates that the battalion makes the donation without conditions; that is to say, it will in no way influence the way History will be taught in this chair. Moreover, Cazorla, Franco’s biographer and expert on the war years, points out: “Last October, during the battalion’s commemoration ceremony, their descendants, the authors of the donation, played the national anthem, not that of Riego; and they placed the constitutional flag, not the tricolor”.

The donation of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion could serve as a blow to the conscience of the government and of big Spanish business. It is the hope of the majority of Hispanists who fight the black legends that others sow, sometimes “conveniently financed”, in Canada and the United States.