The Service of Libraries at the Front: a cultural epic of the 20th century

The work performed by the Catalan government’s Service of Libraries at the Front during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) is described. It is set in the context of other cultural initiatives undertaken in the 1930s by both the Catalan and Spanish governments. The respective traditions and cultural reality within each of these territories were quite different, making parallelisms difficult. Nevertheless, the circumstances at the time resulted in projects having common objectives. The relation between both governments’ cultural projects during the war was fruitful. Both services dealing with wartime library services became subsidiaries of the cultural outreach of the Republican army. The article discusses development of, and cooperation among, the wartime libraries that expanded throughout the territory of the Republic, with special focus on the libraries organised by the Catalan government. Covered are efforts such as the efforts for rescuing documents early in the war, reading material in hospitals, and the activities carried out by bookmobiles. Testimonies of soldiers that requested books while at the front are included. The convergence of different services and projects at the battle fronts also caused occasional problems.