Aura of the Cause

Kept secret in Moscow for nearly sixty years, the dramatic, moving photographic record of the volunteer army that battled in the Spanish Civil War is presented in The Aura of the Cause. This photographic catalog tells the story of some forty thousand volunteers who took up arms against Hitler's Condor Legion, Mussolini's Black Shirts, and Franco's fascist cavalry as the International Brigades. American volunteers gathered the documents and photos in the fall and winter of 1938-9 and shipped them to Moscow for safekeeping, fearful of what might happen to them as the fighting worsened in Spain. For decades after World War II, the Soviet Union had indicated the archive was not in Moscow; the photographic treasures were made available, carefully preserved and catalogued, only after the Soviet Union fell. The best of the photographs have been on display in New York City, accompanied by this catalog. The album presents the first full published picture of daily life and death among the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and other Spanish Civil War volunteers.