Call for Papers: A Foreigners' War, Their Own Memory
The Spanish Civil War was a crucial moment of international mobilization, ideological polarization, and transnational activism in the first half of the twentieth century. On both sides of the front lines stood thousands of foreigners who had left their homes, families, and jobs to fight for a cause that seemingly had nothing to do with them—and yet concerned them more than anything else. Who were they, and what drove them across the border? What were their lives and fates like after the civil war ended? And how do we come to terms with their legacy today?
These are precisely the questions that will be addressed at the international conference “A Foreign War, Our Own Memory: Volunteers of the Spanish Civil War and Their Fates,” jointly organized by the Military History Institute in Prague, the National Museum, and the Institute of Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Sciences. The conference will take place on November 25–26, 2026, in Prague and aims to open an interdisciplinary discussion on one of the most striking phenomena of modern history—transnational volunteering during the ideological conflicts of the 1930s.