Spanish Republican exiles and the dissemination of the Golden Age drama

The Instituto Cervantes Leeds, in collaboration with the University of Leeds is pleased to present a new conversation within the Hipanglia series. On this occasion, Professor Duncan Wheeler will engage in a dialogue with a postdoctoral researcher Alba Fajardo on the topic "Spanish Republican exiles and the dissemination of the Golden Age drama in the UK".

Fleeing death and repression, almost half a million Spanish Republicans left their homeland at the end of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). Some of this forced migration found asylum in the UK, yet this remains a little-known chapter of 20th century history. In this talk, we will reflect on the cultural imprint that these exiles left on the country that hosted them. In particular, we will discuss the role they played in promoting and bringing to the stage of the Golden Age drama, the Spanish equivalent of Elizabethan theatre. As will be seen, this work of disseminating classical Spanish plays was carried out through different channels, including the university theatre and the Spanish Theatre Group, formed by children evacuated because of the Civil War.

Alba Carmona studies the contemporary reception of Spanish Golden Age drama through film, theatre, television and social networks. She is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Leeds, where she is developing the Marie Sklodowska-Curie project EXODUS. Mapping a lost tradition: Golden Age drama in Spanish Republican exile (1939-1975). She is also Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham. She has previously worked at the University of Bergen (Norway) and the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona (Spain). She is the author of the monograph Las reescrituras fílmicas de la comedia nueva: un siglo en la gran pantalla (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2020). She has also curated the exhibitions Unos clásicos...de cine! El teatro del Siglo de Oro en el lienzo de plata (1914-1975) and los clásicos en las pantallas (1975-2022) at the Casa Museo Lope de Vega (Madrid, Spain).