Workshop Belgian volunteers in the Spanish Civil War
Wednesday 28 May 2025 - 13:30 - 17:30
Amsab-ISH - Ghent, Belgium
Website Brigadistas from Belgium: https://brigades.amsab.be
On Wednesday 28 May, the new online database Brigadistas from Belgium will be presented in Amsab-Institute of Social History in Ghent, Belgium. This website contains biographical data of more than two thousand volunteers who went to the Spanish Civil War between 1936 and 1939. The database was compiled on the basis of unique information from Spanish and Russian collections by researchers Rudi Van Doorslaer and François Van Pelt.
During the workshop, we will look back at the research into the history of the Spanish Civil War in Belgium, with contributions from, among others, the French historian Edouard Sill and documentary maker Sven Tuytens. The afternoon will conclude with a public debate led by moderator Vincent Scheltiens.
In 1975, the year in which dictator Francisco Franco died, Ghent historian Rudi Van Doorslaer was the first Belgian to gain access to the Spanish files of Belgian members of the International Brigades. These documents were kept in the archives of the former secret police in Salamanca. In the following decades, the data was systematically supplemented with information from other archive sources, collected at home and abroad.
In recent years, François Van Pelt, who studied political science at the Université Catholique de Louvain, supplemented this data collection with valuable information from the original files of the International Brigades. These archives were evacuated from the Brigades' base in Albacete to the Soviet Union in 1938 and kept in the State Archives of Moscow.
They have now been digitised and can be consulted online. Van Pelt developed a database that forms the basis of the website Brigadistas from Belgium. For the first time, we now have an almost complete list of the volunteers from Belgium and Luxembourg who participated in the Spanish conflict.
Programme
1:30 pm – Coffee and reception
2:00 pm – Welcome
- Paule Verbruggen, director Amsab-ISG
- Vincent Scheltiens, historian
2:20 pm – Presentation of the database
- Rudi Van Doorslaer, visiting professor Ghent University: The history of the database
- François Van Pelt, political science Catholic University of Louvain: How the data base is being developed
- Donald Weber, Research coordinator Amsab-ISG: Presentation of the website
3:00 pm – Coffee break
3:15 pm – Speakers
- Edouard Sill, researcher Centre d’Histoire Sociale des Mondes Contemporains: The historiography of the Brigades internationales: the current state of affairs
- Sven Tuytens, VRT correspondent Madrid: Spain today: the shadow of the civil war
16:30 – Public debate
- Vincent Scheltiens, moderator
- Widukind De Ridder, researcher CegeSoma
17:30 – Reception
Practical
- Date: Wednesday 28 May 2025 - 13:30 - 17:30
- Location: Amsab-Institute of Social History - Bagattenstraat 174 - 9000 Ghent
- The workshop is free, but registration in advance is required via the registration form. The event has room for 50 people, so be there on time.
- The workshop will be held in Dutch, English and French.
This event is organised by Amsab-Institute of Social History, in consultation with CegeSoma, the Belgian expertise centre for the history of conflicts in the 20th century.