Poesía, pasión y propaganda. El activismo político de los intelectuales ecuatorianos durante la guerra civil española

Abstract

During the turbulent 1930s, Ecuadorian intellectuals saw in the Spanish Civil War a conflict which seemed to be a mirror for the worries and hopes of their own country. The article sketches a brief context of the political situation under the governments of Federico Páez and Alberto Enríquez Gallo, and points out their different attitudes towards the civil war. It studies the impact the war had on left and right-wing intellectuals, and examines the way in which poets, novelists, essayists and journalists devoted themselves to an impassioned political activism in support of the opposing forces (“loyal” Spain and “nationalist” Spain), in poems and articles which are notable both for their emotion and for their Manichaeism, and in the collective organisation of demonstrations, assemblies, magazines, manifestos and collections.