Limit search to available items
Book Cover
E-book
Author Conangla i Fontanilles, Josep, 1875-1965, author

Title Memoir of my youth in Cuba : a soldier in the Spanish Army during the separatist war, 1895-1898 / Josep Conangla ; edited by Joaquín Roy ; translated by D.J. Walker
Published Tuscaloosa, Alabama : University of Alabama Press, [2017]
©2017

Copies

Description 1 online resource
Series Atlantic crossings
Atlantic crossings.
Contents List of Illustrations; Translator's Note; Acknowledgments; Introduction: A Biographical Sketch of Josep Conangla i Fontanilles -- Joaquín Roy; 1. From Cartagena to Sancti Spíritus; 2. The War in Aguacate; 3. The Death of Maceo and the Transfer to Havana; 4. In the Cuban Capital; 5. The Maine and the Disaster; 6. Peace and the Return; Appendix; Notes; Selected Bibliography; Index
Summary Memoir of My Youth in Cuba: A Soldier in the Spanish Army during the Separatist War, 1895--1898 is a translation of the memoir Memorias de mi juventud en Cuba: Un soldado del ejército español en la guerra separatista (1895--1898) by Josep Conangla. The English edition is based on the Spanish version edited by Joaquín Roy, who found the memoir and was given access to the Conangla family archives. Conangla's memoir, now available in English, is an important addition to the accounts of Spanish and Cuban soldiers who served in Cuba's second War of Independence. Spaniard Josep Conangla was conscripted at the age of twenty and sent to Cuba. In the course of his time there, he reaffirmed his pacifism and support of Cuban independence. The young man was a believer who unfailingly connected his view of events to the Christian humanitarianism on which he prided himself. Conangla's advanced education and the influence of well-placed friends facilitated his assignment to safe bureaucratic positions during the war, ensuring that he would not see combat. From his privileged position, he was a keen observer of his surroundings. He described some of the decisions he made, which at times put him at odds with the military bureaucracy he served, along with what he saw as the consequences of General Valeriano Weyler's decree mandating the reconcentración, an early version of concentration camps. What Conangla saw fueled his revulsion at the collusion of the Spanish state and its state-sponsored religion in that policy. "Red Mass," published six years after the War of Independence and included in his memoir, is a vivid expression in verse of his abhorrence. Conangla's recollections of the contacts between Spaniards and Cubans in the areas to which he was assigned reveal his ability to forge friendships even with Creole opponents of the insurrection. As an aspiring poet and writer, Conangla included material on fellow writers, Cuban and Spanish, who managed to meet and exchange ideas despite their circumstances. His accounts of the Spanish defeat, the scene in Havana around the end of the war, along with
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Online resource; title from PDF title page (EBSCO, viewed January 18, 2017)
Subject Conangla i Fontanilles, Josep, 1875-1965
SUBJECT Conangla i Fontanilles, Josep, 1875-1965 fast
Subject Spain. Ejército -- Biography
SUBJECT Spain. Ejército fast
Subject Soldiers -- Spain -- Biography
Journalists -- Spain -- Catalonia -- Biography
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY -- Historical.
HISTORY -- Latin America -- Mexico.
Journalists
Soldiers
SUBJECT Cuba -- History -- Revolution, 1895-1898 -- Personal narratives. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85034575
Subject Cuba
Spain
Spain -- Catalonia
Genre/Form Biographies
History
Personal narratives
Form Electronic book
Author Roy, Joaquín, 1943- editor.
Walker, D. J. (Dolores J.), 1936- translator.
ISBN 9780817390761
0817390766