Homage to Catalonia 1943. The closing phrase of the poem, "No bomb that ever burst shatters the crystal spirit", was later taken by George Woodcock for the title of his Governor General's Award-winning critical study of Orwell and his work, "The Crystal Spirit" (1966). Homage to Catalonia Homage to Catalonia is George Orwell's personal account of his experiences and observations fighting for the Republican army during the Spanish Civil War. The war was one of the shaping events on his political outlook and a significant part of what led him to write, in 1946, "Every line of serious work that I have written
Yugoslav volunteers in the Spanish Civil War Yugoslav volunteers in the Spanish Civil War The Yugoslav volunteers in the Spanish Civil War, known as Spanish fighters (, , / "Španski borci") and Yugoslav brigadistas (), was a contingent of volunteers from the Kingdom of Yugoslavia that fought beside the Republican side (in support of the Second Spanish Republic) in the Spanish Civil War (1936–39). An estimated 1,664 "Yugoslav brigadistas" fought in the war, out of whom c. 800 were killed in action. According to the Spanish statistics, 148 Yugoslav volunteers received the officer rank during the conflict. Most of them fought in the battalions "Dimitrov" and "Đuro