Ideological Profit: Hemingway, Kol’tsov, and the Spanish Civil War

Abstract

ABSTRACT:Ernest Hemingway’s popularity within the Soviet Union was connected to his participation in the Spanish Civil War. These activities were facilitated by Mikhail Kol’tsov, the Soviet foreign correspondent and Joseph Stalin’s unofficial man in Spain. This article examines the relationship of these two charismatic figures and suggests that much of Hemingway’s perception of events in Spain were sculpted by Soviet agents during the final, idealistic period of world revolution. For the Soviet Union, Hemingway’s anti-Fascist cultural production would be converted into ideological profits for internal and external audiences, marking the Soviet Hemingway as distinct from his western image.