Álex de la Iglesia’s film, Balada triste de trompeta (2010) explores historical trauma and collective memory of the Spanish Civil war through clown figures adapted to the grotesque aesthetic of esperpento. Besides the use of popular culture motifs, this article focuses on how notions of the mythical trickster and classical philosophy and melancholy combine in a dark humor subversive work.

This article analyses the representation of the Spanish Civil War addressed to the readers of the Polish local press in Siedlce, then in the Voivodship of Lublin. In the period 1936–1939 Siedlce could boast of having three newspapers — the weekly Głos Podlaski published by the Diocesan Curia Siedlce, and two trimensuals, Ziemia Siedlecka and Życie Podlasia, both affiliated with the ruling Sanacja. Each of them showed an unflagging interest in the Spanish war, treated as a violent clash of the opposed forces of left-wing Republicanism and nationalism.