Nationalist Offensive on Catalonia
Poet involved
What happened
In late 1938 and early 1939, the Nationalist Army launched a massive offensive on Catalonia, the last major Republican stronghold, overwhelming the weakened Republican forces. The campaign, which involved some of the largest troop concentrations of the war, quickly overran the region, with Tarragona falling on January 14, 1939, Barcelona on January 26, and Girona on February 5. The fall of Catalonia virtually spelled the end of the Republic, as the government fled into exile and hundreds of thousands of refugees crossed the Pyrenees into France.
Literary impact
The fall of Catalonia was the subject of some of the most heartbreaking poetry of the war, as writers chronicled the exodus of refugees and the collapse of the Republic. Antonio Machado, who fled with the refugees to France, wrote some of his final poems during this period, capturing the despair of the defeated. The poetry of the exile, which would continue for decades, began in earnest with the fall of Catalonia.
Source: Wikipedia
