From Companys' clock to a thousand-year-old parchment: the hidden treasures of the National Archives

Sant Cugat del VallèsThere is the official memory, the one that appears in every book or the one that politicians proclaim, and which varies according to its color or moment, and there are the multiple memories safeguarded in the archives. Without these other memories, it would be much easier to manipulate history, and we would not be able to hear many voices that have often been sidelined. In 1995, 30 years ago, theNational Archives of Catalonia It moved to Sant Cugat. It covers 12,625 square meters and houses up to 60 kilometers of shelves with documents. It houses both private and public documents, allowing us access to both the most remote and recent history.

In the spring of 2018, the Fortuny family, men from Esponellà, entered their vast archival heritage into the National Archives of Catalonia. The different lines of this family have experienced many episodes of history firsthand: the Catalan Revolution of 1640; exile in 1717, after the War of the Spanish Succession; a popular uprising in Lleida during the War of the French in 1809... The oldest document of this powerful lineage, and also in the National Archives, is a Carolingian parchment from 954. It documents the sale by a woman named Engoncia of a vineyard and a piece of land she had received as a victim. The Count of Barcelona, ​​​​Gerona, ​​Osona, and Urgell always tried to maintain cordial relations with his two powerful neighbors: the Franks, in the north, and the Muslims, in the south. Tired of having to face the raids of the Andalusian leader Al-Mansur alone, he broke the pact of vassalage with the French king and established independence. de facto of the territories under its power.

2. The sale of a slave of Russian origin (1432)

Among the many scrolls preserved in the archive is the document certifying the purchase and sale of a Russian slave between two Catalan merchants in 1432. In the 1520s, between 8.3% and 14.3% of Barcelona's population was slave.There were Tartar, Circassian, Greek, Balkan, Sargan, North African, and sub-Saharan slaves. It was a highly regulated business. Between 1301 and 1521, more than 200 provisions related to slavery were written. In fact, the Catalan capital was one of the main slave markets in the Mediterranean.

3. Papal Indulgences (1450-1518)

During the Middle Ages and early modern period, the Church could grant forgiveness for sins and temporal punishments through the collection of money and goods or through acts of faith. Later, these concessions also led to favors granted by the Church for various requests. The abuse in granting papal indulgences was one of the reasons why Martin Luther, through his Wittenberg Theses, initiated the Protestant Reformation in 1517. Obviously, only the wealthiest could afford indulgences. The archive contains some examples of indulgences granted to Barcelona lineages.

4. Pioneers in the Claim of Rights (1495)

The Cortes of Barcelona, ​​​​which met in 1413, decided that all the elements of law that had been accumulating for centuries and were scattered, should be systematized and translated from Latin into Catalan. Its entire content was transferred to the first printed compilation, dated 1495. A copy is preserved in the archive. This document was of great interest to the estates in order to consolidate the law of the Principality. In contrast, the king, Ferdinand II the Catholic, was largely indifferent to it. In fact, this first compilation was never officially accepted or promulgated by the monarch. It was a fairly modern text, as it included limitations and separation of powers, as well as the provision for its own reform. Among other things, it sought to prevent the abuse of power and granted the right to free legal counsel to the poorest.

5. The intimate letters of Estefanía de Requesens and Roís de Liori (1533)

Born in 1504, Estefanía de Requesens y Roís de Liori was only twenty years old when she became the sole heir to one of the most important families in the country, thanks to her heritage and devotion to the Trastámara dynasty. The young Requesens had to assume the responsibility of maintaining a lineage and an important heritage, and this marked her personality: she was capable of overseeing matters of a very diverse nature. Her letters, in a lively and colorful style, are of a high literary standard, but above all, they are an important witness, because Estefanía de Requesens was on the front lines. Her husband, Juan de Zúñiga, was the tutor of Philip II, and both lived at the court of Emperor Charles V. Furthermore, one of Estefanía's sons, Luis de Requesens, was sent to Flanders, where the Flemish were fighting against the Spanish monarchy. In her letters, most of them addressed to her mother, she speaks of European conflicts, such as Henry VIII's divorce, but also of the diseases that plagued the country. Estefanía de Requesens was the mother of eleven children, of whom only four survived, and was deeply involved in the Jesuit order. Before her death, she not only left everything related to her heritage and lineage firmly established, but also gave her son moral advice. Among other things, she told him not to be influenced by others and to treat his vassals well: "Because they deserve it and because we are obliged to treat them well," she wrote.

6. The Capitulation of Cardona Castle (1714)

The resistance fighters at Cardona Castle, despite the long siege they endured at the end of 1711, held out until the very end. When Manuel Desvalls, the military governor of the castle, learned that Barcelona had fallen to the troops of Philip V, he agreed to surrender on condition that there would be no reprisals. The castle surrendered on September 18, 1711. 1714, A week after the one in Barcelona. It marked the end of the War of the Spanish Succession. A copy of the capitulation, signed by the Count of Montemar y Desvalls, is in the archive. However, the promises were not kept. Many officers and members of the garrison were able to go into exile, but some, like General Moragues, were persecuted.

The imposition of compulsory military service on Catalans has caused profound upheaval throughout history. The authorities ultimately decided to sweep house by house looking for young candidates. The opposition and resistance to the militias and the consequences of the uproar were discussed.

One of the earliest known representations of the Liceu's activity is a diorama. This is an experimental process used before photography, attempting to introduce real light into its representation and convey sensations of dimension and movement. The diorama is considered a leading example of this type of process, but its creator is unknown.

The chocolate industrialist Antoni Amatller i Costa commissioned Josep Puig i Cadafalch to renovate a building he had purchased at 41 Passeig de Gràcia, which was carried out between 1898 and 1900. The architect and decorator took great care with every element. The entire building exemplifies the extent to which the forms of modernism were inspired by tradition. The exterior form is also a personal interpretation of the Gothic style.

10. The File of the Teacher Rosa Sensat (1891)

Rosa Sensat (1873-1961), daughter of a bobbin lace maker and a sailor from El Masnou, threw herself headlong into the adventure of creating a new school and, despite obstacles of all kinds, she did not falter. She had faith in her innovative ideology. She defined herself as a "public teacher of the city of Barcelona." The archive contains the work record of this woman who tenaciously undertook a devastating task of demolishing any school practices or regulations that had any aftertaste of the old authoritarian and repressive schools.

11. Prat de la Riba's speech as the first president of the Mancomunidad (1914)

"And placing within the obligatory coldness of the regulatory formula all the vibration, all the yearnings and hopes of our sense of homeland, I declare the Mancomunitat of Catalonia established." the speech that Enric Prat de la Riba It was a Monday afternoon. It was April 6, 1914. Just a few hours earlier, the first constitutive session of the Mancomunitat de Catalunya had begun. The manuscript of the speech is kept in the archive. The gestation of the Mancomunidad was complex, and the institution had a short life, as it disappeared with Primo de Rivera's coup d'état in 1923. Many of its projects were filed away. Others have survived two dictatorships and today are the flagship of culture, such as the library network.

In 1920, mules loaded with mural paintings from its churches left the Boí Valley. The document from the Museum Board, which had promoted their removal and transfer to Barcelona, ​​details the campaign to safeguard the Romanesque heritage of the Pyrenees, which lasted from 1919 to 1923. All these paintings were destined for the Museum of Art of Catalonia (now the MNAC). This was done with the intention of preventing looting, as some Catalan works had ended up in the United States.

One of the great Catalan photographers of the 20th century, Josep Brangulí, captured Antoni Gaudí in the Corpus Christi procession as a member of the Sant Lluc Artistic Circle, in front of Barcelona Cathedral, in June 1924. It is one of the only photographs in existence of one of the geniuses of architecture, and immortalizes him alone.

14. The first Catalan Constitution in contemporary history (1928)

On October 2, 1928, under the presidency of Francesc Macià, the Draft Provisional Constitution of the Catalan Republic was approved at the Casal Català in Havana, Cuba. The text is the first modern draft of a constitution for a Catalan state. Among other things, it declares an independent and sovereign state and adopts the technical-democratic-representative Republic as its form of government. It also specifies that all those domiciled in Catalonia are considered Catalans.

15. The Executive Council of the Republican Generalitat (1931)

On May 15, 1931, the first executive council of the Republican GeneralitatThe Second Republic established institutions and initiated a process that sought to democratize politics and society. In fact, it defined itself as a democratic republic of workers of all classes and sought to empower women and workers. However, its existence was short-lived. The archive contains documents from that first session, which included Francesc Macià, Ventura Gassol, Manuel Carrasco y Formiguera, and Amadeu Hurtado, among others.

16. The first female mayor of Catalonia (1934)

In 1934, Natividad Yarza Planas became the first female mayor of Catalonia elected by universal suffrage. Her career included a strong commitment to republicanism, feminism, and secular education. After the Civil War, she lived in exile in France, where she died in obscurity in 1960. The National Archives of Catalonia preserve the official photograph of President Companys' reception for the mayor of Bellprat (Anoia), a few days after her election.

The Propaganda Commissariat of the Generalitat (1936-1939)In many ways, he was a pioneer and visionary. One of the most popular posters he produced, and one of the most famous of the Civil War, is the one by advertising photographer Pere Català Pic, which depicts an espadrille crushing a gamma cross. The photograph was taken at night on Passeig Colom, and photographer Francesc Català-Roca assisted Pere Català, his father. They wet the cobblestones and used a spotlight to make them brighter. The mold of the swastika was made from clay, and there is controversy over whose foot the espadrille wore. There are two versions: some claim it belonged to a squadron boy, and others say it belonged to Pere Pi-Sunyer.

A pair of glasses, a watch, and a cigarette case. These are what President Lluís Companys was wearing shortly before being shot on October 15, 1940, in the Santa Hermana pit during his last visit. These are the letters he wrote to his wife, Carme Ballester, at the wake of his execution. 19. The history of Catalan football

The Catalan Football Federation (FCF) traces its origins to the Barcelona Football Club Association, founded on November 11, 1900. Facing a serious risk of collapse in 1939, following the end of the Civil War, the Federation was able to overcome the lack of new leadership projects and the exile of many of its directors. All documentation, including drawings of the team's uniforms, is preserved in the archives.

On September 24th, the day of La Mercè, in 1957, the Camp Nou stadium, an iconic stadium for football and also for architecture, was inaugurated. The stadium was attended by 30,000 more than before. Invitation number 6 to that historic day is preserved in the archive. Now, more than half a century later, the stadium is shedding its skin once again.

In 1944, the young industrialist Pere Permanyer decided to give the family business, dedicated to selling and manufacturing gas generators, a different direction. A year later, he and industrial engineer Francisco Xavier Bultó decided to found the Montesa motorcycle brand. In 1958, they decided to separate their paths. The archive contains the plans for some of the the iconic motorcycles that were designedThe Impala, and later the Cota, sparked a cult following for the motor industry. These Catalan motorcycles became recognized even in fields unrelated to motorsports, such as literature.

Few personalities and few names reach such a general consensus as that of Pau CasalsHe was praised by everyone from Albert Einstein to John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the writer Josep Pla, and the violinist Eugène Ysaÿe. On October 23, 1971, he gave his famous concert at the United Nations, where he premiered the anthem he had composed, with lyrics by W. H. Auden, for the international organization. The event was held at the headquarters of the General Assembly in New York, and on the same day, Casals received the United Nations Peace Medal. His acceptance speech, which was entirely improvised because he didn't know he would be awarded the medal, is still moving. He began by saying, "And I love Catalanand recalled that Catalonia had had the first democratic Parliament, long before England.

On Saturday, March 2, 1974, at five minutes to nine-thirty in the morning, the Franco government executed Salvador Puig AntichHe was 26 years old and a member of the Iberian Liberation Movement (MIL). That March, a regime eager for revenge for the murder of Carrero Blanco decided to execute him in the worst possible way: with garrote. Until the last moment, his family waited for a pardon that never came. The archives hold the personal file compiled while he was in Modelo prison.

24. The pamphlets of the anti-Franco police (1971-1978)

Despite the fierce repression, there were always people who stood up to it.. Even within the police force. In March 1971, a handout signed by the Barcelona Armed Police Corps was circulating. who openly and forcefully criticized the fascist government: "In recent months, our problems have increased. The service is exhausting: hours and hours straight, without sleep and in the worst conditions. And what is much worse: despised by the people, especially by the youth, who do not see us as guardians of order, but hesitate to send us to kill, as in Granada and other places. What authority do we represent, that orders us to violently repress our people's desire for freedom, for the sake of a law so often violated by them, through scams and large-scale robberies, such as Matesa, Confecciones Gibraltar...? All these voices of anti-Francoism also have their place in the archive.

25. Pau Riba reading The Death of Franco (1975)

The day Franco died in bed, officially on November 20, 1975, many celebrated with euphoria. The dictatorial regime was long, and the repression, fierce. One of the many victims of the dictatorship was culture. A photograph of him is preserved in the National Archives of Catalonia. Pau Riba, the unique and unrepeatable artist who paved the way for countercultural Catalan culture with albums like Diopter and Me, the lady and the toad, on the Barcelona metro with a newspaper in his hands where he reads a big headline: "Franco has died".

26. The original manuscript of a work by Montserrat Roig (1976)

Montserrat Roig was one of the most versatile and prolific writers of Catalan literature of the 20th century. With Cherry season She won the Sant Jordi Prize in 1976. She was about to turn thirty when she decided to tell the story of the Miralpeix family starting with Natalia's return to Barcelona in March 1974, a few days after the execution of Salvador Puig Antich.

27. The feminist struggle: "I am also an adulteress" (1976)

On November 12, 1976, hundreds of women gathered in front of the Palace of Justice in Barcelona, chanting "I am an adulteress too" to protest a court order forcing María Ángeles Muñoz to hand over her six-year-old daughter to her paternal grandparents. The judge's decision was based on Article 449 of the Civil Code, which condemned the crime of adultery, but unequally: while men could only be punished, women could be sentenced to up to six years in prison for any infidelity. It was yet another chapter of the feminist struggle that took to the streets and was so well photographed. Pilar Aymerich.

28. The legalization of the Gay Liberation Front of Catalonia (1979-1981)

The archives allow you to follow step by step how the legalization of the Gay Liberation Front of Catalonia was conceived, as they preserve Armand de Fluvià's notes on the agreements reached at the meeting between lawyers and members of the organization. On June 26, 1977, more than 4,000 people marched down Barcelona's Rambla. It was the first gay demonstration in Catalonia. Without government authorization, hundreds of LGBTI+ people called out slogans calling for the repeal of the dangerousness law and for political amnesty. It was a very important step toward the legalization of that movement.

29. The model of the National Archives of Catalonia

A tactile model, installed in the lobby of the archive building, inaugurated on April 23, 1995, demonstrates the importance of visibility. The building is open to all types of people, including those with sensory impairments (especially visual impairments), cognitive impairments, or physical impairments.

The Dignity Commission was established in 2002 to reclaim documents seized during the military occupation of Catalonia in January 1939, and over time it has largely achieved its goal. The return of the documents has been long and arduous, but little by little, they have been returned and are now in the National Archives of Catalonia.