The year 1939 not only meant the end of democracy, but the dismantling of Catalan cooperativism, one of the most solid traditions of popular self-organization in Europe. Despite the submission to which it was subjected by the Franco regime, the sovereign and solidarity spirit of the movement remained alive in clandestinity thanks to figures like Pérez Baró or Ventosa i Roig, making the spark arrive practically intact until 1976, the year the Roca Galès Foundation was established to take over from so many people who still believed in this self-management model. Its birth was not a mere institutional procedure, but an act of resistance and recovery of the political soul of Catalan cooperativism.

Days before July 4, 1776, Benjamin Franklin invited twenty-one chiefs of the Iroquois nations to Philadelphia. These leaders represented the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, a league of six Indigenous nations whose territories spanned part of what is now New York, Quebec, and Ontario. The Indigenous delegates were lodged on the second floor of the Pennsylvania State House—now known as Independence Hall—directly above the room where the U.S. Declaration of Independence was about to be signed.

The dampness that seeped through the walls and the darkness that filled the narrow corridors and rooms of the air-raid shelter in the Jardins de la Infància in Girona were forever etched into the memory of the citizens who hid there when planes flew over and bombed the city during the Civil War. On days of inclement heat waves, visiting this basement, reconverted into a Democratic Memory Space of the Girona History Museum, allows one to learn how the people of Girona protected themselves against aerial attacks and, at the same time, enjoy the much-desired climatic comfort on days of suffocating temperatures.

This summer marks 90 years since the failed landing in Mallorca by a group of Republican troops, mostly Catalan, led by Captain Alberto Bayo. In the wake of the anniversary, new editions of two recommendable classics have appeared: El desembarcament de Bayo a Mallorca (Publicacions de l'Abadia de Montserrat) by the late Father Josep Massot i Muntaner and Els grans cementiris sota la lluna by Georges Bernanos (Nova Editorial Moll, translation by Antoni-Lluc Ferrer). These necessary rediscoveries coincide with the appearance of an exceptional book: Una isla brutalizada (Documenta Balear).The uniqueness is at least triple. Firstly, to tackle the first research book dedicated to his native Mallorca, Joan Maria Thomàs (Palma, 1953) has immersed himself in the family archive, from which he has recovered documentation, photographs and, above all, an epistolary treasure. Thus, the 491 letters shared by his future parents during the first months of the war allow him to reconstruct its impact, both on the front and in the island's rearguard, the profound sociopolitical transformations, the terrible repressive consequences and the complexity hidden behind the Manichaeism of any civil conflict. Furthermore, the personal notes of the Catholic municipal judge and military volunteer Gerardo Maria (Palma, 1905-1985) and of the young woman from a good family and volunteer in passive defense Àngela (Palma, 1910-2016) enrich the narrative with custom, linguistic (the letters will always be in Mallorcan Catalan, except for some brief parenthesis) and localist notes.A cruel persecution

Furthermore, the emeritus professor at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili substantiates, in line with what previous bibliography has already pointed out, the decisive nature of the failed landing in strictly framing those in favor of the rebels and in cruelly persecuting the rest: whether they were the captured, harassed, and shot militiamen, whether we spoke of the thousands of islanders who suffered the different repressive gears, whether it was the author's uncle priest –the musicologist Joan Maria Thomàs Sabater– accused of Catalanism. “Because what was happening was not only the expansion of a great animosity against an enemy that continuously bombed the civilian population, but a massive preventive repressive policy, which detained and imprisoned thousands of Mallorcans who seemed to the military and public order authorities to be susceptible of forming part of the 'internal enemy', assassinating a part of them, although the first great wave of deaths would not arrive until the landing occurred”. According to the latest census, we would be talking about 1,993 victims with names and surnames, but only the remains of 329 have been located in 28 different places, and only 68 have been identified.And third and last, Thomàs constructs, with the mettle of good historians, a critical account that does not seek to exonerate but rather to understand and make understood the complexity inherent in those events. He does so, for example, by collecting the legal and Christian scruples of Gerardo Maria himself, who, despite voluntarily joining the rebels and sharing an eschatological interpretation of the conflict, distances himself from violent excesses and, faced with veiled threats for his lack of repressive enthusiasm, will leave for the Peninsula. This unease will never place him in public dissent with the dictatorship, but it surely explains that in 1953, as a judge, he carried out the exhumation of a victim murdered in Mallorca during the war by a prominent local falangist. And a civil war on an island is practically a war within the family.

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The Italian historian Carlo Ginzburg has died at the age of 87, as reported by the newspaper Corriere della Sera. Born in Turin in 1939, Ginzburg was a meticulous teacher, with an insatiable curiosity, who revolutionized historical studies. He grew up in a home that strongly fueled his vocation. His father, the philologist, journalist, and editor Leone Ginzburg, was a prominent anti-fascist who died tortured by the Nazis in 1944. His mother was the writer Natalia Ginzburg, author of seminal works of Italian literature such as Family Lexicon. The historian would confess years later that his mother's passion for literature, combined with the stories he heard as a child about the persecutions and repression of the war, was decisive for his future.

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Now that it is the fiftieth anniversary of the historic First Catalan Women's Conferences, there are three ways to remember them: watch the documentary Feminism 76: When our lives changed, produced by RTVE Catalunya; read Feminist Catalonia. May 27-30, 1976, by Isabel Segura; or attend some of the activities that will be held during this month of June at Fabra i Coats under the title Feminisms in revolt. 1976-1926.

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Lucy Worsley (United Kingdom, 1973) began her career as a curator of historic houses and learned that history is not only explained through parliaments and battles, but also in the kitchens and bathrooms of the house. How was laundry done? What was the bathroom like? These are questions she addresses in If These Walls Could Talk (Capitan Swing). By joining small details, she achieves a reconstruction of the great changes that have occurred in our society.

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Behind the stone walls of the Pedralbes Monastery, countless generations of women have lived for seven centuries. Each corridor holds many stories, not only of prayer and introspective silence, but also of struggles, conspiracies, survival, and creativity. It is a rare and ancient place because neither the confiscations of church property, nor revolutions, nor dictatorships, nor even the voracious appetite for real estate, have been able to swallow it up. Those who entered were required to take vows of obedience, chastity, and poverty, but for a long time it was a space where patriarchal power could be transcended. This year it celebrates its 700th anniversary with exhibitions, panel discussions, and the revelation of many of the secrets hidden within the tombs of a queen and the ladies who accompanied her. We invite you to explore all the spaces of the monastery through the lives of seven women, some powerful, others very humble.

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A claw, a chair, a laundry paddle, a plume, a printing press, a dress, an urn, or a corset. These are some of the 25 objects that journalist Sílvia Marimon Molas, Culture Editor at ARA, has featured in the book Inventory of silenced stories (Eumo Editorial), an essential and highly educational journey through everyday objects that have been crucial in shaping our society today. Objects that Marimon links to both renowned and anonymous women who have too often been forgotten in history books.

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In 1851, at the age of twenty-two, Augusto de Muller y Ruinart de Brimont (1829-1893) arrived in Tarragona from Reims. Belonging to a prominent winemaking family from Alsace, De Muller sought an area in Spain untouched by the phylloxera plague, where he focused his activities on the production and export of wines. The volume of his international sales, with branches in Bordeaux and London, made him the leading businessman in Tarragona during his time, a city where, for much of the first third of the 20th century, the wine trade was the main economic driver, overshadowed by other, far less significant, activities. The port of Tarragona became De Muller's export hub.

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No one could have written his story. A spy, a gigolo, a con man, a charlatan who was the monarch of Andorra in 1934, for little more than a week. If thousands of documents didn't exist to prove it, Boris Skossyreff's life would seem like a delirious fiction, a spy novel written under the influence of morphine during the height of modernism. For twelve days in the summer of 1934, a Russian-born con man with ties to the Nazi regime proclaimed himself King of Andorra and placed the small Pyrenean principality at the center of international attention.

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Looking back This is an ARA podcast that explores the silences, struggles, and wounds of the Franco regime to understand how this past continues to shape the present.

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Ramon Alberch (Girona, 1951) is a historian and archivist. He has been director of the Girona Municipal Archive, archivist in Barcelona, ​​director of the Barcelona Municipal Institute of History, and deputy director general of Archives for the Generalitat of Catalonia, where he negotiated the return of the Salamanca papersHe is also one of the co-founders and the first president of the Association of Archivists of Catalonia. Internationally, he chaired the Municipal Archives Section of the International Council on Archives (2000-2004) and was the driving force and first president of the NGO Archivists Without Borders. He has now published We create archives, we build citiesA history of the Barcelona Municipal Archive from 1249 to the present day. We talk about cats and rats, papers and power, Barcelona and Catalonia.

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Today, the hair that falls from our scalp lands on the floor and ends up in the trash when we do our Saturday business, if it hasn't already gone down the shower drain or been flushed down the toilet. But until recently, these same strands—ephemeral, intimate, laden with identity—could be transformed into personal treasures, crafted with precision and combined with precious materials like gold or ivory. We're talking about hair jewelry, an ancient practice that reached its zenith in the 19th century, amidst the moral and sentimental fervor of the Victorian era.

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Two Wild West wagons, a Finnish sleigh over two centuries old that can be pulled by a reindeer or a horse, the carriage in which General Prim's mother traveled from Reus to the Vila-seca farmhouse, and a cart carrying 72 cases of Chartreuse bottles in their original packaging, ready to be opened. These are just some of the more than one hundred animal-drawn vehicles that make up the collection of carts, carriages, and wagons that Jordi Rovira Fortuny, from Torrent, has assembled over half a century of research and countless hours of restoration work. Rovira is certain that, with over one hundred vehicles, his is the leading collection of carts in Catalonia, and in the entire country, only a handful can be counted on one hand that can compare in some aspects. Most of the cars he collects are on display in a warehouse in the Francolí industrial park, and this November and the first week of December, they can be visited thanks to the Tarragona Cancer Association. The cost is 5 euros per person, and all proceeds will go to the association, which supports projects focused on support, research, and prevention in the fight against cancer. Those interested should send an email to tarragona@contraelcancer.es indicating the day, time, and number of people in their group, and an attempt will be made to arrange the groups.

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With the death of dictator Francisco Franco on November 20, 1975, Catalan society awoke from a nightmare. It had long been brimming with expectations and dynamism. But until the death of leader The latent energies did not fully erupt. This was also true in the cultural world.

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Nostalgia is a profoundly human and universal feeling. Virtually everyone experiences nostalgia at some point in their lives. It's inevitable: as time passes, we change. And so do the people around us and the places we inhabit. Sometimes these changes are slow and only become apparent when one day you look back and find yourself longing for a world that no longer exists. Sometimes looking back can be comforting. Other times it hurts more. Especially when the changes are sudden and your world suddenly collapses.

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"We, the peoples of the United Nations, determined to save future generations from the scourge of war." Thus begins the text signed by 50 countries in the summer of 1945, still amidst the smoke from the bombs of World War II. Four months later, on October 24, 1945, the United Nations Charter came into force. The text committed the world's governments to resolve conflicts without the use of weapons, to promote peace and respect for human rights, cooperation among nations on equal terms, and economic and social development throughout the world. These principles—currently so much in question—have been adhered to so far by 193 states, almost all of those in existence.

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In 1919, the modern, cool, cool, those at the top must look down: "So insatiable was my sardana passion that on Sundays I would attend sardana dances morning, noon, and night. One day at the Aplec de la Sardana, counting the morning tandas in Vil·la Joana, the afternoon in the bala, the afternoon in the Planes, and not missing a single one in the evening, to the tune of a hundred sardanas."

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Not even with their hands on their heads. Not even with a penny in their pockets. Not even with the tragedy stuck in their skin. In 1940, they still didn't know if they would be able to return to Catalonia...

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