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Science and Technology in the Nationalist Debate in Catalonia after the Civil War

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Science, Culture and National Identity in Francoist Spain, 1939–1959

Abstract

Roca-Rosell studies the role of science and technology in the nationalist debate in substate nationalism in Catalonia after the Spanish Civil War. The development of scientific and technological activity in the period before the Spanish Civil War was dramatically interrupted as a result of the war when an important part of the scientific community identified with the Second Republic and went into exile against the new regime. Those who remained in Spain had to comply with the strict political regulations imposed on university professors and members of scientific institutions. Scientific activity in Catalonia was significantly impaired. The alliance between science, technology, and the Catalan identity prior to Franco’s regime was broken, and it was not replaced by another kind of alliance.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This paper is included in the projects HAR2016-75871-R and PRX18/00138.

  2. 2.

    Guibernau, 2006.

  3. 3.

    See the text of Ash in this volume. Also Guibernau, 2000.

  4. 4.

    Roca-Rosell; Salavert-Fabiani, 2009.

  5. 5.

    See, for example, Balcells, 1996.

  6. 6.

    Fox, 2006.

  7. 7.

    Among the classic references, see Crosland, 1977, Kranzberg (ed.), 1986, Pyenson, 2002, Gouzévitch et al. (ed.), 2004, Fox, 2012. The journal Osiris dedicated its 2009 issue to national identity: Harrison, Johnson (ed.), 2009.

  8. 8.

    José María López Piñero (1933–2010) proposed abandoning that controversy based on historical research, beginning in the imperial era of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. See López Piñero, 1979. Navarro Brotons and Eamon (2007) recently published a series of works on the ‘black legend’ and science.

  9. 9.

    Gavroglu et al., 2008.

  10. 10.

    Balcells, 1996.

  11. 11.

    Roca-Rosell, 1988; Roca-Rosell; Salavert Fabiani, 2009.

  12. 12.

    Roca-Rosell (coord.), 2008; Balcells; Pujol, 2007.

  13. 13.

    García-Doncel; Roca-Rosell, 2007.

  14. 14.

    The municipality of Sarrià was integrated into the city of Barcelona in 1921.

  15. 15.

    Puig Raposo; López García, 1994.

  16. 16.

    Roca-Rosell, 2009.

  17. 17.

    Català, Roca-Rosell, 2009. Valentines-Álvarez, 2018, analysed the role of industrial engineers.

  18. 18.

    Català, Camarasa, 2009.

  19. 19.

    See chapter 12 of Balcells, 1996.

  20. 20.

    See, among others, Nadal et al., 1994, the study by Prados de la Escosura et al., 2012, and the recent review by Maluquer de Motes Bernet, 2014.

  21. 21.

    Of the many references to the development of the Civil War, perhaps we can mention the classic Thomas, 1961, and Jackson, 1974.

  22. 22.

    López García, 1997.

  23. 23.

    Claret, 2004, 138. Also Claret, 2003.

  24. 24.

    Lusa Monforte, Roca-Rosell, 2005.

  25. 25.

    Roca-Rosell (coord.), 2008.

  26. 26.

    Malet, 2009.

  27. 27.

    Balcells, Pujol, 2007.

  28. 28.

    Roca-Rosell et al., 2004.

  29. 29.

    Claret, 2004.

  30. 30.

    Roca-Rosell, 2007b.

  31. 31.

    Artís; Camarasa, 1995.

  32. 32.

    Frederic Duran Jordà (1947): Histopatologia d’una nova capa d’epiteli semiescamós pla que cobreix les mucoses digestives, Barcelona, IEC.

  33. 33.

    Duran Jordà was a communist doctor who organised an early blood bank in 1936. See the biography and documentation on Duran Jordà in Bruguera-Cortada, 2012.

  34. 34.

    Malet, 2009.

  35. 35.

    Català; Camarasa, 2009.

  36. 36.

    Roca-Rosell, 2005.

  37. 37.

    Roca-Rosell; Sánchez Ron, 1990, 325.

  38. 38.

    Glick, 1988 and 1993.

  39. 39.

    On civil discourse including engineering, see Roca-Rosell, 2007a.

  40. 40.

    Camprubí, 2014.

  41. 41.

    This autarchic policy was progressively abandoned during the 1950s. See, for example, Maluquer de Motes Bernet, 2014.

  42. 42.

    A biography of the main entrepreneur who promoted Òmnium has recently been published: Sinca, 2018.

  43. 43.

    Presas i Puig (1998) points out that at a conference held in Germany in 1956, the secretary general of the CSIC presented the work of the CSIC as an evolution of what had begun around 1900, in contrast to the disavowals of the JAE experience by himself and his collaborators.

  44. 44.

    An assessment of the Catalan, Valencian, and Balearic exiles in Català; Camarasa, 2009.

  45. 45.

    Fèrriz, 2009.

  46. 46.

    There is a facsimile edition of Quaderns de l’exili: Mèxic, 1943–1947, 1982 . It is possible to access some digitised numbers from La Nostra Revista, but we also obtained copies at the Biblioteca del Pavelló de la República, University of Barcelona.

  47. 47.

    Bruguera-Cortada, 2019.

  48. 48.

    Floralistica, that is, following the tradition of the Floral Games, Catalan poetry competitions that were resumed in the mid-nineteenth century that Sales and his colleagues considered to be completely outdated.

  49. 49.

    Roca-Rosell, 1986.

  50. 50.

    Pardo; Martínez-Vidal; Perdiguero, 2006.

  51. 51.

    Martínez-Vidal (coord.), 2010.

  52. 52.

    It is called Hospital Joseph Ducuing.

  53. 53.

    Barba, 1948.

  54. 54.

    Probably, Barba made use of the historical references in Pi i Sunyer, 1983.

  55. 55.

    Barba refers to the Catalan forges as blast furnaces but, in fact, they were bloomeries in which the direct casting method was used. See, for example, Lusa Monforte, Roca-Rosell, 2019.

  56. 56.

    According to Barba, the Santponç’s steam engine was imitated outside Spain, but there is no confirmation of this. On the other hand, Salvà was a pioneer of telegraphy, but not of submarine cables, as Barba says. However, he correctly identifies Santponç as the pioneer of steam technology in Catalonia and his collaboration with Salvà in a new machine for scutching hemp and flax as a relevant technical contribution. See Sánchez Miñana, 2007.

  57. 57.

    In addition to commenting on the medieval tradition of shipbuilding in the different Catalan shipyards, there is an interesting error when mentioning ‘Isaac Monturiol’ as the pioneer of submarine navigation, thus linking two true pioneers in Spain—the Catalan Narcís Monturiol (1819–1885) and the Cartagena native Isaac Peral (1851–1895).

  58. 58.

    He cites Hispano-Suiza as a pioneering company in the automotive sector.

  59. 59.

    This organisation is a social-democratic and catalanist party created in 1931, which evolved into independentism.

  60. 60.

    Boix says ‘estadística’, statistics.

  61. 61.

    The ‘Franja’ is the Aragon territory of Catalan culture.

  62. 62.

    It is erroneously said that there are also electrons in the nucleus.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya – Barcelona Tech, Barcelona, Spain

    Antoni Roca-Rosell

  2. Institute for Catalan Studies, Barcelona, Spain

    Antoni Roca-Rosell

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  1. Antoni Roca-Rosell
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Correspondence to Antoni Roca-Rosell .

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  1. Department of Humanities, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain

    Marició Janué i Miret

  2. Department of Humanities, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain

    Albert Presas i Puig

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Roca-Rosell, A. (2021). Science and Technology in the Nationalist Debate in Catalonia after the Civil War. In: Janué i Miret, M., Presas i Puig, A. (eds) Science, Culture and National Identity in Francoist Spain, 1939–1959 . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58646-1_6

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