La Rosa de Foc (1905 - 1931)

Martinez Anido was Barcelona’s civil governor between the 20 and the 22. Martínez Anido is the man who brings the labor union-business union conflict to its apex. He is the man who inspires the free syndicate, which is a crime syndicate paid by the business union, and a man obsessed with finishing the CNT in every way inimaginable. This is where ‘pistolerisme’ begins. ‘Pistolerisme’… In that very moment, they create in the Tapineria street, in Barcelona, the ‘Sindicat Lliure’ is created. The ‘Sindicat Lliure’ are the gunmen. They are the management association gunmen. Then there were also the bands of, first, the ah, what’s his name… the Baron of König and there was… a police officer, Bravo Portillo. Bravo Portillo, who was executed, right? By the workers themselves, right? Where, well, there are confrontations in Barcelona, in Catalonia that well, every they there’s a handful of dead. During the years 20, 21, 22, 23, mostly until the 23, every day there’s fighting in Barcelona, well, killing people on the street. Because some tendencies fight the others. Until there arrives, in the 23, the new generation of García Oliver, of whom we’ve talked before, who considers… because most of the management association’s gunmen were, in the end, or are people who is blackmailed, I mean, that happened, they recruited people by blackmail, which means if you don’t help us, well, your daughter, we will kill your daughter if you don’t help, we’ll kill your mother, your wife, well, whoever. So, it was their way to recruit, too, the very same workers that might had been thre president of a trade union and had to move to the ‘Sindicat Lliure’.

Pere Marcet is my great-grandfather. He was one of the founding members of Barça, as well as one of the first players. He was the manager of a family business. He was hired by a Swiss company that installed heating in Spain and Barcelona. From then on, he met the Witty brothers, Hans Gumper and noseque Futbol Club Barcelona. Barça is, as we say, “more than a club”, because the team started as mass entertainment. People were really oppressed back then. We’re talking about a time previous to a war.

Sport in Catalunya is one of the emblems, one of the most important symbols because Catalunya is a country that has a great sports tradition. This is clearly seen in the documents. We have almost 90 clubs that are more than 100 years old. Catalunya has climbers that have reached all peaks of 8000m. It has very unique soccer clubs, one of them might be one of the most singulars of the world. Today’s sport is influenced by the history of sport in Catalunya. We need to keep in mind that sport in Catalunya is born because associations, specially the social ones. People gather to play sports. The Centre Excursionista de Catalunya is a center that have been gathering people to play sports, to know Catalunya, to climb mountains and to know unknown places for more than 100 years. It has its origins in associationism, in people’s relationships, and in sports. This is consolidated through time until today. We have winners in all disciplines, and also great players.

Well, I have to refer to my grandfather, Albert Bastardes i Sampere, who was republican, catalanism and who was a republican councilor at the Barcelona city council from 1904 Well, his institutional work was important, in that sense, he dedicated himself to culture, to the institutional situation in Barcelona… He tried to make Barcelona renowned, appreciates, the basic nucleous of Catalonia, which already was then, actually Barcelona supports Catalonia, in a way I’m looking forward to telling you that during 1906, when the mayor, who was the appointed expert by the government, went to Madrid for two or three months to solve some issues which involved the city council, He always elected a Mayor Deputy And so, he was in charge of the Barcelona city council Councilorrs were democratically elected in that time, but not the mayor. Then… it was the King Alfonso XIII’s saint’s day, which was on the 23th of January and the Royal Mayor put flags in the city council and he used to place damasks and lights all around the windows in order to celebrate and he gave a free day to all his staff Albert Bastardes, as he was a republican, he said, well… what does the law say? Well, the law says that i put the flag and that’s it. Well, so let’s put the flag and that’s it Of course, this provoked a hugh incident because the governor said something like ‘how come the city council does not celebrate the king’s saint day?’ Well, because I have not been told to do so Obviously, the governor presented a little decree ordering to do so This clearly shows what is happening right now… which is the theoretical democracy nowadays But also in that moment, the civil governor who was called Ossorio y Gallardo said ‘well, if you don’t put damasks, I will order you to’ And Albert Bastardes answered ‘if you order me to put the damaks, I will call all the municipal parliament and all the councilors and I will tell them what needs to be done’ And the governor said, ‘well, don’t you think that attitude is a contempt of court?’ And Albert Bastardes answered ‘no, I am the authority’ And of course, the other one said ‘it is not possible to talk with you’, and so it ended the possibility of an agreement, it was not possible at all.

I remember that my grandmother would explain to me the ‘Ley de Fugas’ in Barcelona. They, the military, lived in the Modelo prison itself, in a module by the Urgell street. From there, well, the families could see all that happened both inside and outside the prison. Back then there were no prison officers, they were controlled by the military. And I remember that she would tell me that the ‘Ley the Fugas’ back then was that people who either were in the way, politically or some interest of the bourgeoisie, or some sort of influential interest, were given freedom to leave the prison. What happens? The ‘Ley de Fugas’, the way she explained it, was leave the prisoner outside the gate and, once he decided to leave, from the watchtowers in different places in the prison was shot to death. I remember a story that was very anecdotic for me, it marked me. My grandmother would explain that she remembered a prisoner, very young, who had found his wife cheating on him with another man. Apparently, that man had some power in society. I don’t remember well the year, it was 20 something 1928 or 1929. And I remember that my grandmother would say, he was a man, a boy, a man around 30, she’d say, very handsome and very polite, she’d say, and what happens is that when he discovers his wife cheating on him, well, he murders both. Well. Then what they did was apply the ‘Ley de Fugas’. He was left on the street Urgell, on the main door of the Modelo, and the man spent to days sitting by the door, in the cold, but, of course, when hunger and thirst got to him, he had to [run, get away]… I remember my grandmother telling me, from the Modelo watchtowers they would shout at him, ‘Go away, go away, you’re free, go away, you’re free’ And on the very moment when the man, after two days, started to run… He was executed just there.

The demolition of the walls, what it does is open the city, it grows. Barcelona is still a small city despite that. It opens up towards Barcelona’s plain, so to say. Many of the industry had already been moving out, Sant Martí de Provençals, during the second half of the XIX [century], was known as the Catalan Manchester. There was a bigger percentage of industry there than there was farm work. In Sants, there was a[n industrial] scale. It’s those famous towns that in 1898 Barcelona adds to create the greater Barcelona. Barcelona was a small city and here we have a double phenomenon: the demolition of the walls and the annexing policy. They annex Sant Andreu, Sant Martí de Provençals, Gràcia, later Horta in the 1907 and Sarrià in the 1923. Barcelona grows because it sticks to its surroundings, and the wall is the element that allows for this connection. Before, Gràcia was far away. The ‘Passeig de Gràcia’ is opened, that goes up until the Main [street] of Gràcia. In Sants happens the same with the Sants road. The demolition of the walls articulates an expansion that by the 1898 was already very visible because, despite the wall that was left, the city had already been growing out of the walls. What the demolition does is reconnect the urban fabric and create an almost continuous conurbation. In 1898 is when they finally get a decree from the state government by which they are annexed [to the aforementioned towns]. That’s why, the current model of a Barcelona with districts answers to this idea: there’s the district of Sant Martí, the district of Sants, the district of Gràcia, the district of Sant Andreu, [the district of] Horta… Because it answers to a decentralized city, a city that’s an addition of cities.