The 2nd Spanish Republic (1931 - 1936)

By accident. No one wanted the Republic. People went to vote for a municipal election, and Republican parties won in the cities. And, with the typical improvisation of the time, they proclaimed the Republic from the city councils. Madrid had 2 options: to throw the army and the Guàrdia Civil to the street and make a bloodbath, which would have been a disaster in the long run. The army and the Guàrdia Civil refused. They didn’t want to play this game. The king left, and so the Republic came. Oh, a Worker’s Republic, how nice! Well, a centralist constitution. A republic that cut down the statute of Catalunya as much as it wanted when it was discussed. More or less like today. It took its power in name, just in name. The Second Republic declared itself non-denominational, which isn’t bad at all. But what is not good, is to make an anti-religious politic. Why? Because you attack people’s believes. It’s necessary to differentiate between church as an institution and religion. The institution can be arguable, but religion touches feelings and believes, and you need to respect that. The Republic mixed everything. They blew it up.

Well, the Olympics of 1936 took place in Berlin. It was seen as something advantageous for Hitler. He could preach his racists ideology and so on. So, here in Barcelona, People’s Olympiad was conceived as a protest to Berlin. Some countries joined it. It was supposed to start on 19th of July 1936, the day the military took the streets. The Olympiad fell through. Some athletes that came here to play, stayed to fight fascism next to the Republic and the Generalitat. But yes, the Olympiad never happened.

The bar ‘La Tranquilidad’ is owned by… Martín Sis… The cook they had there was Martín Sisteró, who was one of the deported, together with Durruti and the rest -I don’t know if you’ve seen the photo, which we have in the other… thing. They were deported to Bata, to, well, to Fuerteventura and down south, where they were sent the year, what year was it? I can’t recall the year. Oh, yeah, it was after the thirty… the 33’ insurrectional movements, I think it was. In January 33. In Barcelona, more often than not there was an insurrectional movement. I think it’s the one… I’m not very sure about the dates now, maybe I’m wrong. But I think it is during the whole Fígols incidents, when the ‘Alt Llobregat’ incidents and all that, there’s an insurrectional movement that half of Catalonia, well, on the area of… around the mines of Fígols and Sargent and all that, libertarian communism is declared, right? When also takes place all the ‘Casas Viejas’ incidents down in Andalucía. And well, all these people, as a punishment, are deported. They are deported towards… towards… towards Africa. And Martín Sisteró, who was the anarchist who had the ‘La Tranquilidad’ bar, was there, and he’s the one who made, well, the stay in Africa a bit better because he was a great cook. And well, that’s the thing. One of the main things too of ‘La Tranquilidad’, speaking about the Paral·lel, is that it’s a meeting place, like ‘El Español’ back then, of all the… of all the… of all the anarchists from back then. And the gatherings were important. Also, for example, Abel Paz always told that they, when they were young, ran to ‘La Tranquilidad’ to listen to the debates that took place there, right? Out there took place… Paz is Durruti’s biographer.

Flamenco has always been controversial in Spain, and in Catalunya. Specially in Catalunya. For me, Flamenco is song, music and dance. That is, a compendium of three arts that bounded [not sure because he uses a word that doesn’t exist] and created a music, a singing, and dance. They are ones of the most exciting in the world. Therefore, there are some codes, some ways, entries, and improvisations that are not that improvised. But the most important thing is, that it is very exciting and thrilling, and very difficult, and very hard. It is as complex as classical music or classical dance or as lyrical song. It deserves respect. A lot of people talk about it without having a clue. And they don’t know anything about it because they haven’t bothered to study it. To study it as a signing, as a dance, as a music. They only pay attention to the feeling it shows. It has to be analyzed from a musical and composer point of view. It’s very rich.

Well, it’s not like he was unknown before. He was a shock anarchist from the early 1920s. “Shock,” meaning an anarchist of action. One who wore his pipa, his gun, in his pocket, and wasn’t afraid to risk his life using it. To kill, or die. He becomes a leader, an icon, maybe the greatest icon, of the armed people. Of the militiamen, of the revolutionary workers. In late October, early November 1936, Madrid seems about to fall into the hands of the rebels. They decide to send a column of reinforcements from Barcelona to help with the defense of Madrid. Durruti will become the leader of this column, and it will later be called the Durruti column. They’d first been on the Aragon front. Upon seeing the Aragon front as somewhat stabilized, and seeing a reason to head to Madrid, they went to Madrid. Durruti died on the Madrid front. All evidence points to an accidental shooting from within his own ranks. The point is, he died. Naturally, the CNT’s official version was that Once dead, the mythologizing begins. he’d died in fighting fascism. A funeral procession. Thousands take the streets. Renaming Via Laietana Via Durruti. Posters. Stamps. Everything. But, as stated, in life he hadn’t been a John Doe. He’d been an important exemplar of anarchist action. He was no ideologue or theorist. He wrote no books. He was a man of action, raised to the level of myth posthumously.

The Ateneus are a response to a liberal movement in Europe. That’s how it started. They’re clubs which allow people to finally offer their opinions within society. Once they’re no longer subjects, they gather for just that purpose. This is the general movement. In Barcelona, the public was very much on edge, owing to political and social unrest. As a result, despite Barcelona’s progressivism, Ateneus didn’t arrive until the 1850s and 1860s. At the time, this space is occupied by the Bourgeoisie. Not the aristocracy, the bourgeoisie. A bourgeoisie focused, primarily on economic matters. There is a limited cultural focus. They’re gathering, at first, to play cards, hold balls for carnival, or prior to going to the opera. Then, little by little, it’s a space occupied by liberal professionals: Lawyers, doctors, etc. Liberal professionals. It’s these liberal professionals who will bring to it a cultural component. Newspapers, though not the local sort, and, slowly, the library. That’s how the first two important Ateneus got their start. The Reus Reading Club, in Reus, and right after, the Ateneu Barcelonès, where we are now. The Ateneu Barcelonès, for example, also offered fencing classes, billiards, hosted card games, etc, and adding culture. Then, in the 1870s, popular Ateneus begin to appear. The popular Ateneus are a reaction to those of the Bourgeoisie, But with the goal of providing the working class with cultural enrichment. Often, even, it brought literacy to the working class. At it’s core, it’s a place to read newspapers together, To house a library, and offer the chance to purchase products, like a company store. Not every Ateneu, but in some. So it serves as a hub for the people in the neighborhood to gravitate towards, It imbues them with a vigorous social life. I believe they’re regaining importance. Gaining importance because there is a will among the people to take back the Ateneus, to direct their services, make them centers of cultural organization. For the people, the neighborhoods, the city of Barcelona, everything. So I think this desire to recover, the sense of community organization so integral to Catalan history, to rediscover something that existed from the mid-19th century to the Civil War.