Josep Termes i Ardèvol (1936 in

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

– 2011) was a Catalan historian. He was born in the same month and year as the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, link ...

broke out, in a working-class environment, to whose memory he always wished to remain true. He studied at Barcelona University in the nineteen fifties, reading Pharmacy first, and, after the Students’ Movement of 1956, Arts, where he specialised in Contemporary History. It was also then when he joined the

PSUC The Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia ( ca, Partit Socialista Unificat de Catalunya, PSUC) was a communist political party active in Catalonia between 1936 and 1997. It was the Catalan branch of the Communist Party of Spain and the only party ...

, the party he quit in 1974 due to the disagreements he had within the committee of intellectuals. From then on he was a fierce critic of Marxist dogma. Taking Casimir Martí’s book, ''Orígenes del anarquismo en Barcelona'' (The Origins of Anarchism in Barcelona) as his guide, he began to study the workers’ movement, especially the

anarchists Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessari ...

, in

Catalonia Catalonia (; ca, Catalunya ; Aranese Occitan: ''Catalonha'' ; es, Cataluña ) is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a '' nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy. Most of the territory (except the Val d'Aran) lies on the nort ...

and Spain in the 19th and 20th centuries. This dedication, of which his thesis ''Anarquismo y sindicalismo en España. La Primera Internacional, 1864-1884'' (Anarchism and Syndicalism in Spain. The First International, 1972) is a landmark, culminated shortly before his death with a voluminous work of synthesis: ''Història del moviment anarquista a Espanya, 1870-1980'' (The History of the Anarchist Movement in Spain), L’Avenç, 2011. Expelled from Barcelona University, in 1958 as a student and in 1966 as a lecturer for his anti-Francoist activity, he returned there after being part of the initial team of the

Autonomous University of Barcelona The Autonomous University of Barcelona ( ca, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona; , es, Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona; UAB), is a public university mostly located in Cerdanyola del Vallès, near the city of Barcelona in Catalonia, Spain. ...

. From 1991 to 2006 he was a member of the Jaume Vicens Vives University Institute at

Pompeu Fabra University Pompeu Fabra University ( ca, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, UPF, ; es, link=no, Universidad Pompeu Fabra) is a public university located in the city of Barcelona, Catalonia in Spain. The university was created by the Autonomous Government of Catalo ...

. His work was characterised by the desire to revise some of the interpretations that have been made of the contemporary

history of Catalonia Catalonia was first settled during the Middle Palaeolithic era. Like the rest of the Mediterranean side of the Iberian Peninsula, the area was occupied by the Iberians and several Greek colonies were established on the coast before the Roman c ...

, and in particular of the bourgeois nature of

Catalanism Catalan nationalism is the ideology asserting that the Catalans are a distinct nation. Intellectually, modern Catalan nationalism can be said to have commenced as a political philosophy in the unsuccessful attempts to establish a federal state i ...

, based above all on a paper he presented in 1974 at the Historians’ Symposium on ''El nacionalisme català. Problemes d’interpretació'' (Catalan Nationalism, Problems of Interpretation), the seeds of his studies on popular Catalanism, to which he returned in books like ''Les arrels populars del catalanisme'' (The Popular Roots of Catalanism, 1999) and others. His private library, with over 20,000 volumes, books and leaflets, and a notable library of press cuttings, was donated to the Museum of the History of Catalonia. In 2006 he was awarded the Premi d'Honor de les Lletres Catalanes.

Publications

Main works: * ''Anarquismo y sindicalismo en España: La primera Internacional (1864-1881)'' (1972) * ''Els moviments socials a Catalunya, País Valencià i les Illes'' (1967), with Emili Giralt, Alfons Cucó and Albert Balcells * ''El nacionalisme català. Problemes d'interpretació'' (1974) * ''Federalismo, anarcosindicalismo y catalanismo'' (1976) * ''La immigració a Catalunya i altres estudis d'història del nacionalisme català'' (1984). * ''De la Revolució de setembre a la fi de la guerra civil'' (1987) Vol. 6 of ''Història de Catalunya'', directed by

Pierre Vilar Pierre Vilar (3 May 1906, Frontignan – 7 August 2003, Saint-Palais) was a French historian specialized in the history of Catalonia and Hispanism. He is considered one of the most authoritative 20th-century historians for the history of Spain, ...

* ''Les Bases de Manresa de 1892 i els orígens del catalanisme'' (1992) with Agustí Colomines * ''Les arrels populars del catalanisme'' (1999) * ''Història del catalanisme fins al 1923'' (2000) * ''Històries de la Catalunya treballadora'' (2000) * ''Patriotes i resistents. Història del primer catalanisme'' (2003) with Agustí Colomines * ''Misèria contra pobresa. Els fets de la Fatarella del gener de 1937'' (2005) * ''Història del moviment anarquista a Espanya (1870-1980)'' ( L'Avenç, 2011)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Termes, Josep Historians from Catalonia 1936 births 2011 deaths