Georges Dwelshauvers, the man who was used to begin the destruction of the cultural work of the Mancomunitat

Abstract

This article seeks to explain the Dwelshauvers affair through the protagonist of the case which started the debugging of the cultural work of the Mancomunitat, which shook Barcelona in the spring of 1924. Dwelshauvers, a prestigious Belgian psychologist, arrived in Catalonia invited by the Mancomunitat to promote a Psychology Laboratory. The work he undertook since 1918 had nothing to do with politics, but the advent of the Dictatorship and its desire to laminate the cultural work of the Mancomunitat, made the Dwelshauvers laboratory the weak link, through which the dismantling of the institution and its activities could begin. The affair displayed the intense struggle for control of culture and the intellectual-professional sector in Catalonia between primoriveristas and antiprimoriveristas. The campaign of the dictatorial government, with the collaboration of Eugeni d’Ors, against the Flemish psychologist and the laboratory he led, provoked, probably expected by the dictatorship, a reaction of support from professors, students and workers of the cultural and educational centres of the Mancomunitat and Catalanism in general. Using the Dwelshauvers affair as a pretext, the Dictatorship succeeded in demolishing the Mancomunitat and its cultural work.