Religion, language and teaching in the Tortosine press in Catalan (1900-1936)

Abstract

The scope of this study covers from the publication of the first weekly publication written in Catalan in Tortosa at the beginning of the 20th century, La Veu de Tortosa [the Voice of Tortosa], to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, with the weekly publication Lluita [Fight] –before it become a daily, bilingual publication– and focuses interest on two key themes: religion-language and public education-instruction. At the beginning of the century there arises in Tortosa a multitude of young people related to the conciliar seminary who are sensitive to the Catalan nationalist theories of Torras i Bages, and who are, therefore, against the atmosphere of rejection and hostility towards the language that emanated throughout the first third of the century from the elites of the bishopric of Tortosa. This experienced its blackest chapter in 1921, with the expulsion of a sector of the teaching staff from that ecclesiastical institute ‒with the excuse of the Catalan pronunciation of Latin. The Tortosine school was also resistant to Catalan, until the arrival of the Second Republic.

Key words: Tortosine press, bishopric of Tortosa, education and school camps.