Jaume Durany i Bellera (1877-1938): racionalist teacher and politician. A biografical approach

Abstract

This article aims to raise awareness of the figure of Jaume Durany i Bellera,
rationalist teacher, journalist, and political activist. From his beginnings as a militant of the Catalanism of the late 19th century, this personage moved, through a solid social awareness, towards Lerrouxist republicanism, to which he linked himself to exercise the rationalist teaching that he considered the most effective form for the social  transformation that he desired. He first met Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia and his Escola Moderna, with which he collaborated. Later, he would abandon Lerrouxism, join the Pimargallian federalism and, during the Second Republic, would set up an association, the Claustre de Mestres Laics Històrics, which would demand official recognition of the work carried out by those who, like himself, taught in the rationalist schools in the years before the Republican period. In any case, a life devoted to secular education, to Republican politics and to journalism, through his tireless contributions to publications of the time.