Lluís Pastre (1863 - 1927): a Gavatx, Layperson and Catalanist School Teacher in Roussillon

Abstract

Hailing from the Languedoc, Lluís (Louis) Pastre taught in a French state primary school in Roussillon. A radical republican, he embraced regionalism and published seventeen opuscules as well as about a hundred articles, most of which appeared in the Perpignan-based Revue Catalane. His first publication in Paris in 1901 was a school textbook about social education at school with the help of families, and his last book, published in Perpignan in 1925, was an elementary Catalan grammar written in French which adhered to the standards set out by the Institut d’Estudis Catalans, prefaced by Josep Sebastià Pons. These books reveal his position as an avant-garde educator and Catalan philologist. He is especially remembered as being the author of a method for introducing Catalan into the schools of the Third French Republic by French through a direct methodology followed by translation. At the same time, Lluís Pastre was a primary school teachers’ trade union pioneer and also played an active role in the Roussillon Catalan Renaissance as the founding secretary of the Société d’Études Catalanes, along with his close collaboration with Barcelona’s progressive Catalanists.