Valencian regionalism and university: A binomial into the periphery

Abstract

Since its beginnings, the university has provided statesmen —men, and nowadays women— dedicated to political action, in many cases occupying governmental responsibilities. On the other hand, at the end of the 19th century, with romanticism and the emergence of the different Renaixenças in those territories with their own historical, institutional, legal and cultural past, regionalist movements arose that soon became political movements. Did the political Valencianism that developed especially in the first thirty years of the 20th century have any presence in the University of Valencia as the highest intellectual institution of the Valencian territory? Was there any interest and political activity of its students and professors in the Valencianist claims of those years? This article tries to make a brief review, especially during the Glorious and First Republic, the first years of the xxth century before Primo’s Dictatorship and in the thirties, of the relationship between the University of Valencia, a university of the periphery, and the political Valencianism.