• Pláticas literarias, the new volume from the Fundamental Works collection brings together, for the first time, a selection of articles on one of the leading intellectuals of the first half of the 20th century: the Catalan journalist Gaziel.
• The anthology and foreword to the book are written by Francisco Fuster, Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Valencia and a specialist in Spanish culture during the Silver Age.
  
• Fundación Banco Santander makes available to the public, free of charge on its website, an interview with Fuster and eight podcasts with articles dedicated to characters such as Shakespeare, Cervantes, Dostoevsky, Goethe, Marañón and Goya, among others.
  

Madrid, 18 March 2024 - PRESS RELEASE

Although colleagues of the stature of Josep Pla said that Agustí Calvet (1887-1964) was "the most outstanding figure of peninsular journalism for a quarter of a century" as director of the newspaper La Vanguardia from 1920 to 1936, he remains one of the worst known and misunderstood figures of the Spanish twentieth century. Gaziel was one of the best Spanish journalists, as well as "one of the intellectuals most unjustly undervalued by official Catalan culture in recent years", as stated by the editor of the volume, Francisco Fuster.

The aim of this anthology of articles - unpublished in book form - entitled Pláticas literarias, which belongs to the Cuadernos de Obra Fundamental collection of Fundación Banco Santander, is to draw attention to what is perhaps the most forgotten aspect of his journalistic work, silenced, perhaps, by the prominence acquired in recent years - among critics and the public - by his better known facet, as a war correspondent during the First World War or political analyst during the Second Spanish Republic. In these times of identity disputes and border wars, in Spain and in Europe, "we intend to speak out in favour of an author whose work represents an effort for harmony and peace, a desire for dialogue between the people - and literature - that coexist on the Old Continent. A humanist critic to whom, as anyone who reads these pages will realise, nothing human was alien to him", says Francisco Fuster in the foreword to this volume.

Fuster, Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Valencia and a specialist in Spanish culture during the Silver Age (1900-1936), is also a member of the Research Group on Culture, Publishing and Literature in the Spanish-speaking World (19th-21st Centuries) [ILLA-CSIC], of the 19th Century Research Group. Reform and Revolution in Europe and America (1763-1918)) [UV] and the Julio Caro Baroja Institute of Historiography.

"We live in a time in which the more you demand from the reader, the more readers you lose, and Gaziel is an author who demands more from his readers. He is also an author who has his detractors, not because of the quality of his literary work, but because of his political ideology", explains Fuster. "It's not that he is forgotten - it would be daring of me to say that - but I think his work deserves much more, and, above all, I think he should be taken out of Catalonia, and that the rest of Spain or Latin America should know Gaziel's work".

For Francisco Javier Expósito, head of Literature at the Foundation, "Gaziel is a fundamental author, a humanist who went beyond nationalism with his profound writing, who had a compassionate vision of reality, and for this reason suffered the persecution of the dictatorship and Catalan nationalism".

Jordi Amat, essayist, and critic, who took part in the presentation of the volume, argued that "Gaziel should have been a philosopher and not a journalist, however, the First World War altered his destiny and turned him into one of the leading Spanish intellectuals of the 20th century. In his articles he discusses both cities and wars, politics, and literature. As with Ortega, it doesn't matter. What counts is the depth of an essayistic gaze that shaped the Silver Age of Spanish culture".

This volume brings together authentic gems of literary criticism and short essays - dedicated to Shakespeare, Gaudí, Goya, Maragall, Proust, Goethe, Cervantes, Baroja or Dostoyevsky, among many others - which draw attention, in times of identity disputes and border wars, to an author whose work represents an effort for concord and peace in the Peninsula, Europe and the world, and who, nevertheless, was persecuted by all nationalisms, which censored his freedom of expression.

"He was always a man with a Europeanist vision, and he turned La Vanguardia into a modern, European newspaper, written by Catalan intellectuals, but also from the rest of Spain," says Fuster. "And although in the short term this damaged him, in the long term it means that, if Gaziel is reborn one day, it will be because he stands for unity, rather than confrontation".

The volume is available in both physical and eBook format. The Fundación Banco Santander also features, free of charge, an interview with Francisco Fuster and eight podcasts with a selection of articles by Gaziel.