Història i reconstrucció nacional. La historiografia catalana a l’època de Ferran Soldevila (1894-1971)

2003, 370 pp.

This study aims to achieve a double objective: one the one hand, to show the preeminent place Ferran Soldevila (Barcelona 1894 – 1971) occupies in contemporary Catalan historiography and, on the other, to offer a first overview of the Catalan historiographic panorama of much of the 20th century. The circumstance established in the same title between ‘History’ and ‘National reconstruction’ responds to a true constant of the historiographic production of Soldevila, but it is also a key conjunction when analysing the collective trajectory of contemporary Catalan historians. ‘Making Catalonia an ordinary nation’, Soldevila’s personal motto, could be extended to most of the historians of its century, since history became a key discipline in achieving this normalising objective. If this was a point of union, there were other of profound differentiation, so we can talk about the existence of a large number of currents historiographic, similar to those existing in the Europe of the time. This plurality is surely one of the most forceful evidence of the complexity and development that the discipline achieved. Another proof is the strength of Soldevila’s work, which makes him one of the main classics of the Catalan and European historiographers of his time.