This research project aims to offer an historical analysis about the Network of Popular Libraries of the Mancomunitat of Catalonia (1914-1931), one of the most significant cultural projects that the Catalan administration carried out. The Mancomunitat of Catalonia, the administrative union of the four Catalan provinces between 1914 and 1925, did not have any power over education. However, it had the necessary legal authority to constitute its own network of popular libraries. It is for this reason that the creation of the first public libraries had an important significance in Catalonia. The new cultural equipments became a political symbol, which represented the values of the government of Enric Prat de la Riba and, therefore, those of the political catalanism. Thus, in this research I try to analyse the effect that these reading centres had on the Catalan society on a political, social and cultural level. Did they contribute to increase the education of the population? To what extent did the services that they offered helped to democratise society? Did they modify the perception that existed so far between public and private space? In the same way, I wanted to determine the scope that this project had at the local level through the study of the concrete cases of Olot, Valls, Sallent, Figueres and Canet de Mar. My objective also was to establish the influence that the cultural politics of the Mancomunitat of Catalonia caused on the intellectuals and politics from the rest of Spain. Through the study of multiple articles published in the press at that time about the creation of the Popular Libraries Network it can be confirmed how various ideological areas from the statal sphere used new Catalan cultural equipments to defend new measures of regeneration and modernization to the Spanish government. Finally, I intent to analyse the doubts and the political disputes generated around the creation of the Network of Popular Libraries of the Mancomunitat of Catalonia. My desire is to emphasise which were the political, social and cultural debates that took place due to the creation of these new public service, in order to understand what was the role played in this process, not only by the republican autonomist politicians, but also by the carlists, anarchists, radical republicans and the representatives of the dynastic parties.
La xarxa de biblioteques populars de la Mancomunitat de Catalunya (1914-1931). Anàlisi d'una política pública.
Canalias Chorrero, L. (Author). 4 Jul 2017
Student thesis: Doctoral thesis
Student thesis: Doctoral thesis