Abstract

This article provides an overview on Joan Estelrich’s intellectual activity departing from two initiatives, which may be related to the so-called humanism or new humanism so much in vogue in Europe throughout the inter-war period. The multifaceted voice ‘humanism’ and the expression ‘new humanism’ are first reviewed in historical context in order to avoid misinterpre­tations. The project of an unborn journal, Humanitats (1929), conceived as the academic journal for the Fundació Bernat Metge in its national and transnational dimension, is then analysed, with particular attention to Mario Meunier’s contribution on the humanities and the European spirit. The article also explores Estelrich’s involvement in the debate on the humanities and the formation of the contemporary man in the entretien organized by the Institut International de Coopération Intellectuelle (Société des Nations) in Budapest, in June 1936, to illustrate the meaning and use of ‘new humanism’ and its projection in Estelrich’s intellectual profile.

Abstract

The study of the popularisation of English Catholic Catholic journalism in Catalonia in the 1920’s and 1930’s has mainly focused on the figure of G. K. Chesterton. However, his great friend, the polemicist Hilaire Belloc, also had a certain presence in Catalonia through direct contact with the country, translation of his articles and works and collaboration in Catalan media. The fact that Belloc was clearly an anti-modern apologist of the Christian faith and the original ideologist of a ‘medievalist’ political and economic system called ‘distributism’, as well as a prominent historian and author of biographies, endowed him with a multifaceted character and special interest for the Catalan intellectuals, especially the Catholics. In the shadow of Chesterton, the present article highlights how his texts and ideas had a valuable impact, which ultimately contributed to the penetration into Catalonia of the new English-Catholic Catholic humanism.

Abstract

For decades, the figure and works of the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig (Vienna, 1881-Pe­trópolis, Brazil, 1942) enjoyed the benefit of unparalleled popularity in Catalonia. Beyond praise  and criticism, Zweig, who is arguably one of the most famous writers of the twentieth century, interested and involved writers, artists, critics, translators, politicians, and all sorts of cultural agents in a critique reception of his work in Catalonia which is still to be studied exhaustively and to be interpreted properly. This article proposes a first interpretation of Zweig’s critical reception in Barcelona, which, however anecdotal, episodic and tangential, necessarily reflects the same contradictions and fluctuations of the author’s global reception. From the analysis of his first translations, the relationship with Salvador Dalí, the meeting with Eugeni d’Ors or Joan Estelrich, the repercussions in the press of his death or the debates that his work provoked between idealists and skeptics, some episodes are analyzed that point out major lines of interpretation of Zweig’s work and thought.