The University of Barcelona awards the Gold Medal to Hilari Raguer
The event took place in the Aula Magna.
Institutional
(23/09/2016)
The Montserrat monk and historian Hilari Raguer talked, during the event in which was awarded the Gold Medal of the University of Barcelona, about his experiences as university student in the forties, regarding both academic and anti-Francoist activities.
The event took place in the Aula Magna.
Institutional
23/09/2016
The Montserrat monk and historian Hilari Raguer talked, during the event in which was awarded the Gold Medal of the University of Barcelona, about his experiences as university student in the forties, regarding both academic and anti-Francoist activities.
In a speech in which he combined old anecdotes and memories from the Franco regime repression, Raguer mentioned lecturers such as Enrique Luño, Josep Maria Pi i Sunyer, Octavio Pérez-Vitoria, Luis García de Valdeavellano and Lluc Beltran, among others. He talked about a magistral lecture by Lluc Beltran about Francoʼs economic policies and which “out of caution” he had to teach at a studentʼs house. “Many years have passed, but I could still recall the lines of that conference: it defined the economic policies of Franco like Keynes and Pancho Villa; inflation but happy and without control”.
Raguer, who also made reference to the other moment when he was a university student —regarding his doctoral thesis in 1975, summarized his personal relation with the University of Barcelona saying that he always had “a big respect, and admiration for this house, which with Elies Rogent neo-Romanesque reminds him of the Ripoll Monastery, and a neighbouring building, the seminar”.
Regarding the University of the Franco regime, Raguer said it “was organized to make Catalan students become Spanish” and remembered how he started dedicating more and more time to the “nationalist and anti-Franco activities”. He remembered his detention in 1951 for the tram strike and quoted the protest manifesto that he wrote for the 500 anniversary of the University of Barcelona, in which he defended that “the University is the organism through which people create an own and spontaneous culture, inspired in their tradition”. This record allowed Raguer conclude his speech with “despite being eighty-eight, and like I advanced in that clandestine octave in 1951, I still hope to live and see the University of Barcelona, with all its historic weight and great international and national prestige, become the alma mater of the independent Catalan Republic”.
The Professor of Contemporary History of the University of Barcelona Joan Villarroya described Hilari Raguer as one of the historians with more knowledge and objectivity when writing about the Civil War and Francoism. After qualifying the monk and historian as “untiring worker”, highlighted that “with his research, he showed the real role of the Spanish Church and myth of the cruzada”. He also described his work on Manel Carrasco i Formiguera as outstanding. Then he remembered that Raguer studied two characters often seen as politically “uncomfortable”, Carrasco i Formiguera and General Batet.
The rector Dídac Ramírez closed the speech touching on some of the efforts for which the University awards the medal to Raguer. He recalled how the Historian Paul Preston “couldnʼt stop talking about Raguer” in his speech as Doctor Honoris Causa at the UB last June. The rector described Hilari Raguer as “a person who is committed not only to his studies but also human rights and essential freedom”. He finished praising humility and simplicity: “Understand this medal and the entire event as a simple gift, prepared with lots of love”, he said.
Hilari Raguer i Suñer (Madrid, 1928) graduated in 1950 in Law at the University of Barcelona and got the doctorate in 1975 with a thesis supervised by Manuel Jiménez de Parga, about the Democratic Union of Catalonia party. He graduated in Biblical Theology, and in Social Psychology and Political Sciences in the Sorbonne. In 1954 he entered Montserrat Monastery and in 1960 was appointed priest. He worked in tasks of biblical and liturgical dissemination and published studies on 20th Century History of Catalonia. In 1999, together with Professor Agustí Colomines from the University of Barcelona, assessed the archives of the Generalitat de Catalunya in the exile, stored at the Nationalism Archive of the Sabino Arana Foundation and returned to the National Archive of Catalonia. He received St. Georgeʼs Cross in 2014, for his studies dedicated to Manuel Carrasco i Formiguera, the General Domènec Batet and Democratic Union of Catalonia during the Republican period.
Among his books on contemporary history there are La Unió Democràtica de Catalunya i el seu temps (1931-39) (1975), Divendres de passió. Vida i mort de Manuel Carrasco i Formiguera (1984), El general Batet (1994), Gaudeamus igitur. Notes per a una història del Grup Torras i Bages (1999), Carrasco i Formiguera. Un cristiano nacionalista (1890-1938) (2002), La pólvora y el incienso (La Iglesia y la Guerra Civil) (2001) and Ser independentista no és cap pecat (Claret, 2012). He collaborated in the history of the Second Vatican Council, directed by Giuseppe Alberigo. Regarding the fields of liturgical and biblical spirituality he published the works Para comprender los salmos (1996, with four Spanish Editions and translated into Italian, Portuguese and Brazilian) and Llegir avui lʼApocalipsi (1997)
The last Gold Medal given by the University of Barcelona was for the Philosopher Emilio Lledó, last September. Previous to that one, gold medals were awarded to the expert on comparative psychology Nicholas J. Mackintosh (2015), Professor of Geology Carmina Virgili (2011), and to the Primatologist and Ethologist Jordi Sabater Pi and the Writer, Journalist and Literary Critic Baltasar Porcel in 2009. The prestigious Doctor and Catalan pacifist Moisès Broggi and the President of the publishing house Vicens Vives Roser Rahola were also awarded the Gold Medal in 2008. The Gold Medal honors natural or juridical people who have been distinguished for their services given to the University of Barcelona, or have given eminent and extraordinary services to society in the political, social, economic, cultural or scientific fields.