Universitat de Barcelona

The CEHI is a research centre that celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 1999, which makes it one of the oldest and most enduring institutions of the University of Barcelona. Jaume Vicens i Vives founded the Centre in November 1949. At the beginning of the 1950s, the Centre published two journals: Estudios de Historia Moderna and Índice Histórico Español , which continues to be published today.

In 1977, shortly after Franco’s death, the archives of the Fondation Internationale d’Études Historiques et Sociales sur la Guerre d’Espagne (FIEHS) were incorporated into the CEHI collection. The FIEHS was a privately funded institution with headquarters in Geneva (Switzerland) and a Research Centre in Perpignan (France). It was governed by an international board. This Foundation broke up at the beginning of the 1980s. Since then, FIEHS documents have formed part of the CEHI collection.

The Josep M. Figueras Library was founded in 1967 under the patronage of Josep Ma Figueras (1928-1994). It initially functioned as a private library, and made up for the serious lack of Barcelona libraries specialized in Catalan and Spanish contemporary history. In 1978, it became a foundation and was opened to all scholars and researchers. Its collection mainly contains material on the Second Republic and the Spanish Civil War. In addition, it has a little-known collection, which belonged to the former Casa d’Amèrica de Barcelona and deals with the subject of Latin America. It also contains an important legacy of Francesc Cambó’s books.