Festive literature in Catalan as a space of cultural resistance: The Valencian magazine Pensat i Fet (1912–72) during the Spanish post-war period

Abstract

The magazine Pensat i Fet (1912–72), which was published every year before the Fallas festival and included a wide range of texts and pictures related to it, had been an important element in the dissemination of literature and culture in Catalan and the agenda of valencianism among wide sectors of Valencian society. Until 1936 – especially during the years of the Second Spanish Republic – the magazine explicitly opted for valencianism, for example, advocating for the agreement that would make the statute of autonomy possible. However, from 1940 onwards it became a true bastion of cultural resistance. So, the magazine maintained a literary use of Catalan language in diverse registers, strongly satirized the Castillianization of society, was able to express a valencianist spirit in a variety of ways, incorporated elements of social criticism through popular satire and accommodated very diverse authors from the Valencian literary field and from other Catalan-speaking regions. In this article, attention will be paid to the way in which the magazine manages to articulate these gestures, albeit not without trouble with censorship, throughout the first decade of Franco’s Regime, that is, between 1939 and 1950.