article Journal of Catalan IntelleCtual HIstory, Volume I, Issue 2, 2011 | Print ISSN 2014-1572 / online ISSN 2014-1564 DoI 10.2436/20.3001.02.9 | Pp. 123-130 http://revistes.iec.cat/index.php/JoCIH On the Philosophers’ Exile and Pere Coromines’ Desterro1 Jordi Sales-Coderch universitat de Barcelona. facultat de filosofia Departament de filosofia teorètica i Pràctica. Barcelona
[email protected] abstract This article suggests a reconsideration of the term “exile” as it is referred to the Cata- lan thinkers since the armed conflict of 1936-1939. “Inner exile” is a label whose use frequently obeys to ideological and personal considerations rather than to an objective characterisation. Thus, what serves to discredit some authors is neglected for others who enjoy a positive characterisation . This is also the case of “exile”. Pere Coromines [1870-1939] stands here as an initial example. key words exile, inner exile, Pere Coromines. 1 1. By Way of Introduction: An Uncomfortable Question In order to contextualise what I will say about some key figures in Catalan culture and, above all, to indicate the direction of my current work on essays in Catalan and their possible and difficult standardised acceptance, I will begin with a question expressed by Marta Pessarrodona. In the introduction to França 1939. La cultura catalana exiliada (France 1939. Catalan Culture Exiled), her coherent, useful and ambitious book on a very complicated issue and which has the particular merit of having been produced at all, she writes: “I have also repeatedly asked myself why important figures at a political, intellectual and artistic level, such as Lluís Nicolau d’Olwer or Pere Coromines, are so unfa- 1 Pere Coromines, as the author explains in the text, opts for the use of this word, desterro (ban- ishment), instead of the word exili because of its connotations.