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Until well into the 1940s Castilian enjoyed a monopoly of Spanish Studies in British universities. Only at the Universities of Liverpool and Belfast was Catalan offered, thanks to the interest of Professors Allison Peers and González Llubera, and even there the teaching of Catalan language and literature was carried out at a comparatively low level. The dominance of Castilian in British universities was, after all, only to be expected at that time in view of the political advantages and the cultural pressures which supported Castilian, and the tendency which existed, and which still exists, for the majority of British people to think of Spanish as the native language of all the inhabitants of the Spanish State and to regard any departure from this notion as an undesirable complication. It should also be observed that in Great Britain there then existed no serious school of Spanish-American studies either, so strong and widespread was the hold of peninsular Spanish and of its influence in the universities.
However, the Spanish Civil War and its result brought into play forces which were not entirely favourable to the maintenance of Castilian cultural domination. Thanks to the news which was received daily from Spain, the British people, and amongst them members of the universities, were becoming better informed about Spain, and took greater interest in the variety of cultures which it possessed. The arrival in London in 1938 of the late-lamented Dr Josep Maria Batista i Roca as the special envoy of President Companys, and his exile in this country after the war was over, had an important effect upon the development of Spanish studies here. Together with other Catalans, both exiles and previous residents in England, he set about creating a feeling of solidarity with the cause of the Catalan people in certain sectors of British opinion, not least of which was university opinion, and a sense of injustice at the manifest persecution to which Catalan culture was being subjected in the very difficult years following the end of the Civil War. The historian Ferran Soldevila has pointed to what he called "the Anglo-Catalan connection, which is one of the features of our international politics, parallel to the traditional Franco-Castilian alliance". It was in this spirit, the spirit of traditional Anglo-Catalan rapport, that these dedicated Catalans went about their task at that time, and it was this spirit which they succeeded in awakening in their pro-Catalan British friends. |
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