Aloma, Plaça del Diamant, Carrer de les Camèlies, Garden by the sea, Broken Mirror, the unfinished Isabel and Maria... Mercè Rodoreda's work is full of images of Barcelona. Of that "Catalan Barcelona" of his childhood and youth, lost since he decided to go into exile in January 1939, just three days before Franco's troops entered the city.
Although he returned regularly since the 1960s, he maintained close contact with other writers who decided to return after a short exile, such as Carles Riba –with whom he met during his first stage in France– and even bought a flat on Balmes street, Rodoreda he did not want to make that Barcelona of the Franco regime a literary matter.
And when she finally returned to Catalonia, already in 1972, she did not return to the city either, but settled in the house that her friend Carme Manrubia, whom she had known since the war, had in Romanyà de la Selva. It was precisely there, in a studio next to the garden, where she finished what is considered her masterpiece, Mirall Trencat.
Despite the fact that during the dictatorship it was recognized with the main prizes awarded with or without the consent of the regime to literary works written in Catalan (Jocs Florals, Víctor Català, Serra d'Or, Sant Jordi, Ramon Llull, Lletra d'Or... ), the author always chose to stay away from public life.
An attitude that changed after the restoration of democracy and the first municipal elections and the Parliament of Catalonia. It was the moment in which he decided to take a step forward and accept all the pending awards. In addition to adding his voice to that of Catalanism, silenced until then.
In 1980, just three years before her death, Mercè Rodoreda became the first woman to receive the Catalan Letters Honorary Award, she won the Ciutat de Barcelona for Viatges i Flors, the Crítica Serra d'Or for Quanta, how much war..., inaugurated a plaque in the Plaza del Diamant de Gràcia and proclaimed the celebration of the Mercè, which we offer in full.
In it, he claims a new Renaixença of Catalan culture that must come from a new generation that had not lived through the war or known exile. A few words full of longing and hope in equal parts, enriched by quotes from the great authors who "chopped stone in the quarry of the tongue to find veins of gold."
“Barcelona, Barcelona:
”If I find myself here, in this historic Saló de Cent, to deliver the proclamation for the Mercè Festival, it is because the mayor and his entire council asked me to. And they asked me so elegantly that it would have been rude of me not to accept.
”For a moment I thought that I was not the most appropriate person, others could come out more successful than me; but, on reflection, I thought maybe it was. And for three reasons: for being from Barcelona, for calling me Mercè and for carrying Catalonia within me.
”I can assure you that, for years, moving away from my country deepened my love for Barcelona, for the Catalan Barcelona of my youth. With its streets, its squares, with its load of history, with its good people. My neighborhood of Sant Gervasi, next to the town of Gràcia, with Elisa street, with Bonanova square, with Josepets and with so many fields of flowers.
”The Barcelona of a certain clarity on a certain afternoon in the Plaza de Catalunya with the sky streaked by troops and troops of scandalous starlings; with a certain clarity on the green slope of Tibidabo, Passeig de Gràcia above, at the end of days with a certain clarity of a March morning with the sun hidden in a branch on top of a wall. The small towers of my Sant Gervasi, polished and clean, with their sunny, airy and flowery gardens.
”Far from my country, the longing didn't hurt me. I was saddened by the harsh fate of the Catalans. When we had managed to have our identity accepted and recognized, they shattered everything, they took everything from us. We had to bury the illusion of simply being a people that works and lives in Catalan and for Catalonia.
”It has been a long time in which we have been considered citizens of the lowest category, with our language prohibited and mocked. humiliated. But in the midst of sinking we did not give in. We could not let ourselves be defeated by adversity. Drowned, scattered, we continue to think about our country, working for our country. Both insiders and outsiders. We are Catalans and I would say that tenacity is our motto. And the wait has earned us a miracle.
”I believe in miracles, and the miracle has begun: we have a government of patriots, of deeply Catalan and tenacious people, with Catalan roots that no one and nothing has been able to uproot. We all have a task to undertake, a difficult and therefore exciting task: to help. We have all wished at one time or another in our lives for an ideal city, an ideal homeland: the highest and the most beautiful.
"As one of our poets says patriotically: 'Health to the country in centuries of growing sap, health to the country not yet born as we dream of its children.' We must build that ideal homeland! And all those who will come after us, generation after generation, all bound by the same desire. Facing a new Renaixença.
”Of you, Mare de Déu de la Mercè, golden and resting inside your church with the baby Jesus on your lap, I had had the image, as a child and as a young man, in my bedroom, inside a glass case, all dressed in satin embroidered with gold and pearls, with bright scarlet-colored cut stones, crowned with silver.
“At your feet, kneeling on either side, were two captives: one in purple doublet and dark green puffer breeches, the other in purple puffer breeches and olive green doublet. Both with white shirts, both with their hands chained and their eyes raised towards you imploring their protection.
”Mare de Déu de la Mercè, make sure that we Catalans do not have to feel captive anymore, that our just and humane aspiration to be born and die Catalans be recognized forever and ever. It depends on you and it depends on us, especially on this hard-working and studious youth, on these brave and strong Catalan women, aware that one of the noblest things in the world is raising a family, who have taught and teach their children to love Catalonia, without fanfare, quietly, effectively.
”Catalonia, 'land of the equal pines, of the holm oak grove that rises up the slope to the living crest', will be whatever we want it to be; the force of so many wills can break down walls. Time doesn't count. We have learned to wait. We must think that everyone, each one in his place, is necessary, we are important. A painting by Antoni Tàpies or Joan Miró or a sculpture by Subirachs is as important as a well-made jug from Breda or a well-finished vase from La Bisbal; an artist is as important as a worker, a fisherman as a peasant.
”I would like, on this important day, to communicate my faith in my land, in the unbreakable force of patience of the Catalans. In the Catalonia that 'works, thinks, fights and believes, hopes and prays'. We have in the making the biggest festival of the city organized by our mayor, by our City Council. All ours.
”I would like to ask the people of Barcelona to celebrate this year's festival with hope, with a happy heart, with flags on the balconies, with couplets in squares and streets, with all the outburst of our flowers on the Ramblas, with the sea well blue in this sweet September of grapes.
”To all our authorities, now, finally, very legitimate, to all the people of Barcelona, to all the Catalans, I send my cordial greetings; and to the Blessed Virgin, in her dedication to La Mercè, my prayer for me, for all of us, for our city and for our country.
”Barcelonians, Barcelonans, the 1980 Mercè Festivities are open.”
