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Pompeu Fabra i Poch (La Salut, February 20, 1868 - Prada, December 25, 1948) was a Catalan philologist known as the "organizing mind of the Catalan language" for his work as a leading establisher of the modern regulations of the Catalan language. His father exerted a great influence on him during his childhood and youth, both through his first contacts with some dictionaries and grammars that ran around the house, such as Pere Labèrnia's Dictionary of the Catalan Language with Spanish and Latin Correspondence, and the Grammática de la lengua catalan, by Antoni de Bofarull and Adolf Blanch, as for the choice of the engineering career, in which his father influenced, which, however, he could not see completed due to his died in 1888.
Some fruitful and controversial beginnings
Fabra began industrial engineering studies which he gradually alternated with a strong self-taught inclination towards philology and in 1889 he joined L'Avenç as editor, which in 1891 published the grammar "Ensayo de gramática" of modern Catalan", in which, for the first time using scientific methodology, the spoken language is described with an accurate phonetic transcription.
Together with Joaquim Casas Carbó and Jaume Massó and Torrents Fabra, he undertook the second linguistic campaign of the magazine L'Avenç, which lasted throughout 1892 and consisted of a series of dense notes, generally unsigned, which the magazine published under the rubric of "La Reforma Lingüística" from the March issue, and that "provided a theoretical justification for the orthographic changes that were adopted along the way" and that they were the first scientific attempts to systematize the language, attempts that caused controversy and constituted the outline of the future regulation. From L'Avenç, Pompeu Fabra published articles using the pseudonym Esteve Arnau, to avoid direct confrontation and criticism of real and concrete people with a trajectory formed at that time, in addition to concealing his participation in a magazine of the which he felt ideologically distant.
All in all, the proposals could be considered revolutionary, difficult to accept by the traditionalist majority composed of the floretists, some of the most recognized writers of the Renaissance such as Narcís Oller, Víctor Català and Àngel Guimerà, and the journalistic media. L'Avenç's campaign provoked the reaction of the traditionalists, who counterattacked, which was precisely what the promoters of the campaign were looking for. A clear example was Fabra's article in La Vanguardia on March 22, 1892 entitled "On the linguistic and orthographic reform", with which he responded to an earlier one by Omar and Barrera in the same newspaper, and presented in summary the his program of action.
In 1895 he presented Contribution to the grammar of the Catalan language to the extraordinary prize for the best grammar of the floral games of 1895, contrary to his theories, and which was deserted, and again to those of 1896, in which the commission awarded him an access It was not published until 1898 by Tipografia de L'Avenç because Fabra feared a trap if it was published by the games commission. The work is considered a crucial milestone in modern Catalan grammar.
From Bilbao to Badalona
In 1902 he won by opposition the chair of chemistry at the School of Engineers in Bilbao. On September 5, 1902, she married Dolors Mestre in the church of Sant Vicenç de Sarrià, shortly before the school year began. In 1912, after becoming a professor at the University of Bilbao, he decided to leave his job and return to Catalonia to dedicate himself to the linguistic work that, on the other hand, he had never left despite being in the Basque Country . The Fabra family did not settle in Barcelona, but in Badalona. The reasons for Fabra's decision were because her middle daughter, Teresa, had delicate health and the doctors had recommended fresh air and plenty of sea bathing. The city of Badalona, well located on the coast, offered him this proximity to the sea and good communication with his work at the university at the Institute of Catalan Studies. Also, since he had lived in Begoña, Fabra liked to live in smaller towns, away from the big agglomerations of the capitals. Fabra lived in Badalona until he had to go into exile in 1939, and had an important social life there, among others, he was the first director of the Municipal School of Arts and Crafts, where he friendship with other teachers or colleagues, such as Pau Rodon and Amigó. Numerous anecdotes became well known in the city and, especially, the social gatherings he held when he met friends or acquaintances on their journeys by tram, a means of transport of which he was in love, from Badalona to Barcelona, and vice versa .
In 1906 he participated in the 1st International Congress of the Catalan Language with the communication Questions of Catalan spelling. His intellectual prestige came out enormously strengthened, to the point that Prat de la Riba called him to lead a standardization project Catalan linguistics. He then returned to Catalonia, was appointed founder of the Philological Section of the IEC and held a chair at the Catalan University Studies.
The consolidation of a task
In 1932, Fabra was accepted directly, due to his prestige, to the chair of Catalan language at the University of Barcelona. With him, the Catalan language officially entered, for the first time in history. In 1933, Fabra became president of the board of trustees of the newly created Autonomous University of Catalonia. The 1932 dictionary, already mentioned, and popularly known as Diccionari Fabra or the Pompeu, was intended as the sketch - "canemàs", as Fabra himself called it - of a future official dictionary of the Institute of Catalan Studies .
Last years
In 1934 he was arrested following the events of October as head of the University Board of Trustees, along with the other members of the body. They were locked up in the prison ship Uruguay, where the Catalan Government was also imprisoned. He was confined there for six weeks and one day. On December 8, his case was dismissed and he was released. However, it should be noted that during his captivity he did not abandon his work, with the permission of the ship's authorities he gave some lectures, which were followed by the imprisoned politicians and intellectuals and which impressed the guards. In 1934 he was one of the signatories of the manifesto "For the preservation of the Catalan race". This racist manifesto fits the time when human eugenics was a negotiable issue, but in the National Socialist Germany of those days it led to industrial murders of Jews, homosexuals, gypsies and other excesses. In the winter of 1939 he went to the house of Sant Feliu de Codines, from where he went into exile in the French State. Although his figure was not persecuted, due to his unstable situation, it was increasingly difficult to live in Catalonia, and his status as a republican and Catalanist made him leave. Before that, he met with some colleagues, such as Joan Oliver or Antoni Rovira i Virgili, to decide to continue the work of the Institute of Catalan Letters, whether inside or outside Catalonia. Finally, on the morning of January 24, the Fabra family left their home, Can Viladomat, heading for Girona, then to Bescanó, Olot and Agullana, where after a few days refugees began to arrive. They crossed the Franco-Spanish border on January 31, 1939, five days after General Franco's troops entered Barcelona. In the end, he lived a long pilgrimage with stays in Paris, Montpellier, Perpignan and, finally, Prada de Conflent, at number 15 Carrer dels Marchants.
On January 30, 1940, the provincial court of political responsibilities in Barcelona opened a case against the publisher Josep Queralt i Clapés and him - number 2223 - as suspects of Catalan affiliation. The Civil Guard accused him of being a "staunch separatist element", a sentence that was corroborated by the same regional court when it cataloged him as "hostile to the things of Spain". On May 10, 1941, judgment was given. Pompeu Fabra was sentenced to pay a fine of 5,000 pesetas for his Catalanism "and deep contempt and enmity towards Spain", a penalty that was accompanied by "an absolute perpetual and strangely perpetual disqualification from the national territory". The financial situation, however, in which Pompeu Fabra found himself caused that, on October 15, 1941, the judge Francisco Eyre Varela decreed his insolvency. On March 15, 1947, the Provincial Court of Barcelona annulled the sentence. It would take 11 years for the regulatory liquidation commission to end up pardoning them and restoring their honor, even if it was posthumously.
Between September 14, 1945 and January 22, 1948, he held the position of Councilor of the Generalitat in exile.
The last years of his life were very precarious, living thanks to the food and clothes that were brought to him. Despite the adverse conditions, he continued to work and completed a new Catalan Grammar, published posthumously in 1956 by Joan Coromines, and the Philological Converses. Tomb of Pompeu Fabra in Prada.
In 1947, his daughter Teresa was diagnosed with cancer, an event that shook him; it made him aware of his age and began to think often about death. So much so that on November 27, 1947 he went to Andorra to make his will. The death of his daughter greatly affected Pompeu Fabra, who at the time was about to turn 80. The words of Joan Alavedra at his funeral capture the sentiment of the community of exiled Catalans who were preparing a celebration for the philologist's eightieth birthday transmuted into mourning for the family loss.] Nevertheless, the tribute for his eightieth birthday ended up being and the Catalan community in exile offered him a gold medal acquired by popular subscription, with his bust modeled by the sculptor Joan Rebull. He died at his residence in Prada on December 25, 1948.
