El culte als homes de lletres i els seus usos a la Catalunya del Vuit-cents: els casos de Jaume Balmes i Antoni de Capmany

Abstract

This paper analyses the main displays of posthumous cults of commemoration for the figures of Jaume Balmes and Antoni de Capmany that took place in Catalonia between approximately 1848 and 1891. Inscribing these tribute initiatives in the wider scholarship on the political uses of death and the public celebration of great men, we identify them as turning points in the cultural practice of public commemorations dedicated to writers, artists and intellectuals. Balmes and Capmany were erected as collective reference points by a significant segment of the Catalan ruling classes who were in some way attached to the liberal regime. In doing so, they sought to provide themselves with prestigious cohesive symbols for a society they wished to distance both from reactionary positions and from revolutionary popular mobilisation. Through the symbolic figures of Balmes and Capmany, the promoters of these commemorative cults were able to shore up their own reputation and claim a leading role within the Spanish nation for the local and regional areas in which they were active.