Lluís Companys i Jover

Infobox_Politician
name = Lluís Companys


imagesize = 150px
caption =
birth_date = birth date|1882|06|21|df=y
birth_place = El Tarròs, Urgell
residence =
death_date = death date and age|1940|10|15|1882|06|21|df=y
death_place = Barcelona
office = 123^rd President of the Generalitat de Catalunya
salary =
term_start = January 1, 1934
term_end = October 15, 1940
(Acting from December 25, 1933 to January 1, 1934,
In exile from January 23, 1939 to October 15, 1940)
predecessor = Francesc Macià
successor = Josep Irla
office2 = 4^th Acting President of the Catalan Republic
salary2 =
term_start2 = October 6, 1934
term_end2 = October 7, 1934
predecessor2 = Francesc Macià
In 1931
successor2 = Himself, as President of the Generalitat de Catalunya
office3 = 1^st President of the Parliament of Catalonia
salary3 =
term_start3 = December 14, 1932
term_end3 = June 20, 1933
predecessor3 = New title
successor3 = Joan Casanovas i Maristany
office4 = Minister of the Marine of Spain
salary4 =
term_start4 = June 20, 1933
term_end4 = September 12, 1933
predecessor4 = José Giral
successor4 = Vicente Iranzo Enguita
party = ERC
religion =
spouse = Mercè Micó (div.)
Carme Ballester
children = Lluís (1911-1956)
website =
footnotes =

Lluís Companys i Jover (June 21 1882 – October 14 1940) was a Spanish Catalan politician and lawyer, leader of the political party Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, and President of the Generalitat de Catalunya from 1934 and during the Spanish Civil War. Exiled after the war, he was captured and delivered to the regime of Francisco Franco by the Gestapo, which executed him in 1940.

Life

Companys was the son of private farmers Josep Companys and Maria Lluïsa de Jover. After getting his license to practice law from the Universitat de Barcelona, Companys had participated in the political life of Catalonia from a young age. In 1906, as a result the military burning the writings of Catalan newspapers "Cu-Cut!" and "La Veu de Catalunya", and after the passage of the Ley de Jurisdicciones ("Law of Jurisdictions", which made speech against Spain and its symbols a criminal offense), he participated in the creation of Solidaridad Catalana. Later, he affiliated himself with the ephemeral "Unió Federal Nacionalista Republicana", of which he was president of its youth section. He was investigated for his intense youth activities and was jailed fifteen times, being classified after the Tragic Week of Barcelona as a "dangerous individual" in police records.

With Francesc Layret, Companys represented the leftist labor faction of the Partit Republicà Català (Catalan Republican Party), in which he was elected councilman of Barcelona in 1916. In November of 1920, he was detained together with Salvador Seguí (known as "El Noi del Sucre"), Martí Barrera, Josep Viadiu, and other syndicalists and was deported to the "Castell de la Mola" on Mahón in the Balearic Islands. Shortly afterward, Layret was assassinated after his defense was arranged.

Despite his deportation, in the 1920 legislative elections, Companys was elected deputy of Sabadell, taking the place of Layret, who was supposed to take that seat prior to his assassination. This gave him parliamentary immunity, which secured his release from prison.

He was one of the founders of Unió de Rabassaires in 1922, for which he worked as a lawyer and director of the magazine "La Terra" during the years of the regime of Primo de Rivera.

Detained again, he was unable to attend the "Conferencia de Izquierdas" (Conference of Leftists) held between March 12 and March 19, 1931, from which was born the political party Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya; however, he was elected as an executive member of that party, representing the Partit Republicà Català. Thanks to the bonds between the Spanish labor movement and the Spanish syndicalist movement, the election of Companys to this position gave the ERC great prestige in leftist public opinion; before, it had been considered a party of the small progressive bourgeoisie.

When the Spanish Civil War began in July 1936, Companys sided with the Republic against the "Nacionales" rebels and was instrumental in organizing a collaboration between the Central Committee of Anti-Fascist Militias, which was sponsored by his Catalan government, and the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM), a revolutionary anti-Stalinist Communist party, and Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT), an Anarchist Syndicalist trade union.

Two years before, on October 6, 1934, Companys had led a Catalan Nationalist uprising against the center and right/wing republican government, and had proclaimed the Catalan State, an action for which he was arrested and shortly after sentenced to thirty years in prison. However, after the 1936 election and the victory of the left-wing coalition Frente Popular, he was set free by the new government. During the war, Companys attempted to maintain the unity of his political coalition, but after the Soviet Union consul, Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko, threatened that his country would cut off aid to Catalonia, he sacked Andres Nin from his post as minister of Justice in December 1936.

Exiled to France in 1939 after the Civil War, he was arrested and extradited by Nazi German authorities to the Spanish government in September 1940. He was put to death, after a military trial lacking legal guarantees, at Montjuïc Castle on October 14, 1940cite book|last=Burns|first=Jimmy|title=Barca: a people's passion|publisher=Bloomsbury|year=2000|chapter=|page=126] . He is buried in the "Cementiri del Sud-Oest" (Southwest Cemetery), near the castle.

The main stadium used for the 1992 Summer Olympics, located on Montjuïc and currently used by the football club Espanyol, is officially named in his memory. In 1998 a monument to Companys was installed near Arc de Triomf, on Passeig de Lluís Companys in Barcelona. His widow, Conxita Julià, is portrayed next to Companys's image in the monument.

ee also

*Catalan Republic
*Passeig de Lluís Companys in Barcelona

References

External links