Tomeu Penya, 77, speaks candidly to ARA Balears: “I want my current state of mind to be very clear. I am very sad. As a young man, I would never have imagined that Mallorca's future would be like it is now, an island full of cement and tourists, with saturated roads and residents who cannot afford housing. For this summer's concerts, I'm considering singing ‘Trenc’ again, which I dedicated four decades ago to the emblematic beach of Campos that now, unfortunately, is once again under threat”. ‘Trenc’ was the debut of the country singer from Vilafranca as an environmental activist at 35 years old. It is one of the most outstanding songs from his third album Coverbos (1984).

In the Balearic Islands, the Civil War is full of small great stories that would deserve a good film. One is the odyssey starring the Mahón musician Deseado Mercadal Bagur. The Alicante journalist Tomás Andújar, delegate of the Efe agency in the Archipelago, has just rescued him from oblivion in the book "Water is running out. The exile of Deseado Mercadal, edited by Dolmen. He has done it based on the testimony of Celeste, the granddaughter of the Minorcan, and on the two books she wrote years after returning to her island: I was in Kenadza: nine years of exile (1983) and The Civil War in Menorca 1936-1939: historical account of a witness (1994).

At the beginning of 2011, the 26-year-old graphic designer from Palma, Jaume Vich, was in charge of coordinating the successful lipdub campaign ‘Mallorca m’agrada’ by Obra Cultural Balear (OCB). Back in 2008, the entity had launched the ‘Cafè per la Llengua’ campaign with well-known faces such as that of tennis player Rafel Nadal. According to the official statement, the new initiative aimed to “promote the moral rearmament of people who love Mallorca”. Many towns became involved in the creation of collective videos that claimed their own identity elements. In June, that boost of self-esteem would turn into frustration. The popular José Ramón Bauzá won the regional elections. His four-year term would be characterized by a clearly hostile attitude towards the Catalan language and culture.

In the Mallorca of late Francoism, the revolution began in La Calatrava, a small neighborhood of Palma located between the cathedral and the Baluard del Príncep. Antoni Rotger Martínez was its alma mater. “I no longer recognize – he laments at 80 years old – the streets where I grew up and played with other children. There are tourists everywhere and, because of gentrification, many of my former comrades in struggle have had to leave. This was a rundown, working-class neighborhood, and now it is prey to the real estate speculation that the entire island suffers from”. In 1975, this man from Calatrava, of the 'pedra picada' style, was 32 years old and, with Franco agonizing, he already led the neighborhood mobilization against the construction of a large parking lot for tourist coaches in front of the Cathedral. The cry of protest was ‘Park YES, parking NO’. Due to that pressure, in May 1976 the City Council rectified and gave way to a competition of ideas for the design of the current Parc de la Mar, which was inaugurated in 1984.

It has been a long time since the Balearic Islands became a consumer postcard. At Palma airport, you can find a 'clever' advertisement from a car rental company that says: 'It’s pronounced ‘MA-YOUR-CAR’’. Three weeks ago, on the facade of the complex, there was also a giant advertising banner from the German financial group Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe. It promoted Wero, an instant payment application similar to Bizum. The slogan used had a double meaning: 'Was auf Malle passiert, wird auf Malle beglichen’ (‘what happens in Mallorca, is settled in Mallorca’). The phrase refers to the famous slogan of the US 'sin city': 'what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas'. 'Malle’, the substitute for Vegas, is a very common colloquial term in Germany to refer to Mallorca as an emblem of excess tourism.

A ntoni Gaudí Cornet, born in Reus in 1852, found in nature his main source of inspiration. “Originality consists in returning to the origin,” he used to say. At the end of the 19th century, the muses led him to Mallorca. He did so as a member of the Catalan Association of Scientific Excursions, founded in 1876. The entity used to organize trips to the island, then famous for its unspoiled landscapes. The man from Reus was particularly struck by the Caves of Artà and the Caves of Drach (Manacor). This is assured by the Japanese researcher Tokutoshi Torii in a work titled Mallorca in Gaudí's works – it was published in 2002 within the framework of international conferences on Gaudí studies.

During the boom of tourism, there were Swedes who did not get discouraged. Some tried to dissuade their compatriots from going on vacation to a country that was a dictatorship and that, with the economic support of the USA, had made tourism its salvation. The most activist ones demonstrated with slogans such as 'Boycott trips to Spain!' and 'Trips to Mallorca are a disgrace'. From other countries, these protests would also be supported by Spanish anarchists in exile organized around Defensa Interior (DI). Coordinating the entity was the native of Menorca Octavi Alberola Surinach (1928-2025).

Between 1960 and 1980, in just two decades, the population of Palma doubled. It went from 150,000 inhabitants to 300,000. The tourist boom, with its epicenter in l'Arenal, turned the Balearic capital into a kind of promised land not only for peninsulars, especially from Andalusia and Murcia, but also for families from the Part Forana, who were fleeing the harshness of the countryside. One of the suburban neighborhoods that was suddenly colonized was Son Gotleu, located in the Llevant district, between Aragó street and La Soledat. Its transformation can be traced in the exhibition Son Gotleu, beyond the headline. The origins of a welcoming neighborhood (1960-1980). Until the second week of June it will be at the neighborhood's health center and then it will move to the Mater center. It is a project by Palma XXI and Arquitectives, coordinated by the historian from Pollença Leyla Dworkin with the support of Caixa Colonya and Fundació Iniciatives del Mediterrani.

From his house in Bunyola, at the foot of the Serra d’Alfàbia, Miquel Canals Canyelles Moro, 93 years old, proudly displays a framed photo from his youth. It's no ordinary photo. It shows him with the trophy that in 1956, at the age of 23, accredited him as the best pine cutter in the entire State. At the end of November 2019, local researcher Biel Mateu Batle rescued his story and that of his companions from oblivion. This was during the Mountain Fair he organized in the town, which would later be called the Fira de Santa Catalina.

Citizen struggle has more strength than some believe. The Menorcans know this well, who in 1973, at the end of Francoism, were the first in the Balearic Islands to raise their voices against the destruction of the territory – four years later, in July 1977, in Mallorca, there would be the historic occupation of Dragonera; and in October, in Ibiza, 2,000 people demonstrated with the cry 'Save Ses Salines'. In 1969 Menorca was the last island to embrace mass tourism with the inauguration of Maó airport, which replaced the old aerodrome in Sant Lluís. The historian from Maó, Laura Piris Coll, explains the reasons for this late incorporation into the tourist boom: “Here there was an important structure of its own for footwear and jewelry. The livestock sector was also quite profitable. In addition, the owners were very interested in maintaining family estates for reasons of social prestige. On the other hand, the dictatorship had not invested anything in infrastructure on the island”.

The retired Miquel Ferriol Estrany, 81, has very fond memories of the summers of the late 70s. “It was when TVE began to broadcast the Tour of Spain live and in color. With my father, I would sit in front of the television to watch it after lunch. He was particularly interested in the landscapes. He always told me: ‘I already rode many of these stages when I was young during the war’. It was one of the few occasions when he spoke about the Civil War. Later I learned that he had fought in the Peninsula with a cyclist battalion”.

There are three weeks left until the Manacor Spring Fairs and Festivals and this year the nerves are very noticeable in the 'castellera' group Al·lots de Llevant. One of its members, Joan Llodrà Gayà, 52, assures it: “We hope to be able to raise a good tower to celebrate our thirtieth anniversary. We are among the first 'colles' in the Balearic Islands. We were born in 1996, the same year as Castellers de Mallorca, from Palma. We have been rehearsing for months. Our highest construction has been a four of eight, meaning eight floors with four people on each floor. We have only been able to raise it three times in our history. We almost always do seven floors”.

Llucmajor still preserves vestiges of rural Mallorca. Four times a year, a flock of 100 sheep crosses the town center towards a farm on the old Cala Pi road, nine kilometers away. They do so under the watchful eye of Miquel Tomàs Garau, Pastoret, 75 years old, and his dog. “Everyone takes photos of me,” he says with a smile. “It’s something that catches the eye. When the grass runs out on my farm, I take them there.” The Llucmajorer is one of the last old-fashioned shepherds practicing transhumance, an activity that consists of the seasonal movement of livestock in search of better pastures. Traditionally, sheep flocks from the large estates spent the winter in the Migjorn plains of the island and the summer in the mountains. On the roads, there used to be cisterns, reservoirs, and ponds that allowed animals and shepherds to drink.

Located at the foot of the Tramuntana mountain range, 14 kilometers from Palma, at the beginning of the 20th century Esporles was known as the 'little Russia' of Mallorca. Its six textile factories had managed to forge a strong proletarian consciousness. The inauguration in 1930 of the Casa del Pueblo would be a reflection of that class pride. Already in the municipal elections of April 12, 1931, the municipality would be one of the few on the island where the left triumphed. Two days later, King Alfonso XIII departed into exile and the Second Republic was proclaimed.

Women have played a key role in the history of antimilitarism. When men were obliged to go to war, mothers, wives, and sisters did not hesitate to mobilize to save their loved ones from certain death. It was during the Modern Age (15th-18th centuries) that the armies of European states became permanent and increasingly large. At that time, the Hispanic monarchy, following what was done in the rest of the continent, had three ways of supplying its troops: with mercenaries (professionals who fought in exchange for pay), with forced levies (generally from marginalized people, prisoners, and vagrants), and with the quintas.

The Havana cemetery is full of tombs with very local surnames: Pujol, Roca, Moner, Ensenyat... They are the testimony of the Majorcans who in the 19th century left to 'make the Americas'. According to chronicles, in 1889 there were about 10,000 (4% of the population). Many from Andratx went to Cuba. Among them were the paternal and maternal grandparents of Rosa Calafat Vila, professor of Catalan Philology at the UIB. “In the eighties, during my youth – she says –, I dug into the oral memory of the municipality and I was pleasantly surprised. I discovered a large number of 'gloses' related to the Caribbean island”.

The Palmesan Gonçal López Nadal, 73, is Professor Emeritus of Economic History at the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB). He feels indebted to the mastery of the Felanitx native Antoni Binimelis Sagrera. “The first time –he assures– I heard of him was in 1964, when I was 11 years old. It was through my uncle, Guillem Nadal Blanes, who was stationed as a diplomat in India. In a letter he told the family that he had met a Majorcan, a specialist in classical languages and a Spanish teacher in New Delhi. He said he was a rather peculiar person, a man of universal culture, and that he hadn't lost a hair, but, from his condition as a peasant”.

In Mallorca, during the Civil War, one of the main targets of the insurgents was the wealthy class that had supported the Second Republic. The symbol of that repression was the mayor of Palma, Emili Darder, a doctor by training, who in 1934 had helped found the Balearic Republican Left (ERB) to counterbalance the local political bosses. On February 24, 1937, after a sham court-martial, Darder was executed by firing squad. He shared that fate with two party members: the businessman Antoni Maria Ques from Alcúdia and the former mayor of Inca, Antoni Mateu, and the Palma socialist Alexandre Jaume. Eight more ERB mayors were also murdered: Joan Mas Verd I harvest (Montuïri), Clemente Garau Juan (Porreres), Pere Llull Fullana (Algaida), Pere Josep Cànaves Sales (Pollença), Pau Crespí Villalonga (Mancor del Valle), Pedro Vallespir Amengual (Costitx), Joan Alemán Villalonga (Búger) and Joan Guasch.

In 2021, Francesc Vicens Vidal, a musicologist from Palma, discovered a remarkable story within his wife Maria de Salut's family. "I received," he recalls, "a phone call from filmmaker Álex Dioscórides, who was preparing the documentary." Stone and oilfocused on the olive grove culture of the Tramuntana mountain range. He asked me if I knew any olive harvesters he could interview, given that many sang while they worked. I told him no. But one day my mother-in-law told me that her mother, when she was single, had been hired out to work on an estate in Sóller. They called this 'going to the mountains'."

During the Franco regime, women had their own form of military service through the Women's Social Service (SSF). This was a request made in 1937 by the Women's Section of the Falange to Franco to obtain more volunteers for the service.Social AssistanceIt was a public assistance organization created by the insurgent side during the Civil War. In 1939, with the fascist victory, the Women's Social Service (SSF) was decreed a 'national duty' presented as the perfect complement to the Home Economics Schools. Under the auspices of National Catholicism, these schools were dedicated to instructing young women in the tasks considered proper to a 'good woman and mother' (cooking, childcare, sewing, nursing, etc.). Curiously, the head of the Women's Section, Pilar Primo de Rivera, sister of José Antonio, founder of the Falange, never married nor had children.