It was known as Operation Roca after its leader, Miquel Roca, a prominent figure in Catalan politics. And it was a failed attempt to revive a centrist party, after the disappearance of Unió de Centre Democràtic (UCD). Forty years ago, in June 1986, the Reformist Party ran in the general elections, with the participation of Unió Mallorquina (UM) and Unió Democràtica de Menorca (UDM) in the Balearic Islands, on that strange platform where the main leader did not even run under the common acronyms, but under those of Convergència i Unió, in Catalonia. Its failure is probably explained because no one understood this.

He has always been multifaceted: poet, narrator, playwright, reciter, biologist, journalist, literary prescriber, creator and director of the Mediterranean Poetry Festival, eternal activist for various causes. Biel Mesquida received last Monday, June 8, in the incomparable setting of the Palau de la Música, in Barcelona, the Honor Award for Catalan Literature, awarded by Òmnium Cultural. This Mallorcan, born in Castelló in 1947, began his career in 1973 with L’adolescent de sal, banned for two years by censorship. He has just published a new poetry collection at La Breu, Trast.

He reached 95 years of age and was absolutely prolific. Josep Costa Ferrer, nicknamed Picarol, was an excellent draftsman and satirical cartoonist, a specialist in art and antiques, an amateur archaeologist, a gallery owner, also a pioneer of tourism and landscape defense, and even the creator of a utopian urbanization. Ibiza will remember him with an exhibition this summer, when it is 150 years since his birth, on June 7, 1876. That was the beginning of a life path that would culminate in Cala d’Or, Mallorca, after a North American adventure in Chicago.

He was widely admired, also in the Balearic Islands, until the judicial affair that affected his family broke out and from which he has been excluded due to his delicate health. Before that, Jordi Pujol was, for decades, the benchmark of Catalonia par excellence, with certain ties to the Islands. We remember them as half a century has passed since the controversy generated, in May 1976, by his supposed 'disembarkment' as a shareholder in the Majorcan magazine Cort, in the midst of the political Transition.

Even today, the festival that remembers Alexandre Ballester in sa Pobla, of which the sixth edition has just taken place, is called Albopàs, the name of the town backwards: a term he coined, as a kind of magical recreaction of sa Pobla, and a country where he set many of his works. We remember this stage creator precisely when the Principal Theatre of Palma is about to premiere a new version of Un baül groc per a Nofre Taylor, one of his most outstanding works.

Yes, Majorcans and Catalans, brothers, without a doubt… But, even in the best of families, relationships often become complicated. Between May and June 1936, a Message to the Majorcans from Catalonia, and the consequent Reply to the Catalans from Mallorca, for common cultural cooperation, would end up complicating the lives of a good part of the signatories, upon the sudden arrival of the coup d’état and the victory of the rebels on the island. We remember this as we mark ninety years since that episode.

Natural phenomena fascinate people: a solar eclipse scheduled for next August has everyone captivated, for months. Others are not so entertaining: an earthquake, in the early morning of May 15, 1851, caused damage to houses and churches in Mallorca and generated panic among the citizens of Palma, who fled to improvised shelters. We recall this episode as the 175th anniversary of the scare is celebrated.

“N’Abel wants it all”. That’s what a veteran journalist from Ibiza, referring to Abel Matutes Juan, said years ago: a man who, in addition to his multiple businesses, certainly became practically everything in politics over three decades: mayor of Vila, a prominent figure of the Transition, senator, deputy, negotiator of the Statute of Autonomy, European commissioner, minister... We review his career as the thirtieth anniversary of his appointment, on May 5, 1996, as head of Foreign Affairs in José María Aznar’s first cabinet is celebrated.

What are gardens that seem so much taken from Granada in the very heart of Palma, at the foot of the Almudaina and a few steps from the Born and the sea? And even more so when the elderly people of Ciutat still remember that right here, in Hort del Rei, there were the Líric theatre, the Alhambra hotel, the mythical Riskal café... The truth, however, is that with the demolition of those buildings, what had already been a green area in the Middle Ages was recovered, only this time it was not done for the enjoyment of a monarch, but for the entire citizenry – and tourists, of course. We recall the history of Hort del Rei as sixty years have passed since the project that the architect Gabriel Alomar Esteve made in 1966 and which envisaged the recovery of that space.

Those were hard times and one could jump from a ministry to prison. This is what happened to the Asturian Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos (1744-1811), a politician, scholar, writer, and one of the most prominent figures of the State between the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Now 225 years ago, on April 18, 1801, Jovellanos arrived in a Mallorca that was not then a tourist destination, but a peripheral territory where people who wanted to disappear were sent, and where he was confined for seven years.

“The olive trees that your Pilar paints are real, / They are pagan, Christian, and modern olive trees / that guard the secret desires of the dead / with gestures, wills, and poses of the living”. This is what the poet Rubén Darío wrote addressing Joan Sureda, the husband of the painter Pilar Montaner. We remember the life and work of this exceptional artist, ahead of her time, as we commemorate the 150th anniversary of her birth, on April 13, 1876.

Almost all monarchs have had a distinctive nickname –like ‘the Emeritus’, in our times– and Alfonso, sovereign of the Crown of Aragon and, therefore, of the Balearic Islands, between 1416 and 1458, has gone down in history as ‘the Magnanimous’. Was he, really? It is now 575 years since the eternal fine that, with the king’s full powers, the governor of Mallorca imposed on the Part Forana, on April 9, 1451, for revolting against the injustices they suffered. Not much magnanimity there.

Almost at the same time, just a few days ago, two pieces of news reached us. One: the State denied the temporary loan of the three prehistoric bull heads found over a century ago in Costitx, to be exhibited at the Museum of Mallorca. "The Ministry of Culture is laughing at the Majorcans," stated the president of the Council, Llorenç Galmés. Two: the discovery in the Tramuntana mountain range of a small bull head – precisely! – which this time will remain on the island. We recall the discovery of the bulls and how and why they ended up in Madrid, at the National Archaeological Museum (MAN).

It was formerly called the House of Comedies, and the current building was constructed in the 19th century. But Palma's Principal Theatre stands on the same site where performances were already taking place in the 17th century. For 359 years, comedies have been staged in the same location, next to the former stream that gives its name to the street where it is located. As we approach World Theatre Day, as we do every March 27th, we explore the history of this stage.

"One of our greatest role models and best ambassadors, considered the greatest politician in our contemporary history and one of Spain's greatest statesmen," stated the President of the Government, Marga Prohens, on the occasion of the opening of the exhibition on the island politician Antoni Maura, which can be visited until May 10 at the Museu de Mallorca. The exhibition is titled Maura, yesIn contrast to the slogan 'Maura, no' with which practically the entire ideological spectrum of his time confronted him. Maura, yes? Or Maura, no?, we ask ourselves here as we review the lights and shadows of the man who has certainly been the most prominent figure from the Islands in the politics of the State.

It had only been three months since the dictator's death when fifteen people, from the most prominent sectors of Balearic society, the economy, and the liberal professions, met, with the support of three others, to establish Balearic Democratic Concurrence (Codeba)It was exactly half a century ago, on March 9, 1976, and it began as an association that would become, just a few months later, the nucleus in the Balearic Islands of the Union of the Democratic Centre (UCD), the coalition that would win the first democratic elections in 41 years in June 1977.

Shall we meet at Bosch? It's impossible to keep count of how many times these two 'junquillos' have said it, which is how the inhabitants of Ciutat are known – proudly, they say now. Ninety years ago, in February 1936, this establishment opened its doors, a regular meeting point for residents and visitors; and of which the salchichón, in its sense of a small bread with a groove along its length, has been and is its reference, although in this case with the popular name of langosta (lobster).

Poet, author of the poem The BalangueraJoan Alcover, whose song would become the anthem of Mallorca, was the host and driving force behind the prestigious gatherings held every Sunday at his home, Can Alcover, in Palma, with the most prominent figures of Mallorcan culture at the time. An art theorist, a man who suffered the loss of his first wife and four of his five children... Joan Alcover is widely remembered on the centenary of his death on February 25, 1926. Perhaps less well known, however, is his political side, the one that led him to become a member of parliament in Madrid and a champion of Catalan nationalism, with language as the unifying element of what we now call the Catalan Countries.

Island Social Promotions. This was the name displayed half a century ago on a premises on the central Can Verí street in Palma. Near where the newsroom of this media outlet you now hold in your hands, or on your screen, is located. Perhaps some might wonder what these promotions were. The answer is as simple as this: it was the front for a political party, then illegal, like all the others: the Socialist Party of the Islands (PSI), whose initials coincided with those of this entity. And that was its headquarters. Fifty years ago, on January 18, 1976, that PSI, which would later become the Socialist Party of Mallorca (PSM), made its presentation to the press.

Does God speak Catalan? Undoubtedly, for believers, since He is omnipotent. However, for centuries, the Catholic Church expressed itself in its ceremonies in Latin—the language of the Roman Empire, which threw the first Christians to the beasts of the circus: such are the paradoxes of life. It wasn't until the 1960s that the Second Vatican Council established that Masses would be celebrated in the vernacular: six decades ago, the Church in the Balearic Islands was embroiled in a heated debate about which language that should be. That the vernacular was Catalan had been perfectly clear to the Catholic Church in the Balearic Islands practically since the medieval conquest. Not even the growing centralism of the State made them change their position. The very liberal Bishop of Mallorca, Bernat Nadal, had the catechism published in Catalan in 1801. Bishop Pere Joan Campins created a chair of Mallorcan Language and Literature at the seminary. Bishop Josep Miralles, despite his support for the 1936 coup, had already stood firm against Primo de Rivera's Castilianizing ambitions and, during the early Franco regime, defended preaching in Catalan and published a final edition of the catechism in that language in 1937. Twenty-five years of Franco's dictatorship—a period of peace, as the regime proclaimed; yes, the peace of the cemeteries—and a segment of the Church in the Balearic Islands, as well as a segment of society, understood Castilian as the language of prestige and culture. Not all, of course: in Lluc, as if it were Asterix's village, the priest Pere Riutort promoted textbooks in standard Catalan and distributed copies of the magazine Strong Horse From Barcelona, ​​and upon moving to the Valencian Country, he would continue his work in favor of the presence of Catalan in the ecclesiastical sphere.