PalmThey were called Poetry, Theater, and Novel Workshops, held in three successive years: 1966, 1967, and 1968. These were weekly lecture series in Palma, featuring leading figures from both Mallorca and abroad. They became meeting places for the opposition to Franco's regime, to the point that some events ended with police arrests. Sixty years later, we remember this cultural expression, but also a demonstration of resistance to the dictatorship.
The soul of that rebellion in the classroom was the much-missed Jaume Adrover: professionally dedicated to book distribution, he combined his passion for theater with an unyielding anti-Francoism that caused him serious personal problems. Once democracy was restored, he became the promoter and director of the International Theatre Festival, organized by the Palma City Council throughout its ten-year run, from 1981 to 1990. Other prominent figures in Mallorcan culture at the time, such as Bienvenido Álvarez Novoa and Jaume Vidal, worked with him in the organization. Adrover's generosity and dedication to this endeavor were such that, according to the writer Miquel López Crespí—then a young left-handed man—Adrover himself paid for the travel expenses of guests arriving from abroad and even personally picked them up at the airport. Some artists also contributed their works as a source of income. And the newly founded Balearic Cultural Association (1962) also contributed funds. As Antoni Serra recounts in his memoirs, the Franco regime considered culture "a highly suspect activity." Police reports used expressions like "his ideas are contrary to the regime and he also frequently attends conferences"—Where have we ended up! The records of Serra and Llompart, compiled by order of the far-right civil governor Carlos De Meer, list, as indelible stains, their participation in those activities, "of a Catalan separatist nature."
Former headquarters of the Casa Catalana de Palma, on the corner of Av. of the Conde de Sallent with Ramon Berenguer III street. Ismael Velázquez
Aranguran at the Bitàcora club
The lectures were held in two spaces in Palma, now demolished: the Poetry lecture (1966) in the Grifé y Escoda gallery (Jaime III), and the following two lectures—Theater (1967) and Novel (1968)—in the then headquarters of the Casa Catalana (Avenidas). The list of personalities who attended is dazzling. Among the Mallorcans, in addition to those already mentioned, were Baltasar Porcel, Gregorio Mir, Encarnación Viñas, Joan Bonet, Andreu Ferret, and Gabriel Janer Manila. From the Catalan-speaking world, there were Pere Calders, Ricardo Salvat, Manuel de Pedrolo, Maria Aurèlia Capmany, Carlos Barral, and Francesc Candel. And further afield, there were José Monleón, Alfonso Sastre, Julio Cortázar, José Manuel Caballero Bonald, Antonio Buero Vallejo, and Antonio Gala. Almost all of them were figures considered suspicious by the dictatorship.
The dress rehearsal for the Classrooms were the activities that Jaume Adrover carried out at the Medina Circle in Ciudad Real. It was the perfect cover, because it was run by the Women's Section, the women's organization of the dictatorship's single party, the Movement. Lectures by Alfonso Sastre, José María Rodríguez Méndez, and José Monleón were already held there. Adrover himself directed it in 1964. Waiting for GodotSamuel Beckett's play. It was the first time it had been staged in Mallorca, and, moreover, with all the roles played by women, theoretically Falangists.
The Poetry Workshop at the Grifè i Escoda gallery (1966) went off without a hitch. To the Francoist repressors, poetry must have sounded like olive trees and birds. In other words: harmless. The following year, however, the theater was a different story—especially since it was held in a venue like the Casa Catalana, with its Catalan name. López Crespí admits that the attendees were "a little scared": plainclothes police officers were mingling with the audience, the most prominent of whom was a man known as The Mustache
The last two lectures of the Theater Workshop, scheduled for May 16th and 23rd, 1967, by Joan Oliver 'Pere Quart' and José Luis López Aranguren, respectively, could not take place as planned. Shortly before Oliver was to begin his presentation, it was announced that it was suspended by government order. Josep Maria Llompart had to inform the audience. In response to this abuse of power, the attendees began to applaud the speaker. And they applauded. And they applauded. This did not stop them, and the police became very nervous. The Mustache He ordered them: "Leave the room!" But they continued applauding, until they grew tired of it. A scene worthy of a movie poster.
Then they understood that Aranguren's lecture could not take place. But Jaume Adrover decided it would happen anyway. However, it would be done clandestinely. The attendees were secretly invited to a leisure venue, the Bitàcora, at the top of the Jaume I Hotel in Palma. Its owner was the Menorcan Christian Democrat Joan Casals, who had been sentenced to exile for his participation in the 'Munich conspiracy' (1962) – as the regime called it – a meeting of opponents of Francoism in that German city.
At the Bitàcora, a place more for flirting than anything else, the philosopher delivered his talk. Theatre and societyShe didn't mince words when launching verbal barbs against Francoism and all dictatorships. At the end, two young men with a passion for writing approached her and asked all sorts of questions. They mentioned Jaume Pomar and Gabriel Janer Manila.
The night in Serra and Llompart's dungeon
In 1968 came the third (and final) cycle. This time it was the novel's turn. By then it was clear to the authorities that the Lecture Halls were a veritable nest of leftists. The Communist Party, then the most active and best-organized force of the illegal opposition, took an interest in them from the very beginning. Two prominent activists, Francesca Bosch and Maria Quiñonero, were commissioned by the leadership to attend and make contact with the participants. And they played a certain role. David Ginard recounts that, when Joan Oliver's lecture was banned, Quiñonero embraced Pere Quart as a show of solidarity, while Bosch offered to read the lecture herself. That wasn't feasible, but Llompart appreciated her gesture.
The storm broke on May 21, 1968, when it was Antoni Serra's turn to speak about Frustrated novelistsThat same morning, in the newspaper's newsroom Latest NewsAt his workplace, he was warned: someone wanted to "mess with him"—a provocateur—because they wanted to "put an end to the Classrooms." The same warning that the sculptor Miquel Morell had given him that afternoon at the Reus Farm.
The worst fears were realized. Indeed, Serra had barely begun to speak when the provocateur interrupted him: "Lies, this is a lie.", followed by the challenge, "Captain Spider, what are you hiding behind your beard?"—that beard so characteristic of the writer. This was considered a disturbance of the peace—very serious at the time—so the police immediately suspended the conference.
Of course, the police didn't arrest the provocateur, but rather Serra himself and some of the attendees. Five women were taken to a police vehicle, among them Francesca Bosch, the writer Antònia Vicens, Lieta López (Jaume Adrover's wife), and the philologist Aina Montaner. But the police chief ordered their release: repressive, yes, but gentlemen—nowadays we would call them chauvinists. In their place, five men were arrested: the artist Miquel Àngel Femenías; the professors Emili Gené and Antoni Figuera; the future city councilor Ginés Quiñonero; and Josep Maria Llompart.
The six spent that night in the dungeon: Quiñonero, Serra, and Llompart, who shared a cell with him. To pass the time, they played hopscotch, using a line on the floor and a few coins that hadn't been confiscated. Sandwiches and tobacco were sent to them from outside. When they were taken before a judge the next day, they were released. The judge was Ángel López, an opponent of Francoism—who had serious problems with the regime—and the prosecutor was Miquel Miravet, a member of the Communist Party—obviously operating underground.
According to López Crespí, not only the Mallorcan press reported on the arrest, but also the national press and even the BBC, Radio España Independiente (La Pirenaica), Radio Moscow, and the Argentine magazine ForecastsExpressions of solidarity spread across many sectors. Prominent figures of the time, such as Francesc Candel, Alfons Carles Comín, and Xavier Fàbregas, signed a joint letter requesting that the case be dismissed and that the lectures be allowed to resume. Indeed, if the regime intended to silence any further discussion of the lecture halls, it had achieved precisely the opposite.
Classrooms according to Mesquida, Vidal Alcover and Janer Manila
Of those Poetry, Theater, and Novel Workshops from 1966 to 1968, Biel Mesquida wrote that they were "little blue lanterns within the darkness of the dictatorship." According to Jaume Vidal Alcover—one of their driving forces—they represented "a political consciousness, unknown until then in our small Mallorcan world (...) This political awareness—which the Workshops fostered so effectively—was not, of course, exclusive to Mallorca; it just perhaps arrived with a certain, though not much, degree of saturation."
"I can never adequately express my gratitude," says Gabriel Janer Manila, "for what they gave me: the experience of a disturbing, critical, provocative, and energetic literature." The lecture halls, the Mallorcan author asserts, "had the courage to overcome the cowardice imposed by the regime and awaken the critical consciousness of many young men and women. I could say they played a role in political agitation, uniting democratic concerns and the struggle for freedom in a miserable time."
Information compiled from texts by David Ginard, Miguel López Crespí, María Magdalena Alomar Vanrell, Antonio Janer Torrens and Miguel Vidal Bosch and José María Gago González, the memoirs of Antoni Serra and Gabriel Janer Manila, the magazine Lucas, Daily of Mallorca, the collective Old Photos of Mallorca (FAM), the Great Encyclopedia of Majorca (GEM) and an interview by Llorenç Capellà with Jaume Adrover in Latest News.
![Former headquarters of the Casa Catalana de Palma, on the corner of Av. of the Conde de Sallent with Ramon Berenguer III street.](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 1327 1064"%3E%3C/svg%3E)
