Plot
Historia de Cataluña de 1899 a 1909
Alejandro Lerroux y García (La Rambla, Córdoba, 4 March 1864/1866 – Madrid, 25 June 1949) was a Spanish politician who was the leader of the Radical Republican Party during the Second Spanish Republic. He served as Prime Minister of Spain three times from 1933 to 1935 and held several cabinet posts as well.
He agitated as a young man in the ranks of the radical republicans, as a follower of Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla. He practised a demagogic and aggressive journalistic style in the diverse publications that he directed (El País, El Progreso, El Intransigente and El Radical).
His populist and anticlerical speeches, as well as his intervention in diverse campaigns against the governments of the Restoration, made him very popular among workers in Barcelona, who later constituted the base of a loyal electorate. He was chosen as a deputy for the first time in 1901, and again in 1903 and 1905, as a member of the Republican Union party that he had helped to form with Nicolás Salmerón. The defection of Salmerón to the Catalan Solidarity coalition in 1906 led Lerroux to form the Radical Republican Party (1908) and headed the struggle against increasing Catalan nationalism. He had to go into exile on several occasions, first to escape condemnation dictated by one of his articles (1907) and later fleeing from governmental repression in response to the Tragic Week in Barcelona (1909).
Jacint Verdaguer i Santaló (Catalan pronunciation: [ʒəˈsim bərðəˈɣe]) (Folgueroles, May 17, 1845 - Vallvidrera, June 10, 1902) is regarded as one of the greatest poets of Catalan literature and a prominent literary figure of the Renaixença, a national revival movement of the late Romantic era. The bishop Josep Torras i Bages, one of the main figures of Catalan nationalism, called him the "Prince of Catalan poets". He was also known as mossèn Cinto Verdaguer, because of his career as a priest.
He was born in Folgueroles, a town on the Plain of Vic, in the comarca of Osona. His father was Josep Verdaguer i Ordeix (Tavèrnoles, 1817-Folgueroles, 1876) and his mother was Josepa Santaló i Planes (Folgueroles, 1819–1871). He was the third of eight children, only three of whom survived. In 1856 at the age of 11 he entered the Seminary of Vic. Until he entered the Seminary he lived like the other children in his town. The anecdotes told about him show that he stood out from his peers for his intelligence, astuteness and courage, helped by his athletic complexion. He showed a normally balanced compassion without any apparent religious inclinations.