Josep Irla i Bosch

Josep Irla i Bosch (born October 24, 1876 in Sant Feliu de Guíxols in the comarca Baix Empordà , Girona province , Catalonia , Spain ; † September 19, 1958 in Saint-Raphaël , Var department , France ) was a Catalan politician.

Life

Irla i Bosch was the child of a host family and the eldest of three brothers. He was the founder of a company for processing cork . He represented federal and later republican ideas and founded the federal newspaper El Programa in his hometown . In 1908 he became mayor of Sant Feliu de Guíxols and in 1911 a member of the Provincial Parliament of Girona and as such a member of the assembly of the Mancomunitat de Catalunya , the parliament of the provinces that made up the Commonwealth of Catalonia .

With the beginning of the Spanish Republic in 1931 he was elected to the Constituent Assembly and in 1932 a member of the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC), the Republican Left of Catalonia , in the Parliament of Catalonia. In the following years he held various posts in this parliament and in the provincial government of Girona. In 1938 he became the last president of the Parlament de Catalunya until the end of the civil war , even after fleeing into French exile in 1939.

exile

After the kidnapping and extradition of the President of the Generalitat de Catalunya Lluís Companys i Jover, his extradition by the Gestapo to the Franco regime and subsequent shooting in Barcelona in October 1940, Irla i Bosch became the 124th President of the Generalitat de Catalunya . From 1945 to 1948 he formed a government-in-exile of Catalonia in France. He remained President of the Generalitat until 1954, when he was succeeded by Josep Tarradellas i Joan . He died shortly before the age of 82 in 1958 in Saint-Raphaël in Provence . His remains were only transferred to his hometown after Franco's death in 1981 and laid to rest there.

aftermath

The remains of Irla i Bosch were buried in an act of public honor in his hometown in 1981. In his memory, a Fundació Josep Irla in Barcelona awards a 6,000 Euro Premi d'assaig breu Irla prize for work that deals with the political, economic, social and cultural realities in the Catalan-speaking areas.

Publications

• Jordi Gaitx Moltó (Ed.): Memoriès d'un president a l'exili. Josep Irla i Bosch , with a foreword by Josep Maria Roig Rosich. Viena, Barcelona 2010, ISBN 978-84-83305843 .

Web links

• Fundació Josep Irla (Catalan)
• Website of the Catalan Parliament (approx.)