Francesc Pi i Margall

Francisco Pi i Margall ( born April 29, 1824 in Barcelona, † November 29, 1901 in Madrid ) was a Spanish liberal politician and writer of the Catalan romance. He was 1873 president of the short-lived First Spanish Republic.

Youth

Pi was born on April 29, 1824 the son of a textile worker in Barcelona, Spain. Pis father wrote him in 1831 in a church school, where he learned Latin and theology. He was a member of the Sociedad Filomática, which enabled him to some of the important writers and thinkers of the Catalan Romantic movement to hit. In 1837 he began to look for philosophy to law school and graduated in 1847 from. He moved to Madrid and started for the journals El Renacimiento ( The Rebirth ) and to write a theater critic for El Correo ( The Post), which also appeared Pis first political article. Lack of money Pi took a job at the Catalan bank Martí.

In 1848 he contributed to the chapters Catalonia, Seville and Granada, and thus completed the Recuerdos y Bellezas de España ( memories and beauties of Spain ) by the poet Pau Piferrer. At this time he came into contact with the Republican flow of Spanish politics.

In 1851 he wrote a very successful history of painting. This was, however, convicted of heterodoxy of church and state.

Political life in the monarchy

Pi was involved in the Madrid uprising of 1854, which brought the liberal caudillo Baldomero Espartero back to power. He published the same year La reacción y la revolución ( Reaction and Revolution) which was influenced by Hegel's philosophy of history and the ideas of the French anarchist Pierre Joseph Proudhon. In 1856 he founded the journal La Razon ( The Reason), the publication came to a halt, as the moderate government Leopoldo O'Donnell was overthrown by Ramón María Narváez reactionaries. He fled into Basque Gipuzkoa, until he was asked in 1857 by Nicolás María Rivero for his return to Madrid to participate in the republican newspaper La Discusión. During his time at La Discusión Pi made ​​the acquaintance of a number of leaders of the Spanish Republican movement, including the later first president of the First Spanish Republic, Estanislao Figueras. In 1864 he became editor of the newspaper.

After the uprising in the barracks of San Gil Pi fled to Paris, where he lectured, various works of Proudhon translated and came up with the French positivism in conjunction. He developed theories of revolution and philosophy of history, including the belief in an inevitable, progressive and constant movement of history towards larger, by constitutions embodied freedom. Throughout his life, Pi should remain an advocate of republican ideas and social goals.

Pi came in 1868 after the success of the " Glorious Revolution " of 1868, from the Parisian exile. He was elected a deputy of Barcelona and was a member of the Cortes in 1869, the Spanish Constitution laid.

During this time, Pi was a respected leader of the Republican Party. He was officially appointed in March 1870 Presidents. Shortly thereafter, he lost this position by internal party struggles over the party 's policy towards the Paris Commune, the conciliatory policy towards opposition groups and electoral setbacks. He was an opponent of the brief reign of liberal Amadeus I..

Presidency and later political life

As in 1873 after the abdication of Amadeo I, the First Spanish Republic was proclaimed, its first president, Estanislao Figueras appointed him Secretary of the Interior. During his tenure, Pi was responsible for the fight against Kantonalismus. After Figueras ' resignation on June 11, 1873 Pi was elected president. He laid out an ambitious reform draft, which form a strict separation between church and state, a reorganization of the army, the reduction of the working day to eight hours, the restriction of child labor, land reform, the abolition of slavery, the extension of the right associations, new laws concerning the autonomy of the Spanish regions, and free compulsory education envisaged. During his presidency, the Constitution of 1873 was proposed, which was never adopted.

His acquaintance with Proudhon allowed Pi to improve relations between Republicans and Socialists. However, it was Pi impossible to govern in the instability of the Republic. On 1 July 1873, the Federalists and the radical parts of the Republican seceded and declared the government as illegitimate. Just a week later it came to riots in Alcoyi and Cartagena. Under pressure from the Cortes, who accused him of weakness and the connection to the Kantonalismus, the Carlism and the insurrection in Cuba Pi became effective on July 18, 1873, more than a month after taking office, back.

After the end of the Republic in 1874 Pi had the policy for a decade behind. During this time he devoted himself to writing. Only a few months after the end of the Republic, he wrote a treatise on its history (La República de 1873). 1876 ​​followed her Las Nacionalidades ( Nationalities ) and Joyas liter Arias ( lLiterarische treasures ). The first volume of his Historia General de América ( General History of America ) in 1878, La Federación ( The Federation ) 1880, Las luchas de nuestros días ( The struggles of our days) and Observaciones sobre el carácter de don Juan Tenorio (Notes to the character Don Juan Tenorio ) in 1884 published. In 1886 he returned to politics and was elected deputy for Figueres. 1891 and in 1893 was re-elected. It was at this time, together with Estanislao Figueras, Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla, Emilio Castelar y Ripoll, and Valenti Almirall involved in the fragmentation of the Spanish Republican movement. Pi took in 1878 at the Congress of Zaragoza part of the proposed a federal, republican constitution. In 1894 he took part in the reformation of the Republican movement with a manifesto for the Federal Party share. In 1890 he founded the newspaper El Nuevo Régimen ( The new rule ) that arguing for the independence of Cuba. Pis promote federalism and regional autonomy gained him popularity with the Catalan anarchists.

On November 29, 1901 Pi, died at the age of 77, in Madrid.

Works

• La España Pintoresca, 1841.
• Historia de la Pintura, 1851.
• Estudios de la Edad Media, 1851. Initial publication in 1873.
• El eco de la revolución, 1854.
• La reacción y la revolución, 1855.
• Declaración de los treinta, 1864.
• La República de 1873, 1874.
• Joyas literarias, 1876.
• Las Nacionalidades, 1877.
• Historia General de América, 1878.
• La Federación, 1880.
• Observaciones sobre el carácter de Don Juan Tenorio, 1884.
• Las luchas de nuestros días, 1884.
• Primeros Diálogos, sin datar.
• Amadeo de Saboya, sin datar.
• Programa del Partido Federal, 1894.