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Josep Maria Bayarri

Josep Maria Bayarri.

Josep Maria Bayarri (València 1886-1970) is the author of an otherwise curious literary production, wrote with bizarre spelling rules, and had certain anti-Catalan obsessions throughout his life. The result of these obsessions, and also of an exaggerated Valencian foralism and localism, was a pamphlet entitled "Lo Perill Català" ("The Catalan Danger"), written back in the 1930s.

Let's see what considerations he makes of this work in his autobiographical book entitled "Bayarri Autovïográfiq" ("Autobiographical Bayarri") [the original spelling in which such a book was written will be respected]:

"Ovligà va ser la pròsa per son qaráqter del llivre "El perill Català". Fon un llivre qe-qom diuen del Cid, pero al revés, guañá vatalles: es dir q'este, después de mòrt, i el meu llivre avans de náixer. La qosa fon q'el duqtríu valensiá Iqnasi Villalonga, qe savía de la inminensia de la puvliqasió de "El perill Català" propuqnava, amistosament, la no aparisió del llivre. Les meues raons eren -qom les d'ell- qe Qataluña, q'els catalans no anularíen la nostra personalitat valensiana, i qe mai mos apsorviríen..., pero qe tal cosa no volía dir qe no u intentaven, qe no s'opstinaren en qontumasia punivle, i provar el prurit del proselitisme. Qe tal aqtivitat eqsistía eu demostrava el meu llivre qostituít en gran part per retalls de premsa, i trasqripsions de páxines...Ell, el Sr. Villalonga, tingé qe asentir, vensut -no se si qonvensut- i "El perill Qatalà" guañá la primera vatalla, avans de náixer. La questió qontinúa enqara en el mateix estat; pera qe vinga algun doqte universitari vergoñosament panqatalanoide a esqriure en 1965 "q'el famós "Perill Català" enqontrava fantasmes per tot". I enqara está en xoqunda vixensia!"

"I was forced to write the book entitled "El perill Català". It was a book that made what they say about the Cid, but the other way around, it won battles: that is to say that El Cid did win battles after he died, but my book; before it was born. The point was that the Valencian Ignasi Villalonga, who knew of the imminence of the publication of "El perill Català", asked me, amicably, not to publish the book. My reasons were -like his- that Catalonia, that the Catalans, would not wipe out our Valencian personality, and that they would never absorb us..., but that this did not mean that they did not try to do that, that they did not cease to do it stubbornly, and they used a lot of proselytism. That such activity existed was proved by my book, made up largely of press clippings and page transcriptions...He, Mr. Villalonga, had to assent, defeated -and perhaps convinced- and "El perill Qatalà" won its first battle, before being born. The issue is still in the same point; since some shamefully pancatalanoid university scholar wrote in 1965 "that the famous "Perill Català" found ghosts for everything." And it is still in a total validity!"