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Blaverism during the Spanish transition to democracy

The PSPV, a nationalist and socialist political party, which would later be integrated into the Spanish PSOE.

After Franco's death, during the Spanish transition to democracy, after years of repression, there was a large outbreak of nationalisms throughout Spain. In Madrid, the central government seemed very concerned and panicked about this situation. The Spanish state was especially concerned and obsessed with Catalan nationalism, because they knew that Catalonia was (and is) one of the main economic areas of the Spanish state. Even more: they were concerned by the fact that there were a spread of Catalan nationalism into the Valencian Country, because the Valencian Country was (and is) another important economic area inside the Spanish State. And if Catalonia and the Valencian Country united, together they would represent around a third of the economic wealth of the State.

Pamphlet of Blaverist agitation from the transition.

The Spanish state, thus, played a very strong role in the politics of certain areas, most importantly where it had chances of success (because Catalonia in a certain way was considered by it as lost to separatist movements): in the Valencian Country. All its agents were set in motion: from, possibly, the secret services, to every communication outlet they could count on (press, intellectuals, television, etc.). It is in this context that the "Valencian language" that we have previously mentioned when we dealt with Casp and Adlert's desertion from Valencianism, arose. In order to avoid a union between the Valencian Country and Catalonia, anti-Catalanism was propagated in the Valencian territory. This anti-Catalan feeling still lasts until today, although in a very weakened form and no longer as strong as it was during the Spanish transition.

Some friends carrying Miquel Grau's coffin.

In the spread of this anti-Catalanism, the government relied on a newspaper: "Las Provincias" (from 1978 to 1999 mpre or less, when its director, María Consuelo Reyna, a person about which we will talk about below was fired); in a socio-festive movement: the Falles (at least in the transition the vast majority of individual falles were openly Blaverist, although today fortunately this is not the case at all despite the existence of some Blaverist falla monuments); and in a massive football movement: the València C.F. (the football team has always been pro-Blaverist and we can say that until very recent times it was the most used place by Blaverists to spread their message).

But the Blaverist movement obviously needed a doctrine elaboration. The Blaverist doctrine was developed mainly by three individuals: Fernando Abril Martorell, Emilio Attard and Manuel Broseta Pont. In addition to them, we must highlight three other individuals' participation in the official birth of Blaverism: Juan Ferrando Badía, María Consuelo Reyna and Gustavo Villapalos. We are going to talk about all of them next, except about Gustavo Villapalos, whom we will analyze in another section:

We also recommend as additional multimedia material the documentary Del roig al blau made by the University of Valencia, which has unique testimonies of some of the protagonists of the events in those years.