Joan Mercadal i Mascaró analyzes the anarchist newspaper Fructidor, that was published in Menorca between 1934 and 1936, first spokesman of the Ateneu Racionalista de Maó and, later, organ of the Menorcan CNT. The work, however, also makes a more generic approach to the anarchist movement of Minorca to adequately contextualize the study of the newspaper.
After reviewing the literature and other existing work, referring to the study of anarchism in Menorca, I decided to focus my study on the analysis of an obvious chapter of the history of the island’s anarchists, the one understood during the second republic and the beginning of the civil war . The choice of the period is related to the finding of a forgotten and very interesting source: the newspaper Fructidor.
This work was born from the formulation of some questions: did an anarchist movement really exist in Menorca? How was this? I had many followers? had infrastructures? what line of thinking guided them? Did they have a speech of their own? They had their ideas and demands, a real impact on Menorcan daily life?, etc.
As a result of these questions, my objective was to make an approximation to what the Menorcan libertarian movement meant during the 1930s, and more specifically, during the years 1934-1936, a space that coincides with the life of the anarchist newspaper Fructidor, which it was the organ of the Ateneu Racionalista de Maó, and that, later, will become spokesman of all the unions affected to the CNT of Menorca.
So, it is my desire to contribute to uncovering the mental world, constituted by the fears, the joys, the concerns and limitations of the island anarchists. In addition, I intend to analyze the infrastructures available to them and their evolution, as well as the perception they had of daily life in Menorca during the years before the war and the first months of the war.
