Our work is divided into eleven sections, including the introduction and conclusions, a generic presentation of the journal, and a summary presentation of the historical context in which the initiative arises and develops. We dedicate a section to make an interpretative commentary of the sources and bibliography related to the magazine; another is dedicated to the identification of the editors and the eventual relationship of Rubió i Ors with the project; The rest of the sections are sectoral in nature: we analyze identity approaches, the role given to the Catalan language, and the different approaches in relation to religion, politics and economy.
The framework of concerns of this work is the Catalan identity consciousness during the first long half of the 19th century. Our object of work is the periodic publication Lo Verdader Catalá. The approach to the magazine occurs in a triple perspective: A) As an expression of the press; B) Depending on their own contents; C) Attending to the group of people who configure their most direct nucleus, and possible environment.
Our most generic hypothesis of work goes through the approach to what seem to be initiatory episodes of ideological and organizational structuring, almost parapolitical, of a current of “catalanist” thought coming from the world of Catholicism. It is in this context, as an early testimony of the existence and relative degree of maturity of this current, that Lo Verdader Catalá acquires a special significance.
The methodology used is that of Contemporary History, having incorporated three complementary forms of approximation: 1) Cultural History, under the prism of which recent years have been advanced reflections that we consider of interest on the figure of the so-called “intellectual-professional “of the nineteenth century; 2) The History of the Press, today methodologically rearmed with the contributions of other disciplines such as communication theory, semiology and semiotics; 3) The multidisciplinary contributions of the theorization of nationalities, of which we highlight the special interest for the methodological applications of open approaches as defended by the Englishman Anthony D. Smith. As a first use of them we propose an open reading of the “Catalanist” concept.
