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Pierre Vilar Fonds

The Pierre Vilar Fonds

The Pierre Vilar document fonds contains all the 19th and 20th century books from the private library of the historian Pierre Vilar, donated by his family to the University of Girona in 2006. In all there are more than 6,500 volumes and 331 periodicals, some of which are signed and dedicated by the authors. The books are available in the University Library.

The fonds was catalogued in 2006, and is part of a more ambitious project to commemorate the centennial of the historian’s birth, during 2006 and 2007.

The addition of this legacy to the Jaume Vicens Vives Fonds (also in the UdG Library) accords the future Institute of Historical Research of the UdG great importance as a centre of historical and historiographic research in Catalonia.

Pierre Vilar

Pierre Vilar, born in 1906 in Frontignan (Languedoc), was the son of teachers and the grandson of vineyard owners. He formed part of a generation, baptised as the intellectual generation (Sartre, Aron, Brasillach, Simone Weil, etc.), that experienced the Great War as children, which instilled in them lofty patriotic ideals as well as strong antiwar sentiments. In their twenties they were normaliens (students of the École Normale Supérieure) who also lived through the Second World War, during which some of them served as officers and were made prisoners.

Vilar’s great interest in understanding the world at that time led him to study geography: the Annales would not exert any influence over Paris until 1929 and from his youth he had demonstrated a certain antiphilosophy. The connections between the young geographer of the 30s and the historian of the 60s obsessed with the total history of the Annales School are obvious: Albert Demangeon directed his thesis on industrial Barcelona (research suggested by Max Sorre). In 1927 Vilar moved to that city, where he came into contact with Pau Vila, Gonçal de Reparaz and Pere Bosch Gimpera. His relationship with Catalonia did not end there; it became the subject of his doctoral dissertation. In 1931 he was in Barcelona for the proclamation of the 2nd Republic and if the civil war had not broken out, he might have published a regional monograph instead of his subsequent monumental work. During this stage he offered his services to help the Republican cause, editing texts by Marx and participating in the founding of La Pensée (1939). In 1933 he married Gabrielle Berrogain (archivist), with whom he had a son (Jean).

At the outbreak of the Second World War, Vilar became an officer in the French Army and served until he was captured and held prisoner by the Germans. Five years of captivity in prisoner of war camps for officers turned him into a historian. He wrote a short Història d’Espanya (1947), which was widely read in Spain under the dictatorship despite being censured. He also wrote "El temps del Quixot" (1956), "El declivi català de la baixa edat mitjana" (1959) and El Manual de la Companyia Nova de Gibraltar, 1709-1723 (1962). During the post-war period he returned to Barcelona, but for political reasons was barred from the French Institute (1948) and had to leave. He continued his academic career in France, where he was director of studies at the École Pratique des Hautes Études. In 1965 he was named full professor of the Sorbonne, occupying the same position as his mentor, Ernest Labrousse. Despite everything, he maintained his contacts with Catalonia. His fundamental work was the monumental Catalunya dins l’Espanya moderna (1962), which Vovelle compared to the unfinished Sagrada Família Cathedral (because Vilar was unable to study the 19^th century in great depth). That work was essential to the understanding of Catalonia’s formation as a nation after the economic development at the end of the 17^th and, especially, during the 18^th century.

Subsequently he published Or i moneda en la història (1969), Assaigs sobre la Catalunya del segle XVIII (1979), Iniciació al vocabulari de l’anàlisi històrica (1980) Hidalgos, amotinados y guerrilleros (1982) and La guerra civil espanyola (1986). He directed the Història de Catalunya and received various honours and awards (an honorary doctorate from the University of Barcelona). His last work, an intellectual testament, was Pensar històricament: Reflexions i records, demonstrating once again “the historian in history”, a productive exercise in ego-history.

Vilar was drawn to the history of Catalonia, but his work went much further, as demonstrated by the breadth of his publications. He always defined himself as a Marxist (historical materialism) or better yet a "Martian", always thinking critically, never joining the Communist Party, rejecting Althusserian departures and with very diverse influences: geography, the Annales, Jaurès or Labrousse. Among a variety of his expressions the following should be remembered: make “reasoned history” (expression taken from the economist Schumpeter in reference to Marx); “history under construction” (idea defended in an article from 1973 in the Annales); and “think historically” (reflect on the present taking history into account).

He died in 2003 in Donapaleu, Lower Navarre.

Ricard Expósito Amagat

Database of book dedications

Many of the volumes of the Pierre Vilar Fonds have been dedicated by their respective authors. These dedications allow us to reconstruct the historian’s network of relationships.

Access to these dedications is possible from the catalogue entries corresponding to each of the books. They can also be consulted independently in a database linked to the entries.

• El valor dels incunable dels llibres. El Punt, 30-6-2006
• Nadal atorga a la UdG una subvenció de 80.000 € per celebrar l'Any Pierre Vilar. Diari de Girona, 28-7-2006

• La Universidad de Girona será un centro de difusión del pensamiento de Pierre Vilar. El País, 6-8-2006

• La Generalitat de Catalunya atorga 80.000 euros a la Universitat de Girona per a la commemoració de l'any Pierre Vilar. Notícies del Govern de Catalunya, 27-7-2006

• La UdG rep 80.000 euros del govern per la commemoració de l'Any Pierre Vilar. El Punt, 28-7-2006

• Homenatge a Pierre Vilar a la Universitat de Girona. Vilaweb, 1-12-2006

• La UdG homenatja avui Pierre Vilar, "l'historiador dins la història". El Punt, 1-12-2006

Photographies: Acte d'homenatge a Pierre Vilar, 01-12-2006

• Reivindiquen Pierre Vilar a la UdG com un "mestre per al present i el futur". El Punt, 2-12-2006

• La UdG reivindica la vigència de l'obra de l'historiador Pierre Vilar. Diari de Girona, 2-12-2006

• La UdG recupera l'historiador marxista Pierre Vilar com un mestre per al futur. Diari de Girona, 2-12-2006

• Pierre Vilar, "enverinador de la història". Diari de Girona, 3-12-2006

The Pierre Vilar Atelier is a research group formed by professors who were students of Pierre Vilar. It was created in 2004 and aims to be a centre for debate and exchange along the lines broached by the historian.

Actualitzat el 19/12/2008

© Biblioteca UdG 2002