Francesc Pi i Margall

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Francesc Pi i Margall
Nicolás Salmerón
Personal details
Born(1824-04-29)29 April 1824
Federal Democratic Republican
SpousePetra Arsuaga
Children3, including Francisco [es] and Joaquín [es]
Parents
  • Francesc Pi (father)
  • Teresa Margall (mother)
Signature

Francesc Pi i Margall (Spanish: Francisco Pi y Margall) (29 April 1824 – 29 November 1901) was a Spanish federalist and republican politician and theorist who served as president of the short-lived First Spanish Republic in 1873. He was also a historian, philosopher, romanticist writer, and was also the leader of the Federal Democratic Republican Party and the Democratic Party. Pi was turned into a sort of secular saint in his time.[1][2]

A disciple of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon,[3] his theoretical contributions left a lasting effect on the development of the anarchist movement in Spain.[4]

Early life

Pi was the son of a working-class textile worker in

licentiate degree in 1847. He moved to Madrid
that year and began writing as a theater critic for the journal El Renacimiento and for El Correo, in which Pi's first political article was published. In need of further income, Pi also took a job for Martí, a Catalan bank.

Political life under the monarchy

Francesc Pi i Margall

Pi was involved in the revolution of 1854 that brought the

Basque country until 1857, when Nicolás María Rivero asked him to return to Madrid to contribute to the Republican newspaper La Discusión. At La Discusión, Pi became acquainted with a number of leaders of the Spanish republican movement, including another future president of the First Republic, Estanislao Figueras
. In 1864 he became the director of the newspaper.

After the sergeants' revolt at San Gil in 1866, Pi fled to Paris, where he gave lectures and translated several of Proudhon's works and became familiar with French positivism. He developed ideas about revolutions and the philosophy of history, including a belief in an inevitable, progressive, and permanent movement in history toward greater freedom, embodied in federal constitutions. Throughout his life he would promote republicanism and social objectives through the federal idea.

Pi returned from Paris after the success of the

1868 Glorious Revolution. He was elected deputy on behalf of Barcelona and was part of the Constituent Cortes that wrote the 1869 Constitution. During this time Pi became respected as a leader of the Republican party in the Cortes; he is officially named the head of the party in March 1870. He was replaced shortly thereafter by internal strife over the party's policy toward the Paris Commune, conciliatory policy toward opposition groups, and electoral setbacks. He continued to adamantly promote the establishment of a federal republic in place of a monarchy. He opposed the monarchy of Amadeo I
during its short rule.

Presidency and later political life

Pi proclaimed president. Drawing by Daniel Vierge. Engraving by Amédée Daudenarde.

When the

Cartagena
only a week later. Under pressure from the Cortes and many leading Republicans who accused him of dangerous weakness, Pi resigned the presidency on 18 July, only a little more than a month after he assumed the office.

Photograph of Francesc Pi i Margall, c. 1895-1901

After the end of the Republic in 1874, Pi left political life for a decade. During this time, he returned his attentions to his writings; only a few months after the end of the Republic, he wrote a treatise on its events, La República de 1873. He followed this with Las Nacionalidades and Joyas Literarias in 1876. The first volume of his Historia General de América was published in 1878, La Federación in 1880, and Las luchas de nuestros días and Observaciones sobre el carácter de don Juan Tenorio in 1884. In 1886, he returned to politics and was elected deputy for

Valentí Almirall. Pi was involved in the 1883 Republican Congress of Zaragoza that proposed a federal republican constitution for Spain; in 1894, he was instrumental in reforming the republican movement with a new manifesto for the Federal Party. In 1890, Pi founded the newspaper El Nuevo Régimen, which campaigned for Cuban independence. Pi's promotion of federalism and regional autonomy earned him popularity among Catalan anarchists
.

Pi died on 29 November 1901 around 18:15 at his home in the calle del Conde de Aranda,[5] in Madrid.

Pi in 1869

Political thought, practice and later influence

Cartoon depicting political figures of the First Spanish Republic, featuring Pi in the middle sporting a phrygian cap.

Pi i Margall became the principal translator of Proudhon's works into Spanish

attempted to establish a decentralized, or "cantonalist", political system on Proudhonian lines."[8]

Pi considered federalism to be a "unity in variety, the law of nature, the law of the world", an organization based on the bottom-up contract by "natural and spontaneous collective beings" (La reacción y la revolución, 1854).[9]

Pi i Margall was a dedicated theorist in his own right, especially through book-length works such as La reacción y la revolución (English: "Reaction and revolution" from 1855), Las nacionalidades (English: "Nationalities" from 1877), and La Federación from 1880. For prominent

Joseph Priestly (sic), Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, and other representatives of the Anglo-American liberalism of the first period. He wanted to limit the power of the state to a minimum and gradually replace it by a Socialist economic order."[10]

He was also a supporter of a decentralized version of

Iberian Federalism, framing the realization of such prospect in terms of "Iberian nations".[11] He was wary of centralism (which was alien to the internal organization of the inhabitants of the Iberian peninsula and imposed on them, according to Pi), which he deemed to be, along with monarchy, one of the root reasons behind the state of decadence of the Peninsular peoples.[12]

He showed a special and naive affection for the United States.[13]

Bibliography

Works by Pi i Margall

  • La España Pintoresca, 1841.
  • Historia de la Pintura, 1851.
  • Estudios de la Edad Media, 1851. Published first on 1873.
  • El eco de la revolución, 1854.
  • La reacción y la revolución, 1855.
  • Declaración de los treinta, 1864.
  • La República de 1873, 1874.
  • Joyas literarias, 1876.
  • Las nacionalidades, 1877.
  • Historia General de América, 1878.
  • La Federación, 1880.
  • Constitución federal, 1883.
  • Observaciones sobre el carácter de Don Juan Tenorio, 1884.
  • Las luchas de nuestros días, 1884.
  • Primeros diálogos, not dated.
  • Amadeo de Saboya, not dated.
  • Programa del Partido Federal, 1894.

Works on Pi i Margall

References

Citations
  1. ^ González Casanova, José Antonio (29 November 2001). "Pi i Margall, federalista". El País.
  2. ISSN 1575-0361
    .
  3. Joseph Priestly, Thomas Paine, Jefferson, and other representatives of the Anglo-American liberalism of the first period. He wanted to limit the power of the state to a minimum and gradually replace it by a Socialist economic order." "Anarchosyndicalism" by Rudolf Rocker
  4. ^ "These translations were to have a profound and lasting effect on the development of Spanish anarchism after 1870, but before that time Proudhonian ideas, as interpreted by Pi, already provided much of the inspiration for the federalist movement which sprang up in the early 1860s." George Woodcock. Anarchism: a history of libertarian movements. p. 357
  5. ISSN 1133-245X
    .
  6. ^ George Woodcock. Anarchism: a history of libertarian movements. p. 357
  7. ^ George Woodcock. Anarchism: a history of libertarian movements. p. 357
  8. ^ "Anarchism" at the Encyclopædia Britannica online.
  9. ISSN 1130-2402
    .
  10. ^ "Anarchosyndicalism" by Rudolf Rocker
  11. ^ Rina Simón 2016, p. 43.
  12. ^ Rina Simón 2016, p. 213.
  13. ISSN 0212-2952
    .
Bibliography
External links
Political offices
Preceded by President of the Executive Power of Spain
11 June 1873 – 18 July 1873
Succeeded by
President of the Provisional Government of Spain

11 June 1873 – 18 July 1873