“Speaking Catalan, Basque and Galician was banned”: facts against a hoax about Francoism

The Spanish left has appointed itself as the custodian of so-called "historical memory" while simultaneously spreading falsehoods about our past.

“Your language sounds wrong”: the nationalist stupidity that many people have assumed
Place names in Spanish in Galicia, Hispanophobia, and trash journalism

This Thursday, Cadena SER published a video of Gema J. Maldonado stating: "Speaking Catalan, Basque, and Galician was forbidden. Until Franco's death, no language other than Spanish could be used, can you imagine how much we would have missed?"

SER's tweet has gone viral, but against its will. It already has over a thousand replies, with many Twitter users debunking that lie with facts and examples. Because yes: it's a lie that Galician, Catalan, and Basque couldn't be spoken during the Franco regime. That dictatorship can be criticized for many things (like all dictatorships), but that accusation is as false as it is ridiculous. Let's review some examples:

• In April 1941, the Euskaltzaindia (Basque Language Academy) was relaunched, with the permission of the Provincial Council of Biscay. On April 28 of that year, it held its first meeting since the Spanish Civil War.
• In 1948 the magazine Egan began publication, financed by the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa and which was initially a bilingual publication in Basque and Spanish, becoming a magazine exclusively in Basque from 1953.
• The Euskaltzaindia (Basque Language Academy) held its first solemn public event after the Civil War on June 25, 1949, with the appointment of the Navarrese journalist Juan Miguel Seminario de Rojas as a member of the academy.
• Editorial Galaxia was founded in 1950. It was created by the writer Ramón Otero Pedrayo and from its beginnings has only published books in Galician.
• In 1952, the publishing house Itxaropena, founded in 1932, began its Kuliska Sorta collection, with the publication of the work "Noni ta Mani". This collection published 76 titles in the Basque language until 1973, when it published its last title, "Deunor, Idahon artzain ta euskaldun".
• Between 1952 and 1974, 5,878 books in Catalan were published in Spain, according to data from the Spanish National Book Institute.
• In 1961 the literary collection Auspoa began, created by Antonio Zavala and dedicated to studying, disseminating and promoting Basque popular literature.
• The first Galician Literature Day was celebrated on May 17, 1963, organized by the Royal Galician Academy and dedicated to Rosalía de Castro. Twelve Galician Literature Days were celebrated until Franco's death, all of them dedicated to authors writing in Galician.
• RTVE began broadcasting in Catalan on October 27, 1964. It did so with a play: "La ferida luminosa" (The Luminous Wound), by the Barcelona writer Josep Maria de Sagarra (1894-1961), a work that had received the National Theatre Prize in 1955.
• Singer-songwriter Mikel Laboa released his first album in Basque in 1964: "Azken". Until Franco's death, he released five more albums in Basque: "Ursuako kanta" (1966), "Bertolt Brecht" (1969, banned by censors for paying homage to a communist poet), "Haika mutil" (1969), "Euskal kanta berria" (1972) and "Bat-hiru, 1-3" (1974).
• The singer-songwriter Joan Manuel Serrat released his first album, in Catalan, in 1967: "Ara que tinc Vint Anys". Until Franco's death he published four other albums in Catalan: "Cançons Tradicionals" (1968), "Com ho fa el Vent" (1969), "Serrat IV" (1970) and "Per al meu Amic" (1973).
• In 1970, Andrés do Barro released the song "O tren" in Galician. It became the number one on the Spanish charts. That singer from Ferrol had three other songs in Galician that were number one on the Spanish charts during the Franco regime: "Corpiño xeitoso" (1970) , "San Antón" (1971) and "Pandeirada" (1971).
• In 1971 the Institute of the Galician Language (ILG) was founded at the University of Santiago de Compostela, an institution dedicated to linguistic research of Galician.
• In 1971, the Basque traditional music group Oskorri appeared, which from its beginnings only makes music in the Basque language. It released its first album in 1975, titled "Gabriel Arestiren Oroimenez".
• In 1972, the Galician traditional music group Fuxan os Ventos appeared, and has produced all of its music in Galician. Their debut took place that same year at the 3rd San Lucas Music Festival in Mondoñedo (Lugo), where the group won first prize for a song in Galician.
• On May 30, 1975, the Ministry of Education and Science published Decree 1433/1975 which "regulates the incorporation of native languages ​​into the programs of Preschool and Primary Education Centers". It was a regulation intended to introduce Galician, Catalan, and Basque into schools, in order to "promote the school integration of the student who has received as his mother tongue a language other than the national language".

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Photo: Jalón Ángel. Francisco Franco in his office in Salamanca in August 1936.