Back to search

Joan Casanovas Maristany and his son in exile in Besiers (France)

Date
1941
Archive
County Archive of Alt Penedès
Document type
Imatge fixa
Reference code
CAT-ACAP-1035-568
Link to the online document
Description

This photograph from 1941 shows Joan Casanovas Maristany, president of the Parliament of Catalonia during the Second Republic, with his son Joan Casanovas Cuberta in exile in Valràs-Platja, near Besiers (France), where he would die shortly afterwards. The document is a striking testimony of the repression and the Catalan political diaspora after the Civil War. The exile of figures like Casanovas symbolizes the institutional breakdown and the loss of democratic sovereignties. This image, preserved in the Regional Archive of Alt Penedès, reflects the human dimension of uprooting and resistance. It is also an example of how the memory of exile is part of European history in the 20th century, marked by the struggle for freedom and dignity.