Molas i Batllori, Joaquim

Revistes Catalanes amb Accés Obert

Biographical sketches of new members of the History-Archaeology Section  Cat. Hist. Rev. 8, 2015   103
Damià Pons. He was born in 
Campanet in 1950. Pons, a 
keen admirer of Blai Bonet, got 
his start publishing three poet-
ry compilations between 1973 
and 1988, which he merged 
into a single compilation in 
2001 whose title is also a state-
ment of principles: Els mapes 
del desig. Between 1984 and 
1988, he was a member of the 
board of directors of Obra Cul-
tural Balear, and afterwards he was the director of Lluc 
twice, in 1994-1998 and 2004-2008, when it became the 
major cultural magazine from the publisher Lleonard 
Muntaner. In the interim, in 1995, he was elected to be a 
deputy in the Parliament of the Balearic Islands and ap-
pointed presiding minister of the Culture and Historical 
Heritage Committee of the Council of Mallorca, and be-
tween 1999 and 2003 the Regional Minister of Education 
and Culture of the government of the Balearic Islands. 
Pons not only acquitted himself admirably in his jobs but 
also contributed to creating new patrimony which should 
be properly inventoried and valued today, including the 
acquisition of Villalonga House in Binissalem and the 
creation of the foundation that bears the name of this 
novelist, which I was able to track quite closely. Another 
milestone was the creation of a cultural and shopping 
centre near the Biblioteca de Catalunya in Barcelona 
which hosts events and purveys items from the islands.
In any event, the culmination of this activity came in 
his work as a professor and researcher at the Universitat 
de les Illes Balears. Pons has concentrated his efforts on 
studying Mallorca at the turn of the 19th to 20th centu-
ries, and he has written articles on the day-to-day conse-
quences of this period. He has made a global reading plan 
which also brings meaning to the disorder of the archives, 
which often have neither voice nor vote, and avoids the 
sweeping scenes which are perfect for everything and yet 
ultimately nothing. His work revolves around two en-
gines, modernisation and renationalisation, and reflects 
the most vivid yet contradictory needs of the present.
He is publishing the complete works of Miquel dels 
Sants Oliver and he has studied the newspaper La Almud-
aina and its most important contributors in his studies 
Ideologia i cultura a Mallorca d’entre els dos segles. El grup 
regeneracionista de “La Almudaina” (1998) and El diari 
“La Almudaina” en l’època de Miquel dels Sants Oliver 
(1998). Last year, on the occasion of its 150th anniversay, 
he delivered many lectures, including the one offered at 
the Institut d’Estudis Catalans. He continued those studies 
with Entre l’afirmació individualista i la desfeta col·lectiva: 
escriptors i idees en la Mallorca del primer terç del segle xx 
(2002, Serra d’Or Critics Aware for Literary Studies, 2003), 
Cultura i literatura a Mallorca entre els segles xix i xx 
(2006) and “Integració de Llorenç Riber en la cultura fran-
quista” (L’Avenç, 345, April 2009). As mentioned above, 
he has completed this essential focus with the analysis of 
living literature in a series of notes and prologues which in 
many ways set forth guidelines for behaviour and include, 
among others, Lectures i reflexions (2006) and Trajectes lit-
eraris: de Mateu Obrador a Baltasar Porcel (2010).
In 2008, he was elected to be a corresponding member 
of the Philology Section of the IEC, and as such he is re-
sponsible for the Institute’s delegation in Palma de Mal-
lorca.
Joaquim Molas
001-200 Catala Historical Review 8.indd   103 30/09/2015   9:06:45


Damià Pons

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Revistes Catalanes amb Accés Obert