Rafael Alemany reveals the thought of Pere Maria Orts i Bosch and vindicates his figure

Minutes before, in the exhibition hall of the municipal centre, an exhibition was opened to the public on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the birth of the Grup Carta de Poblament.

The mayor of Benidorm, Toni Pérez, the councillors of Culture and Festivals, Jaime Jesús Pérez and Jesús Carrobles, and other colleagues from the corporation accompanied the president of the Grup Carta de Poblament, Mari Luz Navarro, in an act attended by dozens of neighbours, among them many of the maintainers who throughout its thirty years of history have participated in the representation and Antonio García, who will be in the next one, on Saturday.

In his dissertation, Rafael Alemany outlined in words a journey through the life of Pere Maria Orts i Bosch, with whom he had a relationship since the seventies of the last century. He detailed unknown aspects of the historian and scholar from the perspective with whom he shared friendship and also work at  Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua (AVL).

Alemany, reached an audience attentive to his words and, at the same time, avoided the easy apology of the figure of the great man. He provided data from an extensive audiovisual interview conducted with the academic in 2004 from the AVL Visual Archive, Antoni Ferrando's publications for the Afers publishing house, personal interviews and also the one conducted by Benidorm City Council shortly before his loss.

In the first part, Alemany revealed aspects of Orts i Bosch's family and how it influenced the formation of his character. He also experiences Benidorm in the first third of the 20th century; his mother's influence, his grandfather's research on local history; and the strong impact of the Civil War.

Alemany recalled the law studies completed in Valencia and the strong interest in historical research that marked him forever, especially in relation to Benidorm and the searches carried out in historical documentary sources such as the General Archive of Simancas, or l'Arxiu del Regne From Valencia.

From there comes his first work 'An image of the Virgin in Benidorm', where he narrates how it arrived on the stern of a ship, the origin of the dramatization that takes place every year on the occasion of the Festes Majors Patronals.

The speaker also spoke about two of his works, such as the 'Carta de Poblament' and 'La senyera al País Valencià', and the opinion he had of contemporary figures such as former president Felipe González, Eduardo Zaplana or Francisco Camps, or the figure of Jesus of Nazareth.

Rafael Alemany 
Rafael Alemany is a philologist and translator. He is a doctor of Philosophy and Letters, the first professor of Catalan Philology at the University of Alicante and a former member of the Valencian Academy of Language, among others. He has published various studies on medieval literature, especially on the Valencian 'Segle d'Or', on authors such as Joanot Martorell, Ausiàs March, Isabel de Villena or Joan Roís de Corella. He is also director of the Catalan Literature Research Group of the UA.