During some time, Valencia produced one of the largest magazines in Spain and it was also the most controversial and humorous one. Moreover, its owner, Vicente Miguel Carceller, was the most important publisher in the country, but both destinies were suddenly and fatally interrupted for sharing anti-fascist commitment: the publication had to stop its publication and Carceller was shot. The UV retakes this story in the exhibition “La Traca magazine. Transgression as a rule”, opened at La Nau.
The first exhibition that will take place about this publication, which was born between the end of 19th century and the end of the Second Republic, recovers extensive documentation that has not been publicly shown. Front pages and whole editions of “La Traca” were precious models that could be saved, so the majority were destroyed during Franco regime. The exhibition will be possible to visit until the next 15 January at the Estudi General Room of the Cultural Centre La Nau of the Universitat de València.
The vice-principal for Culture and Equality, Antonio Ariño, has highlighted during the presentation of the exhibition at the press conference this Wednesday at la Nau, the popular nature of this satirical publication and also, how, through this unique exhibition, the UV pays tribute not only to “La Traca”, but also to the whole Valencian satirical popular culture. Moreover, it has been stressed the homogeneous message of “La Traca” which gets to the entire society, in contrast to Internet that promotes a different way to generate information.
The vice-principal Antonio Ariño has been with curators of the exhibition, professors Antonio Laguna and Francesc-Andreu Martínez, to whom this exhibition not only reconstructs the history of the seminar and of its editor, but also its of an alternative popular culture established in Valencia during the 30s of the 20th century through “La Traca”. That seminar, that was written in Valencian compared to the official Spanish culture, was important because it reflected an alternative culture, contrarily merciless with corruption and that claimed the lay and popular festivity.
Laguna as well as Martínez recognize the singularity of this exhibition produced by the UV: “It is not only the first exhibition about this seminar, it also collects genuine collectibles, so the models about “La Traca” are considered a rarity”, both agree that they thank the University for the preparation of this exhibition, as well as the contribution of the collector and erudite Rafael Solaz, a key to acquire all the elements shown, and the help to the Valencian Library and the municipal Newspaper and periodical Library of Valencia and Madrid.
Moreover, Martínez claims the role of the Valencian editor Vicente Miguel Carceller (1890-1940), the man who published “La Traca” from 1909 and who was the creator of an editorial empire when he ensured that his publications -more than a dozen-, were the most read in Spain, being the first editor who surpassed its first half million copies with ‘La Traca’ in 1931. A total of 50 families among printers, editors, engravers, draughtsman, administrative staff and others worked for Carceller’s publications. However, the fact that “La Traca” was almost the only publication to caricature the figure of Franco, had its consequences: Carceller was executed in June 1940 in the cemetery walls of Paterna and his work was destroyed. This exhibition pretends to show the history of the seminar.
The exhibition, located in the Estudi General Exhibition Room, is structured in 10 sections in which it is analysed the paper of “La Traca” in journalism, the figure of Carceller or the signs of this publication, symbol of the Republic, the anticlericalism and eroticism, that left its step in the alternative culture of that period.
“La Traca” was inheriting of a satiric press which dates back to the beginning of the 19th century, a journalism that lived its first Golden Age between 1868 and 1874. Tramoyeres (1880-81) counted 101 journals between 1868 and 1874 published in the city of Valencia, of which 28 were satirical. The majority of them were republicans or Carlists, what means that they aimed to a public who shared intellectual and economic characteristics; an illiterate public who needed images and new narrative forms.
The connection between satirical press and the first “Traca” was Constantí Llombart, who was its inspiration through the publications he boosted. In November 1884, the sons-in-law of Llombart, Manuel Lluch Soler and Luis Cebrian Mezquita, created “La Traca. Seminari pa la chent de tro”. Nevertheless, the main figure of “La Traca” is Vicent Miguel Carceller (1890-1940), not only for restarting in 1909 the headline created by Lluch Soler two decades ago, but also for providing it with all the ingredients that ended up turning it into a outstanding publication of the Valencianism named by Sanchis Guarner as “espardeña”, that is to say, popular.
“La Traca” was insistently reported throughout its existence, not only by the political criticism it exercised, but also for the draws and sexual content it could suggest. In 1913 three complaints against it were filled by the public prosecutor due to its “sinful” draws, which included a financial penalty of between 25 and 125 pesetas, apart from the seizure of the edition and the clichés.
Despite the fines, the success of the publication was decisive: in the balance sheet done in 1913 it had a print run of 12.000 copies, what meant some incomes of around 5000 pesetas per week. The key of the success was the conjunction of a range of factors, among which was its selling price, ‘una agulleta’ (5 cents), available to everyone, the originality and comicality of its contents.
Cancelled due to the dictatorship, reappeared with the Republic, since then, in April 1931, “La Traca” multiplied its contents to be more educational, more visual, more provocative. The anticlericalism and the eroticism were its trademark, and that is why they appear in two sections of the exhibition. The eroticism, that Carceller used up just until he was allowed by public prosecutors and judges, with the aim of gaining new readers and money. However, in both fields it is expressed with subtlety, in a hidden game of metaphors and indirect allusions.
In 1934, with the coming to power of the right wing, the magazine remained silenced, and the publisher in charge of it, dismantled. Then, with the triumph of the Spanish Popular Front in February 1936, the publication with more copies sold in the history of journalism, reappeared.
With the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, “La Traca”, due to its social impact, it stopped having a commercial sense to become, above all, a powerful advertising medium, to its end in 1938.
Last update: 6 de october de 2016 08:00.
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