The Universitat defends Joan Fuster’s intellectual mastery on his centenary

In her opening remarks, the principal defended Fuster as an "eternal Valencian", and recalled that he received his doctorate from this university in 1992. The principal also highlighted Joan Fuster Chair’s work, organiser of the International Symposium, in the promotion and dissemination of his work. Professor Mestre, in her capacity as the highest academic authority, also took the opportunity to condemn Putin's invasion of Ukraine and to call for peace in Europe.

For the coordinator of the Joan Fuster Chair, Professor Ferran Carbó, the intellectual from Sueca "is an author who, whether or not we share his ideas, has motivated debate, which is why his work is so relevant". An intellectual figure who "has motivated numerous studies and reflections on other cultural aspects in general, with universal reflections". Carbó also highlighted "the wide range of subjects dealt with at the congress, as well as the participation of specialists in his work from Europe and the United States".

The first symposium’s conference was given by Verónica Orazi, professor at the Università degli Studi di Torino. The Italian professor called for an "operation Fuster" to internationalise his literary production. She went on to list a series of actions that should be carried out to coincide with Fuster Year. Translations with solvent publishers and taking into account the international audience, reprints of Fuster's work and reviews promotion in the cultural supplements of the best European newspapers, because, he said, "criticism feeds criticism".

The former principal of the Universitat de València and Professor of Contemporary History, Pedro Ruiz Torres, gave a lecture on the uses of history in Joan Fuster's work Nosaltres els Valencians. Professor Ruiz Torres pointed out that this is an important book because of its considerable impetus to monopolise Valencian nationalism, and that, despite its inherent subjectivity, "its synthesis is full of success, contradictions and open to criticism, as the author himself wished". Despite his "ideology excess", the historian defended the "modern conception" of history in Nosaltres els Valencians, both in his use of the term "Valencian society" and in his ideological contradictions because, as he wrote in the prologue to the second edition, Fuster was not a dogmatic man. Professor Ruiz Torres explained that some of the considerations held by Fuster "today are rejected", such as his judgement on the Moriscos’ expulsion at the beginning of the 17th century, and he also expressed his doubts that the account of Nosaltres els valencians is conceived from an exclusively Marxist point of view. Because, as he pointed out, although Fuster was familiar with the studies of the Marxist historian Pierre Vilar, his thesis on the absence of leading minorities among the Valencian bourgeoisie "is elitist and conservative, like that of Vicens Vives and Ortega y Gasset".