Between Intellectual and Politician: Lluís Nicolau d'Olwer in the Eyes of His Contemporaries during the Second Republic

Abstract

The result of a much larger work, this article forms part of the historiographic current which in recent years has been interested in the figure of Lluís Nicolau d’Olwer as a politician and as an intellectual. This article attempts to understand why his career has been underestimated almost until the present and to do this presents an overview of the contemporary criticism of the political action of a man who was finance minister in the interim government of the Republic in 1931 and director of the Bank of Spain in the early days of the Civil War. The article attempts to analyse to what extent this negative evaluation contributed to relegating Lluís Nicolau into the background and, aims to highlight his important role both as an intellectual as a public man at the service of his country.