Whoever wants to know the political evolution of Valencian society since the 60s, as well as the protagonists of the anti-Franco struggle and the transition in this very complex geography, must inevitably approach the figure of Vicent Ventura (1924-1998). Because in this journalist, politician and cultural agitator, are concentrated the breaths of nonconformity and rebellion that accompanied an entire generation of Valencians to establish democracy and push Valencian society towards modernity.
His figure, on the centenary of his birth, will be the object of tribute, study and dissemination throughout 2024, with a multitude of activities programmed by a commission, made up of fifty people, of which, in addition to family members, personalities are part. from the world of culture, journalism, politics and Valencian universities. With the objective, as the historian and coordinator of the centenary, Francesc Pérez Moragón, points out, “to spread the legacy of a man who did immense work for democracy, sometimes misunderstood, and who was a Valencian political and journalistic reference.”
Who was Vincent Ventura? A native of Castellón de la Plana, he was one of the founders in 1962 of the Partit Socialista del País Valencià (PSPV). That same year, Ventura participated in the IV Congress of the European Movement held in Munich, the “Munich conspiracy,” as Francisco Franco himself called it, which earned him exile in Paris. In 1963, along with other intellectuals, he signed an open letter against the then Minister of Information and Tourism, Manuel Fraga Iribarne, in protest at the brutal performance of the Civil Guard and the Social Political Brigade in the repression of the Asturian miners. It was around then that Ventura became friends with the Sueca essayist, Joan Fuster, and collaborated regularly with the magazine Valencia Fruits, a publication that would become a space of freedom from the Francoist press.
Journalist and writer Francesc Bayarri, who knew him personally, says that Vicent Ventura represents “an exception in the journalistic panorama of his generation. In an ecosystem where journalists addicted to the dictatorship, with a provincial and folkloric mentality, with little intellectual training predominated. “Ventura emerged as an island surrounded by mediocrity.” And he adds that “it was a beacon for the generations of young people who wanted to start the profession of journalism during the transition.”
Who also worked with him in several publications was the journalist Rosa Solbes. “I met him when I was a girl and for me he was, along with J.J. Pérez Benlloch, the fundamental professional reference, a person with an ethic of commitment and a man who was a radical contrast to the journalists of the Franco era.” Solbes comments that with Ventura “we have a great example of how this land sometimes wastes its talent” and highlights the “rebellious and nonconformist” character of a “multipurpose journalist, who knew Europe well in those times and who was, in addition, an endearing person.”
UV professor and journalist Nel·lo Pellisser is preparing a compilation of the best journalistic texts from Ventura. He tells this newspaper that “although he began to work as a journalist in 1949, after his participation in the well-known “conspiracy” in Munich in 1962, which led to temporary exile in Paris and confinement in Dénia, he could no longer return to practice professionally as a journalist”. He adds that this did not prevent him from carrying out intense activity as a collaborator, both in the press of Valencia (Valencia-fruits, Levante, Diario de Valencia or Noticias al día) and in that of Madrid (Informaciones, Madrid, El País) and in the of Barcelona (La Vanguardia Española, Tele-eXpres, El noticiero universal, El Correo Catalán or Avui), as well as in numerous magazines (Destino, Serra d’Or, Valencia-Semanal and Saó, among others).
Pellisser highlights that, precisely, “La Vanguardia is one of the newspapers where he published the most collaborations. Most of them are of an economic nature, with the focus on the emerging Valencian industrial sectors, agriculture and the rise of tourism, with the Common Market European as a backdrop”. The result of this activity, which he combined with the direction of the Publipress advertising agency, are several thousand articles in which he dealt, in addition to economic issues, with Spanish and regional politics and the transformations of society, which interested him so much. .
In the late 60s, Ventura participated in the founding of CC.00. in the Valencian Country, together with Fuster, the journalists Francesc de Paula Burguera, and Martí Domínguez. Furthermore, together with the financiers and leading exponents of the liberal bourgeoisie Joaquín Maldonado and Joaquim Reig, he co-founded the Valencian Bibliographic Society, an entity that was the first to disseminate ancient literary texts by Valencian authors such as Ausiás March. And together with Maldonado he also created the Sigma economic studies office, from which anti-Franco political activities were covered.
During that period he maintained a close relationship with Catalan intellectuals and journalists of the stature of Ibáñez Escofet. Author of books such as El País Valencià and prologue to several books by Fuster, during the 70s Ventura actively participated in the creation of platforms such as the Taula Democratica Valenciana, which was the embryo of the historic Taula de Forces Pítiques i Sindicals del País Valencià, or of the Partit Socialista del País Valencià, a party that would later join the PSOE. He was also one of the promoters of the first Assemblea d’Intel·lectuals i Artistes del País Valencià. At the beginning of the 80s he abandoned political activism and took refuge in the advertising company that he created. In recent years he has been awarded countless awards, such as the one for journalism awarded by the European Movement or the one for freedom of expression from the Union of Journalists of the Valencian Country.
Pérez Moragón highlights “his commitment to democracy and to the Valencian Country.” A commitment, he adds, “that led him to new political strategies, which for him were frequently a source of difficulties, to commit to promoting platforms for dialogue between the various anti-Franco forces that existed, were emerging or reviving after the long and painful postwar.” And he comments on an important fact: he was a man who interacted with the main Spanish politicians and intellectuals of his generation, from Aranguren, Castellet, Ernest Lluch, Tierno Galván or Marià Manent.
Nel·lo Pellisser concludes about Ventura’s journalistic side that “his self-taught training is striking, based according to him on the lessons of some of his friends and on the practice of journalism, accompanied by reading, as well as other cultural manifestations. As his friend Joan Fuster wrote, his university was the editorial office of a newspaper.
In addition to his intense activity as a man of action, in politics and in numerous civic initiatives, “his enormous journalistic work is yet to be exhumed and studied,” adds Pellisser. Which will probably make possible this year’s commemoration of the centenary of his birth and the various activities planned by a group of friends and followers, with the support of some institutions.
