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Eugeni Xammar i Puigventós (Barcelona, January 17, 1888 - L'Ametlla del Vallès, December 5, 1973) was an international journalist, career diplomat, and polyglot translator (he spoke seven languages and wrote five) who lived most of his life outside of Catalonia as a correspondent in Europe during the stormy, unstable years of the First and Second World Wars. He worked as a correspondent in Buenos Aires, Paris, Madrid, London, Berlin, Washington DC, and Geneva, and traveled to Italy, Russia, and Austria, among others. As a correspondent, he collaborated principally with Catalan media outlets, writing in Catalan, like La Publicitat, La Veu de Catalunya, or Mirador magazine, which he complemented with activities in Spanish in South American publications and the Madrid-based newspaper ''Ahora''. His mastery of languages allowed him to work as a translator for international organizations like the UN, WHO, World Bank, and FAO. His longest assignment was in Berlin, between 1922 and 1936, during the Weimar Republic, when Xammar published in 1923 an alleged interview of Hitler, the first known such of the future Führer, in which he explains how he was incubating what he called "the serpent's egg". Eighty years later, the authenticity of this interview was called into question by Lluís Permanyer and Albert Sánchez Piñol. These are the years in which he coincided with Josep Pla who was also a correspondent and with whom he maintained a lifelong friendship. From Berlin, he narrated the repercussions of the First World War on the German populace that led to the evolution of Nazism and Hitler's arrival to power. Always committed to the Republic and to the Government of the Generalitat de Catalunya, of which he was a representative in Paris during the postwar period under President Irla, his actions led to Francoist reprisals and extradition, as well as the disappearance of his name and his work for an entire generation of students until his posthumous memoir was published in the mid 1970s. Xammar defined himself as a democrat, Republican, and Catalanist. He stated: "when it comes to Catalonia, I have never taken precautions". He was very critical with those who, despite sharing positions like his own, considered themselves "non-belligerents" with the postwar Francoist regime, like for example the intellectuals who contributed to Destino magazine, despite it being a key liberal, Catalanist, democratic source of the times. == Biography == Although he was born in Barcelona, in 1900 he moved with his mother and his brother Josep Maria to the Can Xammar de Dalt manor house in Almetlla del Vallès. The property, which had been the third most important one in the municipality, had fallen into ruin due to Phylloxera, when his mother, the widow of Ramon Xammar, inherited it. His mother tried to save the mostly rural property, renting rooms to Barcelonians who spent summers outside of the city, and the custom became widespread and turned Almetlla into a summer resort during the first third of the 20th century. But it was not enough, and two years after arriving, the still adolescent Eugeni Xammar had to decide whether to accept the challenge suggested by his mother of becoming a farmer and continuing the family business. His restless temperament kept him from any kind of farm-related vocation, and he answered that "whether farming or managing a farm, living in Ametlla for my whole life doesn't appeal to me in the slightest". When he was 14, his mother told him they would finish the winter in Ametlla and then work in Barcelona, in the cotton business Sucesores de B. Brutau. Four years later, his mother was forced to sell the farm at a loss to another cotton industrialist, Joan Millet i Pagès, brother of the director of the Orfeó Català, Lluís Millet. From that moment on, the property was rebaptized with the name Can Millet. This was not the only change, since the new owner hired the modernist architect in fashion in the area, Manuel Joaquim Raspall, to remodel the place. Xammar was flabbergasted when he saw the new look, and he wrote, "A touch of Raspall—to call it that—was all that was needed to transform a magnificent, gigantic farmhouse, with two sides, into a sort of inedible Easter Egg that to this day still frightens any sensible person." In August 1909, he took advantage of the 1500 pesetas that his aunt had given him to pay to get out of his military service in order to take a trip to Paris to polish his French while he took on all manner of jobs in order to survive. It's not clear whether he went to make a break with the environment of Barcelona during the Tragic Week of 1909, that he was already reflecting upon in his columns in El Poble Català, or if it was to get out of doing military service. He returned from Paris, passing quickly through Catalonia, before heading on to Argentina, a country that he found distressing and that he left three months later to go back to Paris where he lived for two years, between 1910 and 1912, living a Bohemian life. Next he began work as a newspaper correspondent that led him to live in various countries without returning to Barcelona until 1917, due to his mother having a serious illness, which kept him in Barcelona until 1918. Between 1918 and 1936, he lived in Paris, Madrid, Geneva, and Berlin. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Eugeni Xammar」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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