Thebook’s author, Àlex Masllorens, highlighted the two sides of Tierno Galván’s personality: “He was friendly towards people on the street, but could also be really difficult with his own party colleagues”. This duality made him a complex character who was able to combine great scholarly knowledge with a popular empathy that made him a well-liked figure beyond his own political circles.
According to Masllorens, Tierno Galván was a man who saw politics as an exercise in critical thinking and civic responsibility, going beyond mere power strategies. As he himself once said: “Authoritarianism is, above all, mistrust”.
The Mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, opened the event by highlighting the importance of institutional collaboration as a legacy of Tierno Galván. “Today is about a person that Àlex Masllorens has described, studied, researched, but it is also about the time of the transition and the point at which relationships were starting to be built between the State’s two big cities, Barcelona and Madrid, in the shaping of the democratic era”, Collboni affirmed.
Tierno Galván’s archive, which is held in the Arús Public Library in Barcelona, is a testimony of this shared heritage. As asserted by Dolors Camats, director of the Fundació Catalunya Europa, “the vindication of the archives is also the vindication of the truth and democratic memory”.
During the event, Tierno Galván was recognised as a key figure in the reconstruction of Madrid during the transition. The Fundació Catalunya Europa organised a tribute highlighting his role in the creation of a “patriotismo madrileño“, a patriotism that transformed the city into a symbol of the new Spanish democracy. It also highlighted his leadership in making Madrid a city with its own identity.
Manuela Carmena, former mayor of Madrid, shared her thoughts on Tierno. She highlighted his capacity to be a “great humanist” with an exceptional imagination and dialogue, as well as his influence in the urban transformation of Madrid, making the city a modern metropolis and a benchmark in Europe.
