The Virolai, a patriotic anthem

The popular hymn to the Virgin of Montserrat, the Virolai, with lyrics by the poet Jacint Verdaguer and music by Josep Rodoreda, created on the occasion of the festivities of the Millennium of Montserrat, began to become popular during the first years of the 20th century, beyond its religious aspect, as a patriotic anthem for different sectors of Catalan society. This was the song that accompanies the proclamation of the Catalan State by Lluís Companys on October 6th, 1934, within the framework of the Second Republic. And it was also the song that the members of the republican army spontaneously sang when they crossed the Pyrenees in the retreating . The writer and editor Joan Sales masterfully describes it in his work Uncertain Glory:

“How could I ever forget that moment, when we reached the ridge of the Pyrenees and looked into the distance the great plain of towns and cities that smoked, like a goodbye to the crucified homeland we were about to leave we sang the Virolai! Everyone, even the anarchists … “.

Years later, in 1948, when Joan Sales and his family returned to Catalonia, the Virolai continued to act as a national anthem, given the Franco regime’s ban on Els Segadors. In that devastated country, Sales would carry out a huge publishing task, discovering fundamental authors for Catalan literature such as Màrius Torres, Llorenç Villalonga and Mercè Rodoreda, while his wife, also the writer and editor Núria Folch i Pi, would find in our city, Badalona, the right place ​​where developing her work as a teacher, working in two prominent schools, as the Minguella School and the Albéniz Institute.

Montserrat. Antoni Ros i Güell. Inv. MB 6671