ABSTRACT
The PEN Congress that took place in Dubrovnik between May 26 and May 29, 1933, is remembered as a turning point. In Yugoslavia, the dictatorship of King Alexander was at its peak. Below the surface of the conservative regime, Yugoslavia’s leftist intellectuals had built a network of international connections and sought the presence of the progressive German writers in exile who knew that PEN could become a powerful platform for condemning Nazism. Meanwhile, the official German delegation, already purified in the strict Nazi ideology, was sent abroad to convince the fellow writers that literature should never be involved in politics. The resolution in defense of freedom of the intellect, proposed by the American PEN, and the defiant and heroic voice of Ernest Toller, suddenly turned a perilous present into History: despite the protests of the representatives of the Hitler’s Germany and their sympathizers, Nazism was condemned by the Assembly. J.V. Foix, the delegate of the Catalan PEN, obtained the agreement that the 1935 Congress would take place in Barcelona. This would be one of the last international events before the Civil War, profoundly marked with the tragic losses during those years.
