Catalanism is an ideological, opinion and action current developed throughout the 19th century, which participated intensely in political life during the 20th century as well. Even today, with changes and evolutions, it is still very present in the Spanish political arena. In this article we are going to analyze the phenomenon of Catalanism in historical perspective, its origins and evolution within the nineteenth-century framework.
nineteenth-century Catalanism
Catalanism was not a monolithic movement; one of its most marked characteristics is its variety of tendencies. Nor is it reducible to a social class or a political program. The common defining element is the struggle for defense of the personality of Catalonia and the love of one’s own language and culture. It is also a movement that calls for the democratic reform of Spain because its vision of this is antagonistic to that of centralism, since Catalanism is, originally, federalist.
Therefore, in the essence of Catalanism we find the idea of the plurinationality of Spain. According to Josep Termes, participation in the construction of a Spain that respects this plurinationality is a necessary but not sufficient condition to define Catalanism. The reform of Spain is a subsidiary piece; the defense of one’s own identity is an essential element (Termes, 1999: 159-160).
Termes divides Catalanism into four historical moments. In the first, which is framed from the last third of the 18th century and during the 19th century until the failure of the populist federal attempt of 1868-1873Catalonia experiences a notable industrial transformation. This process differentiates it economically and socially from the rest of Spain. At the same time, a good part of its popular classes define an anti-centralist Catalan particularism. In addition, the recovery of the historical past appears as the foundation of the rights of Catalonia.
In the second phase, between the Restoration of 1875 and the Spanish crisis of 1898, the increase in Catalan industrialization gives birth to a Barcelona capital and engine of Catalonia. This becomes a rival of the Madrid capital of politics. In this way, a peninsular cultural dualism is established between Madrid and Barcelona. The organic intellectuals of the nation create a new doctrine, making doctrinal nationalism appear. “Apolitical politicization” emerges. It is necessary to group socially, but the institutional framework of the Restoration and the decadent and cacique reality of Spain do not make it possible. Nor is it desirable in the face of a corrupt, electoral and empty parliamentary politics. Creating centers and accessing public institutions is the goal. Catalanism penetrates the nuclei of the working-class cultural aristocracy and the modernism it is a symbol of change.
The modernism can be defined as a cultural movement that emerged between the last decades of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, almost in opposition to the Noucentisme (Noucentisme), as an opposite way of reacting to what was happening in the context of that time. However, beyond designating the artistic current, it is also used to designate the framework that housed it.
During the third stage, born with the crisis of 1898 and ended with the fall of the monarchy in 1931, the parties, from the right and from the left, are articulated on the doctrinal basis of the previous doctrinal-institutional nationalism. The Catalanist parties are born. Since then, to do politics in Catalonia, it was necessary to adapt to the fact that Catalonia creates its political cadres and chooses its representatives, apart from Madrid. Noucentisme is a way of doing politics and structuring the territory. In addition, a popular, minority separatism appears around the European war.
Finally, in the fourth and last phase, during the years of the Second Republic and the Civil War, culminates the previous project with the appearance of the workers’ parties that have assumed the Catalan question. From this moment, all social groups and all doctrines are already present in the Catalan political spectrum. From sectors of the Catholic Church to radical labor are integrated into the movement.
General historical context
At the end of the 18th century, society begins to break down the enlightened barriers. Romanticism separates rationality and neoclassical taste, typical of the Enlightenment, to give value to medieval art. And it will do so, in large part, with the intention of searching for the differential facts of the various peoples.
According to Josep Fontana, this change that is normally associated with Romanticism is also expressed in other fields. It will cause Catalan culture to be interpreted, based on this movement, as a product of a historical heritage, of social and economic evolution and of differentiated collective approaches. The concern for the reunion of the “popular spirit” will start the search for references. In this case, stories or songs that nourish the repertoire of elements of the new art that the Catalan society of the time proposed (Fontana, 1989: 417-418).
Another aspect of change that needs to be mentioned is the impact of all these issues on others such as architecture and urban planning. There was a will to build new cities, open to the world and inviting to be visited. Barcelona will become the great Catalan exponent of this will. It was in the middle of the 19th century when the old walls were demolished. And, with it, to urbanize squares, promenades and spacious gardens for the use and enjoyment of the entire population. In addition, the two buildings that, according to Fontana, symbolize the new functions of the city and the growing role that the menestralia and the popular classes have in the social life of the new times will be built: the markets and the theaters. All these improvement and sanitation works could be carried out, in part, by taking advantage of the sites of the old disentailed convents and churches (Fontana, 1989: 422).
For Fontaine, the city adapted to the demands of the changing society. And that change did not come from the will of politics or urban planning. The changes were slow, but they will be a great improvement for the population. If we refer to Barcelona, for example, some of the important projects for the historic center were the completion of the Rambla, the Pla de Palau, the demolition of the walls, the demolition of the old Citadel military ―the work of Felipe V and given to the city by General Juan Prim―, the construction of the markets, the urbanization of the Royal Squarethe Great Theater of the Liceuetc.
These are changes that link with the formation of the new industrial and bourgeois city. But also with the growing role of the popular layers, which have gained space for leisure and political mobilization. Today these urban reforms would be unthinkable according to the criteria of heritage protection. But, in the 19th century, they responded to the heritage mentality of the time and the city’s need for growth due to the expansion of industry in the area.
Industrialization, more powerful in Catalonia than in other areas of the country, began to accelerate from the year 1833. In part, because of the entry of the first steam engine. This fact means the transformation of the old traditional industry – the Indians – into a modern industry. Some Catalan urban centers are equipped with an industrial fabric that differentiates it from the agrarian world, which is dominant in the rest of Spain, with some exceptions.
From the moment centralization occurs, an opposite phenomenon is triggered that diversifies Catalonia. The language that already existed not only does not disappear, but it begins to be promoted as an intellectual vehicle.
Origins and development of Catalanism
It has always been said, and it is a point on which many historians and philologists agree, that the Renaissance of Catalan language and literature is a process that began in 1833 with the publication of the ode to the fatherland by Bonaventura Carles Aribau. This process would rise rapidly with the work of Rubió i Ors, the restoration of the Jocs Florals in 1859 and the renewal of the Catalan theater. Its culmination was the work of Jacint Verdaguer. In all the textbooks published for schools and institutes, it is agreed that this is how this stage of Catalan culture was born after a period of great decay. Decadence, moreover, caused mainly by an eclipse of the Castilian language and literature. But, And if it were not so?
Josep Fontana goes further and nuances this simplistic image by exposing some “initiators” prior to Aribau. One of them would be Antoni Puigblanch, author of The communities of Castella (1823), the anonymous author of the poem The Temple of Glory (late XVIII – early XIX) and several other poets who left their few works. Àlvar Maudell also adds 253 titles that appeared between 1801 and 1833 in all the Catalan-speaking territories, 170 of which were published in Catalonia (Fontana, 1989: 429-430).
Albert Rossich denies the term “decadence” because it is conditioned, among others, by a linguistic-geographical reductionism, by aesthetic prejudices and by a selection of the most unfavorable points of comparison with other literatures. According to him, the term “decadence” is tendentious, confusing and sterilizing (Rossich, 1997: 129-131). Therefore, analyzing his article, one could reach the conclusion that an era cannot be baptized with the name of “Renaissance” when language and literature never died, but had always survived even with the difficulties suffered. Likewise, Fontana does not find it lawful to call this fact “Renaixença” and identify it with the resurgence of the Catalan language and culture. He understands it more as a timid return of cultivators of Castilian culture to the Catalan language. He considers, however, that they had abandoned her for a long time (Fontana, 1989: 440).
In addition, Fontana does not find foundations in this tradition either since, around 1860, when it is assumed that the recovery movement had been active for more than twenty-five years, the “literary” cultivation of Catalan was no more than a marginal activity of a small group of “lletraferits diglòssics” ―as he himself calls them―, who wrote poetry in archaic Catalan, but reserved Spanish for their most ambitious cultural activities (Fontana, 2019: 305).
Aribau has been chosen as founder of the Renaissance Catalan. But his letters, even those addressed to Catalan friends, he wrote in Spanish. Also keep in mind that Homeland it arose from a collective commitment to write verses in different languages. With them he intended to congratulate his boss, the banker Gaspar Remisa. His use of Catalan is almost anecdotal. As he himself explains to a friend, “Catalan has touched me” (Fontana, 2019: 305). In addition, he published all his articles in Spanish and was director of the …