The Rise Of Catalan Identity

This volume helps us to understand that the current political disorders in Catalonia have deep cultural roots. It focuses on the rise of Catalan cultural, national and linguistic identity in the 20th century. What is happening in Catalonia? What lies behind its political conflicts? Catalan identity has been evolving for centuries, starting in early medieval ages (11th and 12lve centuries). It is not a modern phenomenon. The emergence of imperial Spain in the 16 c. and the French Ancien Régime in the 17 c. correlates with a decline of Catalan culture, which was politically absorbed by the Spanish state after the conquest of Barcelona in 1714. However, Catalan language and culture flourished again under the stimulus of the European Romantic Nationalism movement (known as the Renaixença in Catalonia). During the first Dictatorship (Primo de Rivera, 1923-1930), the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), and the long Francoist era (1939-1975), Catalan language and culture were repressed, yet refurbished and reconstructed at the same time. This rise of a plural, complex, and non-homogeneous Catalan identity constitutes the subject matter of this volume. National conflicts that emerged later in the Spanish democratic state leant heavily on the life engagement and vital commitment experienced by the entrenched intellectual movements of the twentieth century in Catalonia, Valencian Country and the Balearic Islands. This book reveals the cultural and literary grassroots of these conflicts.

This volume offers an overview of the ongoing debate regarding nationalism, globalisation, secessionism and languages in 21st century Catalonia. At the heart of the book is a set of interlocking questions relating to socio-political issues in sub-state nations seeking independence in the 21st century.

As recently as the mid-2000s, Catalonia was described and analysed by scholars as exhibiting a non-secessionist nationalism and was seen within Europe and beyond as a role model for successful devolution which had much to teach other parts of the world. The Spanish state seemed to be on a journey towards an authentic federal order and was generally admired. However, the new century has been marked by an ever-growing independence movement, with 47.8 per cent of Catalonia voting in favour of independence in September 2015. Pro-independence mobilization has produced a rupture in political relations with the rest of Spain leading to a sovereignty struggle with Madrid. This book explores how an accumulation of long-, medium- and short-term factors have produced the current situation and why the Spanish territorial model has been unable or possibly, unwilling, to respond. The Catalan question is not purely a Spanish problem: it has direct implications for the traditional nation-state model, in Europe and beyond.

The book derives from an European Science Foundation project about the cohesion of European regions developed between 2010 and 2013. Flocel Sabate led into this framework a team of fourteen scholars looking for the reason of the cohesion and permanence of Catalonia from Middle Ages to current days. This collective book arrives at an updated explanation, far from neoromantic visions and attentive to social vectors, such as socioeconomical convergence, external and internal perception, social representation, institutional development, creation of a justificative discourse and influence of the law, the language, the art and other cultural items.

The present book is a complex approach to the elements that built the history of Catalonia. This collective book analyze differents aspects, such as: cultural history, the History of Law, the Political history or the History of the State, from the Midlle Ages to the Modern and Contemporary history.

This book, the first study of Catalan nationalism to appear in English, outlines the history of Catalonia, showing how the national and cultural identity of the region persisted despite persecution. This provides the necessary background for the analysis of the contemporary political and cultural situation in Catalonia in the wider context of the European Union.

Support for independence in the Autonomous Community of Catalonia has risen significantly since 2005. Opinion polls confirm that the idea of holding a legally-binding referendum on independence is now supported by 80% of Catalans. Many commentators on nationalism in Western Europe had come to the conclusion that there was no serious threat to the established nation-states from secessionism within their borders. In The Identity of Nations (2007), Montserrat Guibernau wrote that decentralisation 'tames secessionism, both by offering significant power and resources to the national minorities it seeks to accommodate and by enticing regional political elites with the power, prestige and perks associated with devolution'. Scott Greer, in Nationalism and Self-Government (2007), wrote that 'secession seems unlikely' in the Catalan case because the regional political elites have too much to lose by such a move and are most concerned with winning further autonomy in specific areas that stabilise their own hold on regional power - a conclusion called into question by the recent radicalisation in Catalan politics and civil society. Causes for these striking changes in public sentiment include changes in the Catalan political landscape since 2003, problems of infrastructure, public apathy with the political process, disillusionment with the Spanish government, a rise in anti-Catalan feeling from other Spaniards (and a rise in anti-'Spanish' feeling among Catalans), the effects of the global financial crisis, and the bumpy ride experienced by Catalonia's new Statute of Autonomy. One notable change has been a shift in the dominant discourse of Catalan nationalism from concerns regarding language, culture and identity toward the political and economic welfare of Catalans. These political and economic discourses have overlaid rather than replaced cultural aspects. Published in association with the Canada Blanch Centre for Contemporary Spanish Studies / Catalan Observatory.

Public debate about immigrant integration has often led to a heightened awareness or even a collective redefinition of identiy. Such processes are studied through the unique example of Spain.