:''For other perspectives on the 'History of Catalonia', see also:
History of Europe;
History of Spain;
History of France;
Crown of Aragon;
Catalonia (historic territory).''
The territory that now constitutes the
autonomous community of
Catalonia in
Spain, and the adjoining Catalan region of
France, was first settled during the
Middle Palaeolithic. Like the rest of the
Mediterranean coast of the
Iberian Peninsula, it was colonized by
Ancient Greeks and
Carthaginians and participated in the pre-Roman Iberian culture.
With the rest of
Hispania, it was part of the
Roman Empire, then came under
Visigothic rule after Rome's collapse. The northernmost part of Catalonia was briefly occupied by the
Moorish (
Muslim-ruled)
al-Andalus in the
eighth century, but after the defeat of Emir Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqiwas's troops at
Tours in
732 local
Visigoths regained autonomy, though they voluntarily made themselves tributary to the emerging Frankish kingdom, which gave the grouping of these local powers the generic name ''
Marca Hispanica''.
Identifiably Catalan culture developed in the
Middle Ages under the hegemony of the
Counts of Barcelona. As part of the
Crown of Aragon — most historians would say the dominant part — the Catalans became a maritime power, expanding by trade and conquest into
Valencia, the
Balearic Islands, and even
Sardinia and
Sicily.
The marriage of
Isabella of Castile and
Ferdinand II of Aragon (1469) unified Christian Spain; in
1492, the last of al-Andalus was conquered and the Spanish conquest of
the Americas began. Political power began to shift away from Catalonia toward Castile.
For some time, Catalonia retained its own laws, but these gradually eroded (albeit with occasional periods of regeneration). Over the next few centuries, Catalonia was generally on the losing side of a series of wars that led steadily to more centralization of power in Spain.
The most significant conflict was the War of the Spanish Succession, which began when
Carlos II died without a successor in 1700. Catalonia supported the claim of a member of the Austrian branch of the
Habsburg dynasty, while the rest of Spain generally supported the French Bourbon claimant,
Felipe V. Following the final surrender of Catalan troops on
September 11,
1714, Felipe V's
Nueva Planta decrees banned all the main Catalan political institutions and imposed military-based rule over the region.
In the latter half of the
19th century, Catalonia became a center of Spain's
industrialization; to this day it remains the most industrialized part of Spain, rivaled only by the
Basque Country. In the first third of the 20th century, Catalonia several times gained and lost varying degrees of autonomy, but Catalan autonomy and culture were crushed to an unprecedented degree after the defeat of the
Second Spanish Republic (founded 1931) in the
Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) brought General
Francisco Franco to power. Even public use of the
Catalan language was banned.
After Franco's death (1975), the
Spanish transition to democracy, and the adoption of
a democratic Spanish constitution (1978), Catalonia recovered cultural autonomy and some political autonomy. Today, Catalonia is almost universally recognized as one of the most economically dynamic regions of Spain.
Prehistory in Catalonia
The first known human settlements in what is now
Catalonia were at the beginning of the
Middle Palaeolithic. The oldest known trace of human occupation is a
mandible found in
Banyoles, described by some sources as pre-
Neanderthal some 200,000 years old; other sources suggest it to be only about one third that old.
[1] Some of the most important prehistoric remains were found in the caves of
Mollet (
Serinyà,
Pla de l’Estany), the Cau del Duc in the Montgrí mountain (''"cau"'' meaning "cave" or "lair"), the remains at
Forn d'en Sugranyes (
Reus) and the shelters
Romaní and
Agut (
Capellades), while those of the
Upper Paleolithic are found at
Reclau Viver, the cave of Arbreda and la
Bora Gran d'en Carreres, in Serinyà, or the Cau de les Goges, in
Sant Julià de Ramis. From the next prehistoric era, the
Epipaleolithic or
Mesolithic, important remains survive, the greater part dated between
8000 BC and
5000 BC, such as those of Sant Gregori (
Falset) and el Filador (
Margalef de Montsant).
The
Neolithic era began in Catalonia around
4500 BC, although the population was slower to develop fixed settlements than in other places, thanks to the abundance of woods, which allowed the continuation of a fundamentally
hunter-gatherer culture. The most important Neolithic remains in Catalonia are the Cave of Fontmajor (
l'Espluga de Francolí), The Cave of Toll (
Morà), the caves Gran and Freda (
Montserrat) and the shelters of Cogul and Ulldecona.
The ''Calcolithic'' or
Eneolithic period developed in Catalonia between
2500 and
1800 BC, with the beginning of the construction of
copper objects. The
Bronze Age occurred between 1800 and
700 BC. There are few remnants of this era, but there were some known settlements in the
low Segre zone. The Bronze Age coincided with the arrival of the
Indo-Europeans, whose successive waves of migration began around
1200 BC, and they were responsible for the creation of the first proto-urban settlements. Around the middle of the
7th century BC, the
Iron Age arrived in Catalonia.
The rise of Iberian culture
During the period of Iberian civilization, the Catalan territory was home to several distinct
tribes: The
Indiketes in
Empordà, the
Ceretans in
Cerdanya and the
Airenosins in the
Val d'Aran. The influx of Celtic peoples led to a characteristic blend of cultures known as
Celtiberian, which was affected by the first arrival of colonists from
Ancient Greece and
Carthage; like the rest of the
Iberian Peninsula, Catalonia participated in what became the Iberian culture. At this time
Empúries (originally
Greek ''Emporion'' market, then ''Emporiae''), on the coast of what is now the Catalan province of
Girona, a commercial enclave, founded from the Greek city of Massilia (
Marseille), in the
6th century BC.
From the
8th century BC to the
7th century BC the indigenous peoples came into contact with the colonizers, and the first iron objects are found in the area. From the 7th century BC to the middle of the
5th century BC, the process of Iberianization was consolidated. A period of plenty lasted from the middle of the 5th century BC until the
3rd century BC. Finally, after the
218 BC arrival of the
Romans, the Iberian culture was absorbed into that of Rome.
Roman times
Romanization brought a second, distinct stage in the ancient history of Catalonia.
Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus arrived in Empúries, with the objective of cutting off the sources of provisions of
Hannibal's Carthaginian army during the
Second Punic War. After the Carthaginian defeat, and the defeat of various Iberian tribes who rose up against Roman rule,
195 BC saw the effective completion of the Roman conquest of the territory that later became Catalonia and Romanization began in earnest. The various tribes were absorbed into a common Roman culture and lost their distinct characteristics, including differences of language.
Most of what is now Catalonia first became part of the
Roman province of
Hispania Citerior; after
27 BC, they became part of
Tarraconensis, whose capital was Tarraco (now
Tarragona). The arrival of Roman administrative and institutional structures led to the development of a network of cities and
roads, the adoption of
agriculture based on
cereals,
grapes, and
olives, the introduction of
irrigation, the development of
Roman law, and the adoption of the
Latin language.
From late antiquity to feudalism
Visigothic and Muslim rule
The
Crisis of the Third Century affected the whole Roman Empire, and gravely affected the Catalan territory, where there is evidence of significant levels of destruction and abandonment of Roman
villas. This is also the period of the first documentary evidence of the arrival of
Christianity. While archaeological evidence shows the recovery of some urban nuclei, such as Barcino (later
Barcelona), Tarraco (later Tarragona), and Gerunda (later
Girona), the previous situation was not restored: the cities became smaller, and constructed
defensive walls.
In the
5th century, as part of the invasion of the Roman Empire by
Germanic tribes, the
Visigoths led by
Athaulf, installed themselves in Tarraconensis (
410) and when in
475 the Visigothic king
Euric formed the kingdom of Tolosa (modern
Toulouse,
France), he incorporated the territory equivalent to present-day Catalonia. The Visigoths dominated the territory until the beginning of the
8th century, first from Toulouse and later from
Toledo. In
718, the
Muslim conquest of Spain reached the northwestern part of the peninsula and made incursions into
Septimania, a process that took place with few major battles in this region, one of the most notable being at Tarragona.
Carolingian conquest
Within a century, the Catalan regions were conquered by the
Franks as part of the Carolingian reaction against the Moorish advances. In the last quarter of the 8th century, the Franks pacified
Septimania and conquered the
Pyrenean portion of Catalonia extending their power as far as Girona.
Charlemagne's son
Louis took
Barcelona from the
Moorish emir in
801, ultimately forming a frontier zone at the rivers
Llobregat,
Cardener, and the middle branch of the
river Segre. This borderland between the Franks and the Moors became known as the ''
Marca Hispanica'' (Spanish
Marches), a buffer zone ruled by the
Count of Barcelona, with outlying small separate territories, each ruled by a lesser ''miles'' with armed retainers, who theoretically owed allegiance through the Count to the Emperor, or (with less fealty) to his Carolingian and
Ottonian successors.
This new Frankish territory was first organized politically into different
counties (in the narrow sense of the word: the ruler of each took the title of
count). At the end of the
9th century, the Carolingian monarch
Charles the Bald designated
Wilfred the Hairy — a noble descendant of a family from
Conflent and son of the earlier Count of Barcelona
Sunifred I — as count of Cerdanya and
Urgell (
870); after Charles's death (877), Wilfred became count of Barcelona and Girona (878) as well, which brought together the greater part of what was to become the Catalan territory, and although on his death the counties were divided again among his sons, except for one brief period Barcelona, Girona, and
Osona continued to be unified under one count.
The rise and fall of the ''aloers''
During the
10th century the Catalan counts became increasingly independent of the Carolingian power, which the count
Borrell II made official in
987 when he failed to swear fealty to
Hugh Capet, the first
Capetian monarch. In those years of the formation of the Catalan counties, the population of the territory began to increase for the first time since the Muslim invasion. During the 9th and 10th centuries, Catalonia increasingly became a society of ''
aloers'',
peasant proprietors of small, family-based farms, producing little more than
subsistence, and owing no formal
feudal allegiance.
The
11th century was characterized by the development of feudal society, as the ''miles'' formed links of
vassalage over this previously independent peasantry.
The middle years of the century were characterized by virulent class warfare. Seigniorial violence was unleashed against the peasants, utlizing new military tactics, based on contracting well armed
mercenary soldiers mounted on
horses. By the end of the century, most of the ''aloers'' had been converted into vassals.
This coincided with a weakening of the power of the counts and the division of the Spanish Marches into more numerous counties, which gradually became a feudal
state based on complex fealties and dependencies. From the time of the triumph of
Ramon Berenguer I over the other Catalan counts, the counts of Barcelona stood firmly at the peak of a web of fealty, tying all the Catalan counts to their crown.
First references to the name ''Catalonia''
In this new feudal state, each ''miles'' was the ''castlà'' ("castellan" or lord of the castle) in an area largely defined by a day's ride, the region dotted with strongholds becoming known by them, in an
etymology parallel to
Castile at a later date, as "Catalunya" or "Catalonia".
The term ''Catalonia'' is first documented in an early
12th-century oath to
Ramon Berenguer III, Count of Barcelona, in which he is referred to in
Latin as ''catalanicus heroes'', ''rector catalanicus'', and ''dux catalanensis'', and also the name ''Catalania'' (Catalonia) is found. In it ''catalanenses'' (Catalans) appears opposite ''gots'' ("
Goths"), referring to the people of what is now southern
France.
Catalonia, Aragon and Castile
Union with Aragon
Until the middle of the 12th century, the successive counts of Barcelona tried to expand their domain in multiple directions. They incorporated the county of
Besalú, part of the county of
Empúries, all of the county of
Cerdanya, and, briefly, even the county of
Provence. The Catalan church, for its part, became independent of the
bishopric of Narbonne, recovering an episcopal see at Tarragona (1118).
During the reign of
Ramon Berenguer IV (reigned 1131-1162), several events occurred that would be crucial for the future of Catalonia.
His marriage to
Petronila of Aragon implied the union of the County of Barcelona and the
Kingdom of Aragon in a new state, this union later being confirmed in the
14th century by
Peter IV of Aragon ("Peter the Ceremonious"). Ramon Berenguer IV used "Aragon" as his primary title and name of his ruling house, which absorbed the House of Barcelona, abolished in 1150 for reasons of mutual convenience and by the will of the Count himself, as he relinquished his own lineage to benefit from a higher one. Thus, he took the simple title ''Princeps'' ("prince") beside his wife with her title of ''Regina'' ("queen"); and their son, now that Barcelona was incorporated into the Crown, took the title ''Rex'' ("king") of Aragon, and not Catalonia. Catalonia and Aragon, however, retained their distinct traditional rights, and Catalonia its own personality with one of the first
parliaments in
Europe, the ''
Corts catalanes''.
In addition, the reign of Ramon Berenguer IV saw the Catalan conquest of
Lleida and
Tortosa, completing the unification of all of the territory that comprises modern Catalonia. This included a territory to the south of the historic Spanish Marches, which became known as ''Catalunya Nova'' ("New Catalonia") and which was repopulated with Catalans by the end of the
12th century.
The Crown of Aragon
Over the next few centuries, Catalonia became one of the most important regions in Europe, dominating a maritime empire that extended across the western
Mediterranean Sea after the conquest of
Valencia,
Balearic Islands,
Sardinia, and the accession to
Sicily of the kings of
Aragon.
At the end of the 12th century, a series of pacts with the kingdom of Castile delimited the zones that the two kingdoms would each attempt to conquer back Muslim-ruled territory (the ''"
Reconquista"''); to the east, in 1213, the defeat and death of
Peter II of Aragon ("Peter the Catholic") in the
Battle of Muret put an end to the project of consolidating Catalan power over
Provence. His successor
James I of Aragon did not fully consolidate his power until 1227; once he consolidated his inherited realm, he began a series of new conquests. Over the course of the next quarter-century he conquered
Majorca and
Valencia.
The latter became a new state, the third kingdom associated with the
crown of Aragon (or, as some historians now call it, the Catalan-Aragonese empire), with its own court and a new ''
fuero'' (code of laws): the ''Furs de Valencia''. In contrast, the Majorcan territory together with that of the counts of Cerdanya and
Roussillon and the city of
Montpellier were left as a kingdom for his son
James II of Majorca as the
Kingdom of Majorca. This division began a period of struggle that ended with the annexation of that kingdom by the Crown of Aragon in 1344 by Peter IV "the Ceremonious".
Europe in 1470.
Catalonia saw a prosperous period at the end of the
13th century and the beginning of the
14th. The population increased; Catalan culture expanded into the islands of the Western Mediterranean. The reign of
Peter III of Aragon ("the Great") included the conquest of
Sicily and the successful defense against a French
crusade; his son and successor
Alfonso ("the Generous") conquered
Minorca; and Peter's second son
James II, who first acceded to the throne of Sicily and then succeeded his older brother as king of Aragon, conquered Sardinia; under James II, Catalonia reached the height of its power in the Middle Ages.
Nonetheless, the second quarter of the 14th century saw crucial changes for Catalonia, marked by a succession of natural catastrophes, demographic crises, stagnation and decline in the Catalan economy, and the rise of social tensions. The reign of Peter the Ceremonious was a time of war: the annexation of
Majorca, the quelling of a rebellion in Sardinia, a rebellion by Aragonese unionists (that is, a faction who wished to extinguish local privileges in favor of a more centralized kingdom of Aragon), and, above all, war with Castile. These wars created a delicate financial situation, in a framework of demographic and economic crisis, to which was added a generation later a crisis of succession generated by the death in 1410 of
Martin I without a descendant or a named successor. A two-year
interregnum progressively evolved in favor of a candidate from the Castilian
Trastámara dynasty, Ferdinand of Antequera, who after the
Compromise of Caspe (1412), was named
Ferdinand I of Aragon.
Ferdinand's successor,
Alfonso V ("the Magnanimous"), promoted a new stage of expansion, this time over the
Kingdom of Naples, over which he finally gained dominion in 1443. At the same time, though, he aggravated the social crisis in Catalonia, both in the countryside and in the cities. The outcome of these conflicts was the 1462 "''
remença''" (
serfs') rebellion, a peasant rebellion against seignorial pressures, which led to a ten-year
civil war that left the country exhausted. The ''remença'' conflict did not reach any definitive conclusion and from 1493 France formally annexed the counties of Roussillon and Cerdanya, which it had occupied during the conflict.
Ferdinand II of Aragon ("Ferdinand the Catholic") finally resolved the major grievances of the ''remences'' with the
Sentencia Arbitral de Guadalupe in 1486, profoundly reformed Catalan institutions, recovered without war the northern Catalan counties, and increased active involvement in
Italy.
Crown of Aragon union with Crown of Castile
Ferdinand's 1469 marriage to
Isabella of Castile brought about a dynastic union of the Crown of Aragon with Castile. In 1516 the monarchies were formally united into a single Kingdom of Spain, but each former kingdom conserved its political institutions and maintained its own courts, laws, public administration, and separate coinage of money.
The discovery of
America by
Christopher Columbus in a Spanish-sponsored expedition shifted Europe's economic centre of gravity (and the focus of Spain's ambitions) from the
Mediterranean Sea to the
Atlantic Ocean and undermined Catalonia's economic and political importance. Aragonese and Catalan power in the Mediterranean would continue, but efforts to achieve further Spanish conquests in Europe itself generally slackened, and the maritime expansion into the Atlantic and the conquest of
Central and
South America was not a Catalan enterprise. Castile and Aragon were separate states until 1716, in spite of the dynastic union, and the newly established colonies in the Americas were Castilian, administered as appendages of Castile, until 1778
Seville was the only port authorized to trade in America, and until the dynastic union Catalans, as subjects of the
Crown of Aragon, had no right to trade in the Castilian-ruled Americas.
In the
16th century, the Catalan population began a demographic recuperation and some measure of economic recuperation. The reign of
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor as Charles I of Spain was a harmonious period, during which Catalonia generally accepted the new structure of Spain, despite its own marginalization. As the focus of Spanish maritime power and of European rivalry shifted to the Atlantic, the
Kingdom of Valencia became the most important kingdom of the former Aragonese confederation, eclipsing Barcelona. The reign of
Philip II marked the beginning of a gradual process of deterioration of Catalan economy, language, and culture. Among the most negative elements of the period were a rise in
piracy along the coasts and
banditry in the interior.
The Reapers' War
The
Reapers' War (1640–1652) started as an uprising of peasants in Barcelona. Conflicts had already arisen between Catalonia and the monarchy in the time of Philip II. Having exhausted the economic resources of Castile, Philip wished to avail himself of those of Catalonia; the Catalan governmental institutions and privileges were well protected by the terms of union of the kingdoms, and were jealously guarded by the Catalan oligarchy. After
Philip IV acceded to the throne in 1621, the
Count-Duke of Olivares attempted to sustain an ambitious foreign policy by taxing the kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula, which meant laying aside the until-then-prevailing principles of
confederation, in favor of centralism (often referred to in a Spanish context as ''unitarianism'', no relation to the religion of the same name). Resistance in Catalonia was especially strong, given the lack of any significant apparent regional return for the sacrifices.
When Spanish ''tercios'' (military corps) concentrated in Roussillon at the end of the 1630s, because of the
Thirty Years' War with France, the local peasants were required to lodge and provision the troops. On
June 7,
1640, an uprising known as the
Corpus de Sang took the lives of various royal functionaries, not all of them Castilian. Mutinies continued; the Generalitat of Catalonia succeeded in channeling the revolt against the policies of the Count-Duke, transforming a social revolt into a political war against Castilian domination, a war for Catalan independence.
The president of the Generalitat,
Pau Claris, declared a Catalan Republic under the protection of
Louis XIII of France. This allowed French troops to draw that much closer to the heartland of Spain. By 1652, Catalonia was again occupied by Spanish troops; war with France lasted until 1659, when the
Peace of the Pyrenees ceded Roussillon, Conflent,
Vallespir,
Capcir, and the northern half of Cerdanya to France. These remain French territory to this day.
War of the Spanish Succession
The
War of the Spanish Succession (1705–1714) resulted in the revocation of Catalonia's traditional autonomy and privileges. Afterwards, Spain attempted to crush the Catalans' sense of identity as a nation. The Catalan language was repressed in varying degrees for the next two and a half centuries.
In the last decades of the
17th century, despite the persistence of intermittent violent conflict with France, the Catalan economy began to recover, not only in Barcelona, but also along the Catalan coast and even in some inland areas. However, at the end of the century, after the death of the childless
Charles II (1700), the crown of Spain went to
Philip V of the
House of Bourbon. The
Grand Alliance of
England, the
United Provinces (the antecedent of the
Netherlands) and
Austria gave military support to a rival claimant to the crown,
Archduke Charles. Catalonia initially accepted Philip V, but this did not last. In 1705 the Archduke entered Barcelona, which recognized him as king in 1706.
The resulting war (1705–1714) may have benefitted Charles's foreign allies, but was a disaster for the Catalan and Aragonese lands. By 1710 politico-administrative structures of Valencia and Aragon were destroyed and their privileges abolished. The later course of the war and the
Treaty of Utrecht (1713–1714) ended the possibility of Barcelona's resistance. After the fall of Barcelona (
September 11,
1714), the triumphant forces systematically dismantled the Catalan institutions, in a process that culminated in the
Nueva Planta decree (1716), which abolished the
Catalan constitutions, established a new territorial and administrative structure, suppressed the Catalan universities and abolished the administrative use of the Catalan language; half a century later, the Catalan language would also be banned from primary and secondary schools.
Economic recovery
Despite the difficult internal situation, the Catalonia recovered significantly in the course of the
18th century. The population and the economy both grew, agricultural production increased, and trade increased (especially thanks to increased commerce with the Americas), transformations all of which (as in France) tended to undermine the
Old Regime and lay the ground for the rise of
industrialization, the first signs of which appeared in the 18th-century manufacture of
cotton goods and other textiles. By the end of the 18th century, the popular classes began to experience the first effects of
proletarianization.
The Napoleonic Wars
In the 1790s, new conflicts arose on the French border, due to the
French Revolution and the
French Revolutionary Wars. In 1808, during the
Napoleonic Wars, Catalonia was occupied by the troops of General
Guillaume Philibert Duhesme. The official Spanish army had evaporated, but popular resistance against the French occupation occurred in Catalonia as in other parts of Spain, and eventually developed into the
Spanish War of Independence.
Girona was besieged by the French and defended by its inhabitants under the direction of general and military governor
Mariano Alvarez de Castro. The French finally took the city
December 10,
1809, after many deaths on both sides from hunger, epidemics, and cold; Álvarez de Castro died in prison one month later.
Between 1812 and 1813, Catalonia was directly annexed to France itself, and organized as four (later two)
départements.
French dominion in parts of Catalonia lasted until 1814, when the
British General
Wellington signed the
armistice by which the French left
Barcelona and the other strongholds that they had managed to keep until the last.
The Carlist wars
The reign of
Ferdinand VII (reigned 1808–1833) saw several Catalan uprisings and after his death the conflict over the succession between the
absolutist "
Carlist" partisans of
Infante Carlos and the
liberal partisans of
Isabella II led to the
First Carlist War, which lasted until 1840 and was especially virulent in the Catalan territory. As with the
Basques, many of the Catalans fought on the Carlist side, not because they supported absolute monarchy but because they hoped that restoration of the Old Regime would mean restoration of their ''fueros'' and recovery of regional autonomy.
The victory of the liberals over the absolutists led to a "
bourgeois revolution" during the reign of Isabella II. The reign of Isabella II was marked by corruption, administrative inefficiency, centralism, and political and social tensions. The liberals soon divided into "moderates" and "progressives", and in Catalonia a
republican current began to develop; also, inevitably, Catalans generally favored a more federal Spain.
In September 1868, Spain's continuing economic crisis triggered the
September Revolution or ''
La Gloriosa'', beginning the so-called
Sexenio Revolucionario, the "six revolutionary years" (1868–1873). Among the most notable events of this period were the government of General
Joan Prim and his assassination, the federalist revolt of 1869, the rise of
Amadeo to the monarchy, the proclamation of the
First Spanish Republic, the outbreak of the
Third Carlist War and the spread of the ideas of the
First International.
Industrialization
The second third of the 19th century saw a Catalan cultural renaissance, a cultural movement to recover Catalan language and culture after a long period of decay. This became politically important to Spain as a whole, because in the latter half of the 19th century, Catalonia became a centre of Spain's
industrialization. An increasingly industrial Catalonia had to contend with a grave shortage of energy resources and the weakness of the domestic Spanish market. They were helped out by
protectionist policies, which reduced the competition from foreign products. As in so much of Europe, the popular classes were molded into an industrial proletariat, living and working in inhuman conditions.
Catalan nationalism and the workers movement
In 1874, a coup by General
Martínez Campos in
Sagunto led to a restoration of the Bourbon dynasty in the person of
Alfonso XII. A period of political stability, of repression of the workers movement, and of a slow growth in Catalan nationalist identity extended to the early years of the
20th century, when once again political opposition broke to the fore, especially republicanism and
Catalan nationalism, but also class-based politics reflecting social tensions.
The following decades saw the rise of the political Catalanism still prevalent today: the first formulations of the modern
Catalan national identity can be seen in
Valentí Almirall. In 1901
Enric Prat de la Riba and
Francesc Cambó formed the
Regionalist League, which led to the electoral coalition
Solidaritat Catalana.
Catalan nationalism, under the leadership of Prat de la Riba, achieved in 1913 a victory in obtaining partial self-government for the "Commonwealth" (Catalan: ''
Mancomunitat de Catalunya''; Spanish: ''Mancomunidad''), a grouping of the four Catalan provinces, presided over first by Prat de la Riba, and later by
Josep Puig i Cadafalch; this was later suppressed in March 1925, during the 1923-1930 dictatorship of
Miguel Primo de Rivera.
The Catalan workers movement at the turn of the twentieth century consisted of three tendencies:
syndicalism,
socialism, and
anarchism, part of the last openly embracing "propaganda of the deed" as advocated by
Alejandro Lerroux. Along with
Asturias, Catalonia in general and Barcelona in particular was a center of radical labor agitation, marked by numerous general strikes, assassinations (especially in the late
1910s), and the rise of the anarchist
Confederación Nacional del Trabajo ("National Confederation of Labour" or "CNT"). The escalating violence between Catalan workers and the Catalan bourgeoisie led the latter to embrace the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, despite his centralizing tendencies. (''See also
Anarchism in Spain.'')
Republic and civil war
After the fall of Primo de Rivera, the Catalan
left made great efforts to create a united front under
Francesc Macià. The
Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (Republican Left of Catalonia, or ERC) represented a break with the electoral abstentionism that, until then had been characteristic of the Catalan workers. Advocating socialism and Catalan independence, the party achieved a spectacular victory in the municipal elections of
April 12,
1931, which preceded the
April 14 proclamation of the
Second Spanish Republic. The Catalan Generalitat was revived, and a September 1932 statute of autonomy for Catalonia gave a strong, though not absolute, grant of self-government. A similar statute granted automomy to the
Basque Country.
Under its two presidents,
Francesc Macià (1931–1933) and
Lluís Companys (1934–1939), the republican Generalitat carried out a considerable task, despite the serious economic crisis, its social repercussions and the political vicissitudes of the period, including its suspension in 1934, due to an uprising in Barcelona in October that year. As for the workers' movement, there was the CNT crisis with the break-away faction in the 1930s and the formation of the
Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (, ''POUM'') and
Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia (Catalan: ''Partit Socialista Unificat de Catalunya'', ''PSUC'').
After the electoral victory of the left in the Spanish national elections of February 1936 came the July 1936 armed insurrection that led to the
Spanish Civil War. The defeat of the initial military rebellion in Catalonia placed Catalonia firmly in the Republican camp. During the war, there were two rival powers in Catalonia: the ''de jure'' power of the Generalitat and the ''de facto'' power of the
armed popular militias. Violent confrontations between the workers' parties culminated in the defeat of the CNT-FAI and POUM, against whom the PSUC unleashed strong repression. The local situation resolved itself progressively in favor of the Generalitat, but at the same time the Generalitat was losing its autonomous power within republican Spain.
The military forces of the Generalitat were concentrated on two fronts: Aragon and Majorca. The latter was an utter disaster. The Aragon front resisted firmly until 1937, when the occupation of
Lérida and
Balaguer destabilized it. Finally, Franco's troops broke the republican territory in two by occupying
Vinaròs, isolating Catalonia from the rest of republican Spain. The defeat of the Republican armies in the
Battle of the Ebro led in 1938 and 1939 to the occupation of Catalonia by Franco's forces, who abolished
Catalan autonomy and brought in a dictatorial regime, which took strong measures against Catalan nationalism and Catalan culture. Only forty years later, after Franco's death (1975) and the adoption of a democratic constitution in Spain (1978), did Catalonia recover its autonomy and reconstitute the Generalitat (1979).
George Orwell served with the
POUM in Catalonia from December 1936 until June 1937. His memoir of that time, ''
Homage to Catalonia'', was first published in 1938 and foreshadowed the causes of
Second World War. It remains one of the most widely-read books on the
Spanish Civil War.
Franco's dictatorship
As in the rest of Spain, the Franco era (1939–1975) in Catalonia saw the annulment of democratic liberties, the prohibition and persecution of parties, the rise of thoroughgoing censorship, and the banning of all leftist institutions. In Catalonia, it also meant the annulment of the statute of autonomy, the banning of many specifically Catalan institutions, and the complete suppression of the Catalan-language press. During the first years, all resistance was energetically suppressed, the prisons filled up with political prisoners, and thousands of Catalans went into exile. In addition, 4000 Catalans were executed between 1938 and 1953, among them the former president of the Generalitat Lluís Companys.
After an initial period in which Spain tried to build an
autarky, in the
1960s the economy entered a stage of agricultural modernization, increasing industrialization and the start of mass
tourism. Catalonia was on the receiving end of migration within Spain, which especially accelerated the growth of Barcelona and its surrounding area. Working-class opposition to Franco began to appear, usually clandestinely, and most notably in the form of the
Comisiones Obreras ("Workers Commissions"), a return of
trade union organizing, and the revival of the PSUC. In the 1970s democratic forces united under the banner of the
Assemblea de Catalunya ("Catalan Assembly").
Democracy restored
Franco's death initiated a period that came to be known as the "democratic transition", during which democratic liberties were restored, culminating in the
Spanish Constitution of 1978. This constitution recognized the existence of multiple national communities within the Spanish state, which proposed the division of the country into
autonomous communities. The first general elections in 1977 restored a provisional Generalitat, headed by
Josep Tarradellas and including representatives of the various leading forces of the time. In 1979, the statute of autonomy was finally approved delegating more automomy in matters of education and culture than the 1932 statute, but less in terms of the systems of justice and public order. In it, Catalonia is defined as a "nationality", Catalan is recognized as Catalonia's own language, and became co-official with Spanish. New elections under this statute gave the Catalan presidency to
Jordi Pujol, a position he would hold until
2003. During this time he also led
Convergència i Unió (Convergence and Unity, CiU) a center-right Catalan nationalist electoral coalition consisting of his own
Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya (Democratic Convergence of Catalonia, CDC) and the smaller and more conservative
Unió Democràtica de Catalunya (Democratic Union of Catalonia).
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s the institutions of Catalan autonomy continued to develop, among them an autonomous police force, the creation of the
comarcal administrations (roughly equivalent to a
US "counties" or a
United Kingdom "
shires" or "counties", but distinct from the historical Catalan counties) and a supreme court in the form of the Tribunal Superior de Justícia de Catalunya.
Catalonia's Law of Linguistic Normalization promoted Catalan-language media. The Catalan government provides subsidies to various means of promoting Catalan culture, including (for example) the making of Catalan-language
films or the
subtitling of foreign-language films in Catalan.
In 1992 Barcelona hosted the
Summer Olympics, which brought international attention to Catalonia. During the 1990s, the absence of absolute majorities in the
Spanish parliament made governments reliant on support from the various nationalist parties (Catalan, Basque,
Canary Islands, etc.) which was leveraged by CiU, to gain broaden the scope of Catalan autonomy during the last government of
Felipe González (1993-1996) and the first of
José María Aznar (1996-2000).
In November 2003, elections to the Generalitat gave the plurality, but not the majority of seats to CiU. Three other parties (
PSC-
PSOE,
ERC and
ICV) united to take the government, making
Pasqual Maragall, (
PSC-
PSOE) the new president.
This government proved unstable, especially on the issue of reforming the
Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia, and new elections were held in autumn 2006. The result was again a plurality, but not a majority, for CiU, and
PSC-
PSOE,
ERC and
ICV again formed a coalition.
On
16 September,
2005, the
ICANN officially approved the
domain.cat, the first domain for a
language community.
Notes and references
1. R. Grun, ''et al.'', "ESR and U-series analyses of enamel and dentine fragments of the Banyoles mandible", ''Journal of Human Evolution'', 2005; abstract available online, accessed 31 October 2006.
★ Historia de Cataluña, by V. Balaguer (II vols., Madrid, 1886, &c.)
★ Historia de Cataluña, by A. Bori y Fontesta (Barcelona, 1898)
★ Origines historicos de Cataluna, by J. Balari y Jovany, Establecimiento Tipográfico de Hijos de Jaime Jesús, (Barcelona, 1899)
★ Coleccio de monografies de Catalunya, by J. Reig y Vilardell (Barcelona, 1
----
★ This article draws on material in the in the Spanish-language Wikipedia.
See also
★
Military history of Catalonia
★
Anarchist Catalonia
External links
★
Museum of the History of Catalonia
★
The Spirit of Catalonia. 1946 book by Oxford Professor Dr.
Josep Trueta
★
The Spanish March at
Convergence
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