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“Today Catalonia is a province of Spain. But what has Catalonia been? Catalonia has been the greatest nation in the world and I will tell you why. Catalonia had the first parliament, long before England,” explained the cellist and composer Pau Casals to members of the United Nations in New York on 24th October 1971. The internationally-renowned Catalan musician was there to conduct a performance of his composition “Hymn of the United Nations” the day he received the UN Peace Medal in recognition of his commitment to the struggle against fascism in the Spanish Civil War and World War II.
Casals’ speech refers to the early days of the history of the Catalan nation when the Peace and Truce Assemblies regulated the rights of farmers faced with feudal injustices. The first one was held in 1027. It was from these Assemblies that the Catalan Courts evolved in 1283. These courts are considered to be one of the first parliaments in Europe and embody this spirit for understanding and reaching agreements which has been a trait of the Catalan nation ever since the eleventh century.
So, when can we actually say that Catalonia first came into being as a nation? Although it is, of course, nigh on impossible to give a precise birthdate for a nation, historians place Catalonia’s roots in the 9th century when Wilfred the Hairy – the Count, or Earl, of Barcelona and other domains to the north and south of the Pyrenees – broke links with the Carolingian Empire and the Frankish kings reigning those areas at that time. This was the origin of what we now call Catalonia, a land which has absorbed the cultural inheritance of the Iberians, Greeks, Romans, Christians and Muslims over centuries.
Catalonia – a great western Mediterranean power
Dynastically united with the Kingdom of Aragon, in the 13th century Catalonia became one of the great military powers of the western Mediterranean. King James I reconquered Majorca and Valencia from the Moors, and his heirs went on to become sovereign leaders of Sardinia, Naples, and Sicily. The extensive maritime trade empire and political and cultural splendour Catalonia enjoyed in the Middle Ages came to an end with the marriage of Ferdinand II of Catalonia and Aragon to Isabella I of Castile in 1469. The Catholic Monarchs – as they were named by Pope Alexander VI – were one of the most influential monarchies on the continent. It was no coincidence, then, that it was during their reign that Christopher Columbus set off on the journey which would lead him to America.
With Columbus’ arrival in the New World, the focal point for trade and commerce moved from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, and Catalonia felt the effects. From that moment on, the political and economic supremacy of Castile undermined relations with Catalonia. Although Catalonia’s institutions were still respected, the relationship with Castile was no longer an amicable one. The point of no return arrived with the War of the Spanish Succession at the start of the 18th century. In 1700 King Charles II of Spain died heirless. This led to an international conflict around the choice of his successor. Castile and France opted for Philip V, of the House of Bourbon and grandson of Louis XIV of France, while Catalonia, England, Austria, Holland, Portugal and the Duchy of Savoy supported the Archduke Charles VI of Austria. Catalonia was defeated in the resulting war which eventually ended in 1715. In revenge for their opposition to his claim, the new king, Philip V, abolished Catalonia’s public institutions – such as their government, the Generalitat -, forbade the speaking of Catalan in public, and imposed Castilian rule of law under the “Right of Military Conquest”.
The rebirth of the Catalan nation
The rebirth of the Catalan nation
Catalan politics and culture did not recover from this defeat until well into the 19th century when, coinciding with the industrial revolution, Catalonia became the main motor for the Spanish economy. Catalonia’s commercial dynamism – based mainly on the textile industry and liquor exports – coincided with the birth of “Catalanism”, a tendency which was expressed culturally in the romantic revivalist movement known as the Renaixença. This movement was an intellectual current of thought working to recover the identity symbols of Catalonia and, above all, to dignify the use of the Catalan language.
Coinciding with the consolidation of Catalonia’s political elements, at the end of the 19th century a new generation of irreverent artists keen on revolutionizing society, such as Santiago Rusiñol and Ramon Casas, drove the artistic movement known as Catalan Modernisme (the Catalan equivalent of Art Nouveau). Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia, swiftly became a cultural hotspot renowned across Europe. Antoni Gaudí emerged as the architect in vogue amongst the Catalan middle classes. Several of his buildings, like La Pedrera, Casa Batlló, Parc Güell, and the Sagrada Familia church have become international icons of that artistic revolution. With all this activity going on, the start of the 20th century saw Catalonia recover part of the cultural, political and economic power it had lost after the War of the Spanish Succession.
With the establishment of the Spanish Republic in 1931, Catalonia’s right to self-government was recognized and Francesc Macià was proclaimed as the first President of the Generalitat since Philip V had abolished the Catalan political institutions 200 years previously. It was to be a short-lived situation, though. In the summer of 1936, General Francisco Franco led a coup d’état which sparked off the three-year-long Spanish Civil War. Franco eventually defeated the Republicans in 1939. This led to a fascist dictatorship which abolished the democratic public bodies. Franco forbade freedom of expression and political parties, imposed the Catholic religion and persecuted any expression of Catalan identity over the following thirty-six years.
Politicians, trade union members, workers, intellectuals... anyone publicly committed to the Republic (such as the artist Picasso, or the musician Pau Casals) had to go into exile. Lluís Companys, the Catalan President at the fall of the Republic, also fled to France. However, in 1940 the German Gestapo arrested him and handed him over to the Spanish authorities. A few months later he was sentenced and executed in Barcelona’s Montjuic castle. Around 150,000 Catalans were imprisoned under Franco’s regime and almost 4,000 executed for political reasons.
Despite these prohibitions and police repression, many clandestine groups attempted to weaken the dictatorship, but it wasn’t until Franco’s death in 1975 that democratic rule returned to Catalonia and Spain. Josep Tarradellas, President of the Generalitat in exile, returned to Catalonia in 1977 and the Catalan government was provisionally reinstated. In the 1978 referendum, Spain voted in favour of a new constitution which divided the state into seventeen autonomous regions with varying degrees of de-centralization of powers. A new Statute of Autonomy (a charter which sets out the self-government laws for each autonomous region) was passed to regulate the relationship between Catalonia and the Spanish State.
The consolidation of democracy in Catalonia coincided with two important moments in our recent history. Firstly, the entry of Spain, and Catalonia, into the European Economic Community in 1986, and, secondly, the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona which put Catalonia firmly on the international stage. Despite a certain progress made since then though, the constant toing and froing regarding the control of specific governmental powers – especially those relating to economics and the teaching of the Catalan language in schools – has continued to confront the Spanish and Catalan governments.
In 2005, after thirty-five years of democracy, Catalonia set about updating its Statute of Autonomy to consolidate its self-government and re-adjust the relationship between its national reality and the Spanish state. The new Statute was approved in both the Catalan and the Spanish Parliaments, as well as in the Spanish Senate. It was then passed by a proportion of three to one in the subsequent referendum. Once it had been signed by the Spanish King, it came into law in the summer of 2006. The People’s Party, in the opposition at that time, immediately contested it in the Constitutional Court. After a long process of deliberation the Court published its sentence in 2010, abolishing key articles of the text. This inevitably led to a conflict between democratic legitimacy and legality.
The failure of this attempt to find a place for Catalonia within Spanish legality has demonstrated the difficulties the Spanish state has in accepting and dealing intelligently with its national, cultural and linguistic diversity – a situation which has only increased the support of the Catalan people for independence. As we celebrate the 300th anniversary of the War of Succession, the debate regarding the creation of a new Catalan State in Europe is on the table more clearly than ever.
Language
93.8% of the citizens of Catalonia understand Catalan, the official language along with Spanish and Aranese. To these nearly seven million people that understand Catalan, we can add those from other territories where it is used as the everyday language, particularly the Valencian Community (where it is called 'Valencià'), the Balearic Islands and part of Aragon, the Franja de Ponent (Western Strip). It is the only official language in Andorra and its use extends to the south of France and the city of Alghero, Sardinia. As a result, it is calculated that there are a total of nine million people that speak Catalan and 11 million that understand it. It is therefore situated ahead of 14 official languages of the European Union and it is the ninth most spoken language.
Catalan was established between the 8th and 10th Centuries as an evolution of Latin, as were Spanish, French, Italian and the other Romance languages. Catalan is the common language used at school and its use is standardising the media, financial world and cultural productions. Every year, 10,000 titles are edited in Catalan, which is the tenth most translated language in the world and taught in 166 universities. The Catalan language is very much alive on the Internet, so much so that CANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) authorised the .cat domain in 2006, which groups the Catalan culture and language community websites together. In just over two years, there were 30,000 domains registered. A survey carried out by the Statistical Institute of Catalonia (IDESCAT) in 2007 indicated that three out of four residents in Catalonia can speak and write Catalan.
The Spanish language started to have a certain role in the ruling circles of Catalonia as a result of the dynastic union with Castile, even though it did not have an important presence in everyday life until the Spanish-speaking immigration, which mainly took place in the second half of the 20th century. Nowadays, nearly all citizens understand (98.9%) and speak Spanish (96.4%).
The presence of the Provencal language and culture in the Catalan domain is explained by historic reasons when, in the fifteenth century, it became integrated thanks to a pact with Catalonia. In spite of its political ties with this region, its geographical isolation has allowed its Provencal nature and heritage to endure over the centuries up to the present day, which is actually legally recognised by the self-government of the valley.
Politics & government
Catalonia is an autonomous community and exercises its self-government in the Spanish State in accordance with the Constitution of 1978 and the new Statute of Autonomy, approved in 2006. The Generalitat is the institutional system around which Catalonia's self-government is politically organised and it dates from 1359. It consists of the Parliament, the Presidency, the Government (formed by the Executive Council) and other self-governing institutions such as the Síndic de Greuges (guarantor of the rights and liberties of citizens) and the Sindicatura de Comptes (control of the economic accounts of Catalan public institutions).
The Generalitat has extensive competencies in matters such as education, health, citizen security and civil protection, culture, linguistic policy, industry, urban development, housing, regional politics, transport and the environment, among others. Catalonia has its own police force, the Mossos d'Esquadra, which has been covering the full territory since November 1st, 2008. Catalan civil law is applied in legal matters, of historical tradition, the modification of which is the exclusive competence of the Generalitat.
The Catalan Parliament is one of the oldest in Europe: its origins go back to 1283, when Catalan King Peter II the Great lost absolute power, and also needed authorisation from the clergy, aristocracy and representatives of the villages and towns of the country to approve regulations. Les Corts Catalanes, or the Catalan Parliament, integrated by the three estates, is considered to be an authentic medieval parliament.
| PODSTAWOWE INFORMACJE | |
| Państwo |  Hiszpania |
| Stolica Położenie geograficzne |  Barcelona Północno-wschodnia część Półwyspu Iberyjskiego |
| Data powstania Święto narodowe Hymn narodowy | 22 grudnia 1979 11 września Els Segadors |
| Prezydent Rząd | Artur Mas (Konwergencja i Unia) Generalitat de Catalunya |
| Powierzchnia | 32,107 km2 |
| Populacja • liczba ludności (2012) | 7,565,603 |
| • gęstość (2011) | 231.5 os./km² |
| Języki urzędowe PKB PKB per capita Wskaźnik imigracji Prefix | kataloński, hiszpański, oksytański (arański) 197,919 millionów euro (2010) 27,053 euro (2010) 15.7% (2011) +34 |
| Liczba przedstawicieli w parlamencie | |
| Liczba senatorów | 7 |
| Liczba posłów | 46 |
Źródła: Generalitat de Catalunya, www.diplocat.cat, http://www.cataloniavotes.eu/history/
