"Independence" and "statehood" narratives in the modern Catalan-Spanish memorial confrontation

Abstract

The author in this article analyses the features of the development of historical policy in modern Catalonia through the prism of the representation of the concepts of “independence” and “statehood” in the memorial culture of the regional society. The purpose of the study is to analyze the perception of the concepts of “statehood” and “independence” in modern Catalan memorial culture and historical memory. The author analyses the role and place of regional intellectual communities and political elites as the main participants in historical politics, defined as forms of development of Catalan nationalist imagination. The novelty of the study lies in the study of the current (modern) stage in the development of the historical politics of the regional Catalan society through the prism of development of of the concepts of “statehood” and “independence” in memorial culture, which stimulates a negative response from Castilian (Spanish) nationalists as opponents of the Catalan political project. It is shown that 1) the intellectual community in Catalonia is a systemic segment of modern nationalist political memorial culture, 2) the spectrum of memorial practices of regional intellectuals in Catalonia is limited mainly by their involvement in the development of civic identity through the prism of updating and visualizing the concepts of "statehood" and "independence" in public and political discourses, 3) "statehood" and "independence"concepts in historical imagination and memorial culture of modern Catalan nationalism are used to legitimize the political program of independence. It is assumed that the participation of regional intellectuals in memory wars actualizes the political, ideological and ethnic heterogeneity of society.