Emotions and Nationalism: The Case of Joan Maragall’s Compassionate Love of Country

Abstract

This essay explores the role of emotions in the constitution of nationalism. It takes as its case study the function of compassion in Joan Maragall’s writings about the events of the Tragic Week in Barcelona (26 July–1 August 1909). Drawing on current studies that interrogate the ongoing anti- nationalist scholarly consensus (; ; ), I look at cognitive theories of emotion () to trace the role of compassion in Maragall’s life and works, from his early poems such as ‘Paternal’ (1893) to his later writings on Barcelona’s social violence from 1909. I argue that in his later writings Maragall articulates a compassionate love of country that conflicted with the policies of the Lliga Regionalista, the hegemonic nationalist party at the time, but that was difficult to translate into public action. This essay demonstrates how emotions are essential to the historical constitution of nationalisms, and how such emotions cannot be reduced to hatred, the emotion that is conventionally identified with nationalist movements.