Jordi Erín, the Irish Political Influence on Catalan Nationalism Through Theatre

Various authors have challenged the traditional dichotomy of civic and ethnic nationalism. This paper presents the case study of Catalan nationalism in the Belle Époque. It argues for the usefulness of the lens of ‘Inter-Nationalism’ to highlight the fluctuating and labile character of nationalism and to move beyond the ascription of civic and ethnic types to certain regions by examining the exchanges between nationalist movements. It presents three areas in which Catalan nationalism in the Belle Époque moved between voluntarist-organic and inclusive-exclusive definitions and practices of nationalism: state organisation, gender and minority inclusion.

These quotations from two of the major ideologues of Basque and Catalan nationalism, respectively, reflect two radically different conceptions of what the nation is and two significantly different political programs for the Basque Country and Catalonia: independence and adherence to tradition for the former, federalism/confederalism and a secular and capitalist organization of society for the latter. The Basque and Catalan nationalist movements differed substantially in their character despite the fact that they developed simultaneously in two ethnically distinct Spanish communities, that stood out in terms of their high level of industrial development relative to the rest of Spain, and that had experienced intense immigration from the poorest regions of Spain. Therefore, this contrast between Basque and Catalan nationalism questions the suitability of explanations of peripheral nationalism that stress the role of relative levels of development, of cultural distinctiveness, and of the socially disruptive effects of the arrival of large numbers of immigrants. While these explanations may be useful to explain the emergence and dynamics of nationalism, they are ill-suited to explain what constitutes the exclusive focus of this article, that is, differences in the character of nationalist movements.

Catalonia since the Spanish Civil War examines the transformation of the Catalan nation in socio-economic, political and historical terms, and offers an innovative interpretation of the determinants of its nationalist mobilisation. With Franco’s and Spanish nationalism’s victory in 1939, and the consolidation of a long-lasting dictatorship, it appeared certain that the Catalan national movement would be crushed. Yet, this did not happen and Catalan nationalism and identity reemerged at the end of Franco’s dictatorship in 1975 more firmly rooted than before. The core of Reconstructing the Nation traces the Francoist repression and the nationalist response to it, demonstrating how new political actors reconfigured Catalan nationalism over the course of the Franco regime (1939–1975). … Post-Franco, Catalan cultural and political identity was consolidated and Catalonia became the most successful state-less nationalism in western Europe. The 21st century has been marked by an ever-growing independence movement, culminating in the vast demonstration in the city of Barcelona in July 2010. Andrew Dowling provides multi-faceted viewpoints in historic perspective, and reflects on possible steps and outcomes for this new pro-independence turn in Catalan nationalism. … This study will appeal not only to students of Spain but also to those interested in nationalism as a separate issue of enquiry. The themes treated in the book – Franco’s Spain, nationalism, anarchism, Catholicism, communism and the Catalan role in Spain’s transition to democracy – make this work an essential point of reference for students and researchers in Hispanic studies, modern European history and political science.

This paper discusses the triangular relation between nationalism, globalisation and football in Spain. The aim of the work is to compare the way two Spanish football clubs—the Catalan FC Barcelona (known as “Barça”) and the Basque Athletic Bilbao—respond to the challenges posed by the game's globalisation, and through this comparison learn about the nexus between nationalism and globalisation. The main claim is that the differences between the two clubs’ behaviour can be attributed to varying characteristics of Basque and Catalan nationalism. Focusing on different path dependency, the development of a civic Catalan nationalism is contrasted with the growth of Basque nationalism as essentially ethnic. These characteristics emerged and crystallised primarily during the regions’ industrialisation, and the nationalist response to this advent of modernism would later shape the response to post-modern globalisation. The diametrically opposed ways in which the two football clubs react to the game's globalisation reflect the significant differences between the two national movements’ core values. This illustrates the importance of path dependency as a factor that produces diverse responses to globalisation—the results of which are not predetermined.

Representatives of the the Lega Lombarda sit with the SNP and with Catalan nationalists in the European Parliament, but it is anything but clear whether the Lega is fundamentally at one with regionalist or nationalist movements from other parts of Europe. The Italian variant of democratic politics is always distinct; with exasperating frequency, surface similarities and even shared names conceal profound divergences. The Lega Lombarda has been a presence in Italian politics since its foundation in 1984 and a force since 1987 when its leader Umberto Bossi was elected to the Senate. Since then, Bossi's virulent denunciation of the traditional parties and their ways, and his advocacy of a new federal Italy, have been heard with increasing stridency. However, to borrow a phrase from Irish politics, the Lega could be viewed as an Italian solution to an Italian problem, and, as with many Italian solutions, there are those who believe that the cure will be worse than the disease.

Historiography has assumed that the United States did not pay attention to the Catalan nationalist movement and its demands for self-government at the end of the First World War. The article, on the contrary, demonstrates, using diplomatic documentation from the American embassy in Madrid and the American mission at the Paris Peace Conference, that the Americans had good knowledge of the campaign for autonomy that took place in Catalonia in the fall of 1918 and the winter of 1919. And, likewise, that two trends coexisted within American diplomacy: one favourable to getting involved in Spanish domestic politics to carry out a reform of the monarchy or even promote a republic and guarantee autonomy to Catalonia and other regions, and another in favour of staying on the sidelines. The article opens a field for deeper inquiry into the knowledge and interest of Wilsonian diplomacy in stateless nationalisms.

Este artículo analiza los rasgos populistas en el discurso político de la
\nCandidatura d’Unitat Popular (CUP), partido independentista de la izquierda radical
\ncatalán. Primero, se analiza el éxito de la CUP ubicando al partido en lo que se llamará
\nuna competencia de populismos en los años más recientes. En este sentido, el movimiento
\nnacionalista se describe como una catálisis para las ideas populistas en Cataluña.
\nEspecíficamente, el artículo argumenta que la presencia del partido en el panorama
\npolítico catalán se deja explicar por la manera en que el nacionalismo catalán se articula
\ncomo un nacionalismo de rupturas. Esta especie de lenguaje populista también es similar
\nal del partido español Podemos, cuyo impacto sobre el discurso de izquierda pone cierta
\npresión sobre la narrativa anti-capitalista tradicional. En este contexto, se argumenta que
\nla CUP ofrece una alternativa radical que encuentra su fundamento normativo en el pueblo
\ncatalán, y que precisamente por el hecho de insistir en la dicotomía izquierda-derecha,
\nhasta cierto punto, ha conseguido asumir el descontento de tantos catalanes

This chapter will focus on the articulation of a conservative alternative to the Centre Catala by the Catalanist Right. Several questions will be addressed. First, it will analyse the reasons behind the adoption by sectors of conservative Catalanism of a more clearly Catalan nationalist discourse and practice from the late 1880s. Second, it will examine the make-up of the conservative Catalanist movement; its strength, the different groups within its midst, the main strands of its discourse, and its attempts to construct a specific cultural and symbolic iconography. This will entail further discussion of the impact that the Castilian language and what might be called the Castilian-Andalusian rendition of Spanish culture had on Catalonia, and of Catalanist attempts to construct a specifically Catalan cultural base. Finally, it will analyse the impact that the 1895 Cuban revolt and the agitation that preceded the outbreak of war with the United States in 1898 had on the movement. The direction this agitation took would be a key barometer of the extent to which Catalan nationalist sentiment had penetrated the population or, on the contrary, Spanish nationalist identity still held sway.

The study of the Czechoslovak national movement, the activities of the Czechoslovak National Council and its branch for Russia during the revolutionary events of 1917 and the Civil War is one of the key topics for understanding the complexity of political situation in Russia, causes of the Civil War and its consequences. The article discusses the activities goals and objectives and decision-making mechanism of the Czechoslovak National Council for Russia, on the behalf of which negotiations were conducted between Soviet state bodies and the Czechoslovak corps leadership on the issue of passage of Czechoslovak echelons to their homeland. The study uses both general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis, inductive method, comparative method) and special ones (historical-chronological and content analysis). The use of the historical-chronological method is to correlate documentary information with general historical picture of the period, while the use of content analysis is to create a more reliable picture of the activities of the Czechoslovak National Council and its branch for Russia. The study analyzes structure of this socio-political institution, its activities to prevent the Czechoslovak military corps from being drawn into the Civil War in Russia, and reveals contradictions between civil and military participants in the Czech national movement. It is to find out what the Czech national liberation movement in Russia was and how the activities of the department for Russia of the Czechoslovak National Council changed in 1917–18. It has examined all currently published materials of the Czechoslovak National Council. The documentary information has been brought in correlation with general historical picture of the period and desire to implement the principle of sovereignty, recreating a reliable picture of the Czechs’ and Slovaks’ perception of the Russian revolutionary events. The First World War and subsequent contradictory and ambiguous political events in Russia had a direct impact on the growth of the national consciousness of the Czechs and Slovaks, strengthening their desire for state self-determination. On the patriotic upsurge, guided by ideas of Slavic unity in their fight against the forces of the Quadruple Alliance, national military formations were created in Italy, France, and Russia, that took part in the hostilities of the First World War. The authors highlight the role and measured political line of the leader of the Czechoslovak National Council, the future first president of independent Czechoslovakia, T. G. Masaryk.

Political culture, Catalan nationalism, and the women's movement in early twentieth-century Spain

The topic of international cooperation between national movements before the end of World War I (WWI) has still not received sufficient scholarly attention. It is common for national historiographies to concentrate on the case of their own nation. When it comes to international relations, however, connections with neighboring nations and national movements - chief adversaries in the achievement of national goals - are usually prioritized. Nevertheless, even before and especially during the war there was a vibrant scene where non-dominant nationalities could practice international diplomacy, conduct discussions, share experiences, build coalitions, and so on. This article explores one of such examples of international relations conducted between the representatives of two nations - the Catalans and the Lithuanians. They came in contact before the war at the Paris-basedUnion des Nationalités(the Union of Nationalities), an organization that was designed to unite and support non-dominant national movements. Despite being located on the opposite sides of Europe and having no apparent direct connections, the Lithuanians and the Catalans established common ground for cooperation, which especially peaked during WWI.

The article presents a study of the role of Cuba and its influ-ence on the Catalan national movement in the late 19th to ear-ly 20th centuries. Complex socio-political processes, identity formation, and the development of separatist ideas in the con-text of Catalan-Cuban relations were analyzed. Catalonia sup-ported the Spanish government and Castilian nationalism as long as it held colonies, pursued protectionist policies, and acted in the interest of Catalan capital. The catastrophe of 1898 had a significant impact on Catalan nationalism, prompt-ing the development of the idea of regional independence and its desire for greater autonomy. Special attention is paid to the role of Catalan emigrants in Cuba, their influence on the for-mation of separatist organizations, and financial support for the independence movement. The study also highlights the importance of cultural exchanges between Catalonia and Cuba in preserving Catalan identity. It also underscores the key role of Catalan emigrants in the development of Catalan national-ism and the struggle for autonomy, as well as their contribu-tion to the creation of the 1932 Statut of Catalonia.

Born in Malaga, it was in Barcelona that Picasso first identified himself as a subversive Modernist with a critical, contestatory and transgressive praxis exposing the savagery underlying civilization and the brutality of warfare alongside the paradoxical contradictions of modernity. Living in Paris from 1901, he excoriated the deprivations of La belle époque by portraying the outcasts of Montmartre in his Blue period and circus performers in his Rose Period. Drawing upon African indigenous cultures, from 1906 he revealed how prostitutes from France's African colonies became ravaged with venereal diseases in his 1907 painting, Les Desmoiselles d'Avignon. Inspired by new scientific discoveries, sensory aesthetics and the detritus of everyday life, from 1908 he depicted bodies and objects in fragments seen, felt, heard, tasted and smelt from different positions over time, producing, by 1912, Cubist Collages and Assemblages. Retreating into Ingreseque Neo-Classicism and Crystal Cubism after World War I, from 1927 his Cubistic fragments resurfaced into metamorphoses of the body during orgasmic ecstasy. To expose the barbarity of Fascism, particularly during the Spanish Civil War, Picasso produced Minotauromachy in 1935 and, after Fascist bombing of the Basque town of Guernica in 1937, prepared his mural with that name. Despite risks to his life and artwork, Picasso refused to leave Paris during the Nazi Occupation. Long an Anarchist, Catalan nationalist and fervent Spanish Republican, Picasso joined the French Communist Party after the Liberation of Paris and remained a lifelong member. Intrepidly revealing the torture, mutilations and decimations of World War II, especially in The Charnel House, Picasso exposed the chilling horrors committed during the Cold War, particularly the rape and execution of pregnant women and their children in Massacre in Korea and Rape of the Sabine Women. Continually producing peace posters and his Doves of Peace, particularly after the inaugural World Peace Conference in 1949, Picasso remained a deeply committed pacifist and political activist until his death in 1973. This is why it was not until civil liberties were restored to Spain eight years after his death – and six years after that of Franco – that Picasso’s Guernica was finally able to leave America for its rightful home.

Franco’s victory in 1939 abruptly dismantled the entire structure that had governed Catalan thought and its journalism right through the decade. To consolidate its advance, however, the regime also needed to fill the vacuum left by those thinkers who had been sent into exile. They did this by launching new politico-intellectual publications like the local Falange’s weekly SolidaridadNacional, the unashamedly pro-Franco broadsheet La Vanguardia Espanola and the Catalan catholic and nationalist paper Diario de Barcelona. But these were soon overshadowed by a far more original and ambitious publishing venture: Destino. Politica de Unidad. A weekly magazine created in Burgos in 1937 by the Territorial Catalana de Falange (the Catalan cell of the Spanish Falange), Destino was privatized and moved to Barcelona in 1939, eventually becoming the regime’s most effective political and cultural platform in Catalonia and the linchpin of a pro- Franco movement which sought to promote anti-Catalan and anti-liberal sentiment, to offer a final solution to the Catalan problem in the so-called “new state”, LanuevaEspana, and forge a new intellectual order.

The loss of Cuba in 1898 caused serious turmoil in Catalonia, because it entailed the loss of a substantial part of its protected market for textiles. Catalan nationalism became strong and aggressive. This is the period when Spain knuckled under two military dictatorships: that of Primo de Rivera (1923–1930) and that of Franco (1939–1975). Although Spain remained neutral during the Great War, it suffered the inherent social tensions, especially those of the postwar crisis in Catalonia, which in the end precipitated the coming of the first dictatorship. Another cause of tension was the trouble in the Spanish Moroccan protectorate. Both played crucial roles in the coup that installed the first dictatorship, in the fall of the monarchy and the coming of the Republic in 1931, in the breakdown of the Republic in 1936, and in the loss of the civil war to Franco in 1939. After 20 years of quasi-stagnation, the Franco dictatorship undertook economic reform that brought about some 15 years of economic boom from 1960 onward. In spite of many later complaints, the Franco dictatorship benefited Catalonia economically, although it repressed (not suppressed) the use of the Catalan language and other cultural manifestations.