THE SEGADORS OF LA RENAIXENÇA: LITERATURE SHAPING HISTORY

Abstract

This article examines how nineteenth-century literary representations of the segadors of 1640 contributed to their transformation as symbols of Catalan identity associated today with the national anthem that bears their name. From the 1850s, histories, novels, and poems by Víctor Balaguer, Manuel Angelon, and Josep Anselm Clavé, among others, represented the popular rebels, not as heroes but as animal-like, bloodthirsty, and mad for revenge, in contrast to the moral beauty of the true heroes of the Guerra dels Segadors: Barcelona’s consellers and the Catalan diputats and, above all, their president, Pau Claris. However, by casting the fury of the segadors as a visceral reaction to abuses by royal officials and soldiers, these authors inadvertently set the stage for their later transformation as defenders of Catalan liberty. The story of this transformation recasts the relationship between Romantic literature and history: rather than simply mine history for dramatic stories, literature could, in fact, shape the study of history by drawing attention to subjects toward which historians had shown little interest.