On 1 October 2017, consciousness of Catalonia and the Catalan question exploded into global awareness. The holding of a referendum on the independence of Catalonia, deemed illegal by the Spanish authorities, saw over two million Catalans participate, some 43 per cent of eligible voters. In a number of polling stations, harsh and brutal police action provided the media with a compelling news story. It seemed particularly dramatic as these scenes played out in a member state of the European Union. Spanish police and civil guards used reckless violence to stop a vote which even its organisers largely recognised as being mostly symbolic. The following weeks demonstrated the inability of Catalonia to achieve independence. However, the events of October 2017 and beyond meant that the story of Catalonia, its people and culture was centre stage in a way it had not been before. Prior to this dramatic episode, knowledge of Catalonia centred on the city of Barcelona, including its hosting of the Olympics in 1992, the global brand associated with the city’s football team, FC Barcelona and mass tourism. Catalonia receives almost 20 million tourists a year with 12 million visiting the city of Barcelona. Few visitors could name a Catalan writer, artist or historical figure with perhaps only Salvador Dalí or Antoni Gaudí having what we might term widespread name recognition. However, since 2017, with the question of independence both resonating and unresolved, and the harsh prison sentences handed out to the leadership in October 2019 provoking another wave of protest that again attracted extensive media attention, it is now common to see Catalonia or Catalans referred to in the media, rather than ‘the Spanish artist’, etc. The association between Catalonia and its struggle for independence from Spain has attracted extensive commentary. With this new awareness of a Catalan distinctiveness, it seems an appropriate time to publish a New History of Catalonia.
The little that is available in English on the general history of Catalonia too often falls victim to traditional narratives of kings and queens. New readers are often lost in the plethora of names and dynasties, not helped when one medieval ruler Ramon Berenguer called his son and heir, Berenguer Ramon. Whilst royal rule is a useful device for periodisation, the focus on royalty and high culture alone leaves the vast majority of the population as passive actors. As we will see, Catalonia has a rich history of popular rebellion, which has continued right into the very present. Catalonia has seen repeated patterns of internal conflict. From the early modern period, there has been pressure to be absorbed within a wider state entity that became simply known as Spain. In the modern period, particularly the past 150 years, we see attempts to preserve and develop a distinct Catalan identity. Though in itself a new form of political expression, the goal of independence should be situated within this context. Catalonia’s position as a gateway between France and Spain, as well as its coastal position, has ensured constant renewal of its population. Even in the past 20 years, a further million or so arrivals have been added. These population movements into Iberia over thousands of years played a major role in shaping both its pre-history and its history. Fewer than 20 per cent of contemporary Catalonia can claim four grandparents as having originated within the territory. The focus of this work will be on the political, social and economic development of Catalonia and the Catalans. It will not be a cultural history or one centred on the territory’s art or architecture as these have been well covered in the English-speaking world. Rather its purpose will seek to situate the story of one European people, the Catalans, in all its complexity and in their encounter with greater phenomenon and processes such as conquest, feudalism, capitalism and the contemporary world. This will be a national history but never a nationalist history.
The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard once noted that whilst life is lived forwards, it can only be understood backwards. A collective consciousness of being Catalan is improbable before the early middle ages and what national awareness we find in this period would be largely confined to ruling elites. Identity was local, not national. Yet even medieval figures who spoke Catalan at court were part of a wider world of Latin Christendom. Amongst the European aristocracy as a totality, cultural and class identity was shared but it was not framed in a national sense. Territory was sought but dynastic interests predominated. Marriages were contracted on the basis of power relations across the continent and should not be seen as exercises in nation building. We should note that there were no real institutions in Catalan territory before at least the twelfth century and be careful about the use of terms such as a Catalan state before this era. We must always be guarded against using the present-day map of Europe as providing any meaningful reading of the past, particularly prior to 1700. With these caveats, this New History of Catalonia is a national history but is one that notes that neither Catalonia nor the Catalans existed in any meaningful sense before the middle ages. Of course, nor did the ‘French’, ‘English’, ‘Germans’ or any other European people as we might understand them today. Yet landscape, territory and cultural mixing do flow into the formation of a people, so I will follow the established convention in the writing of national histories by seeking national origins and distinctiveness from the beginnings. I will also refer at times to Catalonia or Catalan territory as a simple shorthand for the area under consideration in the earlier sections of the book.
If to be Catalan, as many argue today, is to speak and use the Catalan language, all observations made before the language emerged fully formed from Latin perhaps in the eleventh century, refer to the inhabitants of the territory we know today as Catalonia. However, they were not ‘Catalans’. The Iberian language, unrelated to Latin, and which is still not deciphered, was spoken for longer in the territory of Catalonia than that of Catalan, which has existed for perhaps nine centuries. The Iberian language is now mostly lost, except for inscriptions on stone and lettering on coins. It was Roman conquest which ended the speaking of Iberian and its substitution by Latin, which in time became medieval Catalan. This process took hundreds of years and some mountain communities were speaking forms of Iberian until at least the eighth century. We have no prior evidence of the existence of either the term ‘Catalans’ or ‘Catalonia’ before the twelfth century. The political emergence of the Catalan-speaking territories is to be found in the medieval Kingdom of Aragon, which participated in the formation of the modern Spanish state. In this period, Catalan was the language of the court. Catalan culture held high status not only in Spanish territory but also across Europe. This is the golden age of Catalonia when it was a European power with extensive overseas possessions. Internal divisions including a civil war gradually ended this period. The processes of Spanish unity further contributed to the decadence and decline of this culture. The first phase came about through the unification of the Kingdoms of Aragon and Castile in the late fifteenth century and in a second phase following the Wars of the Spanish Succession in the early eighteenth century. The consequences, in particular of the latter period, led to the abolition of the cultural and political autonomy of the territory and a century or more of cultural and political decline. A further pivotal element of Catalan belonging is attachment to its institutions, in particular to the revived Generalitat, seat of the regional government of Catalonia. This institution, medieval in origin, was abolished in 1714 and finally restored in the 1930s. Francoist victory in the Spanish Civil War led to its abolition in 1939. With the end of the dictatorship of Franco, it returned again in 1978 and has remained the present-day symbol of Catalan political nationhood.
Before we begin our narrative, we must also note that the stories we tell ourselves about our past seep into our notion of the present. All national movements manipulate the past for contemporary political purposes. From Braveheart to the American Founding Fathers, from the battle of Kosovo to Masada, usable pasts are chosen to help construct a current world view. In 1988, the Catalan nationalist government celebrated 1,000 years of the formation of Catalonia as an independent realm, terming the events of 988 as the beginning point of Catalan history. In this year, the count of Barcelona ceased to be a vassal of the Franks but as we have noted neither Catalonia nor the Catalans can be said to exist at this point. This form of rendering of the past occurs everywhere and I do not intend to mean that these observations undermine the present-day claim to nationhood of the Catalans. In my view that fact that Catalonia is a nation is unanswerable. Rather we need to note how widespread is the case that how the past is presented is often fundamental for explaining the present. Catalan schoolchildren are told that Catalonia became independent in 988 and that Catalonia was an independent state until the later middle ages. The claim to independence today is usually framed as one of restoring national sovereignty, which was deemed lost in 1714. It is also appropriate to note in this context that notions of an eternal Spanish unity dating back to the Romans is also a historical myth and is one further indication of how the past becomes the battleground of the present. As we will see later in this book, definitions and terminology of Catalonia, the Catalans, Spain and Spanishness continue to be highly charged and politicised. For some there is only one nation, and that is Spain. For many, Catalonia has no right to independence: Spanish unity is eternal. Given that the Catalan question continues to be Spain’s greatest political challenge, the search for historical legitimacy and justification is unresolved and more pertinently, unresolvable. In the writing of history, the answers you obtain are mostly determined by the questions that you ask.