Catalanism: from region to nation
At the beginning, the Renaixença (Renaissance) was a cultural, historical and literary movement that pursued in the wake of European Romanticism the recovery of the own language and literature. As time went by, and particularly immediately after the Revolution of 1868 and its fiasco, the movement acquired a clear political character, directed to the attainment of self-government for Catalonia within the framework of the Spanish liberal state.
In the last third of the 19th century, Catalanism was formulating its own doctrinal foundations, not only among the progressive ranks but also in the conservative, and at the same time it started to establish the first political programmes (e.g. Bases de Manresa, 1892), and to generate a wide cultural and association movement of a clearly vindicatory character.
In 1898, Spain lost its last colonial possessions in Cuba and the Philippines, a fact that not only involved an important crisis of confidence, but also gave an impulse to political Catalanism. The first modern political party in Catalonia and Spain was the Lliga Regionalista. Founded in 1901, it formed a coalition in 1907 with other Catalanist forces (from Carlists to Federalists), grouped in the so-called Solidaritat Catalana, and won the elections with the regionalist programme that Prat de la Riba had formulated in La nacionalitat catalana (1906).
Even so, the social tensions made manisfest in the creation of Solidaridad Obrera in the same year of 1907 led to the popular uprising of the Tragic Week (1909) and the next year to the foundation of CNT, the trade union of anarcho-syndicalist orientation that was absolutely predominant in the first third of the 20th century.
Political Catalanism achieved in 1914 the creation of the Mancomunitat, a first attempt at self- government, which came to an end due to the dictatorship of General Primo de Rivera (1923). The proclamation of the Second Republic in 1931 gave autonomy back to Catalonia, making possible the restoration of a self-government institution that would carry the historical name of the Generalitat. A dramatically short period of restoration of democratic and cultural normality was interrupted at its outset by the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War.
In the last third of the 19th century, Catalanism was formulating its own doctrinal foundations, not only among the progressive ranks but also in the conservative, and at the same time it started to establish the first political programmes (e.g. Bases de Manresa, 1892), and to generate a wide cultural and association movement of a clearly vindicatory character.
In 1898, Spain lost its last colonial possessions in Cuba and the Philippines, a fact that not only involved an important crisis of confidence, but also gave an impulse to political Catalanism. The first modern political party in Catalonia and Spain was the Lliga Regionalista. Founded in 1901, it formed a coalition in 1907 with other Catalanist forces (from Carlists to Federalists), grouped in the so-called Solidaritat Catalana, and won the elections with the regionalist programme that Prat de la Riba had formulated in La nacionalitat catalana (1906).
Even so, the social tensions made manisfest in the creation of Solidaridad Obrera in the same year of 1907 led to the popular uprising of the Tragic Week (1909) and the next year to the foundation of CNT, the trade union of anarcho-syndicalist orientation that was absolutely predominant in the first third of the 20th century.
Political Catalanism achieved in 1914 the creation of the Mancomunitat, a first attempt at self- government, which came to an end due to the dictatorship of General Primo de Rivera (1923). The proclamation of the Second Republic in 1931 gave autonomy back to Catalonia, making possible the restoration of a self-government institution that would carry the historical name of the Generalitat. A dramatically short period of restoration of democratic and cultural normality was interrupted at its outset by the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War.