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From the Olympic Torch to the Universal Forum of Cultures: The After-Image of Barcelona's Modernity

in Barcelona's Vocation of Modernity: Rise and Decline of an Urban Image

Between the beginning of the twentieth century and the Civil War, Barcelona was still a Catalan city bound to its hinterland by familial ties and by the steady flow of people, foodstuffs, and ... More

Between the beginning of the twentieth century and the Civil War, Barcelona was still a Catalan city bound to its hinterland by familial ties and by the steady flow of people, foodstuffs, and manufactured goods that sustained its growth through a porous relation with the territory. Today, Barcelona is no longer connected to Catalonia through the motorway and the weekend residence, rather than kinship, history, or language. Rituals of self-display are held occasionally as a way of expediting urban renewal, such as the Universal Expositions of 1888 and 1929, the Olympic games of 1936 and 1992, a Catholic “Eucharistic” Congress in 1952, and the Universal Forum of Cultures in 2004. All of these events had a long-term impact on the city's physical configuration and public image. Catalanism, a broad, transversal movement, grew in importance throughout the first half of the twentieth century. In the 1980s, modernity became the ideology of a providentialist state in which spectacle took over politics.Less

Lisbon as Destination: Josep Pla's Iberianism through His Travels to Portugal

Joan Ramon Resina

in Iberian Modalities: A Relational Approach to the Study of Culture in the Iberian Peninsula

In Direcció Lisboa, Josep Pla effects a redistribution of Iberian cultural space. The Civil War had forced him to accept the utopian character of the Iberian federation, and the demise of this ... More

In Direcció Lisboa, Josep Pla effects a redistribution of Iberian cultural space. The Civil War had forced him to accept the utopian character of the Iberian federation, and the demise of this political ideal strengthened the certainty of irreducible otherness. It was no longer against the foil of Catalan modernity, but against the sensual and sensible Portuguese way of life that Castile appeared in the light of its barbaric disruption of the Peninsula's diversity. Pla framed his travels to Portugal with the trope of the itinerary. The approximations and separations in space do double duty for the conjunctions and disjunctions in time, collecting the variegated themes and descriptions of the Other into the discourse of “travel narrative” but also subjecting them to the interpretive conventions of historical discourse. If Pla indulges in a detailed representation of Portuguese difference, in turn Portugal allows him to de-familiarize Spain in an Iberian representation that competes with official history through the objectivity of presence.Less

Francisco Maria Tubíno: Between Federalism and Iberianism

Patrizio Rigobon

in Iberian Modalities: A Relational Approach to the Study of Culture in the Iberian Peninsula

The chapter focuses primarily on the work Historia del renacimiento literario contemporáneo en Cataluña, Baleares y Valencia (1880) by Francisco María Tubino and especially on the issue of Iberianism ... More

The chapter focuses primarily on the work Historia del renacimiento literario contemporáneo en Cataluña, Baleares y Valencia (1880) by Francisco María Tubino and especially on the issue of Iberianism as an outcome of political Federalism in the Iberian peninsula. Tubino disapproved (or simply ignored) a true “Iberian” standpoint. Nevertheless his opinion about Catalonia, its language and literature, is open-minded and quite new for his time (1880), especially for a man deeply involved in the Spanish political milieu on behalf of “la madre España”. The chapter also focuses on Patria y Federalismo, which was written some years before (1873) the Historia. This work focuses on some of the political outcomes to which the Historia provides the cultural background. In Patria y Federalismo his position concerning Federalism and Spain is clearly explained in terms like the following: “with regard to demonstrating that such a regime does not run contrary to the unity of the country, my wish was to reconcile its institutions with the recognition of individual rights. My approach stems from this”.Less

The Emergence of Catalan Nationalism

Kenneth McRoberts

in Catalonia: The Struggle Over Independence

With the 1880s, a coherent nationalist ideology, Catalanism, emerged in the hands of a conservative Catalan intelligentsia. Rather than formal independence, Catalanism sought Catalonia’s ... More

With the 1880s, a coherent nationalist ideology, Catalanism, emerged in the hands of a conservative Catalan intelligentsia. Rather than formal independence, Catalanism sought Catalonia’s self-government within a federal Spain, as well as the modernization of the Spanish state. Catalanist pressures resulted in the Mancomunitat, Catalonia’s first self-government. However, by the 1930s the Catalan nationalist movement had become firmly leftist, while remaining committed to Catalan self-government rather than outright independence. The Catalan Generalitat, created in 1932, was undermined by the rejection of Catalan nationalism by the Second Republic Spanish state, as well as by divisions in Catalonia between nationalists and anarchists.Less