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ATTLEFIELDDESIGNThe Spanish political crisis provoked by
Catalonia’s ongoing push for independ-
ence has yet to be resolved – and has
already had a massive impact on the
country. It has led to the jailing of a
number of pro-independence Catalan
politicians, following the constitution-
ally illegal referendum on Catalan
independence held in 2017. It has
provoked a counter-mobilisation of
Spanish nationalists, and is a key factor
in the rise of the far-right-wing party
Vox. And it is a major element in the
instability of the Spanish political
system. Spain’s socialist prime minister,
Pedro Sánchez, recently formed a
minority coalition government, but
will need the major Catalan nationalist
party, the Republican Left of Catalonia,
to back him – or at least abstain from
voting – in order to get legislation
through parliament. And that is by
no means a given.
In Spain, as elsewhere in Europe,
so-called ‘small-nation nationalisms’- nationalist movements that seek
either autonomy or independence for
their own territory from the central
state – have a long history. They tend
to be based on identities that have
their roots in the old European order
prior to the French Revolution – in the
Catalan case, the medieval Kingdom of
Catalonia. Along with the Kingdoms
of Aragon and Valencia, this formed
the confederation known as the Crown
of Aragon, a major European maritime
power in the 12th and 13th centuries.
Each of the component parts of this
confederation had its own medieval
parliament, and Catalonia and Valencia
both used the Catalan language in
their administrations.
Even after union with the Crown of
Castile in 1479, these constitutions per-
sisted and were swept away only at the
beginning of the 18th century as a result
of the new Spanish Bourbon monarch’s
‘right of conquest’ following defeat for
the Crowns of Aragon and Castile in the
War of Spanish Succession.
Modern small-nation nationalisms,
though, came to prominence as a
result of the accumulation of perceived
grievances and conflicts with the central
Spanish state from the 19th century
onward. In the first half of the 19th cen-
tury, Catalan political and social elites
bought into the project to construct a
modern Spanish nation and, with the
exception of its use in poetry, relegated
the Catalan tongue to everyday life.
This stance changed in the second
half of the century, in the context of
a series of conflicts with the central
state – over tariff protection, defence of
Catalan civil law, marginalisation from
political power and the heavy-handed
use of the military in maintaining publicCatalonia
Where central government reining in regional
autonomy sparked a push for independence
by Angel Smith
Experts explore
the historical
and contemporary
challenges facing
four parts of
the world that
have aimed for
statehood
Catalonia