All day conference: “Ambiguities and limits of Regionalism in Catalonia”
Second Regiocat One Day Conference
Thursday, November 21, Tony Bates Room (Avenida del Tibidabo 39-43, UOC, Barcelona).
Limited capacity, pre-enrolment required.
Schedule
10:00 Welcome
10:15 Introduction (Jaume Claret)
10:30 Session One (chair Marc Gil). Franco’s Regionalism: the case of the Falange and Catalonia, Joan Maria Thomàs, Ramon Virgili University and ICREA researcher.
This paper will focus on the concept of Spain developed by José Antonio Primo de Rivera. I will examine his vision and attitude towards Catalan nationalism, which were partially different from the rest of the Spanish right-wing forces during the Second Republic. This will followed by analysis of its political expression during the Civil War, in the Nationalist Zone. It will also consider the conquest of Catalonia, including specific policy proposals that were not implemented. Finally, I will consider the goals, strategies and failures of Catalan Falangists following the resumption of expressions of Catalanism after 1947, until the end of the Franco regime.
11:30 Break – Coffee
12:00 The Catholic element, from National Catholicism to regionalist spiritual awakening, Mariona Lladonosa, University of Lleida.
The manifestation of the spaces and cleavages of regionalism in the Catholic world in Catalonia found expression in a variety of forms. It is essential to reassess the role of Catalan Catholics in the power structure of Franco’s regime. This can seen from an early stage such as the Enthronement Festivities of the Virgin of Montserrat in 1947, but also in the heritage of a Catalan tradition of Catholic regionalism. This is reflected in the emergence of new symbols as well as an intellectual reassessment by a new generation. This re-evaluation demonstrated a reconsideration of the past and future of the Catholic world. This was replaced in time by the idea of reconciliation, overcoming the binary world of the victors and vanquished. Early expression such as those of the CC group, but also the influence of prominent figures such as Abbot Escarré, help us elucidate the progressive divergence between Francoist national Catholicism and regionalist Catholicism. This will lead us to assess the social function of a spiritual reawakening in Catholic regionalism, as well as the political use of religion.
12:40 Debate
14:00 Lunch
15:00 Second session (Chair Jordi Amat). “Camboist” Francoism and Catalanism: the Catalan manuscript of the History of the Second Spanish Republic by Josep Pla, Xavier Pla, University of Girona
In 1938, in Rome, the writer Josep Pla began a history of the Second Spanish Republic commissioned by Francesc Cambó. It was intended to be a historical account justifying the anti-republican political positions of conservative Catalans during the civil war. It was also planned to thus contextualise the context in Catalonia in the early stages of the Franco dictatorship. The project was halted towards the end of the war, and was not resumed until February 1939, when Pla was already living in a Barcelona occupied by Franco’s forces. The recent discovery of the manuscript of the first of the four volumes in which the book was finally published, which was written, surprisingly, in Catalan, seems to show that both Pla and Cambó believed the publication of this book in Catalan was indeed possible at this very early stage of the postwar period. The question posed by the manuscript that Pla never wanted reissued leads us to ask: Did a Francoist literature in Catalan exist? The answer, is still however a negative one: adherence to Franco clearly required the exclusion of the Catalan language from the public sphere.
16:00 Jaume Vicens Vives and the territorial question in the fifties. Politics, society and historiography,Miquel Àngel Marín Gelabert, UZ researcher,
Adopting a chronological perspective, we will focus on the period from 1952 to 1960. And we will do this through three main vectors in which Jaume Vicens Vives developed his thought. Firstly, in the political, social and territorial definition of Catalonia, its historical character and its function within the construction of the modern Spanish state. His written work will be the main source of analysis, but not exclusively so. Secondly, we will consider the socialization of his thought. Vicens undertook a profound process of development as a historian and intellectual becoming an influential figure. Our concern will be to analyse his encounters with foreign figures, with Spaniards (both those embedded within and those more loosely associated with the regime) and amongst Catalans (those openly nationalist, those openly Francoist, exiles, and the new intellectual circles he helped build). And, thirdly, we will examine his political position in two ways: institutionally (formal and informal institutions) and in the private sphere, amongst opinion formers. They included those most politically committed as well as a broad spectrum of other figures. Vicens Vives moved between these diverse social worlds. We can thus discern the ideological evolution of Vicens, moving from ideas close to Manuel Azaña, to a commitment to liberal conservatism as expressed in the European mainstream in the late 1950s. Finally, we see his construction of an idea of Catalonia as the engine of a modern plurinational Spanish state.
16:40 Break – coffee
17:00 Debate
18:00 Closure