La costruzione del discorso nazionalista catalano alla fine dell’Ottocento: il paradigma storico-giuridico

Abstract

The construction of the Catalan nationalist discourse at the end of the nineteenth century: the historical-legal paradigm

The revival of history and of the constitutional traditions of the ancient reigns of the Crown of Aragon was a constant claim liberal Catalans had been making in their demands for State reform since the end of the XVIII century. In the first half of the XIX century, especially between the conflictive Forties and Fifties, different political factions of the Principate tried unsuccessfully to revive this constitutionalism in order to propose it to the Spanish as a plan for the future. This sketch is essential to understand how important the history of Catalonia was for regionalist intellectuals, in the last quarter of the XIX century. In this period, the “national” claim became a key issue in the political discourse of the changing Catalanist movement, for two reasons: it responded to the will to influence the decisions made in the State capital and on the other hand accompanied the emergence of a Catalan national identity other than the State identity. At the same time, many of these historical-legal studies stressed the significance of political institutions, of common liberties and of the rights enshrined by the constitutions of the Catalan past, so as to offer a different repertoire of patriotism from the romantic movement of Catalan nationalists, which was to last alongside it.

Received:  22-07-2004