Democratic Transition & Contemporary Catalonia

The post-war European integration project binding contemporary member regions across borders.

1 chapter

1939 - 1975

The Franco dictatorship (1939-1975) suppressed Catalan language, institutions, and public symbols—renaming Sant Jordi as 'Fiesta de las Letras,' banning Els Segadors and La Santa Espina, prohibiting the Diada. But suppression and co-optation coexisted: the sardana was temporarily prohibited in the 1940s for fomenting 'false feelings of pride and superiority' but was later folklorized—permitted as depoliticized tourist spectacle, separating it from its Catalanist meaning. Casteller collas continued practicing through the dictatorship; Castellers de Vilafranca was founded in September 1948 by Oriol Rossell, building on the increased interest in human towers in Vilafranca del Penedès. La Patum Infantil was founded in 1956—during Franco—ensuring generational transmission. Montserrat Abbey became the critical sanctuary: the Benedictine monks published books and journals in Catalan, conducted prayers in Catalan, and sheltered intellectuals and clandestine political activists. In 1970, artists and academics held a sit-in at Montserrat protesting death sentences for Basque ETA prisoners. The Museu de l'Exili at La Jonquera, on the French border, documents the Republican exile route—how half a million refugees crossed these mountains in 1939, and how exile communities in France and Mexico kept Catalan language and cultural memory alive abroad. Òmnium Cultural, founded in 1961, operated in the gray zone between permitted cultural activity and political resistance. The post-1975 festival revival drew on living practice that had survived through discretion and folklorization—not just romantic reconstruction, but practice shaped by 36 years of suppression and accommodation.

1931 - 1939

The Second Spanish Republic (1931-1939) restored Catalan self-government: the Statute of Autonomy of 1932 re-established the Generalitat in the Palau de la Generalitat, and the Diada was institutionalized as an official commemoration. The Republic was a brief window where Catalan language, culture, and institutions operated freely—before the Civil War shattered everything. In October 1934, Lluís Companys proclaimed the Catalan State from the balcony of the Palau, a brief insurrection crushed within hours. In July 1936, anarchist militias attacked Barcelona Cathedral and other churches, burning religious images and destroying ecclesiastical property—an anti-clerical violence that shaped how Catholic Catalans remembered the Republic. Montjuïc Castle served as a military prison and execution site during the war. The Republic ended with the fall of Barcelona in January 1939; Companys was captured, brought to Montjuïc, and executed in October 1940. The exile of hundreds of thousands of Republicans across the French border through La Jonquera began the diaspora that would preserve Catalan culture abroad while it was suppressed at home.

1833 - 1931

The Renaixença—a romantic-nationalist cultural revival—began reconstructing a mythologized medieval Catalan past, projecting modern national identity backward onto medieval symbols. The restoration of the Jocs Florals poetry competition in 1859 in Barcelona was the movement's founding gesture. The sardana, originally a localized Empordà dance, was standardized and promoted as a national Catalan symbol; a 'legendary origin' claiming ancient Greek roots was invented to link it to Empúries and Classical antiquity—an imagined tradition. La Mercè became an official civic holiday in 1871 when Barcelona's city council first organized special activities for the feast of Our Lady of Mercy. The Arc de Triomf, built as the gateway to the 1888 Universal Exposition, announced Barcelona's European ambitions. The Palau de la Música Catalana (1908) crowned the Modernisme movement in architecture. Santiago Rusiñol transformed Sitges into a Modernista salon at Cau Ferrat, linking artistic avant-garde with the town's pre-Lenten carnival (carnestoltes). The Sant Jordi book tradition was proposed in 1926 by Valencian Vicent Clavel—initially a Spanish-national initiative under Alfonso XIII—adding a literary layer to the rose fair at the Palau de la Generalitat (documented since 1427). In 1881, the Pope proclaimed the Virgin of Montserrat patron of Catalonia on the Catalan national day, fusing Catholic devotion and national identity. La Santa Espina, the most emblematic sardana (composed 1907), was banned in 1924 by Primo de Rivera for its Catalanist connotations—the first major suppression-revival episode of the 20th century.

1714 - 1833

The Nueva Planta decrees (1714-1716) abolished Catalan institutions, the Diputació del General, and the University of Barcelona, replacing them with a centralized Bourbon administration. Philip V established the University of Cervera in 1717—the only university permitted in Catalonia—as a reward for the town's loyalty, a Bourbon institutional imposition rather than a Catalan achievement. Yet popular culture evolved in the cracks: the Ball dels Valencians in Valls, first documented in 1712, gradually transformed into the castell (human tower) tradition, building on the older Valencian Muixeranga but developing a secularized, competitive, and much taller form. La Bulla (later La Patum) was referenced in 1715 and renamed 'La Patum' between 1795 and 1809—the moment when popular festival broke from its official Corpus Christi frame. Montjuïc Castle was converted into a military fortress watching over the subdued city. The early cotton industry began transforming the landscape, planting the seeds of an industrial working class that would later reshape festival culture from below.