Catalan Nationalism: History and Key Milestones
Bases de Manresa: The First Political Context
In 1891, the Union Catalanista was founded, aiming to be a federation of all groups, Catalanist centers, and publications. The new organization’s targets were the spread of regionalist ideas and the creation of a common program for all Catalan nationalist groups. The analysis of the Union’s members demonstrates that its social base consisted mostly of middle-class owners, merchants, intellectuals, and liberal professionals who came from all over Catalonia and were a representative sample of the Catalan bourgeoisie and conservatives. The massive support for the Union, however, came from rural Catalonia, a fact that seems to indicate a certain willingness to participate in organizations beyond the local level. Barcelona aside, the Union was able to reveal Catalan particularism in broad sectors of Catalan society, and its triumph signified the final thesis on Catalan nationalist regionalism. But its weakest point was the tension between the factions regarding participation in political life and defending the need to convert the Union into a political organization to submit to elections. One of the first acts of the Union was holding in Manresa a House of Delegates to approve a political program, which was named the basis for the Catalan regional constitution. The document is now known as the Bases de Manresa.
Catalan Politics
In 1885, the Catalan Center held a meeting in which the bourgeoisie of economic organizations and other cultural highlights of Catalanist institutions participated. With this initiative, aimed at approaching the movement, the Catalan bourgeoisie advocated only timidly for decentralization. The meeting adopted the draft manifesto known as the “Memorial of Grievances.” In the 1886 election, the nomination submitted by the Catalan Center was unsuccessful because it had a Catalanist leaning. In 1888, a Republican was given the first public political act of the League, which was the message to Queen Regent Maria Cristina, in which it called for Catalan autonomy. One of the first acts of the Union was holding in Manresa, in 1892, an Assembly of Delegates to approve a political program that was named the Bases de Manresa. In 1895, Catalan politicians opposed the wars in Cuba and the Philippines. In 1901, the Regionalist League was founded, a party that had the newspaper “The Voice” as its main source of information and consolidated the electoral power of Catalonia. In 1906, the Catalan conservative ideology of the League was well-defined by Enric Prat de la Riba’s work, “Catalan Nationality.” He also founded the Institute of Catalan Studies in 1907. In 1911, the Commonwealth was created and constituted in 1914. In 1917, the Republican League was dominant in Catalonia, along with the foundation of the Republican Party. Enric Prat de la Riba died that year. In 1919, the National Monarchist Union Party was founded, which raised the Iberian Confederation of Peoples and a series of political reforms and social progress. Finally, the cultural and political normalization process developed by the Commonwealth was interrupted with the advent of the first 20th-century Spanish military dictatorship, that of General Primo de Rivera.