Catalunya is more than a
part of Spain: the Catalan
people have a deeply felt
individual identity,
rooted in a rich and - at
times - glorious past.
Perhaps its most
conspicuous manifestation
these days is in the
resurgence of the
language, which
increasingly takes
precedence over Castilian
Spanish on street names
and signs, and has staged
a dramatic comeback after
being banned from public
use during the Franco
dictatorship. However,
linguistics is only one
element in Catalan
regionalism.
Catalan cultural
identity can be traced
back as far as the ninth
century. From the quilt of
independent counties of
the eastern Pyrenees, a
powerful dynastic entity,
dominated by Barcelona,
and commonly known as the
Crown of Aragón,
developed over the next
six hundred years. Its
merger with Castile-Leon
in the late 1400s, led to
eventual inclusion in the
new Spanish Empire of the
sixteenth century - and
marked the decline of
Catalan independence and
its eventual subjugation
to Madrid. It has rarely
been a willing subject,
which goes some way to
explaining how ingrained
are the Catalan notions of
social and cultural
divorce from the rest of
the country.
Early civilizations and
invasions
In the very earliest times
the area which is now
Catalunya saw much the
same population movements
and invasions as the rest
of the Iberian peninsula.
During the Upper
Paleolithic period
(35,000-10,000 BC)
cave-dwelling
hunter-gatherers lived...
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Roman Catalunya
The Roman colonization of
the Iberian peninsula was
far more intense than
anything previously
experienced and met with
great resistance from the
Celtic and Iberian tribes.
It was almost two
centuries before the
conquest was complete, by
which...
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The Moors and the
Spanish Marches
Divisions within the
Visigothic kingdom,
coincided with the Islamic
expansion in North Africa,
which reached the shores
of the Atlantic in the
late seventh century. In
711 (or 714, no one is
sure) Tariq ibn Ziyad,
governor of Tangier, led a
force of...
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From Wilfred the Hairy
to Ramon Berenguer IV
As the Frankish empire of
Charlemagne disintegrated
in the decades following
his death, the counties of
the Marches began to enjoy
greater independence,
which was formalized in
878 by Guifré el Pelós -
known in English as
Wilfred the Hairy ....
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The Kingdom of
Catalunya and Aragón
Ramon Berenguer IV was no
more than a count, but his
son Alfons I (who
succeeded to the throne in
1162) also inherited the
title of king of Aragón
(where he was Alfonso II),
and became the first
count-king of what
historians later came
to...
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The golden age
In spite of these
setbacks, Catalunya's age
of glory was about to
begin in earnest, with the
63-year reign of the
extraordinary Jaume.
Shrugging off the tutelage
of his Templar masters at
the age of 13, he then
personally took to the
field to tame his...
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The rise of Castile
The last of Wilfred the
Hairy's dynasty of Catalan
count-kings, Martin the
Humane (Martí el Humà),
died in 1410 without an
heir. After nearly five
hundred years of
continuity, there were six
claimants to the throne,
and in 1412 nine specially
appointed...
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Habsburg and Bourbon
rule
Charles I, a Habsburg ,
came to the throne in 1516
as a beneficiary of the
marriage alliances made by
the Catholic monarchs.
Five years later he was
elected emperor of the
Holy Roman Empire (as
Charles V), inheriting not
only...
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The slow Catalan
revival
Despite the political
emasculation of Catalunya,
there were signs of
economic revival from the
end of the seventeenth
century onwards, at first
almost imperceptibly slow,
but gathering pace to a
sprint by the nineteenth
century. During the...
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The seeds of civil war
In 1814, the repressive
Ferdinand VII had been
restored to the Spanish
throne, and, despite the
Catalan contribution to
the defeat of the French,
he stamped out the least
hint of liberalism in the
region, abolishing
virtually all Catalunya's
remaining...
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Civil War
The Spanish Civil War
(1936-39) was one of the
most bitter and bloody the
world has seen. Violent
reprisals were visited on
their enemies by both
sides - the Republicans
shooting priests and local
landowners wholesale, and
burning churches and...
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Catalunya in Franco's
Spain
Although the Civil War
left more than half a
million dead, destroyed a
quarter of a million homes
and sent a third of a
million people (including
100,000 Catalans) into
exile, Franco was in no
mood for reconciliation,
and there was a
significant number of...
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Democracy and
contemporary Spanish
politics
When Franco died in 1975,
King Juan Carlos was
officially designated to
succeed as head of state -
groomed for the succession
by Franco himself. The
king's initial moves were
cautious in the extreme,
appointing a government
dominated by loyal
Franquistas,...
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Catalunya and Barcelona
today
The province 's official
title is the Comunitat
Autonoma de Catalunya. The
Generalitat - the Catalan
government - enjoys a very
high profile, employing
eighty thousand people,
controlling education,
health and social
security, local...
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