by David J. Lobina

I naturally pose this question in the context of the series of posts on Language and Nationalism I have published here in the last few months. An example of a peripheral nationalist movement, the case of Catalonia will allow me to make my final message on these issues explicit enough, thus bringing the series to an end (this is the last entry; the previous 4 instalments are here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4).
Catalonia, a region in the north-east of Spain, is by any definition of nationalism one might have quite clearly a nation which is furthermore in charge of a significant number of state functions all of their own – namely, it has a devolved parliament, some control over fiscal policies, a local police force, and more. What Catalonia isn’t, of course, is an independent nation-state, though in the last decade or so political events in the region suggest that a sizeable portion of Catalans would be partial to changing that. So what do the people of Catalonia want? And who are the Catalans to begin with?
The answers to these questions are partly historical, but contrary to what is usually the case in discussions such as these, we don’t actually need to go too far back in history. This is of course in keeping with the point I have made in this series of posts that the concept of nationalism and the actual reality of nation-states are rather modern phenomena, no older than 200 years (and mostly European in origin). Curiously, however, it is often the case that many standard or official histories of a given country or nation start rather far back in time, and the case of Catalonia is no exception. The monumental Història de Catalunya [The History of Catalonia], for instance, first published in 1987-89 (in 8 volumes, expanded to 10 in 2003), starts in prehistorical times. There are no doubt many who will claim that in some cases the history of a nation does start much further back than 200 years ago; some nationalists from the Basque Country, for example, another region in the north of Spain, regard Basque culture as a 1000-year phenomenon, but this is an ideological viewpoint rather than a historical one and I shall not be concerned with this type of discourse here.[i] Read more »