Kritik an der Französischen Revolution im Barcelona des ausgehenden 19. Jahrhunderts (Torras i Bages und Almirall)

Abstract

Analyzing the Spanish reception of the ideas of the French Revolution, one tends to neglect Catalonia where the discussion of the ideas of 1789 was very lively. For Torras i Bages, the fight against the ideas of the revolution is one of the essential motives of his work. The study of the sources of Torras i Bages shows its familiarity with the different European tendencies of the Counter-Revolution (both "theocratic" and proper "traditionalist"). The originality of Torras i Bages lies in his way of applying these ideas to the "regional" phenomenon; the regional fact is considered a bulwark against the ideas of the revolution. A large number of writings by Torras i Bages arose from the controversy with Valentí Almirall, founder of a liberal Catalanism. Almirall might have assumed a more favorable attitude towards the French Revolution, which, however, is not the case. Anxious about the centralizing and uniformist tendencies of the French Revolution, Almirall tends more towards English liberalism. To find a clearly favorable attitude towards the French Revolution, it is necessary to turn to Pi i Margall, but him, as is well known, has a rather controversial position within the Catalan movement.