Katalanistische Bewegung und Gesellschaft 1898 bis 1939

Abstract

Despite the lack of comparative studies, Catalonia may be of special interest in comparative research on national minority movements. Emerging in the most economically developed territory of Spain, the heterogeneous Catalanist movement, in certain historical moments, came to acquire the unity of action necessary to achieve its own Catalan institutions. With a view to possible comparisons, the article focusses on the time between the imposition of Catalanism as an organized mass movement and the loss of national institutions, a result of the Spanish Civil War, in order (1.) to highlight the structural economic and social differences between Catalonia and the other territories of the State; (2.) to analyze briefly the differentiation in political parties, on the one hand, and the national interclass collaboration on the other, both contradictory tendencies, but very characteristic of the Catalan case in that period; (3) to compare persistence and cultural changes in different social classes. Thus, the aim is to bridge the gap between "political" and "cultural" interpretations of Catalan nationalism, with the hope of improving our understanding of the relationship between national and social issues.