The Renaixença, Modernisme and the Rise of Catalanism
A cultural "rebirth" restores Catalan as a language of literature, inspires the architecture of Gaudí, and grows into a political movement for self-government.
- Catalan Nationalism: Past and Present — Albert Balcells, Macmillan (1996)
- Barcelona — Robert Hughes, Knopf (1992)
- Catalonia: Nation Building Without a State — Kenneth McRoberts, Oxford University Press (2001)
- Singular and Plural: Ideologies of Linguistic Authority in 21st Century Catalonia — Kathryn A. Woolard, Oxford University Press (2016)
After 1714 Catalan survived as the everyday language of most Catalans but lost prestige as a written language. Romantic writers set out to revive it. Bonaventura Carles Aribau’s 1833 poem “La pàtria” is traditionally taken as the starting point, and in 1859 Barcelona revived the medieval poetry contest of the Jocs Florals. The priest-poet Jacint Verdaguer gave the movement its epics, “L’Atlàntida” (1877) and “Canigó” (1886).
- Catalan Nationalism: Past and Present — Albert Balcells, Macmillan (1996)
- Barcelona — Robert Hughes, Knopf (1992)
By the 1890s the revival had become a style. Catalan Modernisme, the local Art Nouveau, gave Barcelona Antoni Gaudí’s Sagrada Família (begun in 1882), Lluís Domènech i Montaner’s Palau de la Música Catalana and a whole Eixample of decorated façades, built with the money of the textile bourgeoisie.
- Barcelona — Robert Hughes, Knopf (1992)
- Antoni Gaudí — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
Culture turned into politics. The Bases de Manresa of 1892 called for Catalan home rule, and after the 1898 disaster Enric Prat de la Riba’s Lliga Regionalista (1901) became Catalonia’s leading party. In 1907 the Institut d’Estudis Catalans was founded, and in 1913 its linguist Pompeu Fabra published the spelling rules that standardised modern Catalan. In 1914 the four Catalan provinces were joined in a Mancomunitat, the first Catalan self-governing body since 1714, which built libraries, schools, roads and telephones until the dictator Primo de Rivera abolished it in 1925.
- Catalan Nationalism: Past and Present — Albert Balcells, Macmillan (1996)
- Catalonia: Nation Building Without a State — Kenneth McRoberts, Oxford University Press (2001)
- Singular and Plural: Ideologies of Linguistic Authority in 21st Century Catalonia — Kathryn A. Woolard, Oxford University Press (2016)
Why it matters today
The Renaixença is why Catalan is a modern, standardised language with a literature, and why Barcelona looks the way it does. It also set the pattern of Catalan nationalism: rooted in culture and language rather than ethnicity, and led for a long time by a moderate, business-minded middle class.