Oldal 71 [71]
OCR
JAVIER MORENO LUZÓN Empire. As tends to be the case with the modernist school of analysis, we must attribute a leading role in these movements to local elites who were seeking to emancipate themselves from Spanish centralist control. This was an era of cultural nationalism across Europe, and these sub-state movements adopted features of the German model, such as the emphasis on language. Both Basques and Catalans developed nostalgic discourses of a golden age in which their peoples were free, a subsequent fall into decadence provoked by Spanish oppression and the necessity of recovering their lost greatness. Both movements were based on powerful links with civil society, through cultural and recreational associations. Both likewise created their own national symbols, adapting pre-existing heraldry and songs in the Catalan case or, in the Basque example, creating completely new ones.° Nevertheless, there were important differences between the Basque and Catalan nationalists. The Basques insisted on the importance of religion — as did Spanish Catholic nationalism — and race, understood as family lineage and measured by the number of Basque surnames each person could trace in their family history. In effect, Basque nationalism was a reaction against the arrival of Castilian immigrants to work in the region’s industries, and xenophobic in character, and only in the second place did it defend the Basque language, Euskera. The Catalans, in contrast, placed their emphasis on history — in memories of the grievances Castile had caused them centuries ago, which gave rise to Catalan National Day, in memory of a defeat in the 18" century — and above all on language: the Catalan language and the literature written in it, revived in a cultural renaissance that had preceded the nationalist movement, and which became their principal symbol of identity. In this case, regionalism developed into nationalism. In addition there was one notable significant difference in the political sphere between Basque and Catalan nationalisms: the Basque movement was from the beginning separatist, seeking independence, and wished to know nothing of Spain, while Catalan nationalism was compatible with some form of political autonomy within the Spanish state, and the Catalan nationalists even had projects for Spain as a whole. Spain could become a confederal and multinational state, in their view, in which Catalonia would see its special characteristics recognized. Their model was the Austro-Hungarian Empire during the same period, in which Catalonia could take the role of Hungary, united with Castile in a state that shared some common functions, and above all the crown as a symbol. For, if the Emperor of Austria was also King of Hungary, the King of Spain was at the same time Count of Barcelona. While Basque nationalism was above all Catholic and highly conservative, within ® Javier Moreno Luzén — Xosé M. Nujfiez Seixas: Los colores de la patria: Simbolos nacionales en la Espana contemporanea, Madrid, Tecnos, 2017. + 70 +
