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Nationalism, nation and territory: Jacint Verdaguer and the Catalan Renaixença

2010; Routledge; Volume: 33; Issue: 10 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/01419871003789887

1466-4356

John Etherington,

Central European national history

Abstract This paper seeks to explain the historic importance to Catalan nationalism of the nineteenth-century poet and priest, Jacint Verdaguer. In order to do so, rather than focus on his contribution – and that of the wider cultural revival, the Renaixença – to the development of the Catalan language as the basis for national political mobilization, this paper argues that we cannot fully understand Verdaguer's importance without reference to his role in constructing a geographical narrative linking nation and territory. At the same time, given that national meanings are always contested, the paper proposes a dialectical approach to nationalism that situates the work of writers within the context of power struggles between social groups. Consequently, Veradguer's centrality to Catalan nationalism is ultimately explained by his role in producing a geographical narrative capable of attracting important sectors of rural Catalonia to the hegemonic project of the industrial bourgeoisie. Keywords: NationalismnationterritoryCataloniaVerdaguerhistoric bloc Notes 1. Territories, according to Robert Sack, are delimited areas or spaces that come into being 'when its boundaries are used to affect behaviour by controlling access, for example to resources or power' (1986, p. 19). 2. Several authors have highlighted the importance of territory for nationalism in general; see, for example, Johnston, Knight and Kofman (1988); and Anderson (Citation1988); Kaiser (Citation2001); Yiftachel (Citation2001); Jan Penrose (2002) has discussed the role of territory in nationalist thought from Rousseau and Herder onwards; while Margaret Moore (Citation1998; Citation2001) has analysed, from a normative point of view, nationalist claims over territory. At the same time, numerous studies exist that emphasize the spatial dimension of national identity; see, for example, Osborne (Citation1988); Lasserre (Citation1993); the contributions in Hooson (Citation1994); Kaufmann (Citation1998); Kaufmann and Zimmer (Citation1998); Nogué I Font and Vicente (Citation2004). 3. Not all scholars agree on this point. Steven Grosby, for example, argues that examples can be found in Antiquity of peoples drawing their collective identity from territories which is explained from a putative primordial perspective, that is, people attribute certain life-giving qualities to their attachment to the land (2002, p. 192). 4. The Jocs Florals can be considered the Catalan equivalent of the Welsh-language festival, the Eisteddfod. 5. In the original Catalan, the word 'muntanya' – 'mountain' in the singular – is used, and would find its idiomatic equivalent in the English term 'countryside'. 6. The idea of the bon pagès is inspired in pairalism, a traditionalist school of thought that sought to portray an idealized, harmonic picture of rural life and of the social and economic relations that formed part of it. 7. The extent of the Catalan homeland has been a much-debated issue within nationalist circles. By the late nineteenth century, Enric Prat de la Riba talked of 'Greater Catalonia', including Valencia and the Balearic Islands, while another key figure of Catalan nationalism, Antoni Rovira i Virgili, makes explicit reference to the spread of the Renaixença to such regions. Of course, if the Catalan nation is defined in historical – dating back to medieval times – and linguistic terms, then it is quite logical to think of the homeland in these extended terms. However, such logic has come up against powerful opposing forces: lack of popular identification/support in these regions for els Països Catalans; political and economic elites with strong ties to the Spanish state centred in Madrid; and the 1978 Constitution that explicitly prohibits the federation of Spanish regions. Consequently, while the Països Catalans continues to be the spatial frame of reference of minority nationalist groups, both inside and outside Catalonia, more moderate, mainstream nationalist have renounced the political project of this extended homeland, although they continue to stress cultural and linguistic ties.