LANGUAGE, IMMIGRATION and NATIONALISM: Comparing the Basque and Catalan Cases
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LANGUAGE, IMMIGRATION AND NATIONALISM: Comparing the Basque and Catalan Cases by Daniele Conversi London School of Economics and Political Science Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the University of London February 1994 UMI Number: U062684 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U062684 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 ' f t + e s e s F Of „ KH.ITlCAi xo?io7/ 2 ABSTRACT Through a comparison between Catalan and Basque nationalism, this thesis describes two patterns of nationalism: inclusive and exclusive, cohesive and fragmented. These are related to the core values of national identity chosen by nationalist elites. However, this choice cannot be arbitrary, but is based on pre-existing cultural material. As language is the key value of most European nationalisms, the degree of language maintenance has a direct influence on the patterns of nationalist mobilization. These two patterns are tested against the different attitudes towards immigrants: early Basque nationalism was isolationist and exclusive, early Catalan nationalism was more integrationist and inclusive. However, during Francoism, Basque nationalism changed its focus from race/religion to language and action, although nationalists never agreed on which one of these was crucial. The result was a more inclusive form of nationalism. Finally, the thesis relates the two models to the rise and spread of political violence. It is argued that ideological infighting and fragmented constituencies are potentially more conducive to violent forms of nationalism. In turn, such ideological frictions are related to cultural discontinuities, including partial assimilation into the dominant culture. However, for this violent potential to fully emerge, there must intervene a second variable, namely state repression. It is argued that the effects of state repression have been different in the two cases: in Catalonia, it encouraged people to mobilize around language and related cultural endeavours; in the Basque Country it provided a powerful catalyst for further violent confrontation and for the 'militarization1 of nationalism. 3 PREFACE The completion of this thesis would not have been possible without the help and support of a number of people and institutions in several countries. First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Professor Anthony D. Smith, my supervisor, for his incisive guidance, comments, suggestions and encouragement I sincerely believe that this result could not have been achieved without his highly professional, concerned, and meticulous efforts. I am also indebted to several organizations and founding bodies. For the research underlying chapter 5, thanks are due to the Institut d'Histdria Contemporania de Catalunya. In particular, I wish to thank Professors Josep Benet and Josep Ma Sold i Sabatd. Some of the material included are the fruit of a long interview with Josep Benet. For the research in chapter 4, thanks are due to the Basque Studies Program, University of Nevada, Reno, US, which allowed me an unique opportunity to investigate into primary sources such as pamphlets, interviews, and other documents by Basque leaders. My research on Catalan nationalism predates my interest in the Basque case and, in the years immediately preceding my doctorate at LSE, I was given very useful help and advice by several scholars, among whom I wish to acknowledge Professors Salvador Giner and Carlota Sold. In Italy, I also wish to thank Professor Franco Ferrarotti for encouraging me in undertaking both an inter disciplinary and a sociological route. There is a long list of people whose experience and opinions gave me insights into some of the more subtle dimensions of the form and content of this work. Among those people, I would especially like to extend my most heartfelt thanks to my friend, Jacqueline Kaye for reading drafts of different chapters and making pertinent comments and helpful suggestions for translation purposes, and all those others who are too numerous to mention but who have helped me in the practical and linguistic aspects of my work , and to whom I am also indebted. Moreover, I am grateful to several members of the LSE Library staff, particularly to Mr. Mark Perkins of the inter-library loan service at BLPES for his most professional and competent inquiries about hard-to-find publications. 4 In 1991,1 founded together with other research students the Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism. This enterprise took several months of work which was well worth it, since the association has now grown to become a respectable international body with a worldwide membership. I also became Editor of the association's Bulletin, a publication now acknowledged by most scholars in the field. My 'intellectual' debts are numerous. In my theoretical approach, I owe much to several books by Anthony D. Smith, articles by Jerzy J. Smolicz and Frederick Barth and numerous other publications which I have mentioned in the first chapter. For my Catalan case study, there are too many authors to be mentioned. For the Basque case, the reader will find repeated references to three authors: Javier Corcuera, Gurutz Jauregui, and Robert Clark. However, I have consulted many others excellent studies. My research diverges in significant aspects from all the quoted authors and responsibility for my views is mine alone. Jauregui's own comments for chapters 4,6, and 9, have proved particularly helpful. In the final draft of my thesis I owe many thanks to Alison Palmer for her corrections of chapter 4,5 and 6. For the names in Basque, I tried to use, as much as possible the official (battia) spelling, except for those few names, such as Navarre, which have an equivalent in English. In the quotations of Basque leaders and intellectuals writing before the 1980s, i.e. before battia was made official, I shall instead use their original spelling (for example, Arana's use of Euzkadi and Euskera, rather than the standard Euskadi and Euskara). CONTENTS 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS MAPS Note to Maps p. 11 Statistical Data p. 12 INTRODUCTION p. 18 General orientations p. 21 Definitions, Sources and Methods p. 22 Plan p. 24 Chapter 1 THEORIES p. 27 PRIMORDIALISM Primordialism ................................................ p. 27 Intellectuals and intelligentsia ........................... p. 29 INSTRUMENTALISM Instrumentalism ................................... p. 30 Economic approaches: Marxism and internal colonialism ....................... p. 32 Modernism and modernization theory ....................................... p. 33 Homeostatic and cause-effect models ........................... p. 36 Alternate cycles of nationalism ....................................................... p. 38 TRANSACTIONALISM Transactionalism ....................................................... p. 40 Border vs. content, opposition vs. compatibility, violence vs. culture p. 42 Bringing culture back in ............................................... p. 44 Conclusions ....................................................... p. 46 Chapter 2 FROM THE FOUNDATION OF CATALAN NATIONALISM TO THE CIVIL WAR p. 48 The Renaixenga ........................................................... p. 50 Almirall and the Federalist tradition p. 53 CONTENTS 6 From the Lliga de Catalunya to 1898............... p. 53 Barcelona fin de siicle: a flourishing cultural life p. 57 The crisis of 1898 and the rise of conservative regionalism ................... p. 60 From Solidaritat Catalana to Lerroux's populism: the failure of of bourgeois regionalism p. 62 Catalanism' mature age, Prat and the Mancomunitat (1914-7)... p. 64 Culture and politics: the Noucentista experience p. 67 The dictatorship of Primo de Rivera (1923-1931) ............... p. 70 The Second Republic (1931-1939) ................................... p. 71 Conclusions p. 74 Chapter 3 BASQUE NATIONALISM: FROM ITS BEGINNING TO THE CIVIL WAR p. 77 The structural pre-conditions ........................................... p. 78 Industrialization p. 81 Euskaros and Euskalerriacos: an aborted Basque renaissance ................................... p. 83 Arana’s legacy................................................................... p. 85 Arana the racialist ........................................................... p. 91 Arana the believer ........................................................... p. 93 Arana the philologist....................................................... p. 96 The first nationalist victories ........................................ p. 99 The first Congress of Basque Studies (1918) and the nationalists' internal tensions p. 101 Under Primo de Rivera ................................................... p. 104 Basque nationalism under the Republic ........................... p. 106 Conclusions p. 108 CONTENTS 7 Chapter 4 EUSKADI: DICTATORSHIP, RESISTANCE and RESURRECTION p. 110 The darkest years ...........................................................