CLOISTER OF THE MONASTERY OF RIPOLL 1 DOSSIER

THE BIRTH OF THE CATALAN PEOPLE

CATALONIAWAS BORN MORE THAN A THOUSAND YEARS AGO, WHEN SHE BROKE OFF FROM THE CAROLINGIAN TRUNK AND, GROWING OUT OF THE "SPANISHMARCH", SHE SHOOK OFF ALL SUBMISSION BEYOND THE AND SET OUT ON HER OWN PATH THROUGH HISTORY.

CLIMENT FORNER PoET

ations don't spring up at ran- 1979-, rnade up of four provinces: Bar- centuries. Later on, in the thirteenth cen- dorn, like rnushroorns. In the ma- celona, Tarragona, Lleida and . tury, due to the growth of the Catalan Ojority of cases, their birth, as in It is also known as the Principality of population, the Balearic lslands and the the case of , has involved Catalonia. But in a broad sense, true to País Valencia were incorporated. The long and painful labour that has lasted history, it is more, rnuch more: it corn- Catalan regions belonging to the French for centuries. There are nations that in prises everything known as the Paisos state since the disastrous Treaty of the spite of having been born more or less Catalans, or Catalan Lands, which, to Pyrenees of 1659 are Vallespir, Con- as such survive in a perpetua1 adoles- use an emblernatic expression, stretch flent, Rosselló, Fenolleda and Alta Cer- cence until they die of exhaustion or are from Salses to Guardamar and frorn danya, al1 on the other side of the Pyre- absorbed by another, stronger nation. Fraga to Maó. nees. L'Alguer, the town on the island of What do we understand by Catalonia? The Paisos Catalans today are distri- Sardinia where Catalan is also spoken, This is where we have to start frorn. buted over three states: , is a case apart. Strictly, or rather, politically speaking, and Andorra. Although they were not Another point worth clearing up before Catalonia today is the north-eastern re- given this name until the end of the we go any further is the etymology or gion of Spain -recognized as a "nation- nineteenth century, frorn at least rneaning of the word "Catalunya". ality" by the Spanish constitution of the twelfth century they consisted of the Where does it come frorn? Researchers 1978 and given substance as an Auto- group of lands whose language was are not fully agreed on this question. In nornous Community by the Statute of Catalan, differentiated from Latin for fact, the word "catala" appears for the first time in a Latin document of the tenth In its gestation during the previous cen- lived its age of greatest splendour. century. It was actually the inhabitants turies, various colonizations and cul- From 1200 on, she made herself mis- of the country who called themselves tures had played a part in shaping it: tress of the Mediterranean with her "catalans". "Catalunya," the same as Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Visi- commercial activity, even mentioned by "Castilla", could mean a land of many goths, Muslims, etc. The country's pre- Dante. castles. Some people say the narne Romanic inhabitants are known under If the Counts of Barcelona did not break "Catalunya" comes from "Gotlandia", the name of lberians and stretched from politically with the Kings of France until land of the Goths, or from "Castrum Languedoc to Andalusia. Because of its 985, the Ecclesiastical Province of Cata- Catalaunicum", the Latin name for Cha- geographical location, Catalonia be- lonia (with its metropolitan seat in Ta- lons-sur-Marne. Legend would have it came a free and welcoming stopping- rragona, the "Tarraco" of the ancient derive from a mythical figure, Otger Ca- off point, always open to culture and Romans) split off from that of Nar- taló (723 A.D.), a hero of the Recon- sensitive to freedom. It's not surprising bonne, on which it depended, in 1091, quest and cornpanion of the Nine that the musician Pau Casals, one of this an event which was commemorated this Knights of the Round Table. If there is century's most universal Catalans, year. It's important to note that the men no agreement as regards the name, speaking before the United Nations in who really forged the country and left there is on the other hand when it 1971, should have expressed his pride their indellible footprints were, in order comes to the origin of the national flag at being a Catalan, the first democratic of importance, the monks, the knights of Catalonia, the four red stripes on a country in Europe. and the peasants. But the man consi- golden background, which was the coat The territory of Catalonia was shaped dered the "father of the land", on ac- of arms of the Counts of Barcelona, and on the basis of counties: ancient Visi- count of the enormous religious, cultural one of the oldest in Europe according to gothic administrative divisions that were and political influence he wielded at the Dr Marti de Riquer. But this coat of arms ruled by counts with military, political beginning of the eleventh century, was is also shrouded in legend: the four and iudicial functions. A group of coun- Oliba, son of the Count of Cerdanya- stripes were supposedly left by four fin- ties formed a "march". There were 8 17 Besalú Oliba Cabreta, and himself gers dipped in the blood of Count Wil- counties. That of Barcelona, the city Count of Bergueda-Ripolles until he be- fred the Hairy, mortally wounded in now called "Cap i Casal de Catalunya" came a monk of Ripoll and, in time, French territory. (Head and Ancestral Home of Catalo- Abbot of Ripoll and Bishop of . He And now we take up the thread once nia), was the most important and deci- was famous, amongst other things, for more. The Catalan nation was born sive, since it came to dominate the rest, the "Pau i treva de Déu" he established. more than a thousand years ago, when either by right of conquest or by mar- This "Peace and truce of God" was, it broke off politically from the Euro- riage alliances. When Catalonia and according to the historian Antoni Plade- pean Carolingian trunk and, growing Aragon united to form the Catalano- vall, a kind of religious institution which, out of the "Spanish March", shook off Aragonese Crown (1 137) and James I with the help of the civilian power, im- al1 submission beyond the Pyrenees and conquered Majorca (1229) and Valen- posed periods of respite in the endless set out on its own path through history. cia (12381, we can say that the country private wars that shook the life of the 1 DOSSIER 1

CAPlTAl OF MONASTERY OF RlPOil

society of those days; it lasted from the rnolish Canigó,lthey will not fell the lofty Catalonia learnt self-awareness, began eleventh to the thirteenth century. The Pyrenees.) If it were possible here to by retrieving her language and her lit- chief historical rnonurnents that still look more closely at this epic, we would erature, so weakened under the despo- speak of hirn are the rnonastery of Ri- see what is already recognized by his- tic ernpire of the Castilian language, poll (10321, considered the "cradle of torian~:that "the birth, the history and and started to activate her industry and Catalonia"; the cathedral of Vic (10351,- the culture of Catalonia are steeped in econorny and grow into a prosperous, and the rnonastery of Sant Miquel de Christianity", to use the words of the rnodern country occupying a leading Cuixa, in the Conflent. He was also the docurnent "Arrels cristianes de Catalu- position in Spain as a whole. The Civil founder of the rnonastery of Montserrat nya", published by the Catalan bishops War of 1936- 1939 once more interrup- (10251. (19851. ted this recovery, since Catalonia, irnpli- Monsignor Jacint Verdaguer, the Cata- To surn up; The Catalan Nation, already cated as she was, carne off very badly lan poet par excellence, helped create well established in the tenth century, and had to pay the consequences for the legend of the origins of the Catalan became politically independent frorn the forty years that the Franco régirne nation with his great narrative poern, France -the "Spanish March" had a lasted. Following the death of Gene- "Canigó", in which his love for his non-Spanish origin-, lived centuries of ral Franco (1975) and the restoration country and his religious feeling are splendour and expansion and conti- of dernocracy, she has once more wonderfully blended thanks t