Welcome to the history page. This week we will carry on with our
examination of the reforms instituted during the first two years of the
Second Republic, a period known, fittingly, as the Reformist Biennium.
Last week we touched briefly on the key legislation introduced by the
Agrarian Reform, noting that most of these controversial measures were
either disregarded by the landowning oligarchy or deliberately violated
so as to incite mass revolt.
Despite these attempts at subversion, when the Agrarian Reform finally
came before parliament for discussion and ratification in the summer of
1932 (readers will remember that several preliminary decrees were
instituted in 1931 during the provisional stages of government),
republican lawmakers did not try to assuage the powerful upper classes.
Rather, they implemented iron-handed political surgery, calling for the
expropriation of estates which were either manifestly underdeveloped or
exploited for purposes other than agricultural production. As it turned
out, however, the intended expropriations never took place. For, in
addition to the enormity of the task (it took a year just to compile an
inventory of the estates in question) and the low budget allocated to
the project, a new centre-right coalition gain parliamentary majority
the following year, effectively annulling the legislative groundwork
laid down by Azaña’s reformist administration.
Decentralization
Nonetheless, while the agrarian battle raged on, another important
aspect of the Republic’s political platform did come to fruition: On 9th
September 1932, after suffering the authoritarianism and inefficiency of
Castilian hegemony for over two centuries, Catalonia was granted
political autonomy within the Spanish state. Various attempts were also
made at establishing Basque autonomy, although, as we shall see, all of
them ended in failure. Why, then, in the face of wide-spread dissention,
did Catalonia’s impetus toward self-government meet with such rapid
success? The complete answer to that question could fill several
volumes; for today, we will have to make due with the abridged answer,
which is also rather lengthy.
In a
nutshell, the driving force behind Catalan autonomy lay (and lies) in
the region’s millenarian history. Long before it ever became part of the
unified and ‘reconquered’ Spanish nation, Catalonia possessed
sophisticated governmental institutions of its own, competently ruling
itself as well as its various overseas holdings. Let us take a
bird’s-eye view of Catalan development up to 1700 and the induration of
Castilian authoritarianism.
Catalonia: A Confederation of Free Counties
In
the 9th century, Catalonia was conquered by Charlemagne in
order to create a barrier against the encroaching Moors. Tributary
counts ruled over the area until the Emperor’s death in 814, after which
time Frankish control began to dwindle south of the Pyrenees, and the
counts established their political and military independence. Wilfred
the Hairy (874-898) is generally considered the first independent count
of Barcelona, however, it would take another century and the progressive
weakening of Moorish hegemony until a noticeable flourishing of culture
and economy began to accrue.
The Crown of Aragon
In
1037, through the auspices of conjugal union, the confederated counties
of Catalonia joined forces with the small kingdom of Aragon to create
the Crown of Aragon, a political entity that would become one of the
most powerful states in Medieval Spain. Each party retained its
political individuality in questions of institutions, laws, language,
etc., however, the combined military force of the two regions made
possible the reconquest of large swathes of territory from the Moors.
Under Jaume the Conqueror (1208-1276), the Crown of Aragon added the
Balearic Islands, Valencia, Murcia and Ceuta to its territorial
possessions, while under Pedro III (1276-1285), the Catalan dominion
extended to the island of Sicily as well.
In
the early 15th century, King Martin I produced no heirs and a
problem of succession arose. Two candidates for kingship were put forth:
the Catalan Count of Urgell and the Castilian prince, Don Fernando, of
the Trastámara dynasty. To resolve the matter reasonably, a meeting
known as the Capsa Agreement took place among the Crown’s triumviral
powers, i.e. Catalonia, Aragon and Valencia. After long deliberations,
Prince Fernando emerged as the victor, upgrading the Catalan counties
into a principality and foreshadowing Catalonia’s eventual absorption
into Castile. For the time being, however, the inclination of the Aragon
branch of the Trastámara line was not one of fusion with Castile, but of
Mediterranean expansion. The dynasty’s second monarch, Alfonso V
(1396-1458, known as the Magnanimous) succeeded in annexing Naples to
the Crown of Aragon, and found that he enjoyed living there more than in
Spain. Indeed, his court in Naples became one of the most noted
intellectual centres of the day.
Joined in Marriage
Alfonso V was succeeded by his brother Joan II (1458-1479) who faced the
thorny problem of trying to placate an emergent Catalan bourgeoisie.
Always a step ahead of the times, a precocious revolutionary spirit took
hold of Catalonia’s powerful merchants, leading them to demand that the
Principality of Catalonia be instituted as a crown republic and calling
for a significant reduction in royal power. During this tumultuous
period, Joan’s son, Ferdinand II (1452-1516), married Isabel I of
Castile (1451-1504), thus consolidating the union of the Spanish nation
by bringing together the two largest kingdoms in Iberia in a dual
monarchy. Even after unification, each of the constituent parts of this
powerful political ensemble maintained its own courts and lawmaking
institutions as well as full jurisdiction in local matters.
Enter Hapsburgs
This
situation changed somewhat with the succession of Isabel and Ferdinand’s
grandson, Carlos I of Spain and V of Germany, after which time Castile
was made to acquiesce to the Emperor’s authoritarianism. On the other
hand, Navarra, the Basque Country and the Crown of Aragon continued to
retain most of their traditional independence throughout the 16th
century.
By
the middle of the 17th century, however, under the rule of
the so-called ‘minor Hapsburgs’, Castilian centralism, with its new
custom of posting imperial viceroys, had begun to engulf the ‘outer’
regions. Resentful of their loss of independence and justifiably fed up
with how Felipe the Fourth’s pet ministers were running the country,
Catalonia revolted in 1640, killing the viceroy and numerous Castilian
civil servants. The principality remained independent until 1652, when
Felipe IV promised to respect Catalonia’s traditional political
liberties.
The Bourbons Lay Down the Law
The
final death blow to regional autonomy in Spain came in 1714 at the close
of the War of the Spanish Succession. The personification of this new
authoritarianism was the Bourbon, Felipe V, who, in centralist French
fashion, outlawed all political liberties in the provinces as well as
the use of local languages, such as Catalan, in government documents and
proceedings.
Closing
These cultural, linguistic and political restrictions remained in force,
as did the Bourbon dynasty, up until the period we are dealing with -
which, in case anyone has forgotten, is the early 1930s. Also constant
during the intervening two centuries was the Catalan desire to reassert
its identity as a distinctive part of the Spanish nation, free to
express its cultural differences and manage its own affairs as in the
centuries of yore. Join us next week as we pick up the thread of Catalan
autonomy in the 20th century. |