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Geography
The Catalan Countries are in the east of the Iberian peninsula on the Mediterranean coast.This privileged position means that Valencians, Balears and Catalans enjoy a temperate and pleasant climate most of the year and this climate makes a large contribution to the high quality of life of their citizens.
There are many variants of this climate, from the Pyrenean districts suitable
for winter skiing to the summer beaches. The division of the country into near 80
comarques, or districts, is not merely an administrative one, but is a
reflection of the nation’s great geographical diversity.The Catalan Countries form part of France and Spain and the European Union. Thanks to their geographical position they're the gateway between the peoples of the peninsula and the rest of Europe.
Three views of the Catalan Countries: a little beach (there are lots in the Balears), Cadaqués and Barcelona.
Valencians, Balears and Catalans are a European people who are very conscious of the importance of the European Union and of their role within it. For this reason, they have been a driving force in the Assembly of European Regions and the Committee of the Regions. Catalonia has also been a driving force behind the coordination group involving three other regions known as the Four Motors of Europe and forms part of a Euroregion together with Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées.
This Euroregion brings together the Catalans on both sides of the Franco-Spanish
border. Four Motors of Europe, meanwhile, is a coordinating body with the
Italian region of Lombardia, the German land of Baden-Württemberg and the French region of Rhône- Alpes. Together with the Catalan Countries, these four areas represent the most active industrial and commercial nuclei of their respective states.
History
XIII-XIV
The Generalitat de Catalunya (as well as the Generalitat Valenciana) has its
origin in the Corts Reials Catalanes, an assembly which first began to meet
during the reign of James I the Conqueror (1208-1276), convened by the king to
represent the social estates of the time. Precursors to the Corts Reials
Catalanes can be found in the Cort Comtal (circa the year 1000) and in the
assemblies of Pau i Treva.
The Corts had advisory as well as legislative functions exercised through
the three estates: the ecclesiastical (the clergy), the military (the nobility)
and the popular or royal chamber (villages and towns directly subject to
government by the King). The whole assembly of all of these Catalan
representatives in the Corts was called “lo General de Cathalunya”, and
represented a true balance of powers between the estates and the King.
The origins of the Generalitat lie in the fact that the Corts Reials needed
executive bodies to carry out their rulings. Schematically, the process can be
traced back to various historical events.
The first took place at the Corts held in Montsó (Aragon) in 1289, when a
“Diputació del General” – a temporary committee – was appointed to collect the
servei, a tax which the “estates” granted to the king at his petition.
The second stage took place at the Corts of 1358-1359, held in Barcelona,
Vilafranca and Cervera.
Historians have considered the new Diputació del General as constituting the
first, embryonic stage of the future Generalitat.
The third event took place at the Corts in Montsó in 1362-1363: a tax called
generalitats was created, a permanent tribute guaranteeing independent revenues
and the continuity of the Diputació del General, henceforth comprising three
deputies.The Corts in Barcelona, Lleida and Tortosa in 1364 and 1365 completed the
consolidation of what could now be considered an executive institution.
XV-XVII
The dominion of Castile was consolidated during the reign of the Catholic Kings,
whose marriage brought together the crowns of Castile and Catalonia-Aragon.
Ferdinand II (1479-1516) introduced Castilian institutions (such as the
Inquisition), government officials and even posted Castilian troops in
Catalonia. The gradual decline of Barcelona and its institutions provided a
foothold for this development.
Under Philip IV the Catalan institutions faced the most serious threat in their
history up to that time. While the King was still a minor, the Count of Olivares
promoted political centralisation at all costs and he consequently advised the
King to subject all of the kingdoms of Spain “to the style and laws of Castile”.
During the Thirty Years War (1618-1648), in which Castile aligned itself with
Austria against France, the King and his advisor Olivares made a series of
demands on the Catalans who were requested to provide funds and men for a war which in no way affected Catalonia. The Constitutions of Catalonia, which the King himself had sworn to respect, guaranteed the right of Catalans to do this freely, but never under duress. The Generalitat, and particularly its president, Pau Claris, came under considerable pressure, and Francesc de Tamarit, the military envoy, was imprisoned.
When Louis XIV and Philip IV signed the Peace of the
Pyrenees in 1659, Catalonia was mutilated when Philip IV ceded a part of Catalan territory (Roussillon, Capcir, Conflent, Vallespir and part of Cerdanya) to
France, once again transgressing the Constitutions of Catalonia.
In the Catalan Countries, opposition to Philip V increased because of the continuous vexations on the part of the King and his Viceroy, Fernández de Velasco, who was also in conflict with the Generalitat . In
June 1705, two Catalan envoys signed the Genoa Pact with the representatives of Queen Anne of England in favour of Archduke Charles of Austria. In exchange, the English Crown guaranteed respect for the freedom and Constitutions of Catalonia, irrespective of the result of the war. The Catalan Countries were not interested in the war of succession, but were fighting to preserve their rights and liberties.
Towards the end of 1705, Archduke Charles of Austria triumphantly entered
Barcelona as King Charles III. He immediately convened the Corts Catalanes and
swore to respect the Constitutions of the Catalans. These were to be the last
Corts in the history of the Catalan-Aragon Crown.
In Europe, everything seemed to point to an allied victory over the absolutism
of France and Spain. In 1706, Philip V laid siege to Barcelona, but Catalan
resistance proved to be effective and the king failed and was forced to flee to
France. However, soon afterwards he managed to conquer two major territories of the Catalan-Aragon Federation: Valencia in 1707, and Aragon in 1708.
In 1708, Louis XIV, defeated on several fronts, sued for peace. However, the
demands of the allies caused negotiations to break down, since the French King
refused to accept that his grandson Philip V should renounce the Spanish throne.
The war continued.
An unexpected event changed the course of history: in April 1711, the Austrian
Emperor Joseph I died, and his brother, Archduke Charles, inherited the Crown
and left Barcelona for Vienna. Faced with the danger of the reconstitution of a
great European empire, more fearful a prospect than the Franco-Spanish alliance
if the Spanish throne finally fell into Austrian hands, the non-Austrian allied
powers decided to negotiate peace with Louis XIV and to recognise Philip V.
Talks began immediately and eventually resulted in the Treaty of Utrecht.
XVIII-XIX
In March 1713, Philip V’s troops laid siege to Barcelona. Catalonia, now reduced
to the two fortified areas of Barcelona and Cardona, had to choose between
surrendering and continuing the struggle in its own defense. In mid-1713, the
Braços Generals– the Corts without the King – were convened to take a decision.
In the light of the imbalance between the Catalan forces (now bereft of the
support of the Great Alliance troops) and those of Philip V, the military and
ecclesiastic representatives together with the deputies of the Generalitat were
in favour of accepting the Bourbon king. But the representatives of the civil
estate won the vote in favour of resistance. Respecting this decision, the
Generalitat once more called the people to defend the city.
The siege was started by the Duke of Berwick, the French General imposed by
Louis XIV on his grandson Philip V. General Antoni Villarroel was placed at the
head of the Catalan troops. In Philip V, the Catalans saw the definitive
establishment of an absolutist and centrist power over all the subject
territories. The siege of Barcelona was seen by contemporary observers as an
aggression against a people who had made freedom the basis of their
institutions. The writers of the time described the defense of Barcelona as a
heroic gesture which was admired throughout Europe.
After eighteen months of siege and fierce battle the city was finally forced to
capitulate on 11 September 1714. The most distinguished defenders of Barcelona, Rafael Casanova, Head Councillor of the City Assembly, and General Antoni de Villarroel, supreme commander of the military forces, wished to save the city and its defenders from total defeat.
On 15 September 1714, the Duke of Berwick officially appointed the Supreme Royal Council of Justice and Government under the presidency of Philip’s minister José Patiño, to replace the Generalitat and the Consell de Cent. The following day, José Patiño read the decree of dissolution before the President of the
Generalitat: “The representation of the Diputació and Generalitat de Catalunya
having ceased to exercise its function as a result of the entrance of the arms
of the King into this fortified city, His Excellency the Marshall Duke of
Berwick and Liria has charged me to order the deputies and oïdors de comptes of
the General de Catalunya as well as all of their subordinates to take down all
emblems, to completely cease the exercise of their positions, posts and offices,
and to hand in their keys, books and all other elements related to this
Diputació and its premises...” Valencia and Aragon had already fallen to the
Castilian Crown. Mallorca and Ibiza surrendered the following year. As a result
of the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), Minorca was ceded to England. The other
territories of the former Crown of Catalonia and Aragon were dismembered: Naples and Sardinia came under Austrian sovereignty, and Sicily was handed over to the Duke of Savoy.
The Generalitat and the Consell de Cent had been abolished, the Catalan military forces disarmed and disbanded or exiled, the leaders of the resistance
imprisoned or condemned to death, their castles destroyed, the Mint closed, the
University of Barcelona and the Estudis Generals del Principat abolished, and
the official use of Spanish instead of Catalan was decreed. Catalonia lost all
political power and was submitted to a long process of “Castilianisation”.
The new system of government of Catalonia, provisionally established in 1714,
was definitively established by the Royal Decree of Nueva Planta
(Reorganization) approved by the Council of Castile on 16 January 1716. The
Decree of Nueva Planta entrusted maximum power of government to a military
officer, the captain general, who was assisted by the Royal Tribunal. The
territorial division of the Principality into vegueries, which had already
existed at the time of James I and had been formally institutionalised since
1304, was replaced by twelve corregiments and one district (the Vall d’Aran). It
is interesting to note that neither the corregiments nor the vegueries which
came before them or the later provinces actually reflect the human and
geographical realities of the land. More than two centuries would have to pass
before the territorial organisation into counties would finally be restored by
the 20th-century Generalitat.
During the reigns of the successors of Philip V, Ferdinand VI (17461759) and
Charles III (1759-1788), the attention of the Catalans was focused on cultural
and economic resurgence, partly a result of Charles III’s decision to allow the
Catalan ports direct commerce with the Americas for the first time. This was a
time of industrial development for Catalonia.
Political life was centred on the Madrid Court from whichcame all decisions
affecting the government of Catalonia. Philip V had banished the official use of
Catalan, and in a Royal Letter Patent of 1768 Charles III eliminated the
language from primary and secondary education. Obviously these measures did not result in the total disappearance of the Catalan language, which even then
continued to serve as a vehicle for notable literary works. Likewise Catalonia,
despite its official submission to the new monarch, had not entirely lost its
national awareness. When the Madrid Courts met in 1789 to swear in the heir
Prince Ferdinand, the Catalan representatives presented themselves as the
Diputació del Principat de Catalunya, in memory of the now-abolished
Generalitat.
During the 19th century, the history of Catalonia was punctuated by civil
unrest, the Carlist wars and confrontations between political parties. The
short-lived Spanish First Republic of 1873 featured two Catalans as Presidents:
Figueras and Pi i Margall. In 1874, a military coup brought down the Republic
and restored the monarchy with Alfonso XII, who was succeeded by Alfonso XIII
under the regency of Maria Cristina in 1885.
The most decisive and directly political action, in terms of the effective
recovery of the political power lost when the Generalitat was abolished by
Philip V, was the constitutional assembly of the Unió Catalanista in 1892,
formulating the “Bases for the Catalan Regional Constitution”, commonly known as
the Bases de Manresa. This document called for a Catalan Corts, an executive
body exercising autonomous power, the reestablishment of the Tribunal of
Catalonia as a body of judicial power, autonomous control over public order and
education, and official status for the Catalan language as the sole native
language of the country. The fundamental principle inspiring the Bases was that
“Catalonia shall be sovereign in its internal government”.
At the turn of the century, Catalan political nationalism was reinforced by a
cultural, artistic and literary renaissance of some importance. Catalonia
emerged from a period of crisis and exhaustion. With the impetus provided by the
industrial revolution and the dynamic nature of its society, which already had
close ties with Europe, it became the economic driving force of the Iberian
peninsula.XX-XXI
The first unified body representing Catalan nationalism was Solidaritat
Catalana, founded in 1906. Solidaritat was a pro-autonomy movement which brought together the Lliga Regionalista, the Unió Republicana, the Unió Catalanista, theRepublican nationalists, the Federalists, the Carlists and the Independents.
This movement emerged as a protest against the military repression of the
Catalan press of the time, and also to oppose a law on jurisdiction proposed by
the central government which was clearly an attack on democracy and autonomy.
The following year, Solidaritat Catalana won a clear victory in the elections to
the Corts.
The two most notable members of Solidaritat Catalana, Enric Prat de la Riba
(1870-1917) and Francesc Cambó (1876-1947), were important figures in Catalan
politics at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1906, in La nacionalitat
catalana, Prat de la Riba expounded a philosophical justification of Catalan
nationalism, calling for the establishment of a Catalan state within a Spanish
fede-ration. He was also the creator of the Mancomunitat de Catalunya.
The Mancomunitat, established in 1914, was based on the union of the four
Catalan Provincial Councils and represented the first territorial reunification
of Catalonia.
The Sapanish Civil War (1936-39) was fatal for the Catalan Countries: th fascist troops governed by Franco won, with the help of Hitler, Mussolini and Oliveira Salazar. In 1938, with the Civil War still raging, General Franco once again abolished the Generalitat as Philip V had done in 1716. The defeat of the Republic in 1939 forced the Catalan Government, the members of parliament and thousands of ordinary citizens into exile. At the request of the authorities of the Franco regime in Madrid, President Lluís Companys was captured in August 1940 in the small French town of La Baule by three agents of the German military police and delivered to the government of Franco. Judged in Montjuïc Castle in Barcelona by a military court and sentenced to death, he was executed on 15 October 1940. Franco prohibited the Catalan language, traditions, government etc and closed a lot of newspapers, magazines, associations, festivals, schools, universities...
In view of the impossibility of Parliament meeting under these circumstances,
Josep Irla, who had been elected President of the Parliament in October 1938,
temporarily assumed the Presidency of the Generalitat in exile, until he
resigned on 7 May 1954. The need to guarantee the continuity of the Presidency
of the Generalitat in a situation in which the normal functioning of the
institutions of Catalonia was impossible led to the election of a new president
by the deputies of the Parliament of Catalonia. This meeting took place on 7
August 1954 in the Spanish Embassy in Mexico, one of the countries that had not
recognised the political regime of Spain set up under Franco in 1939. Josep
Tarradellas, to whom President Josep Irla had delegated his executive functions
in 1952, was elected President. In 1937, Tarradellas had been the Chief Minister
of the Catalan Government and Minister of Finance.
Tarradellas became the trustee of the Generalitat and was recognised as such by
Catalan political forces.
The present structure of political power in Catalonia was defined basically by
the 1979 Statute of Autonomy and by the political institutions of the
Generalitat de Catalunya.
Unlike the institutions of the other Autonomous Communities in Spain, the
Generalitat de Catalunya was not created after the adoption of the new Spanish
Constitution in 1978, but was “restored” in 1977 prior to the adoption of the
Constitution.
