Catalan Nationalism: Key Events & Movements

María Cristina Messages

María Cristina Messages refer to the autonomic claims of bias given to Maria Cristina by members of the League in 1888, coinciding with the Governor's visit to Barcelona and Maria Cristina due to the Exposición Universal. This campaign for Catalan Civil Law had significant resonance throughout Catalonia.

Catalan Center

The Catalan Center was a Catalanist organization that emerged from Congress in 1882. It integrated both the Federalists and the moderate, apolitical group of the Renaixença. Its goal was essentially patriotic: the defense of Catalan particularity, avoiding political classification. Its secondment involved the Catalan bourgeoisie in the political project, aiming to create a power bloc that would displace the hegemony of Spain's ruling classes, who controlled the political parties of the Restoration system.

Memorial de Greuges

Also called Memoria en defensa de los intereses morales y materiales de Cata (Memorial in Defense of the Moral and Material Interests of Catalonia), the Memorial de Greuges was a manifesto promoted by A. Valentí during the Second Catalan Congress (1883). It reflected the unease of Catalanist ideologues toward Spanish dynastic parties, free-trade policies, and Spain's attempts to suppress the Catalan language and culture. It was delivered to King Alfonso XII in 1885, highlighting the tensions with Spanish politics.

Solidaritat Catalana

Solidaritat Catalana was a coalition of all Catalanist political forces. It sought to project, in the political field, the pluralistic nature of Catalan culture in a non-partisan sense. However, the heterogeneity of ideologies and the interventionist League caused this attempt to fail.

Jurisdiction Act

The Jurisdiction Act was a law passed by the dynastic parties stipulating that any offense against the army or the country would be judged by a military court.

Commonwealth of Catalonia

The Commonwealth of Catalonia was an organism with tax-collecting powers and resources from the four provincial councils of Catalonia. It became the main award from the Catalan self-government, achieved after the Nueva Planta Decree.

Tivoli Program

The Tivoli Program was the election program of all the Catalan nationalist forces of the Catalan Solidarity coalition. It called for the repeal of the Law of Jurisdictions and for self-government for Catalonia.

Vigatanisme

Vigatanisme was an intellectual movement driven by cultural and religious institutions in the city of Vic. The Church's aims were against the secular Catalanism of Valentí Almirall.

Closure of Cases

The Closure of Cases was a protest movement in which Catalan traders and manufacturers refused to pay a series of extraordinary taxes after the defeat of 1898.