National stereotypes and images of power at the Barcelona Universal Exhibition 1888: “honor and pride of Spain”

Abstract

The Barcelona Universal Exhibition of 1888 consolidated not only the catalan identity, but also a political, economical and intellectual nationwide double-purpose project. At the same time that it legitimated the spanish monarchy and strengthened the territorial unity under its government, it tried to extrapolate the liberal and capitalistic idealization of Barcelona and Cataluña on the rest of the country. To accomplish that objective it was necessary to remove the different stereotypes that already existed among the spanish regions. The catalan model is seen then as the only way to recover the ancient international prestige of Spain and that’s because Barcelona in 1888 is synonymous with the occidental notion of Progress that the Universal Exhibitions used to celebrate.