From literary “revival” to political nationalism? A comparison between the Catalan and Basque-speaking territories (1850-‍1900)

Abstract

With a comparative perspective, this paper studies the origins of the concepts Renaixença and Pizkunde and holds two complementary theses. First, the “revivals” of the Catalan and Basque languages took place within the Spanish (and French) nation-building process. Regionalism (and its variants) is one of the possible ways of nationalization and, in the second half of the 19th century, Catalans and Basques were not the only ones who conceived of Spain as a multilingual nation. And second, the transition from cultural to political claims is the exception rather than the rule. Amongst the studied examples, only in Catalonia (and with many nuances) can some continuity be detected between “revival” and nationalism. In the other Catalan-speaking areas, local identity continues to manifest itself in provincial or regional terms, not in national terms. On the other hand, in the Basque-speaking countries, political nationalism emerged autonomously from the literary “revival” in the Basque language. In addition to industrialization and the attitude of the elites, the sociolinguistic situation in origin, the persistence (or not) of the institutions of the Ancien Régime, and the influences of similar movements in other countries are factors that have determined the history of these territories and, therefore, they should be taken into account when establishing historiographical models.