Strange companions of revolutionary nationalism. The conspiracy of Catalan separatism and radical Spanish nationalists against Marshal Joffre

Abstract

This article is based on an apparently impossible assumption: the collaboration between marginal individuals of Catalan separatism and Lerrouxism to perpetrate a chimerical attack against French Marshal Joseph Joffre on his visit to Barcelona to preside the 1920 Jocs Florals event. Regarding its preparation, the authors propose how the traditional interpretation of Catalan political and social reality was not limited to the simple confrontation between right and left and among nationalisms, but that the game of alliances and friendships in their political substratum was a lot more complex than traditionally revealed by Catalan and Spanish historiography. The context in which the conspiracy takes place is marked by the crisis of the liberal state model and the emergence of different nationalist and revolutionary bets in Europe, which had in common a horizon of civil servant promotion that allowed the meeting of two political movements with seemingly disparate political motivations.