Borja de Riquer: "The term 'Crown of Aragon' is an invention of historians."

BarcelonaBorja de Riquer (Barcelona, 1945) has directed the collective work The memory of the Catalans, published by Edicions 62. It has 1,000 pages divided into 221 sections written by 136 authors. It weighs a kilo and a half. It is a monumental book, which eschews essentialism and seeks to explain the country's changing identity forged over a thousand years of history. Characters, landscapes, traditions, monuments, events, and dates are at the foundation of collective memory.

Does this work condense two struggles: one against forgetting, against forgetting, and an internal struggle over how memory is constructed?

— It's a historiographical necessity to explain the process of identity construction and the memories that arise from it: we speak of a plurality of memories. There is one history, but there are many memories.

Please explain the difference.

— History is what professionals construct from concrete evidence, documents, written or oral testimony, and verified and reviewed data. It is always provisional and debatable. Memory is plural; everyone has their own, depending on their social origin, where they live, their family, personal choices, etc., or how they perceive belonging to a certain country. The Catalan case is complex; it is a country that has sometimes had strong institutions, sometimes not, or has had weak ones. Therefore, government policies justifying and explaining the country have fluctuated.

Enzo Traverso talks about weak memory and strong memory. Is the Catalans' memory weak?

— It is weak because it is that of a nation without a state.

Is Catalonia's strength and weakness its plurality?

— I think so. Josep Termes said that Catalonia is a miracle. I don't believe in miracles, but it's obvious that, and that Josep Fontana He explained it very well, it is a spectacular case, even in Europe, of a country that at certain times had great institutions, they were taken away, and yet it has ended up constructing, based on memories and different types of discourses, signs of identity that have endured a lot.

When it came to shaping the identity of Catalans, Fontana placed greater emphasis on the conception of law, on laws, than on language.

— I don't entirely agree. Language was already taken for granted. Until well into the 18th century, only Catalan was spoken in Catalonia, and educated people also spoke Spanish, French, and Latin. The problem began throughout the 18th century, when the state attempted to impose Spanish. A process of combat and diglossia then began. In the 19th century, the Renaixença (Spanish Renaissance) was essential for language as a factor of identity. It was a battle against officialdom. In fact, many of the signs and symbols here had to be disseminated and constructed against officialdom. Often in very unequal competition.

As a reaction to the independence process and globalization, are we suffering from a kind of identity inflammation?

— It would be a mistake to focus on nostalgia. Our society is changing a lot. Two million people live in Catalonia who were not born in Spain; they are the new Catalans of the 21st century. This is the reality. Faced with this, you can neither live off nostalgia nor renounce your heritage. Catalonia faces the challenge of remaining one people.

Are we falling into the fatalism of disappearance?

— The primary family language in Catalonia today is Spanish, far more than Catalan, which doesn't mean they don't know Catalan. And we face absolutely unfair competition in the media and on social media.

How is 21st-century immigration reflected in the book?

— It's difficult to place it as memory. It's a present reality.

Jaume I, Macià, Companys... How did you choose your characters?

— It wasn't easy. But above all, it was about seeing which ones have been mythologized and how they have infiltrated personal and collective memory. It examines myths and legends.

Do we find the keys to the construction of identity in the explanation of mythologizations? In some cases, such as the Timbaler del Bruc, the battle for the narrative is evident.

— Of course, there has been a Catalan memory and a Spanish one. The Timbaler has not only been a symbol of resistance against the French occupation, but also a patriotic symbol. But Spanish or Catalan patriotic? Here comes the debate.

The same thing happened a bit with General Joan Prim, didn't it?

— There's a Prim from the African War, a Moor-killer. But there's also the one who became the first Catalan to become president of the Spanish government and promulgate a democratic Constitution.

And the one who bombed Barcelona.

— Yes, in 1843. And then he crushed the subordination of the Quintas in the Gràcia neighborhood in 1870. Prim's memory emerges from all this. There are those who vindicate him and those who vilify him.

He is one of the figures honored in the gallery of illustrious Catalans.

— A gallery created in 1871 by Barcelona City Council, originally located in the Saló de Cent, has now been housed for 50 years in the Palau Recasens, home to the Academy of Fine Arts.

Academy that you preside over.

— The gallery reflected the memory policy of the Catalan capital. A biased choice, of course, for example because it has 46 men and only two women. Those who are there are just as relevant as those who aren't. And they are civilian figures, not monarchs or presidents, something that wasn't common at the time.

A century later, during the Transition, the notion of "universal Catalans" took root.

— Yes, popular votes were even held. Another way to build memory.

Which Catalan politicians of the last 50 years will remain in popular memory? Anyone else besides Tarradellas, Pujol, and Maragall?

— They are the most prominent, although they are contradictory figures. Unfortunately, I don't think many more will remain in the public's memory.

A memory in which there have always been two sides? Austrianists and Butiflers, Carlists and liberals, republicans and monarchists, Francoists and anti-Francoists...

— There is a duality of memories. Aside from conflicts from outside, it has been and is an internally conflictive and plural country. This has created fractures, each with its own imaginary. Masters and peasants, bourgeois and workers... It's a very diverse society, and although we have widely accepted reference points, there are also divisions, which is normal. It happens everywhere.

A contradictory date: October 1st. For decades, it was celebrated as the Day of the Caudillo. In 2017, everything changed.

— When I was a child, school didn't start until October 2nd; vacation ended on the Day of the Caudillo (Feast of the Caudillo). Today, more than 50 towns and cities have a square or street dedicated to the day of the independence referendum. It's significant that it's not October 27th, the day of its proclamation.

September 11 and April 23. Which date best describes or represents Catalan society?

— They are very different. The first is a defeat. It claims to have had power seized by force. Book Day began to be celebrated in October in the 1920s and was moved to Sant Jordi in 1931, just after the Republic was proclaimed. That was a celebration: patriotic, republican, springtime. Generalitat, books, and roses.

And it continued under Franco.

— They didn't dare to change it.

Let's go back for a moment, to the Crown of Aragon.

— In medieval times, it wasn't called that. When James I went to Aragon, he was the King of Aragon. When he entered Catalonia, he was the Count of Barcelona. And when he went to Valencia, he was the King of Valencia. It wasn't until the 16th and 17th centuries that the term began to take shape. Crown of Aragon In the historiographical field. It is an invention of historians. In the 19th century, to prevent documentation from leaving for Madrid, the idea of the Archive of the Crown of Aragon was advocated.

Empúries, Montserrat and Ripoll are some of the emblematic places or territories.

— Empúries represents the Mediterranean and the connection to Greco-Roman roots. Montserrat represents ancient and popular spirituality, as well as the natural and scenic element. And Ripoll, the birthplace of Catalonia: the counts are buried there. Poblet, with its royal tombs, is the continuation of Ripoll. It's symptomatic that the kings didn't choose Barcelona, but rather New Catalonia.

Monuments build memory. Many Franco supporters—not all—have retired. The statue of slave trader Antonio López has also been removed.

— Antonio López wasn't a slave trader, but he was a buyer and seller of slaves. He was the richest man in Catalonia, but when he died, he left nothing in his will, neither in the city of Barcelona nor in any Catalan town. He left it in Comillas. It seems like the case of someone uprooted, doesn't it? So, what does the country owe him? The very wealthy banker Manuel Girona left the money in his will to finish the façade of Barcelona Cathedral. And the city honors him with a street.

More names that are still alive, in this case from the literary explosion of the turn of the 19th to the 20th century: Guimerà, Verdaguer, Maragall...

— They are a consequence of the Renaixença. They are emblematic, the great creators of a mythology, a narrative. At the same time as he creates myths, Verdaguer will end up being mythologized. He is the great poet of Atlantis, he Canigou, he VirolaiAnd there is also Father Cinto, the controversial man, punished by the bishop but embraced by the people.

Are today's popular myths more ephemeral and volatile? Journalists, chefs, footballers, influencers...

— It's a sign of the times. Who remembers the footballers Samitier or Zamora today? But everyone will remember Messi because of his huge media exposure.

Bullfighting was a very Catalan element, with important and ancient bullrings like those in Olot and Figueres. And with the bullfighting races that still exist.

— Bullfighting was very popular, especially in the 19th century. Barcelona once had three bullrings operating simultaneously: El Torín (in Barceloneta), Las Arenas, and La Monumental. The National Liberal militia held bullfights in El Torín to raise money during the years of conflict with the Carlists.

What will your next book be?

— The correspondence between Francesc Cambó and Joan Ventosa y Calvell during the Civil War. More than 200 letters. They discuss what Catalonia should have been like under Franco. And then, with Josep M. Salrach and Joaquim Albareda, we want to summarize the history of Catalonia in English, for foreigners.