The National Day that shook Catalonia 125 years ago

BarcelonaThere are days that mark a before and an after in political and social terms. And the Eleventh of September 1901, 125 years ago now, was a turning point for a holiday that was navigating in irrelevance but that gained momentum due to the arrests following a floral offering at the monument to Rafael Casanova. "Without the events of 1901, there would be no modern independence movement," emphasizes Oriol Falguera, president of the Reeixida Foundation, in conversation with ARA. This organization, in fact, celebrated the anniversary of the first combative Diada last week at the Museum of History of Catalonia and this Thursday at an event in the Parliament with the president of the chamber, Josep Rull, which was attended by relatives of those arrested during that Diada. Furthermore, this Eleventh of September, at 11 p.m., Reeixida recreated the events with people dressed in period clothing and relatives of those arrested through the streets of Barcelona.

Historian Fermí Rubiralta points out to this newspaper that, "until 1901, the celebration of the Diada was a very minority thing and without political transcendence." "It began with masses for the fallen in Barcelona in 1714, and on the eve of the Eleventh of September, Catalanist entities would explain what had happened and make the offering at the statue of Rafael Casanova," he adds. Since 1886, the mass has been led by the Spiritual League of the Mother of God of Montserrat, but the political leap came at the hands of radical Catalanists, because until then, the celebration of the Corpus de Sang to commemorate the Catalan revolt in the Reapers' War against Castile, which was also lost in 1652, was more prominent.

The context of 1901 is important: with the Spanish loss of Cuba, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico being very recent, Catalanism had won the elections with the Candidacy of the Four Presidents, presented by the Lliga. "On the night of the Diada, some young Catalanists approached to place laurel wreaths on the last chief councilor of Barcelona, but there was a night watchman and a plainclothes policeman who, when they saw it, whistled. The young people did not flee because they believed they were doing nothing illegal and were arrested," maintains Rubiralta. Among those who were arrested at first and those who would be when they went to complain about the arrest of their colleagues at the civil government, there were 23 young people aged 15 to 30, including the secretary of the Catalanist Union, Lluís Marsans. Also sent to the dungeon was the writer Josep Maria Folch i Torres, who would put into writing the account of the arrests with the police argument that it was an "illegal meeting and an attack against the integrity of the fatherland".

The arrested individuals experienced with epic flair what the police intended to be a "humiliation" when they were taken to prison through the streets early in the morning "so that people would see the handcuffed Catalanists". "But they entered singing Els segadors and it had a great repercussion on civil society," highlights Rubiralta. So much so that a demonstration was called on September 15, which the detainees were able to attend because they had been released two days earlier, and more than 10,000 people gathered there.

Change of slope

"This politicizes something inconsequential" and triggers the creation of the Catalanist Group La Reixa, which could be joined by "imprisoned or persecuted Catalanists," he maintains. According to the historian, it included "the most radicalized young people of the Catalanist Union, and it is the origin of an initial independence movement." The creator of the estelada, Vicenç Albert Ballester, would be a part of it and would organize the 1908 Diada, in which there were once again arrests. Folch i Torres, who directed the weekly La Tralla, also had to go into exile in 1905 after dedicating a commemorative issue to the independence of Cuba.

"From 1901 onwards, the Eleventh of September gained momentum with the political demonstrations of the 1910s and 1923 with Primo de Rivera, in which there were police charges, until Francesc Macià declared it a National Day during the Republic," he comments, adding that "under the Franco regime it was a day marked in red, like May 1st."

The high political content from 1901 onwards, however, has still not been taken into sufficient account: attendees at last week's event were stunned to find that the history museum does not include an explanation of these key events for the Diades and the independence movement. One of the grandsons of Alfons Solà, one of those arrested, had made arrangements with some politicians for the commemoration of the anniversary that did not prosper. Rull, however, did attend the call by Reeixida.