Identities on the Move (Identities / Identités / Identidades) 9783034312967, 9783035107029, 3034312962

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FLOCEL SABATÉ is professor in Medieval History and head of the Institute for Research into Identities and Society (University of Lleida, Catalonia, Spain). He served as invited professor in universities such as Paris-1, Poitiers, ENS-Lettres et Sciences (Lyon), Universidad Nacional de Mexico or Yale, and led international research projects from European institutions such as the European Science Foundation or Marie Curie Actions. He belongs to more than fifty boards for scientific journals and series and has written more than three hundred research works, including different books about medieval society.

ISBN 978-3-0343-1296-7

www.peterlang.com

VOL

1

PETER LANG

FLOCEL SABATÉ (ed.) IDENTITIES ON THE MOVE

This book contains selected papers from the meetings “To think the Identity” and “Identities on the move” held in the Institute for Research into Identities and Society (University of Lleida) during 2010. The aim is to understand the reasons that allow social cohesion throughout the creation of identities and its adaptation. Identity is individual and collective, momentary and secular, apparently contradictory terms that can only coexist and fructify if they entail a constant adaptation. Thus, in a changing world, the identities are always on the move and the continuity of society requires a permanent move. Values, Culture, Language and History show the societies in permanent evolution, and demand an interdisciplinary perspective for studying. Attending this scope, outstanding historians, sociologists, linguistics and scientists offer here a diachronic and interdisciplinary approach to this phenomenon: how men and women have been combining the identity and the move in order to feel save into a social life from Middle Ages to current days, and how different items, in our present society, built the framework of identities.

FLOCEL SABATÉ (ed.)

IDENTITIES ON THE MOVE

Identities. An interdisciplinary approach to the roots of present Identités. Une approche interdisciplinaire aux racines du présent Identidades. Una aproximación interdisciplinar a las raíces del presente

FLOCEL SABATÉ is professor in Medieval History and head of the Institute for Research into Identities and Society (University of Lleida, Catalonia, Spain). He served as invited professor in universities such as Paris-1, Poitiers, ENS-Lettres et Sciences (Lyon), Universidad Nacional de Mexico or Yale, and led international research projects from European institutions such as the European Science Foundation or Marie Curie Actions. He belongs to more than fifty boards for scientific journals and series and has written more than three hundred research works, including different books about medieval society.

VOL

1

PETER LANG

FLOCEL SABATÉ (ed.) IDENTITIES ON THE MOVE

This book contains selected papers from the meetings “To think the Identity” and “Identities on the move” held in the Institute for Research into Identities and Society (University of Lleida) during 2010. The aim is to understand the reasons that allow social cohesion throughout the creation of identities and its adaptation. Identity is individual and collective, momentary and secular, apparently contradictory terms that can only coexist and fructify if they entail a constant adaptation. Thus, in a changing world, the identities are always on the move and the continuity of society requires a permanent move. Values, Culture, Language and History show the societies in permanent evolution, and demand an interdisciplinary perspective for studying. Attending this scope, outstanding historians, sociologists, linguistics and scientists offer here a diachronic and interdisciplinary approach to this phenomenon: how men and women have been combining the identity and the move in order to feel save into a social life from Middle Ages to current days, and how different items, in our present society, built the framework of identities.

FLOCEL SABATÉ (ed.)

IDENTITIES ON THE MOVE

Identities. An interdisciplinary approach to the roots of present Identités. Une approche interdisciplinaire aux racines du présent Identidades. Una aproximación interdisciplinar a las raíces del presente

IDENTITIES ON THE MOVE

Identities. An interdisciplinary approach to the roots of present Identités. Une approche interdisciplinaire aux racines du présent Identidades. Una aproximación interdisciplinar a las raíces del presente

Vol. 1

Editorial Board: – Flocel Sabaté (Editor) (Institut for Research into Identities and Society, Universitat de Lleida) – Paul Aubert (Aix Marselle Université) – Patrick Geary (University of California, Los Angeles) – Susan Reisz (Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú) – Maria Saur (London University)

PETER LANG Bern · Berlin · Bruxelles · Frankfurt am Main · New York · Oxford · Wien

FLOCEL SABATÉ (ed.)

IDENTITIES ON THE MOVE

PETER LANG Bern · Berlin · Bruxelles · Frankfurt am Main · New York · Oxford · Wien

Bibliographic information published by die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at ‹http://dnb.d-nb.de›. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data: A catalogue record for this book is available from The British Library, Great Britain Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: A catalogue record for this book is available

Institute for Research into Identities and Society. University of Lleida ISBN 978-3-0343-1296-7 pb. ISSN 2296-3537 pb.

ISBN 978-3-0351-0702-9 eBook ISSN 2296-3545 eBook

© Peter Lang AG, International Academic Publishers, Bern 2014 Hochfeldstrasse 32, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland [email protected], www.peterlang.com All rights reserved. All parts of this publication are protected by copyright. Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution. This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems. Printed in Switzerland

Contents

Flocel SABATÉ Identities on the move . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Felicitas SCHMIEDER Travelling in the Orbis Christianus and beyond (Thirteenth – Fifteenth Century): What makes the difference? . . . 41 Lesley TWOMEY De aquestes raons de la Senyora, los apòstols e Magdalena e les altres dones prengueren molta consolació: Establishing Female Identity through the Virgin’s words in the Vita Christi of Sor Isabel de Villena . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Gérard NAHON Les juifs portugais à Recife 1630-1654. Un modèle évanescent? . . 75 Kaspars KLAVINS Le tracé de l’identité européenne de l’Espagne aux Pays Baltes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 Juan Sisinio PÉREZ The construction of Spanish national identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Paul AUBERT Spain /France: Reciprocal Images during the Restoration Period (1875–1931) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 Caroline BARRERA Identities on the Move, Foreign and Colonial Students in France (XIX century – 1960s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 Joaquim CAPDEVILA, Teresa SERÉS and Sònia RUBIÓ Literature and Shows of Modern Customs in Catalan. Ethnotypism and the creation of some modern imaginary of popular catalanity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199

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Montserrat ROSER Questions of artistic and personal identity in the interwar poetry of J. V. Foix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267 Josep M. FIGUERES Exile in Mexico and Catalan identity. Catalonia in the imaginarium of first generation exiles in Mexico (1939-2005) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279 Maria Carme FIGUEROLA Malika Mokeddem or the Recreation of a New Mestization . . . . 303 Pere SOLÀ “In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong” by Amin Maalouf; a reflection on the notion of identity . . . . . . . . 317 Joan JULIÀ-MUNÉ Will Major Languages Ruin Minor Languages? English and Chinese vs. Catalan and Occitan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331 M. Carme JUNYENT Languages, links and identities in a society on the move . . . . . . . 355 Teresa SALA, Lluís SAMPER and Xavier BURRIAL Changing rural identity. Discourses on rurality in catalan schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367 Roberta MAIERHOFER Aging as Continuity and Change: Age as Personal and Social Transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387 Jorge WAGENSBERG Individuals in front of individualities: an identities’ conflict . . . . 403 Hugh O’DONNELL Talking the talk? Language and Identity in the European Soap Opera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433 Daniel-Henri PAGEAUX L’imagologie face à la question de l’identité . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455

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Thibault COURCELLE Quelle identité européenne? Sentiments d’appartenance et représentations de l’Europe en mouvement dans la construction européenne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467 Maria SAUR Multi-culturalism or Many-colours-ism. The ‘Colours’ of the Presidents Obama and Khama . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487 Michel WIEVIORKA Les mutations du racisme contemporain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503

Identities on the move Flocel SABATÉ Universitat de Lleida

Identity has become a leading subject of research in the humanities and social sciences, thus moving the epicentre of scientific interest to the catalyzing term of the axes that articulate social cohesion and, at the same time, the relation with otherness. Identity is individual and collective, momentary and secular, apparently contradictory term that can only coexist and fructify if they entail a constant adaptation. So, identity claims to strengthen cohesion through appealing to permanence and the continuity, even though these are only upheld by adaptation and renovation. In short, identities on the move.

1. The mirage of national identity The déclaration des droits de l’Homme et du citoyen from the 26th of August 1789 begins as a declaration by les représentants du Peuple français, contitués en Assemblée nationale.1 Similarly, in 1776, the representatives of the thirteen United States of America based their declaration of independence from the Crown of Great Britain on the “Right of the People”.2 These expressions of a sovereign collective will were taken as a true turning point from earlier times when the inhabitants assumed their role as mere subjects of the sovereign. In fact, immediately the collective identity, under the national expression, was nothing more than an attempt to strengthen itself by adopting the appropriate symbology. If the first clause of the 1791 French 1 2

Ferdinand Mélin-Soucramanien, Les Constitutions de la France de la Révolution à la IV République (Paris: Éditions Dalloz, 2009), p. 1. < http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document.>.

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constitution indicated that il sera établi des fêtes nationales pour conserver le souvenir de la Révolution française, entretenir la fraternité entre les citoyens, et les attacher à la Constitution, à la patrie et aux lois,3 all the 19th century was a succession in search of elements of memory to preserve the common identity.4 The national pantheons,5 the national museums,6 the national archives7 or the national symbology expressed by the building of numerous monuments embedded in the landscape,8 were no less than an attempt to articulate and maintain a story of national identity, with specific attention to the shared imaginary,9 an identity that was born in the distant past and became progressively strongers. Therefore, surrounded by paintings in the staterooms in the Historic Museum of Versailles in 1835, Victor Schoelcher could exclaim, l’Histoire est la chose importante, l’occupation du siècle.10 In fact, since Herder it has been assumed that the collective identity extends through time, thanks to a specific force that vivifies a soul strongly defined by language and humanistic creation, to such an extent that there is no citizenship without this previous national identity.11 As a historic route, the collective identity can enjoy not only a begin3 4

5

6 7

8 9 10 11

Ferdinand Mélin-Soucramanien, Les Constitutions de la France de la Révolution…, p. 7. See, as an example, the Spanish case: Inman Fox, La invención de España (Madrid: Cátedra, 1997); Juan Pedro Quiñonero, De la inexistencia de España (Madrid: Editorial Tecnos, 1998); José Álvarez, Mater Dolorosa. La idea de España en el siglo XIX (Madrid: Taurus, 2001). Pierre Chevalier, Daniel Rabreau, Le Panthéon, symbole des revolutions (Paris: Caisse Nationale des Monuments Historiques et des Sites, 1989); José María Rodríguez, “El sueño del Panteón Nacional”, Historia de Iberia Vieja, 39 (2008), pp. 66–75. Pierre Géal, La naissance des musées d’art en Espagne (XVIII e–XIX e siècles) (Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 2005). Flocel Sabaté, “Documentation médiévale et archives en Catalogne après les bouleversements du 21e siècle”, Revolution and Archives (Moscow: Moscow State University, forthcoming). Jean Reynal, Les symboles de les République en Pays catalan (Perpignan: Éditions Trabucaire, 2007), pp. 10–77. Béatrice Fontanel, Daniel Wolfromm, Quand les artistes peignaient l’Histoire de France (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 2002). Marie-Claude Chaudonneret, “Peintre et Histoire dans les années 1820–1830”, L’Histoire au musée, (Arles: Actes Sud, 2004), p. 127. Adriana Rodríguez, Identidad lingüística y nación cultural (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva – Ediciones de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 2008).

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ning but a clear teleology, as it is experienced by an America sure of sharing a Manifest Destiny.12 The cohesive traits and arguments invoked 13 will vary depending on the area,14 but in all cases they move towards the cohesion of collective identities under the invocation of the nation.15 All individuals take part in an ideal identity shared and backed up by the historical memory which, in order to strengthen the indelibly shared traits, incorporates an alleged common tradition16 and a heroic memory, concordant with the aspired popular affiliation, that often more than kings and noble, recalls bourgeois and the simple people who shared these common ideals in the past.17 Therefore, in all the cases, the individual is included in a national identity which not only deserves, but also can demand all the respects, including the supreme sacrifice of one’s own life. The Horatian maxim dulce et decorum pro patria mori18 becomes the supreme currency of cohesion. The landscapes is filled with monuments that strengthen the common unit by remembering those who died for the ideal of the nation, as in the United States immediately after the Civil War,19 in France during the transition from the 19th to the 20th century following the growing remembrance of the Franco-Prussian War, and in Great Britain with the roles of honour erected in memory of those fallen in the Boer War. 12 13 14 15 16 17

18 19

William H. Goetzmann, New lands, new men. America and the second great age of Discovery (New York: Viking, 1986), pp. 298–342. Adrian Hastings, The Construction of Nationhood. Ethnicity, Religion and Nationalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). Anne-Marie Thiesse, La création des identités nationales. Europe XVIIIe–XIXe siècle (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 2001). Timothy Baycroft, Mark Hewitson, eds., What is a nation? Europe 1789–1914 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). Llorenç Prats, El mite de la tradició popular (Barcelona: Edicions 62, 1988). In Portugal, for example, “A madeira de Aljubarrota” will be promoted: Maria Cristina Gomes Pimenta, A Madeira de Aljubarrota, entre ontem e hoje (Aljubarrota: Fundaçao Batalhoa de Aljubarrota, 2007), pp. 42–43. Q. Horatii Flacii, Opera ad Fidem optimorum exemplarium castigata (London: Whitaket et soc., 1830), p. 56. Willliam C. “Jack” Davis, Civil War Parks. The story behind the scenary (Wickenburg: Kc Publications, 2011), p. 8. Although the Northamerican case has specific connotations because it will not be immediately remembered as a confrontation between two nations but rather as a Civil War that requires reconciliation: David W. Blight, Race and Reunion. The Civil War in American Memory (Cambridge – London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2001).

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The tensions in the first half of the 20th century consolidated the invocations of the national cohesion. The new order established after the First World War was even presented as a liberation of the nations20 such as the ones in Central European.21 However, at this stage one can imagine other transversal vectors with which to try and rally society. This is the challenge that the more utopian approaches channeled, presented not as an escape route but rather as a real place in which to organize harmonious societies,22 just as had been claimed for when new lands (and peoples) appeared.23 Very significantly, the utopian roots in the late-medieval proposals24 and in the Renaissance expressions25 about ideal cities26, not by chance, but rather because the city was then envisaged as the social structure par excellence.27 With full continuity, the 19th century’s challenges made it easier to rewrite the utopia to provide new vectors with which to articulate the social identity.28 The ideal of cohesion had to be centred on the society. This is the reason why it was so easy for a utopian proposal to adapt specific socialist proposals for cohesion.29 20 21

22 23 24

25 26 27 28 29

Elizabeth Wiskemann, La Europa de los dictadores 1919–1945 (Madrid: Siglo Veintiuno editores, 1984), pp. 12–22. The memories of the contemporaries such as Soma Morgenstern commented with naturality that, under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, en Austria había un total de once naciones, regretting that the Jewish was not stated between them [Soma Morgenstern, En otro tiempo. Años de juventud en Galitzia oriental (Barcelona: Editorial Minúscula, 2005)], p. 388. Flocel Sabaté, “Utopies i alternatives de vida a l’edat mitjana”, Utopies i alternatives de vida a l’edat mitjana, Flocel Sabaté, ed. (Lleida: Pagès Editors, 2009), pp. 9–31. Flocel Sabaté, Fin del mundo y Nuevo mundo (Mexico: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 2011). Antonio Antelo, “La ciudad ideal según fray Francesc Eiximenis y Rodrigo Sánchez de Arévalo”, La ciudad hispánica durante los siglos XIII al XVI (Madrid: Editorial de la Universidad Complutense, 1985), pp. 19–50. Patrick Boucheron, “De la ville idéale à l’utopie urbaine: Filarete et l’urbanisme à Milan au temps des Sforza”, Les Cahiers de Fontenay, 69–70 (1993), pp. 53–80. Francisco Fernández, Utopías e ilusiones naturales (Barcelona: El Viejo Topo, 2007), pp. 21–120. François Choay, L’urbanisme, utopies et réalités. Une anthologie (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1965). José María Carandell, Las utopías (Barcelona: Salvat editores, 1974), pp. 81–122. Fernando Ainsa, La reconstrucción de la utopía (Buenos Aires: Ediciones del Sol, 1999), pp. 49–68.

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The socialist approaches formally renewed the vector of cohesion, which was not orientated towards preserving and perpetuating the perennial national identity, but rather towards the solidarity of social class.30 Although, in the places where real socialism has been put into practice, actually, the social and political structures have not respected this vector of cohesion.31 Invocations of the national have even been grafted onto this, as a sort of “national-communism”.32 This evolution could have been facilitated by the identification between nation and state and by the temptation to the usurp the use of this, as Benedict Anderson comments, precisely due to the contradiction which the ideal socialist societies fall into, […] le modèle du nationalisme officiel n’est jamais plus pertinent qu’au moment où les révolutionnaires parviennent à s’emparer de l’État, et où, pour la première fois, ils sont en position d’user de ses pouvoirs au service de leurs visions.33

Assuming this validity and permanence of national identity, Caspar Hirschi recently has asked himself about the roots, especially in the German case. His conclusions do not point to the formulations in the 18th and 19th centuries but rather to other deeper ones, situated between Ancient Rome and the end of the Modern Era, used precisely as a legacy brought down to the contemporary centuries. Hence, he can conclude that, “Nationalism […] was created and cherished by major and minor political thinkers who lived in Western European countries between the fifteenth and the twentieth centuries”.34 The question that arises is clear: maybe the subjects of the Ancient Regime were not mere subjects, was there not a series of shared identities in each territory, which they felt part of?

30 31 32 33 34

Régis Meyran, Le mythe de l’identité nacionale (Paris: Berg International Éditeurs, 2009), pp. 107–129. Francisco Arbell, Los colosos socialistas (Barcelona: Editorial Planeta – Editora Nacional, 1976), p. 91. Anne-Marie Thiesse, La création des identités…, pp. 277–284. Benedict Anderson, L’imagine sur l’origine et l’essor du nationalism (Paris: La Découverte, 2002), p. 163. Caspar Hirschi, The Origins of Nationalism. An Alternative History from Ancient Rome to Early Modern Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), p. 219.

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2. The human being in a collective identity Actually, if one wants to perceive the globality of the path, the term should not be nationalism but rather collective identity. The truth is that the human being has never been alone, and only acquires a meaning from their social insertion. Membership of a group precedes individuality. In the Middle Ages, a human being was certainly never alone: he was always part of a feudal link, of a municipal solidarity, of an urban group.35 For this reason the answers were never individual: in case of grievances not solved by the ordinary justice, the juridical order would apply legal mechanisms so one could proceed against any member of the accused group, by seizing property36 or even with an armed intervention by the popular militias.37 This state was already well known by the historiography about the medieval period, which had insisted on the intensity of the social and territorial solidarities. These, on the Middle Ages, not only had shaped the society and the suitable space for the men and women but had determined all the facets of the power38. Very significantly, the historiography had also noted that social, ecclesiastical, local and any other kind of associations, belong, during the late Middle Ages, to a participative models, well justified by the philosophical and theological meanings39. Within this background, the solidarity of the group was preferred to the legal guarantees of the growing state structures. The governments, assisted by their Romanist jurists and the Church had to work hard to repeat, during the late medieval centuries, as in the Catalan town of Valls in 1357, that

35 36 37 38 39

Flocel Sabaté, “Els bàndols com a solidaritat en la societat urbana baixmedieval”, Afers. Fulls de recerca i pensament, 13/30 (1998), pp. 457– 472. Joaquim Miret i Sans, “Les represàlies a Catalunya a l’edat mitjana”, Revista Jurídica de Catalunya, 31 (1925), pp. 289–304 and 385–417. Flocel Sabaté, El sometent a la Catalunya medieval (Barcelona: Rafael Dalmau editor, 2007). Susan Reynolds, Kingdoms and Communities in Western Europe, 900–1300 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994). Pierre Michaud-Quantin, Universitas. Expressions du mouvement communautaire dans le Moyen Age latin (Paris: Livrairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1970).

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[…] per ço són possats los senyors per les ciutats, per les viles e per los calls e.ls són dades les rendes per tal que deffenen los lurs sotmesos e façen justícia als mals faytor, car hivaç seria espatgat lo món si los uns se podien pendre venjança dels altres, que no sperasen senyor qui u fes.40

As the bishop of Vic remarked in 1345, the divine order wants the differences to be submitted to the auctoritatem iuris vel iudicis.41 So, it is intended that people go through the ordinary legal system, which is guaranteed by the sovereign, instead of trusting in the solidarity of the group. However, the reason why the authority enjoys this power is found in the pact between the prince and the population, as we have shown was so spontaneously stated in the small town of Valls during the middle years of the 14th century: taxation was not based on mere obedience to the lord but rather because he, in return, would offer protection and justice. The medieval power was defined as a pact between the lord and the respective group. In fact, group solidarities were part of the anthropological structure of medieval society. So, the rulers did not try to eliminate them, but rather to appease the tensions they caused and channel them to areas of their domain. The municipal governments would try to impose truces and peace and the sovereign governments would claim to hold a supreme position, as guarantors of peace.42 The concatenation of circles of solidarity was seen as the best combination from the point of view of the power: one moves according to the band one belongs to, but at the same time the members of different bands shared the same solidarity as citizens. Also, even if they sometimes confronted each other, various places shared the same solidarity because they were part of the same jurisdiction. These jurisdictions should concatenate under a common sovereign. The fixing of the frontiers between monarchies throws up clear examples: traditionally many Catalan centres had links with the monastery of La Grassa,43 naturally generating a mixing of 40 41 42

43

Arxiu Comarcal de l’Alt Camp, pergamins, núm. 84. Arxiu Comarcal de l’Urgell, pergamins, 1345. Flocel Sabaté, “Les factions dans la vie urbaine de la Catalogne du XIVe siècle”, Histoire et archéologie des terres catalanes au Moyen Âge, Philippe Sénac, ed. (Perpignan: Presses Universitaires de Perpignan, 1995), pp. 339–365. Josep Maria Salrach, “Memòria, poder i devoció: donacions catalanes a La Grassa (segles IX–XII)”, Histoire et archéologie des terres…, pp. 103–118.

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clergy from different origins. At the end of the 13th century, Ramon Muntaner believed this to be dangerous, because the territories belonged to different monarchies: los senyors d’Espanya farien gran saviesa que en llur terra no soferissen que hagués prelat si llur natural no era. This was clear in 1285, because during the invasion by the King of France, the clergy born on his territory would join his side despite living in Catalan lands, telling the French King: senyor, jo e aquests altres monges som naturals de vostra terra e naturals vostres.44 The goal of the sovereign was to organise the feudal monarchies so that the king occupied the peak of the feudal pyramid, and at the same time, the monarchies would be national, so only one sovereign ruled over the members of a nation.45 The medieval nation was an identity, not a political identity but rather a cultural one: the citizens of a nation were those who shared everyday attitudes and common cultural practices. In the 14th century, when Francesc Eiximenis compared the Catalan nation to the others, he pointed out different collective behaviour in such insignificant and everyday aspects, as the Catalans […] tallen la carn netament e polida, guardant-li lo tall qui és varieja per diverses carns en diverses maneres, e la mengen en tallador netament. E les altres nacions, així com a franceses, alemanys, angleses e itàlics, ne fan trossos,

and la nació catalana en son menjar comú e en sos convits ha covinent vi e d’aquell pren covinentment sens excés comunament or that la nació catalana era eximpli de totes les altres gents cristianes en menjar honest e en temprat beure, in contrast to […] altres nacions van a menjar ab gran brogit e mengen ab gran gatzara e ab poc nodriment or even that les altres nacions quan serveixen a menjar mostren la carn, així com castellans o portugaleses, o mostren les anques nues car les llurs faldes són fort curtes, axí com se fan los franceses, car així mateix amaguen la cara ab lo caperó estret.46

44 45 46

Ramon Muntaner, Crònica, chapter CXXII, [Les quatre grans cròniques, ed. Ferran Soldevila (Barcelona: Editorial Selecta, 1983), p. 779]. Léopold Genicot, Europa en el siglo XIII (Barcelona: Editorial Labor, 1976), pp. 93–130. Francesc Eiximenis, Terç del Crestià, chapter 372 [Lo Crestià. Selection, ed. Albert Hauf (Barcelona: Edicions 62 – La Caixa, 1983), pp. 147–148].

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Of all the cultural traits, the main identifier was the language: nation, people, and language mixed together easily. In 1471, the Bishop of Girona, Joan Margarit demonstrated this when talking about gents e nations castellans, portuguesos, francesos, gascons, tudeschs, prohensals, ytalians e a totes altres lengües e pobles.47 Since the end of the 13th century, this identification between language and nation has led to exhibitions of “linguistic nationalism”. This, in a clear way, led to the imposition of English as the language of the Kingdom of England, to the detriment of the regional languages, especially of the more prestigious French. Language, therefore, stands out of among the everyday traits that define the group and that facilitate the acceptance of small elements that establish differences with the neighbouring otherness.48 The reiterative invocation of the Hundred Years’ War for the national cohesion of England and France entailed the mutual identification of the respective cultural and linguistic traits, in a way proof against the confrontation with the other.49 The cultural items shared a common feeling. King Peter the Ceremonious surprised that the Judge of Arborea in Sardinia have revolted against him because this he was educated in Catalonia and thus learned to amar la nostra nació50. Hence, during the Late Middle Ages the external perception of collective identities was strengthened, as was a corresponding internal awareness at the same time. It is coherent that Christian ethics relate justice and the common good (ipsa iustitia legalis est determinata virtus habens speciem de hoc quod intendit ad bonum commune in Thomas Aquinas’ words51) and, in fact, the 13th century supposed an important intellectual reflection about the common good.52 As the same Thomas 47 48 49 50 51 52

Francesc Carreras i Candi, Pere Joan Ferrer, militar y senior del Maresme (Barcelona: Imprempta La Renaixensa, 1892), p. 104. Philippe Contamine, Au temps de la guerre de Cent Ans. France et Angleterre (Paris: Hachette, 1994), pp. 20–24. Jean Michelet, Histoire de France, book IX, chapter III [ed. Claude Mettra (Lausanne: Rencontre, s. d.), vol. 4, p. 77]. Ricard Albert, Joan Gassiot, Parlaments a les corts catalanes (Barcelona: Els nostres clàssics, 1928), p. 38. William Ferree, The Act of Social Justice (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 1943), p. 20. Matthew. S. Kempshall, The common good in late Medieval Political Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).

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Aquinas continues, bonum commune melius est quam bonum particulare unius; substrahendum est igitur bonum particulare ut conservetur bonum comune.53 Through the Romanist jurists, the argument identifying the common good and the public good spread, because profit públic val mes que privat.54 Thus transformed into justification of the political positioning, throughout the Late Middle Ages the common good was explicitly invoked by kings,55 nobles56 and, especially, the communal governments.57 While for the first two, the reference to the common good was especially rooted in their own virtues, in the end, they based the legitimacy of power on the Christian duty of applying the government and imparting justice,58 for the municipal groups it was linked to the assumption of their own collective personality.59 Certainly, Roman law,60 Aristotelianism61 and Late Middle-Age Christianity62 established a collective social vision, where the appropriate place for the human being was communities such as the urban 53 54 55 56

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59 60 61

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Thomas Aquinas, Suma contra los gentiles, book III, chapter CXIVI. [(Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 2007), vol. 2, p. 515]. Pere Albert, “Commemoracions”, Usatges de Barcelona i Commemoracions de Pere Albert (Barcelona: Editorial Barcino, 1933), p. 187. José Manuel Nieto, “La realeza”, Orígenes de la monarquía hispánica: propaganda y legitimación (ca. 1400–1520) (Madrid: Dykinson, 1999), p. 40. The nobles should act pour le grand bien du royaulme, so, that means bien Public [Philippe de Commynes, Mémoires (Paris: Société d’édition ‘Les Belles Lettres, 1964), vol. 1, p. 55]. Elodie Lecuppre-Desjardin, Anne-Laure Van Bruaene, eds., De Bono Communi. The Discourse and Practice of the Common Good in the European City (13th –16th c.) (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010). Arie Johan Vanderjagt, ‘Qui sa vertu anoblist’. The Concepts of ‘noblesse’ and ‘chose publicque’ in Burgundian Political Thought (Groningen: Jean Mièlot, 1981); Michel Senellart, Les arts de gouverner. Du regimen medieval au concept de gouvernement (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1995). Dieter Mertens, Il pensiero politico medievale (Bologna: il Mulino, 1999), pp. 111– 113. Walter Ullmann, “The Medieval Theory of Legal and Illegal Organisations”, Law Quartely Review, 60 (1944), pp. 285–291. Bénédicte Sère, “Aristote et le bien commun au Moyen Âge: une histoire, une historiographie”, Revue Française d’Histoire des Idees Politiques, 32 (2010), pp. 277–292. José Coblin, Francisco Javier Calvo, Teología de la ciudad (Estella: Editorial Verbo Divino, 1972), pp. 287–288.

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ones,63 giving a new meaning to the classical tradition.64 By understanding these as natural and originary entities, it was assumed that they had arisen early in the origin of the world and, therefore, the consensus between the members of a group was the origin of power, which, by agreement, was yielded to the corresponding prince, and not the other way round. Authors such as Baldus de Ubaldo65 or Marsilio de Padova66 based this collective power, with some ideas that reached all the levels of society, on the work of mendicants such as the Franciscans, who supported the Christian market economy so characteristic of the urban Late Middle Ages.67 Francesc Eiximenis, the great influence in the Crown of Aragon, is clear when stating that, […] cascuna comunitat per son bon estament e per son millor viure elegís viure sots senyoria, que cascun pot presumir que cascuna comunitat féu ab sa pròpia senyoria patis e convencions proffitosos e honorables per si matexa principalment, e aprés que aquell o per aquells a qui donà la potestat de son regiment.

There is no doubt that the primacy is situated in the group and not in the lordship: car la comunitat no alagí senyoria per amor del regidor, mas elegí regidor per amor de si matexa.68 So, there is a clear political duality, including the fact the parliaments stopped being an assembly of subjects that assisted the respective lord but became a representative chamber of the estates against the

63

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65 66 67 68

Paolo Evangelisti, “A la place du bonheur: Batir le bien commun et la prosperite de la res publica. La litterature de consilia de la couronne catalano-aragonaise”, Revue Française d’Histoire des Idees Politiques, 32 (2010), pp. 339–358. Nihil est enim illi principi deo, qui omnem mundum regit, quod quidem in terris fiat, acceptius Quam concilia coetusque hominum iure sociati, quae civitates appellantur [Marcus Tulius Cicero, De re publica (Madrid-Valencia: Editorial Bello, 1958), p. 132]. Joseph Canning, The political thought of Baldus de Ubaldis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). Bernardo Bayona, Religión y poder. Marsilio de Padua: ¿La primera teoría laica del Estado? (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2007). Giacomo Todeschini, Richesse franciscaine. De la pauvreté volontaire à la société de marché (Paris: Verdier, 2008). Francesc Eiximenis, Dotzè llibre del Crestià, chapter CLVI [Dotze Llibre del Crestià. Primera part, volum primer, ed. Xavier Renedo (Girona: Diputació de Girona – Universitat de Girona, 2005), p. 338].

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king.69 The duality was formulated explicitly. In Castile in 1479 it was said that entre el rey y el reino calladamente está fecho un contrato, por el cual cada uno dellos está obligado a conplir aquellas cosas a que el derecho le obliga.70 Thus the kingdom had an identity of its own, owed to the population or, in other words, based on the land. This is exactly the term that was expressively used in one of the most emblematic cases, that of the Crown of Aragon. Here, a monarch with little income and jurisdiction, was unable to compensate for his weakness with preeminent regal discourses71, and had to give concessions to the estates. These, not only looked after their own group but presented a joint front, claiming to represent the land, the terra and concerned about the whole country lo general.72 After 1365 the duality was recognised explicitly with the consolidation of a permanent representative institution, the Diputacions del General linked to each of the three territories of the Crown (Catalonia, Aragon and Valencia), a kind of permanent and stable representation of the courts and as duality of government, presenting themselves before the king in the name of the terra.73 This duality was the true heritage of the Middle Ages. After this, there was a struggle around Europe under different parameters between the mixed monarchy (from the duality of the king and the country) and moving towards absolutist formulas.74 Hence, there was no teleologi69 70

71 72

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Antony Black, El pensamiento político en Europa 1250–1450 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 252–286. Ana Isabel Carrasco, “‘Entre el rey y el reino calladamente está fecho un contrato’. Fundamentos contractuales de la monarquía Trastámara en Castilla en el siglo XV”, Avant le contrat social. Le contrat politique dans l’Occident medieval (XIIIe–XVe), François Foronda, ed. (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2011), pp. 613– 652. Flocel Sabaté, “Discurs i estratègies del poder reial a Catalunya al segle XIV”, Anuario de Estudios Medievales, 25 (1995), pp. 617– 646. Flocel Sabaté, “L’idéel politique et la nation catalane. La terre, le roi et le mythe des origines”, Les vecteurs de l’idéel. Le pouvoir symbolique entre Moyen Âge et Renaissance, Jean-Philippe Genet, ed. (Roma: École française de Rome, forthcoming). Maria Teresa Ferrer, Els orígens de la Generalitat de Catalunya (1359–1413) (Barcelona: Departament de la Vicepresidència de la Generalitat de Catalunya, 2009); José Ángel Sesma, “La fijación de fronteras económicas entre los estados de la Corona de Aragón”, Aragón en la Edad Media, 5 (1983), pp. 141–163. Marie Gaille-Nikodimov, ed., Le Gouvernement mixte. De l’idéal politique au monstre constitutionnel en Europe (XIIIe–XVII e siècle) (Saint-Étienne: Publications de l’Université de Saint-Étienne Jean Monet, 2005).

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cal movement towards the Europe of the absolutist monarchies, but rather various possibilities of structuring around participative formulas,75 continuing the medieval approach that based coexistence on a pact between the groups with power.76 The political approach also affects the specific relation between the individuals and the social group, because the relation between the individual and society conditions the political understanding and practice. Under the medieval perception, the community was the intrinsic and natural place for the human being, in line with the Aristotelian À”¼´ÃW»”¾¹ˆ”¾: citizen man, if translated literally.77 If the city is one of the natural elements, as Aristotle explicitly stated78 and as the medieval social model developed, the human being only has the reason for being in the “common good”. The values and symbology inherent to group pertinence continued in the centuries following the Middle Ages.79 It could not be otherwise given the dynamism of the estates, municipal entities, religious brotherhoods and trade guilds, among others, continuing the structuring and collective perception of society.80 However, the medieval roots of thought, which only conceived the human being inside a group, contrasts with the image that has lasted through the modern centuries that opposes the individual and the state.81 The latter will seek power identified with princes who fulfil their claim to achieve discourses and governmental means to guarantee not only the pact but also the submission of the citizens.82 Thus, things moved towards power

75 76 77 78 79 80

81 82

António M. Hespanha, Vísperas de Leviatán (Madrid: Taurus, 1989), pp. 19–37. Flocel Sabaté, “Idees de pau a l’edat mitjana”, Idees de pau a l’edat mitjana, Flocel Sabaté, ed (Lleida: Pagès editors, 2010), pp. 7–24. Aristoteles, Política (Madrid: Centro de Estudios constitucionales, 1983), p. 3. )J *C ?6C:GnC nI> I°C ?JH:>   EnA>0 ^HI¼, Aristoteles, Política…, p. 3. Paolo Prodi, Valerio Marchetti, eds., Problemi di identità tra Medioevo ed Età Moderna (Bologna: Clueb, 2001). Barbara B. Diefendorf, Carla Hesse, eds., Culture and Identity in Early Modern Europe (1500–1800). Essays in honor of N. Z. Davis (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1993). Josep Olives, “Del pactisme medieval al contractualisme moderns”, Finestrelles, 6 (1994), pp. 238–239. Maurizio Viroli, From politics to reason of state. The acquisition and transformation of the language of politics, 1250–1600 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).

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in the style of Leviathan,83 where sacrifices of individual freedom become necessary to make coexistence possible,84 as both liberal and socialist currents would later accept.85 However, through different ways, at the end of the 18th century, there was an experience of community life. This meant that everything that happened from that moment on would not be a simple outpouring of the discovery of the group, referred to as the nation, which would substitute cohesion based on loyally following the monarch, but was rather the end of a long conceptual way. This set of reasons has been constantly renewed, through resources built around identity, justifying this by a specific memory, and linking this with a certain ideology.

3. The human being in society: Identity, memory and ideology Between the 12th and 15th centuries the progressive awareness of the individual identity was highlighted.86 By the 12th century, the renovation spread by the acceptance of Roman law provided the legal elements that singularised the individual, including his rights, duties and responsibilities,87 coinciding with a clear individualised formulation in troubadour poetry88 or in the emerging novel.89 The religious reform 83 84 85

86 87 88 89

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan . Ferdinand Tönnies, Vida y doctrina de Thomas Hobbes (Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1932), pp. 306–307. Numerous current approaches show a contradiction between the State and the individual: the first would not be the collective expression of individual identity but would rather mean giving up, more or less voluntarily, on the second (amongst other examples: Clint Bolick, Leviathan, The Growth of local government and the erosion of liberty (Stanford: Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University, 2004). Caroline Walker, “Did the Twelfth century Discover the individual?”, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 31 (1980), pp. 1–17. Walter Ullmann, The Individual and Society in the Middle Ages (Baltimore: The John Hopkins Press, 1966). Colin Morris, The Discovery of the Individual: 1050–1200 (New York – London: Harper – Row, 1972). Jean Charles Payen, Franciscus Nicolaas Maria Diekstra, Le roman (Turnhout: Brepols, 1975).

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followed the same evolution. This is shown by the 4th Lateran council in 1215, when the annual individual confession was explicitly imposed, with all that implied in terms of the acceptance of conscience and individual responsibility.90 The scholastic reflections and spiritual practices went deeper into the individual’s definition, perception, responsibility and capacity.91 At the same time, the medieval mystics opened explicit ways towards a clear mirada interior,92 concordant with the evolution in the Late Middle Ages. So, here we can appreciate, in a wide experiential range, the forming of individual attitudes,93 as expressed literally94 and the way these were reflected on the attitudes imposed on religion95 and artistic creation, well reflected on the treatment of authorship.96 Thus, the individual definition was globally well assumed, which implies an assumption of the body and the soul,97 giving significance to the gesture and the appearance,98 in assimilation of cultural and literary99 references. The set allows the conscious assumption of les marqueurs de l’individuation,100 incorporating the different aspects of behaviour that

90 91

Jean Delumeau, L’aveau et le pardon (Paris: Fayard, 1990). François-Xavier Putallaz, La connaissance de soi au XIII e siècle. De Matthieu d’Aquasparta a Thierry de Freiberg (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1991). 92 Victoria Cirlot, Blanca Garí, La mirada interior. Escritoras místicas y visionarias en la Edad Media (Barcelona: Martínez Roca, 1999). 93 Jacques Le Goff, Il Meraviglioso e il quotidiano nell’Occidente medievale (RomeBari: Laterza & Figli, 1983). 94 Michel Zink, La subjectivité litteraire autour du siècle de Saint Louis (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1985). 95 Regnerus R. Post, De Modern Devotio. Confrontation with Reformation and humanism (Leiden: Brill, 1968). 96 Alain Erlande-Brendenburg, Le sacre et l’artiste. La création au moyen âge, XIV– XV (Paris: Fayard, 2000); Joaquín Yarza, Francesc Fité, eds., L’artista-artesà medieval a la Corona d’Aragó (Lleida: Institut d’Estudis Ilerdencs – Edicions de la Universitat de Lleida, 1999). 97 Caroline Walker, Metamorphosis and Identity (New York: Zone Books, 2001). 98 Ana Isabel Buescu, João Silva de Sousa, Maria Adelaide Miranda, eds., O Corpo e o gesto na Civilização medieval (Lisbon: Edições Colibri, 2006). 99 Donald Maddox, Fictions of identity in medieval France (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). 100 Brigitte Miriam Bedos-Rezak, Dominique Iogna-Prat, eds., L’individu au Moyen Âge (Paris: Aubier, 2005).

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define one’s own position in a specific social framework.101 Hence, when approaching the archaeology of the subject around the naissance du sujet, it is possible to appreciate its consolidation in the philosophical awareness102 and in the Late Middle Age experiential practice, always within a clear social context.103 The relatives, structured as a lineage,104 clearly frame the individual and immediately place him in social structures.105 The individual uses symbols that bond him to an identity group and against the otherness.106 Personal identity is only maintained through the social bond, which links ones and excludes the others. It is therefore necessary to be aware of this and remember it. Chrétien de Troyes presents the case of the knight from Leon, Porqant mes ne li sovenoit / De rien que onques eüst feite. /Les bestes par le bois agueite, / Si les ocit; et se manjue / La venison trestote crue.107 Therefore, for the human to behave as a human, he has to have a memory. All the social groups define and establish their identity by sharing signs and identity references that also are memory points. Heraldry significantly took on this function from the 12th century on. During the following centuries, it would spread to singularize all the social groups.108 The shields would clearly identify the graves, which in turn converted 101 Anita R. Riedinger, ed., “Imagining Medieval Identities”, Essays in Medieval Studies, 22 (2005) . 102 Alain de Libera, Archéologie du Sujet. Naissance du sujet (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 2007). 103 Hervé Martin, Mentalités Médiévales. II. Représentations collectives du XIe au XVe siècle (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 2001). 104 Martin Aurell, La noblesse en Ocident (Ve–XVe siècle) (Paris: Armand Colin, 1996), pp. 53–132. 105 Georges T. Beech, Monique Bourin, Pascal Chareille, eds., Personal Names Studies of Medieval Europe: Social Identity and Familial Structures (Kalamazoo: Western Michigan University, 2002). 106 Francisco Ruíz, “La ilusión de la identidad en el imaginario medieval según Las Partidas”, Edad Media. Revista de Historia, 9 (2008), pp. 249–251. 107 “He doesn’t remember anything that had done before. He pursue the beasts in the forest, and if he kills them, eats raw meat” (Chrétien de Troyes, Le Chevalier au lion (Yvain), vv. 2822–2826 ). 108 Michel Pastoreau, Traité d’Héraldique (Paris: Picard éditeur, 2003), pp. 20–58.

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certain monasteries and abbeys into places dedicated to the memory of lineages, whether royal, noble or bourgeois.109 The towns and cities of the Late Middle Ages accompanied their socio-economic development and political strengthening with signs of identity, banners and the communal seal.110 These would be shown in civic, festive and representative ceremonies, displaying, if necessary, the position of the municipality beside the prince or leading the popular militias.111 These elements contributed to establishing a common story for each solidarity unit. This tale became embedded in the history of humanity, which, at the time, coincided with the Christian history of salvation. With a lineal conception of time, where everything started when God created the world as described in Genesis and will end with the Parousia, as the Apocalypse cryptically annunciates, the human journey is reduced to following this path112. Therefore, the identitary tale should imply the memory of the earlier steps, rooted in a common beginning. The common memory will easily surface in the myth of the common origin. These are basic to outlining the destination. It is no coincidence that, at the end of the Middle Ages, there appeared many tree-shaped representations aiming at displaying the religious lineage of the saved, the governing dynasties, or the continuity, in some cases since the origin of the world, of prosperous families, nobility or bourgeoisie.113 Not only did the high medieval noble families seek to invoke Carolingian kinship, but they could also endorse that the Merovingians

109 You can see: Xavier Dectot, Les tombeaux des familles royales de la péninsule ibérique au Moyen Âge (Turnhout: Brepols, 2009). 110 Brigitte Miriam Bedos-Bezak, “Du modèle à l’immage: les signes de l’identité urbaine au Moyen Age”, Le verbe, l’image et les représentations de la société au Moyen Age. Actes du colloque international tenu à Marche-en-Famenne du 24 au 27 octobre 2001, Marc Boone, Elodie Lecuppre-desjardin, Jean- Pierre Sosson, eds. (Antwerp – Apeldoom: Garant, 2002), pp. 204–205. 111 Flocel Sabaté, “Ciudad e identidad en la Cataluña bajomedieval”, La ciudad ante su identidad. La Península Ibérica en los siglos XIII al XV (28–30 de septiembre de 2009) José Antonio Jara, ed. (Cuenca: Ediciones de la Universidad de CastillaLa Mancha, forthcoming). 112 Flocel Sabaté, Vivir y sentir en la Edad Media. El mundo visto con ojos medievales (Madrid: Anaya, 2011), pp. 37–39. 113 Christine Klaspisch-Zuber, L’ombre des ancêtres. Essai sur l’imaginaire médiéval de la parenté (Paris: Fayard, 2000).

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were descended from Priam, King of Troy,114 or as in the 14th century, Jean d’Arras could state that the Anjous, Berrys and Lusignans were descended from the fairy Melusina, fulfilling the prediction made to her, de toy viendra moult noble lignée qui sera grande et de haulte proesse115, and how numerous cities claimed to have been born in foundations that linked them to Troy or, even more, to Rome.116 The implications of these origins were sometimes immediate, as the reinforcement of the monarch of Leon117 and, later, by the Castilian king118 in his involvement with the Visigoth kings. Another implication is the linking of the sovereign of the Crown of Aragon to origins in the Emperor Charlemagne.119 In any case, noble origins ornament and unite society, which is why in a beginning there are heroes, as in William Tell’s Switzerland,120 brave ancestors, as in Sweden,121 or good rulers, as in Denmark.122 Origins that are not suitable for the intended dignity are explicitly rejected: in 1458 Pius II stated that los húngaros estableci114 Martin Aurell, La noblesse en Ocident …, p. 46. 115 Jean d’Arras, Melusine (Paris: P. Jammet libraire, 1854), p. 23. 116 Arnold Esch, “L’uso dell’antico nell’ideologia papale, imperiale e comunale”, Roma antica nel Medioevo. Mito, rappresentazioni, sopravvivenze nella ‘republica Christiana’ dei secoli IX–XII. Atti della quattordicesima Settimana internazionale di Studio. Mendola, 24–28 agosto 1990 (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 2001), pp. 3–25. 117 Thomas Deswarte, De la destruction à la restauration. L’idéologie du royaume d’Oviedo-León (VIII e–XI e siècles) (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003). 118 Patrice Henriet, “L’espace et le temps hispaniques vus et construits par les clercs (IXe–XIIIe siècle)”, A la recherche de légitimités chrétiennes. Répresentations de l’espace et du temps Dans l’Espagne médiévale (IX–XIII e) (Lyon – Madrid: École normale Supérieure – Casa de Velázquez, 2003), pp. 98–100. 119 Nikolas Jaspert, “Historiografía y legitimización carolingia. El monasterio de Ripoll, el pseudo-Turpín y los condes de Barcelona”, El Pseudo-Turpin, lazo entre el Culto Jacobeo y el Culto de Carlomagno. Actas del VI Congreso Internacional de Estudios Jacobeos, Klaus Herbers, coord. (Santiago de Compostela: Xunta de Galicia, 2003), pp. 297–315. 120 Chevalier de Florian, William Tell or Switzerland delivered (London: James Watson, 1836). 121 Peter Hallberg, “Forntidssagor om kungar och hjältar av” Den Svenska historien. I Fran stenalder Hill vikingatid (Estocolmo: Bonnier Lexikon, 1998), pp. 182–183. 122 Dan igitur et Angul, a quibus Danorum coepit origo, patre Humblo procreati, non solum conditores gentes nostrae verum etiam rectore fuere [Saxonis Grammatici, Historia Danica, eds. Petrus Erasmus Müller, Johannes Matthias Velschow (Copenhagen: Librariae Gyldenlianae, 1839), vol. 1, p. 21].

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dos en la ribera del Danubio son nación escítica, no descendiente de los hunos como algunos han creído por la afinidad de sus nombres.123 It is clear that without memory there is no common history, and without common history, if it can be followed since the origins, there is no unit of destiny. Linking unity and a cohesive historical story, we reach the conclusion by Bernard Guenée about the narrations since the 12th century, “the historians were who created the nations; there are any nation without national history”124 All tales have key interpretative arguments. The function of the medieval Church, as a depository of culture and memory, implied, at the same time, the administration of the worldview and the social order.125 The access to the consciences guarantees efficiency, as the Church proclaims and transmits, ‘Coms’, ditz lo Cardenals, ‘santa Gleiza’us somon / Que non aiatz temensa ni mala sopeison, / Que’ela a poder que’us tola e ha poder que’us don / e poder que.us defenda e poder que.us perdon;/ e si bé la sirvetz auretz ne gazerdon.126

The Church’s leadership was based in its adaptability, which was not opportunism but rather the intellectual capacity to assimilate every era’s stimuli with an adequate ideological response. The theory of the three orders that rule the feudal system comes from the heart of the Church.127 Centuries later the same happen with the Christian social model of the market.128 The concepts evolved chronologically in practice. At the end 123 Lorenzo Hervás, Catálogo de las lenguas de las naciones conocidas (Madrid: Imprenta del Real Arbitrio de Beneficencia, 1802), vol. 3, pp. 189–190. 124 Bernard Guenée, Occidente durante los siglos XIV y XV. Los Estados (Barcelona: Editorial Labor, 1973), p. 65. 125 William R. Cook, Ronald B. Herzman, La visión medieval del mundo (Barcelona: Editorial Vicens-Vives, 1985). 126 Chanson de the croisade albigoise (Paris: Les Belles Lettres – Librairie Générale Française, 1989), p. 458. 127 George Duby, Les trois ordres ou l’imaginaire du féodalisme (Paris: Gallimard, 1978). 128 Giacomo Todeschini, “Ordini i mendicanti e linguaggio etico-politico”, Etica e politica: le teoria dei frati mendicanti nel due e trecento. Atti del XXVI Convengo internazonale (Assisi, 15–17 ottobre, 1989 (Spoletto: Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 1999), pp. 3–27; Giacomo Todeschini, “Participer au bien Commun: la notion franciscaine d’appartenance à la ‘civitas’”, De Bono Communi. The Discourse and Practice of the Common good in the European City (13th–16th c.), Elodie Lecuppredesjardin, Anne-Laure Van Bruane, dirs. (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), pp. 225–236.

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of the 12th century in Lleida there was talk about un diable lo qual en semblanza de mercader se n’entra en una ciutat e procurava aquí tot mal que podia,129 but, at the end of the same century in Paris, we are reminded that Sainte Yglise premierement / fu par Marchéanz establie.130 At the same time the contemporary Ramon Llull showed the merchant as a model for living who, once his offspring are established, donates his wealth to the poor and passes onto a contemplative life,131 while century later, the Franciscan Eiximenis emphasised that among all the lay people, the merchants were those who nostre Senyor Déu los fa misericòrdia especial en mort e en vida per lo gran profit que fan a la cosa pública.132 Similarly in the Modern Era, the new ideological vectors covered the new socioeconomic challenges in the leading European countries of the time, as the historiography has shown, especially since Max Weber.133 Significantly, the 16th and 17th centuries are full of falsifications that endorsed the deep-rooted position of religious orders134 or lineages135. As Julio Caro Baroja wrote about the Spain at the time, various reasons lead to the falsification of the past, […] se mezcla una fe ardiente, unas ambiciones personales de tipo nobiliario, el peso de los prejuicios respecto a la pureza o limpieza de sangre, amor inmenso por la ciudad natal, patriotismo hispánico y erudición extensa, pero no crítica.136 129 Antoni Maria Parramon, Miracles de la Verge Maria (Lleida: Instituto de Estudios Ilerdencs, 1976), p. 42. 130 Anatole de Montaiglin, Gaston Reynaud, Recuil général et complet des fabliaux des XIII e et XIV e siècles (Paris: Librairie des Bibliophiles, 1877), vol. 2, p. 124. 131 Ramon Llull, Llibre d’Evast e Blanquerna (Barcelona: Edicions 62 – La Caixa, 1987), pp. 31–54. 132 Francesc Eiximenis, Dotzè del Crestià, chapter CCCLXXXI, pp. 223–224. 133 Max Weber, Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus (Munchen: Verlag C. H. Bech, 2004). 134 Jaume Riera, “La doble falsificación de la portadilla de un incunable (Hain 12433)”, Revista de Llibreria Antiquària, 10 (1985), pp. 1–2; Flocel Sabaté, “Los premostratenses: creación del orden e inicial expansión ibérica”, Entre el claustro y el mundo. Canónigos regulares y monjes premostratenses en la Edad Media, José Ángel García de Cortázar, Ramón Teja, eds. (Aguilar de Campoo: Fundación Santa María la Real, 2009), p. 130. 135 Josep Fernández, Una família catalana medieval. Els Bell-lloc de Girona, 1267– 1533 (Barcelona: Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat, 1995), pp. 33–34. 136 Julio Caro, Las falsificaciones de la historia (en relación con la de España) (Barcelona: Seix Barral, 1992), p. 191.

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One way or another, it is remembered that recalling a historical memory, even if it may be false or recreated, is the basis for building identity, for both the group and the individual. Identity, memory and ideology have therefore built the common roots in the West. And if we are able to overcome Western ethnocentrism, we will perceive similar behaviours in all human societies, not only because of the reiteration of common mythical origins in the research137 but also because, even in different societies, it is possible to appreciate hierarchical and social stratification mechanisms that appeal, in some way or another, to identity and comprehensive explanations about globality.138 Thus, the segmentation from the identities fragments all societies, but their apparent solidity entails justifying or ideological formulas of adaptability, which guarantee their continuity. So, we can assume that all social identities are always on the move.

4. Identities are always on the move The continuity invoked by the discourses that are intended to sustain the various identities is balanced, therefore, by a reality adapted to the stimuli of each moment. As we have seen, the historical invocation shows identity as a monolithic reference that remarks the continuity from the origins, although a mere historical glance highlights the power of adaptation of the various ideologies as a guarantee of permanence, which actually entails remaking the justifying discourses to the tune of the new stimuli. The retention of power is situated, hence, in the capacity to adapt these discourses. 137 Miguel León-Portilla, “Mitos de los orígenes en Mesoamérica”, Arqueología Mexicana, 10/56 (2002), p. 25. 138 Lucien Levy-Bruhl, Alma primitiva (Madrid: Sarpe, 1985), pp. 185–202; Rada DysonHudson, Eric Alden Smith, “Territorialidad humana: una reconsideración ecológica”, Cultura y ecología en las sociedades primitivas, María Jesús Buxó, ed. (Barcelona: Editorial Mitre, 1983), pp. 151–185; Andrew P. Vayda, “Guerra y paz en Nueva Guinea”, Cultura y ecología en las sociedades primitives…, pp. 187–221; Nicolas Peterson, “El totemismo ayer: sentimiento y organización local entre los aborígenes australianos”, Cultura y ecología en las sociedades primitives…, pp. 257–288.

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Precisely, the consolidation of identity has conduced to a specific outcome in the 20th century. The first half of the century confront an ideological dispute between identities that involved specific visions of the destiny of the world139, which led to a conflict of dramatic consequences. It was not only devastating but there also meant a loss of confidence in the human being140 to the discredit of paradigms of social and national cohesion141 and even paving the way to a new banal framework that not indifferent to pain.142 This rupture led to the recovery of the personal identities’ value, so ignored during the preceding decades,143 when it was only desired with a prophetic fear of a dark future, as Roger E. Lacombe confessed in 1937, […] il suffirait que la pensée personnelle survive en quelques esprits, il suffirait même qu’elle reste enfermée en quelques livres, échappés aux bûchers des dictatures, pour qu’en un lontain avenir une renaissance soit possible.144

At the same time ways for valuing the subject were opened,145 that is, of the person in themselves, the subject, during the second half of the 20th century, had to have to accentuate their ability to coexist, just at the moment when the improved techniques impose an acceleration in the exchange of information and a multiplication of contacts, that is to say, leading to a challenge for apparently diverse identities to live in increasing proximity. One believes we are living through an acceleration de l’histoire, as Halévy wrote in 1948,146 driven by what Robert Escarpit, 139 See Spengler’s calls to the German assume their destiny: Oswald Spengler, Años decisivos (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1934). 140 Richard Bauckman, “Theology after Hiroshima”, Scottish Journal of Theology, 38 (1985), pp. 583–601. 141 Stefan Berger, “Towards a Global History of National Historiographies”, Writing the nation. A global perspective, Stefan Berger, ed. (Basingstoke – New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), p. 13. 142 Adriano Fabris, “Metáforas y símbolos del mal en la modernidad”, El mal: irradiación y fascinación, Félix Duque, ed. (Barcelona-Murcia: Universidad de Murcia – Ediciones del Serbal, 1993), pp. 160–162. 143 Norman Stone, La Europa transformada 1878–1919 (Madrid: Siglo Veintiuno editores, 1985), p. 442 144 Roger E. Lacombe, Déclin de l’individualisme? (Paris: Éditions Denoël, 1937), p. 296. 145 Àngel Castiñeira, Àmbits de la Posstmodernitat (ámbit de la reconstrucció del subjecte) (Barcelona: Columna, 1986). 146 Daniel Halévy, Essai sur l’accélération de l’histoire (Paris: Éditions Self, 1948).

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in one of his short press releases in 1961, defined as le survoltage des circuits d’information, le dépassement des limites de sécurité au-delà des quelles l’ésprit éclate sous la pression de l’évenement.147 How is it possible to impose power on this society? If there is an increase in the contacts and, consequently, of the knowledge, there will soon arise the urge to control the circulation of ideas. This can attempting through controlling the information, as in the world predicted by George Orwell,148 or, on the contrary, the main strategy can be focused on an excess of information, which will trivialize, even discretely, everything really important, as Aldous Huxley envisaged.149 In fact, the avalanche of information, the new technical facilities and the acceleration of all kinds of exchanges started narrowing a world in the second half of the 20th century. Those who experienced it were aware of witnessing a process that promoted the masses to the elite and that grouped modernisation, secularisation and a growing proximity in all aspects: economy, values, communication, etc.150 Everything is lived more rapidly in a concatenated way: the spread of ideas, the transmission of events, and as a corollary to this, the revolutionary effects are immediate, in contrast with what could happen with the media in earlier centuries.151 A dense network is woven, which not only allows the establishment of a permanent exchange of information on a worldwide scale, as a true global village, in Marshall McLuhan’s famous expression,152 but also causes a growing mixing, i. e. that everything interrelates and comes together. A true single world economy is achieved,153 at the same time as political conflict is also defined on a planetary scale.154 The evolution 147 Robert Escarpit, “Survoltage”, Le Monde (18 abril 1961), p. 1. 148 George Orwell, Animal Farm. A fairy story (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1951); George Orwell, Nineteen eighty-four (London: Penguin books, 1983). 149 Aldous Huxley, Brave New World; Brave New World revisited (New York: Harper, 2005). 150 José V. Marqués, Damián Molla, Salvador Salcedo, La sociedad actual (Barcelona: Salvat Editores, 1973). 151 Sidney Tarrow, El poder en movimiento. Los movimientos sociales, la acción colectiva y la política (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1997), pp. 313–314. 152 Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962). 153 José María Vidal, La economía mundial (Barcelona: Salvat editores, 1973), pp. 138– 140. 154 Julio Salom, La guerra fría (Barcelona: Editorial Planeta – Editora Nacional, 1975).

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during the last decade of the 20th century accelerated everything: the collapse of one of the two blocs155 opened the door to hasty declarations of global triumph.156 However, through the contradictory phenomena of order and disorder on the world stage, there is evidence of new challenges that bring a new world closer, which, in any case, will stand out for the breaking of old boundaries and development, in contrast, of the “new challenges to International Order” in which the fluidity of contacts of a membranous nature is evidenced, i. e. that they do not propose radical cuts but rather different levels of intersection in all aspects.157 Certainly, old rigidities give way to a more fluid new order in all aspects. The apparently clear old structures of social interpretation are overwhelmed by the closeness, contact and relation between heterogeneous social groups that, one way or another, are capable of claiming their own rights.158 It is not only about an interrelation – les Nations dépendent mutuellement les unes des autres à l’échelle mondiale159 – but also the self-same traits of common organization are modified. The international political order cannot continue invoking the old organisational parameters, as the European Union shows, which, from the application of the Schengen Treaty, leads to a permeability of frontiers that, in fact, breaks with the concept of frontiers and states established in Westphalia in 1648.160 Generically, the global proximity even leads 155 Alain Géledan, Transitions à l’est (Paris: Le Monde Éditions, 1995); Ricardo M. Martín, Guillermo Á. Pérez, La Unión Sociética: de la Perestroika a la desintegración (Istmo: Ediciones Istmo, 1995). 156 Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the last man (New York: The Free Press, 1992). 157 Brad Roberts, ed., Order and Dissorder after the Cold War (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1995). 158 Partha Chatterjee, La nación en tiempo heterogéneo y otros estudios subalternos (Buenos Aires: Siglo Veintiuno editores – Clacso coediciones, 2008). 159 Éric Besson, Pour la Nation (Paris: Bernard Grasset, 2009), p. 113. 160 Ronnie D. Lipschutz, “Reconstructing World Politics: The Emergence of Global Civil Society”, Millenium, 21 (1992), pp. 389–420; Gidon Gottlieb, Nation against State (New York: Council on foreign relations Press, 1993); Charles S. Maier, “Democracy and its discontents”, Foreign Affaire, 73/4 (1994), pp. 48–64; Hendrik Spruyt, The Sovereign State and Its Competitors (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994); Richard Matthews, Back to the Dark Age: World Politics in the Late Twentieth century (Washington: School of Foreign Service, 1995); Paul Hirst and Grahame Thompson, “Globalization and the Future of the Nation-State”, Economy and Society, 24/3 (1995), pp. 408–442; James Anderson, “The Shifting Stage of Politics:

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to accepting legal interferences for ideological, ethical or humanitarian reasons.161 Thus, reality, as the sociologist Manuel Castells said, has generated a “network society”162 where the essential link is the redefinition of the reference identities: the “power of identity”.163 Highlighting, once more, the non-fulfilment of the long term predictions made in earlier decades,164 the society entering the new millennium emphasized the need for humans to graft their personal identity onto the collective identity of reference, justifying this, once again, in an alleged memory accepted by a certain ideology. So, the collapse of certain ideological vectors of cohesion at the end of the 20th century has enabled others to take off, which were supposed to have been surpassed, such as nationalism165 or religious fundamentalism.166 This happens through the interaction of globality, a reason to mix the concerns of those who fear the loss of the old prevailing values,167 up to the point of attempting to shield these institutionally, (as in France with the “Ministry of Immigration and National Identity”)168 and, on the contrary, the fears of those who see minor identities threatened because globality encourages the strongest up to the point of annihilating the weaker singularities.169 One way or another, an interaction between identities is shown that also stirs up both these senses in societies that clearly have to be defined

161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169

New Medieval and Postmodern Territorialities?”, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 1 (1996), pp. 133–153. Philippe Moreau Defargues, Un mundo de ingerencias (Barcelona: edicions Bellaterra, 1999). Manuel Castells, The Information Age: Economy, society and Culture. The Rise of the Network Society (Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers, 1996). Manuel Castells, The Information Age: Economy, society and Culture. The Power of Identity (Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers, 1997). Manuel Lloris, El siglo XXI (Barcelona: Salvat editores, 1974). Eric Hobsbawm, Nations et nationalisme depuis 1780. Programme, mythe, réalité (Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1992), pp. 301–351. Régis Debray, Le Feu sacré. Fonctions du religieux (Paris: Éditions Fayard, 2003), pp. 367–451. Jean-Pierre Rioux, La France perd la mémoire. Comment un pays démissionne de son histoire (Paris: Perrin, 2006). Gérard Noiriel, À quoi sert l’identité ‘nationale’ (Marseille: Agone, 2007), pp. 115– 148. Susan George, Nous, peuples d’Europe (Paris: Librairie Arthème Fayard, 2005), pp. 27–76.

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as plural.170 La redéfinition des États-nations dans une perspective transnationale et transculturelle is gradually imposed, with the same power with which, at different levels, a société civile associationniste is imposed amongst clearly plural approaches.171 Even beyond the perception of the construction of a true multicultural citizenship,172 one can currently talk about, super-diversity.173 This modulates a society that gives new meanings to the old national, ethnic or religious references174 and that, consequently, provides a new appearance to the behaviour of each member of society.175 In fact, daily life becomes an exercise in “cultures on interaction”.176 The movement of the identities, at the pace of the accelerated contacts and with great degrees of complexity, is thus the central point for the definition and study of society.

5. The Humanities and Social Sciences before their research subject The weight of the identity, memory and ideology in the social structures ultimately remits to power. The sensible and never quite remembered expression by Lewis Carroll about “the question is which is to be master – that’s all”,177 is shown to be a true prism or “looking-glass”,

170 Diego Bermejo, ed., La identidad en sociedades plurales (Barcelona: Anthropos editorial, 2011). 171 Alain Caillé, Pour un manifeste du convivialisme (Lormont: Le bord de l’eau, 2011), p. 114. 172 Will Kymlicka, Ciudadanía multicultural (Barcelona: Ediciones Paidós, 1996). 173 Steven Vertovec, “The Emergence of super-diversity in Britain”, Researching Asylum in London, . 174 Gerd Baumann, The Multicultural Riddle (New York – London: Roudledge, 1999). 175 Zygmunt Baumann, Globalization. The Human Consequences (Cambridge – Oxford: Politty Press – Blackwell Publishers, 1998). 176 Dolors Mayoral, Mercè Tor, Cultures en interacción. La vida quotidiana (Barcelona: Edicions 62, 2009). 177 Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Looking-Glass (New York: Yearling, 1992), p. 124.

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that allows us to interpret reality. Because pursuing the power means analysing who exercises it and who suffers from it, who elaborates discourses of cohesion and who assimilates these, who attempts to establish identities and divergences and who assumes and expresses them. This framework has forced the so-called human sciences, in their necessary scientific claims, to try to avoid falling into the same traps which society moves in. Therefore, at least since the 19th century, the study of the human being and its environment has tried to focus in more objective interpretative parameters, either trying to analyse the contemporary society178 with “rules of method”179 or from attempting to look upon the past using positivist historiographic tools180 to materialist and mechanistic paradigms.181 However, these attempts could not prevent deflected interpretations that actually have justified, in many ways, the serious situations experienced by humanity during the 20th century. As Ernst Bloch warned, one invoked utopia but seemed to move towards self-destructive nihilism.182 In perspective, one realizes, for example, that the historiographic path has not stopped feeding speeches with which justify the shadows of life: suicides exemplaires, martyres, exécutions, assassinats, holocaustes.183 Consequently, the scientific capacity of the social sciences has been placed in doubt. They seem to be trapped in the most immediate circumstances of human society. Karl Popper plainly distrusted the scientific capacities of the cultivators of history because they more often seem locked into their own interpretative circle than vigilant to pursuit the reality.184 In the same way, Manuel Cruz’ sentence was clear, perseguir el conocimiento científico de la 178 Antonio Lucas, Intoducción a la sociologia (Pamplona: Ediciones Universidad de Navarra, 1979), pp. 35–50. 179 Emile Durkheim, Les Regles de la Méthode Sociologique (Paris: Publications Universitaires de France, 1981). 180 Charles-Victor Langlois, Charles Seignobos, Introduction aux études historiques (Paris: Éditions Kimé, 1992). 181 José María Bermudo, La expansión del paradigma mecanicista y el desarrollo desigual y combinado de las ciencias (Barcelona: Ediciones de la Universidad de Barcelona, 1976). 182 José María García, “Un nuevo nombre para Dios: Utopía”, Anthropos, 146–147 (1993), p. 92. 183 Benedict Anderson, L’imaginaire nacional. Réflexions sur l’orige et l’essor du nationalisme (Paris: Le Découverte, 2002), p. 206. 184 Karl R. Popper, El coneixement objectiu (Barcelona: Edicions 62, 1985), p. 304.

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historia se había convertido en un objetivo tan inútil como poco deseable.185 In the study of the interpretative axes of the present, including the comprehension of its historical roots, this apparent detour has been corrected by introducing new interpretative vectors,186 attentive to the text that comes from the past as a source,187 to the deconstruction of reality188 and to the incorporation of a wide range of attention to different parameters that articulate the social framework,189 so to resume the processes of legitimacy, validation and hierarchisation of reality.190 In this context, while it is possible on one hand to return to the bases of critical rationalism,191 on the other, attempts have been made to start the transmitting axes in which to base reality, which require a history, an archaeology and a genealogy of power, to express it in the gradation established by Foucault.192 Thus, more than following interpretative threads that, like progress itself, aim to explain the route of humanity in a more or less teleological way, the scientific analysis of society will have to seek transversal vectors that merely permit entry into the social fabric from different perspectives, to interpret it correctly. Just when in philosophic thought such authors as Wolfgang Welsch insist on the “transversal reason” as a kind of path that apprehends a reality submitted to a complex plurality,193 the analysis of social facts can take advantage of the same logic. 185 Manuel Cruz, “Imposible futuro (un ejercicio de la filosofía de la historia)”, La filosofía hoy, Javier Muguerza, Pedro Cerezo, eds. (Barcelona: Crítica, 2000), p. 333. 186 Jaume Aurell, La escritura de la memoria. De los positivismos a los postmodernismos (Valencia: Publicacions de the Universitat de València, 2005). 187 Gabrielle M. Spiegel, The Past as a Text. The Theory and Practice of Medieval Historiography (Baltimore – London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999). 188 José María Ripalda, “Derrida, Foucault y la Historia de la filosofia”, Anthropos, 93 (1989), pp. 57–63. 189 Flocel Sabaté, “Identitats”, Identitats, Flocel Sabaté, ed. (Lleida: Pagès Editors, 2012), pp. 16–21. 190 Cristina de Peretti, Jacques Derrida: texto y deconstructionn (Barcelona: Anthropos, 1989), pp. 55–104. 191 Hans Albert, Die Wissenschaft und die Fehlbarkeit der Vernunft (Tübingen: Mohr, 1982). 192 Michel Foucault, Un diálogo sobre el poder (Madrid: Alianza Editorial – Materiales SA de Estudios y Publicaciones, 1995). 193 Wolfgang Welsch, Vernunft heute – Inmitten ihrer Kritik (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1989).

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While seeking their own research subjects, the Human and Social Sciences have opted for using, as transversal interpretative vectors, the same axes which society is articulated around, although analysed with scientific accuracy and caution. That is why there has been an evolution towards the definition of an “Identity theory”,194 knowing that humanity’s journey becomes a construction of identity195 or, at least, a justified use of materials of identity.196 In the end, the human being has always been protected by the invocation of identity, with the inherent corollary of memory based on a specific ideology. Understandably, the historian Pierre Nora confessed that il m’a paru plus excitant de remplacer l’histoire des thèmes et des idées par la dissection minutieuse des objets, lieux et formules où s’était cristallisé le sentiment d’appartenance.197 Hence, adopting the study of identity as an axis of research is not reductive but rather the contrary, it leads to trying to comprehend, from its constitutive interior, les múltiples formes d’agrupació –que no poden ser classificades segons un ordre de perfecció creixent– de què s’ha dotat la humanitat al llarg dels segles, com també dels diversos sistemes simbòlics que defineixen una identitat diferenciada (natural o de gènere, per exemple) com una ‘construcció cultural’ sotmesa a variacions segons l’espai i el temps.198

So, it will be behind the gestures of identity that the social researchers will be able to perceive, often in a blurred way and under misleading forms, the reality of the men and women who not only configure society but also articulate contradictory justifying speeches, which canalize the different and opposed attitudes in society. In its polysemy, the term identity has adopted an apparent social fashion as a lure in the most varied senses. A simple glance outside the scientific areas will show us such expressions as “economy of identity” 194 Peter J. Burke, Jan E. Stets, Identity Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). 195 Josep Fontana, La construcción de la identitat (Barcelona: Editorial Base, 2005). 196 Mario Carretero, Documentos de identidad. La construcción de la memoria histórica en un mundo global (Buenos Aires: Paidós, 2007). 197 Pierre Nora, Présent, nation, mémoire (Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 2011), p. 400. 198 Agustí Colomines, Vicent S. Olmos, “La pluralitat de la història. Concepcions teòriques i praxis historiogràfiques”, Les raons del passat. Tendències historiogràfiques actuals, Agustí Colomines, Vicent S. Olmos, eds. (Catarroja – Barcelona: Editorial Afers, 1998), p. 59.

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to refer to the adaptation of the product to the individual characteristics of its receptor.199 This can be specified as “identity tourism”200 or as the search for strategies between territorial identities and economic development and the promotion of knowledge.201 The generalization and almost trivialisation of the term increases logical suspicions in scientific areas. Nevertheless, identity, as a subject of study, is an obvious and useful transversal research vector, and as such offers important possibilities for social analysis that are looking for new ways of penetration. This need is clear at the time when current society culminates the path that Joaquín Estefanía predicted for it at the beginning of the millennium and warned regarding la tendencia del poder a desplazarse desde las esferas directamente políticas hacia las económicas; el único poder que no se discute nunca es el del dinero.202 Various corollaries have derived from this, and these require study tools, because they have passed dal mercato-luogo al ciber-mercato and have generated la stratificazione delle disuguaglianze nel mondo globalizzato.203 In this situation, there is greater than ever need to delve into the axes of identity in society, including its roots and its future prospects. That is why an interdisciplinary framework linking the Human and Social Sciences is clearly necessary.

199 George A. Akerlof, Rachel E. Kranton, Identity Economics: How Our Identities Shape Our Work, Wages, and Well-Being (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010). 200 Salvador Antón Clavé, “Identitat i turisme. Entre la imatge i la percepció”, Paradigmes. Economia productiva i coneixement, 5 (2010), pp. 156–165. 201 Montse Pareja, Josep Miquel Piqué, “La identitat del territori en l’economia del coneixement”, Paradigmes. Economia productiva i coneixement, 5 (2010), pp. 182– 194. 202 Joaquín Estefanía, El poder en el mundo (Barcelona: Plaza & Janés Editores, 2000), pp. 165–166. 203 Luciano Gallino, Globalizzazione e disuguaglianze (Rome – Bari: Editore Laterza & Figli Spa, 2000).

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6. The Institute for Research on Identities and Society In 2009 the University of Lleida (Catalonia, Spain) created the Institute for Research on Identities and Society, with the intention of assuming the new challenges in research in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The new research institute brought together about a hundred researchers who had until then worked in their respective groups in different areas of the Humanities and Social Sciences: history, linguistics, language, literature, phonetics, sociology, education, etc. The interdisciplinary approach required by the new research parameters could thus be encouraged and promoted, through linking investigations that were mostly parallel. Identity was, for each of them, a transversal vector, destined to be fruitful in the interdisciplinary approach that the new centre encouraged. Proof of the vigour is the scientific meetings that took place in September and November 2010 called To think the Identity and, more specifically, Identities on the move. The aim was to contrast the respective research lines and, at the same time, propitiate a space for multidisciplinary and international debate. The meetings were attended by outstanding research figures from various disciplines and from different research centres from a wide international range. This generated an admirable contrast of different scientific cultures. The diachronic vision, multi-disciplinary approach, methodological reflection and the contrast with reality blended and propitiated a great conceptual wealth. Altogether, it had to illuminate the basic questions, which, once clarified and contrasted were to contribute to renewing the scientific analysis of society and focusing on the resolution of basic questions of the scientific work on society: what we understand by identity and how it has adapted, through time, to space and the social reality. The collection of texts gathered here originated from these works. They have arisen from the plurality, diversity and the diachronic needed to go deeper into the identities on the move, understood as a vector for improving understanding of the human being in society.

Travelling in the Orbis Christianus and beyond (Thirteenth – Fifteenth Century): What makes the difference? Felicitas SCHMIEDER Fern-Universität in Hagen

“Now on the third day after we left Soldaia, we encountered the Tartars; and when I came among them I really felt as if I were entering some other world (aliud saeculum)”1 – in 1253 the Franciscan, William of Rubruk, even felt as though he had met with demons2 when travelling among Mongols (whom he, as well as most of his fellow Latin Europeans, called Tartars) from the Crimea through Central Asia to as far as Karakorum in Mongolia. William travelled deep into regions where people looked differently, lived differently, and most importantly, had different beliefs. He could describe his impressions only in terms of opposition to his own, as entirely foreign to what he was used to – he had left the then Latin Christian Constantinople and thus the familiar Orbis Christianus – the Christian world. Being a Christian was, in the European Middle Ages, much more than adhering to a certain religion – it was the defining feature of identity, at least when Christians surveyed the whole world and all mankind. 1

2

William of Rubruk, “Itinerarium”, Sinica Franciscana, P. Anastasius van den Wyngaert, ed. (Quaracchi: Collegium S. Bonaventura, 1929), vol. 1, pp. 147–332, here I, 14, p. 171, repeated IX, 1, p. 187 [translated and commented: The mission of Friar William of Rubruck. His Journey to the court of the Great Khan Möngke 1253 – 1255, Peter Jackson, David Morgan, trans. (London: Hakluyt Society, 1990), pp. 70–71 and 97]. From the 14th c.: Jordan of Sévérac, Mirabilia, ed. and trans. Henri Cordier, Les merveilles de l’Asie par le Père Jordan de Sévérac (Paris: Librairie orientaliste P. Geuthner, 1925), p. 112): et incipit in hac prima India quasi alter mundus. When William had left behind the first bunch of Tartars, he felt like he had escaped the clutches of demons, William of Rubruk, “Itinerarium…” (N. 1, IX, 3, p. 189; transl. p. 98) and the isthmus he passed on his way North from the Crimea appears to him like one of the gates of Hell (unam portam inferni: XII, 3, p. 193, transl. p. 104).

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It meant being part of the only group of humans in possession of the ‘true faith’, which had to be defended against those from outside – a group, nevertheless, that was bound to grow and whose faith had to be spread to outsiders – until, towards the end of the world, it included all mankind. Christians were chosen by God to leave their own sphere and spread Christianity until, in the end, the Orbis terrarum, the whole round of the Earth, would become identical with the Orbis Christianus, and be an entirely Christian world. Without this, Christ would not return to the world and hold Judgement; without this, no eternal salvation. But before that could happen, the limitations to Orbis Christianus needed to be understood and overcome. Realising the extent of the limitations was essential – and became even more so when the Latin Christians experienced how very limited it really was. This was among the most important issues Latin European travellers like William of Rubruk learnt of and reported home when they could, for the first time, travel far beyond their own cultural sphere, deep into Asia. This happened in the epoch of the huge Mongol conquest lead by Cinggis Khan and his sons and grandchildren in the thirteenth century and that finally reached Latin Europe in 1241. Now for the first time, Latin Christians started to seriously reflect upon the status of their heavenly task, given by Jesus Christ himself to the apostles and to all Christians who came after them: ‘To go out and to teach all nations’3. Latin Christians became more and more aware of the realities of the Orbis terrarum: part of it was occupied by Christians, but huge parts were not. And they grew increasingly interested in what lay beyond the present borders of their Orbis Christianus. In the following, I will try to show how strongly the spiritual duty of Christianizing the whole Orbis terrarum and any reflection on its fulfilment – be it geographical, ethnographical, legal – could be intertwined with pre-modern Latin European identity. I will show how the travellers’ experiences led them to form, (and even more particularly, led those back home to form) seemingly opposing, even quite dichotomic, conclusions: their estimations could convey hopeful optimism rather than near desperation as they faced the basic Christian task of converting the whole world. But either response could have been 3

Matthew, 28, 19.

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valid, because in the present world (depending on how you counted) very few Christians could be found, and there were huge regions that were entirely foreign to Christianity, (though there were also regions worldwide that at least kept memories of a Christian past). These somewhat contrasting observations at least made one fact very clear: there was a need to newly Christianize nearly all the world as opposed to just regain lost territory. In any case, action was needed, and so this paper will focus particularly on the fifteenth century political contexts that processed the new knowledge for their planning. Already at the Council of Clermont 1095, Pope Urban II seems to have warned: ‘there had been a time when the Christians owned nearly the whole world, but today they have not only lost Asia and Africa to the infidels, but even parts of Europe’.4 Of course, this warning was not meant to spread desperation, but to move people, and the speech it was part of managed to initiate the first crusade and thus the first real big impulse to actually regain what was considered lost. At the same time, the crusades turned out to be the first huge step towards a perception of how wide the world really was. The Mongol opening up of Asia was to be the next. Consequently, travellers and people with a solid knowledge about the East repeated, in various ways, Pope Urban’s warning. The Catalan preacher for mission and crusade, Raymundus Lullus, estimated in 1294, ‘For one Christian you count 100 or more who are not Christians’5, and the Venetian, Marino Sanudo, meticulously described, in about 1320, ‘how small a space the Catholics were reduced to’ (quam breve terrarium spatium Catholici sunt reducti).6 It is rare to find among 4

5

6

The speech of Urban is not preserved in any kind of original but quoted by four contemporary authors with considerable similarities and differences: D. C. Munro, “The Speech of Pope Urban II at Clermont”, American Historical Review, 11 (1906), pp. 231–242. Ramon Lull, Petitio Raymundi pro conversione infidelium ad Coelestinum papam [1294], 5 vols., ed. Girolamo Golubovich (Quaracchi: Collegio di S. Bonaventura, 1906–1927), I [1906], pp. 373–375, especially, p. 373; Ramon Lull, Liber de fine, ed. Aloisius Madre (Turnhout: Brepols, 1981), p. 268. Marino Sanudo, “Secreta fidelium crucis”, Gesta Dei per Francos, Jacques Bongars, ed. (Hannover: Aubrius, 1611), vol. 2, pp. 1–288, and Register, repr. Jerusalem (1972), l. 1, p. 5, c. 1, p. 32. Similarily: Burchardus de Monte Sion, “Directorium ad passagium faciendum”, Recueil des historiens des croisades. Documents arméniens, 2 vols (Paris: Impression Royale, 1906), pp. 368–517, especially, 382.

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these a more optimistic voice like that of the pilgrim to Palestine in 1283, Burchard of Monte Sion: ‘many countries are conquered by Sarracens or Tartars and are counted as non-Christian – but the few infidels there are living among many Christians’.7 In the first half of the thirteenth century, the growing knowledge of the vast regions beyond Latin Christian borders made the popes, beginning with Gregory IX before 1240, realize and claim that time was running short to handle the many non-Christian peoples beyond: Cum hora iam undecima (since it is already the eleventh hour before Christ would return for Judgement) is the incipit of a series of papal bulls issued to support the missionary activities of the new Mendicant orders of the Franciscans and Dominicans. Go out, the bull of 12538 says, and do your work in Terris Saracenorum, Paganorum, Grecorum, Bulgarorum, Cumanorum, Aethiopum, Syrorum, Iberorum, Alanorum, Gazarorum, Gothorum, Zicocorum, Ruthenorum, Jacobitarum, Nubianorum, Georgianorum, Armenorum, Indorum, Mosolitorum, Tartarorum, Hungarorum Maioris Hungariae, Christianorum captivorum apud Tartaros [whose existence had made William of Rubruk travel to Asia] aliorumque 7

8

Burchard of Monte Sion, Descriptio Terrae Sanctae, ed. Johann Karl M. Laurent (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs Bibliopola, 1873), pp. 1–100, especially, pp. 90–91); Johannes III of Sultaniyah, Libellus de notitia orbis, ed. Anton Kern (Rome: Istituto storico domenicano dí S. Sabina, 1938), pp. 82–123, especially, p. 122. Vetera Monumenta historica Hungariam sacram illustrantia, Augustin Theiner, ed. (Rome: Typis Vaticanis, 1859), pp. 223–224. – Those bulls stressing the eschatological aspect were started by Pope Gregory IX. Interestingly, his second successor Innocent IV did not include the Mongols in his bull from the very year 1245 when he first sent missionaries directly to the Mongols, Bullarium Franciscanum, 7 vols., Johannes Hyacinthus Sbaralea, Conrad Eubel, eds. (Rome: S. Congregati de propaganda fidei, 1759–1904), vol. 1 (1759), pp. 360–361 (nº 80), but only in the bull of 1253 quoted above. They then appeared in all Cum-hora-bulls of the 13th century, but disappeared permanently from 1307 on [23.7.; Bullarium Franciscanum…, vol. 5, pp. 35–37 (nº 84)], the year when pope Clement V started to organize a Mongol catholic church, cited below. Felicitas Schmieder, “Cum hora undecima. The Incorporation of Asia into the Orbis christianus”, Christianizing Peoples and Converting Individuals. Proceedings of the International Medieval Congress, Leeds 1997, Guyda Armstrong, Ian N. Wood, eds. (Turnhout: Brepols, 2000), pp. 259–265; Felicitas Schmieder, “Jenseits der Peripherien. Die Päpste und die Ungläubigen außerhalb der Christianitas”, Zentrum und Netzwerk. Kirchliche Kommunikationen und Raumstrukturen im Mittelalter, Gisela Drossbach, Hans-Joachim Schmitt, eds. (Fribourg: Gruyter, 2008), pp. 329–357.

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infidelium nationum Orientis, seu quarumcumque aliarum partium. The list had become considerably longer and more specific since the first bull of the kind about fifteen years earlier, it now included pagan as well as schismatic Christian peoples, and it would be updated in the upcoming decades as increasing numbers of missionaries and other travellers acquired and processed new information. This version of the bull with its partially very specified list was issued by Pope Innocent IV who was also a great lawyer and felt the need to systematically consider the now-known extent of the missionary task ahead. In a famous commentary on the Liber Extra of the Corpus Iuris Canonici he took into account God’s whole world as his province as Pope and thus as vicar of Christ – for the moment ruled only de iure licet non de facto, by law even though not (yet) in reality.9 Yet, however the reality, in theory the Orbis terrarum was already an Orbis Christianus. While non-Christians were still being described as different and excluded, there was an attempt for the first time to somehow legally include them – and although they could not yet be really part of the inner group of true (Latin) Christians, they were at least counted as part of the papal Orbis. Alongside this inclusion a new self-confidence could arise among the missionaries: John of Monte Corvino was one of the Franciscans sent out by the Cum hora-bulls towards the end of the thirteenth century. He reached China, reported home about the conditions and successes of his preaching, and consequently he was, in 1307, made archbishop in the newly founded see at Khanbaliq, the Mongol Bejing.10 When characterizing the place of his work he stressed that ‘this country was never reached by any Apostle or a pupil of an Apostle’.11 9

10

11

Innocentius IV, Commentaria apparatus in V libros decretalium (Francofvrti ad Moenvm: per Martinvm Lechler, impensis Hieronymi Feyerabend, 1570), repr. (Frankfurt am Main: Minerva, 1968), fol. 429v–430v: X.3.34.8 (de voto), § 4, verbo compensato. The papal bull of 1307 that implemented the see, ed. in: Registres des papes du 14ème siècle: Clément V (1305–1314) publ. par les Bénédictins, 8 in 9 Bde., App. I, Index (Rome: Bibliothèques des écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome ser. 3), Rom 1885–92/1948, no. 2216. – For John and the late medieval mission in Asia in general see: Jean Richard, La papauté et les missions d’orient au Moyen Age (XIIIe– XV e siècles) (Rome: École française de Rome, 1977). Johannes von Monte Corvino, Epistolae II, 1, Sinica Francescana, p. 347 (nº 1).

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This did not only repeat, in a different way, the notion that there are huge regions in the world that are not Christian. Moreover, it put John in a very special position as an apostle himself, by emphasizing the exceptional progress achieved by him and his contemporaries – they learned of and reached regions beyond anything ever known to their ancestors, to the ancients, to even the biblical protagonists. Up until then, medieval Latin Europeans had been convinced that the apostles, by fulfilling God’s order, had actually reached every corner of the Orbis. This can be seen represented on some versions of the World Map added to the commentary on the Apocalypses by Beatus of Liébana at the end of the eleventh century (a combination that in itself shows the close connection between world mission and Endtime). On this map, the heads of the twelve apostles, representing their burial places and presumably relics, are spread all over the map, covering all the world.12 Now that the Latin Europeans had realized that there was more, and that they could reach it, new apostles were needed. John of Monte Corvino had claimed this role for himself, but was this acknowledged by anybody else? In 1449, Jean Germain, high officer at the Court of Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy and thus part of one of the most important Latin European crusade-and-mission think tanks of the time, put together his Mappemonde spirituelle (as opposed to a secular one, a mappemonde temporelle).13 He wanted to name the traces of God’s actions in every place of the known world – the Mappemonde spirituelle is indeed a survey of Christian traces all over the world. Asia, Africa, and finally 12

13

The most frequently pictured version is the map in the Osma-Beatus (0,30 × 0,38 m), see: John Williams, The illustrated Beatus. A corpus of the illustrations of the commentary on the Apocalypse, 5 vols. (London: Harvey Miller Publishers, 1994–2003), vol. 1 (1994), p. 51 (fig. 21). Also in: Die Ebstorfer Weltkarte, Birgit Hahn-Woernle, ed. (Ebstorf o. J.: Kloster Ebstorf, 1989), p. 56, and several other publications on medieval Mappae mundi. Fol. 1v in the manuscript used here: BnF, fr. 13235. – The dedication miniature in Ms. Lyon BM Ms. Palais des Arts 32, fol. 1r shows Jean, offering a Mappa Mundi to his duke: Patrick Gautier Dalché, Das leuchtende Mittelalter, Jacques Dalarun, ed. (Darmstadt: Primus, 2005), p. 45. – On the author and his work David J. Wrisley, “Situating Islamdom in Jean Germain’s Mappemonde spirituelle (1449)”, Medieval Encounters, 13 (2007), pp. 326–346; Margriet Hoogfliet, “The Medieval Texts of the 1486 Ptolemy Edition by Johann Reger of Ulm”, Imago Mundi, 54 (2002), pp. 7–18.

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Europe are identified in all their different parts by the saints who arrived there first, lived and died there – certain martyrs from the epoch of Diocletian and other pagan Roman emperors, but mostly and with a particular emphasis, the apostles: in ‘Inde la haulte [Greater India] cy est le siege du grant patriarche de ceste Inde’, and that means Saint Thomas14. Jean Germain’s geographical knowledge is very much at the top level of his time, which means that he uses both known names of the far away regions and also the newly discovered names, without an attempt to select or identify them, and thereby mixing the traditional and the new. He names Arabe and Sarracenie, but also Ydumee15, and Assyrie, Mede, and Babilonie (‘Babilonie la vielle: Cy les sains apostres symon et thadee baptizarent le roy xerxe de babilonie […]’16) are accompanied by Tartarie and Mongalie17 thus the two possible names for the Mongols known in the West. He also names the terrestrial paradise in Asia18 (Paradis terrestre) and the land of the Cannibals19 (Antropophagie). Upon reaching China (Cathay), Jean Germain notes:20 Ca(m)bilic metropolis: “Cy en la terre de tartar envoya pape clement dit le cinquiesme frere Jehan de mont coluin de lordre des freres mineurs et se fit arcevesque ensemble cinq autres freres evesques pour instruire le peuple en la sancte foy chretienne […]”. (Khanbaliq, the metropolis: There to the land of Tartar Pope Clement V. sent brother John of Monte Corvino of the order of the Franciscans and made him archbishop together with five other brethren as bishops in order to teach the people in the holy Christian faith […]).

Considering the fact that this is one of the very rare occasions that Jean Germain mentions missionaries who lived only recently it seems as if he accepted John of Montecorvino’s statement that he and his companions were the first to reach this corner of the world and thus were similar to the apostles. 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Jean Germain, Mappemonde spirituelle, fol. 15vb. Jean Germain, Mappemonde spirituelle, fol. 3ra–3vb. Jean Germain, Mappemonde spirituelle, fol. 13ra–13va. Jean Germain, Mappemonde spirituelle, fol. 19rb–19vb. Jean Germain, Mappemonde spirituelle, fol. 17rb. Jean Germain, Mappemonde spirituelle, fol. 29ra. Jean Germain, Mappemonde spirituelle, fol. 20rb–20va.

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Several messages can be read from Jean Germain’s inventory: –

–

–

It is, even after so many discoveries and new land and peoples encountered, still possible to describe the world by finding Christian memories everywhere. You could feel at home anywhere on the Orbis terrarum because everywhere at least there were remnants of a Christian past. Thus, at first glance, the Mappemonde spirituelle seems like the Beatus Map: it shows Christian memories, and almost only Christian memories. At second glance, it shows that these remnants can be found in every country and in every region of the world, including those that only recently had come to the knowledge of Latin Christians. On this first glance, Jean Germain seems to use the same argument Pope Urban II used nearly 400 years earlier, and in a similar situation: ‘We must fight and we must accept the challenge, because there are only memories left of all the great Christian actions of the past’. But Jean Germain’s approach is not confined to just this. It is much more systematic, more knowledgeable, dealing with a wide world much better known in a real sense. Most importantly, it is about knowing the whole Orbis terrarum, be it Christian or pagan, in order to then be able to trace the roots of Christianity that exist all over the world one way or the other. The principal concept arising from Jean Germain’s inventory is the capture and presentation of detailed information that can and did provide a basis for actual missionary activity.

Jean Germain describes the world in words but the title he picked for his work is not one of a book but of a Mappa Mundi – and this is quite intentional. We used to translate Mappa Mundi into World Map, but Medieval World Maps, Mappae Mundi or Mappemondes, were quite different from what we usually understand by that term. They are (usually) illustrations of the geographical space of the world as a framework for the most important events in world history, starting with Creation, picturing the Terrestrial Paradise, continuing with Noah’s Ark, the Exodus from Egypt, the Queen of Sheba, Christ’s Birth and the visit by the Magi from the East, the consequences of Pentecost (by showing all or some of the tombs of the Apostles), looking out towards the Destruc-

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tion of the World by Antichrist and the Second Coming of Christ. Added to this can be other important historical memories from past and present that are thus integrated into the history of Salvation – making the Mappae Mundi a Geography of Salvation. Mappae Mundi were thus one possible medium to represent and arrange knowledge about the earth, its inhabitants, and, not in the least its religious layout, while at the same time connecting it all meaningfully by emphasizing the most important places of the past, the present, and also the future.21 The preserved Mappae Mundi are very different from each other in what their authors chose to represent and how. But given the framework outlined above, it is not astonishing that we find among them examples interested, like Jean Germain, in the number, and dissemination, of Christian and nonChristian regions throughout the earth. Practically contemporary to Jean Germain’s written Mappemonde spirituelle, we have a Catalan example of a painted Mappa Mundi that shows these ideas quite clearly: the so-called Estense Catalan World Map from c. 1450 is a circular map of about 113 cm in diameter, residing today in the Biblioteca Estense at Modena, Italy.22 This map notes some of the burial places of apostles (such as that of Saint Mathew in Asia). Moreover, it also represents the non-Christian sphere within the world (beyond the usual way of Mappae Mundi of pushing pagans and monstrous races to the rims of the orbis terrarum). For example, in Africa the land is divided between neighbouring Sarracens and Christians (some of whom were subjects of the famous Christian Prester John) who fought each other constantly. Additionally, there are places that have been specifically noted as Christian or have had a biblical past that is lost for now, such as the country formerly ruled by the Queen of Sheba but that was later taken over by the Sarracens, until now. 21

22

Also for the reference of further literature Felicitas Schmieder, “Christliche Weltherrschaft – Anspruch und Grenzen in den Raum gezeichnet. Die Velletri/ BorgiaKarte (15. Jh.) in ihrem politischen Kontext”, Herrschaft verorten. Politische Kartographie des Mittelalters und der Frühen Neuzeit, Ingrid Baumgärtner, Martina Stercken, eds. (forthcoming); Felicitas Schmieder, “Edges of the World – Edges of Time”, The Edges of the Medieval World. Papers given at an International Workshop. Island of Muhu (Estonia), August 24–25, 2006, Gerhard Jaritz et alii (Budapest: CEU Press, 2009), pp. 4–20. Ernesto Milano, Annalisa Battini, eds., Il Mappamondo Catalano Estense (Zurich: Urs Graf Verlag, 1995).

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Furthermore, the map deals with the future prospects of the history of salvation, with the Endtime-importance of mission, as will be shown below. So far, the comparison of the Modena Map and the Mappemonde spirituelle may seem superficial – but this is only if we ignore their common political background which allows them to further explain each other to us. It can, at the same time, explain why, in the fifteenth century, the world could be surveyed and characterized like this. Jean Germain was Master of the order of the Toison d’or, the Order of the Golden Fleece, and as such participated in the crusade planning of his Duke Philipp the Good of Burgundy.23 Philipp’s plan included marrying Isabella of Portugal, sister of Prince Henry the Navigator. The latter is well-known for sending out ship after ship southwards along the Western African coast. The ships were searching for economic as well as missionary targets, and also had the assignment to explore any greater river to ascertain whether it would lead up to the headwaters of the river Nile where the aforementioned famous Christian Prester John was known to rule – and whose Christian subjects are explicitly noted on the Modena Map as well.24 Holding this position, Prester John could, in the strategic thinking of the Latin Christian crusaders, control the wealth and well-being of Egypt. Once found, he was to become an ally and deflect the Nile so that a new crusade against the weakened Egyptians would be successful. But this did not only mean finding a Christian ally in a mostly pagan world: the Nile was also known as one of the four rivers that sprang from the terrestrial Paradise. The fact that Paradise was generally known to be in the very east of the world and that the Nile would have to somehow cross the Indian Ocean in order to reach its African course usually bothered geographers, but not politicians. But on the Catalan Modena Map, Paradise has been moved to Africa, close to Prester John who now doubtlessly commanded the waters

23 24

Heribert Müller, Kreuzzugspläne und Kreuzzugspolitik des Herzogs Philipp des Guten von Burgund (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993). The sources in: Friedrich Zarncke, “Der Priester Johannes”, Abhandlungen der königlich sächsischen Akademie Leipzig Phil. hist. Kl., 7 (1879), pp. 829 –1028 and 8 (1883), pp. 3–186.

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of the Paradise River Nile.25 Coincidentally, the map had been drawn at a time when the Burgundian-Portuguese marriage union was strengthened also by the Catalan-Aragonese kings (which resulted in an astonishingly clear delineation of the African Western coast on the map, just as far as the Portuguese had already explored it). So, by reaching Prester John, not only could a new crusade be promoted, but the ships sent out by Infante Henry, always having missionaries on board, could also come close to Paradise – the place where heavenly Jerusalem was expected to descend in the very last time of the world – the time when the Orbis terrarum would be completely Orbis Christianus and the assignment given to the apostles at Pentecost had been fulfilled. The Burgundian-Portuguese-Catalan planning, thus, really encompassed the whole world, its Christian and not-yet-Christian parts – the Burgundian crusade, the Portuguese explorations, and also the Catalan Mediterranean expansion connected to it were also all part of the overall plan to make the world ready for Endtime. Travelling beyond the Orbis Christianus meant, in this case, also working to fulfill the spiritual task ahead of all Christians – the mapping of Christian memory as well as of geographical knowledge, which was all being used to bring them closer to their goal. So, what made the difference when travelling the Orbis Christianus and beyond in the later Middle Ages? It was not so much about whether you were living in a world that was still partly pagan or in one that was not yet fully Christian – not so much whether the world was, for the time being, Christian only in theory or whether you could register mainly lost Christian territory and Christian memories: it was what you intended to do about it that made all the difference. However limited the Orbis Christianus still was – as long as you knew enough about the details you could control the transmission of knowledge, you could spread hope and, even more importantly, inspire action to change things for the better.

25

Felicitas Schmieder, “Paradise Islands in East and West–Tradition and Meaning in Some Cartographical Places on the Medieval Rim of the World”, Isolated Islands in Medieval Mind, Culture and Nature (Conference at Utstein Monastery, Stavanger, Norway, 4–6 june 2008), Gerhard Jaritz, Torstein Jørgensen, eds. (Budapest: CEU Press, 2011), pp. 3–22.

De aquestes raons de la Senyora, los apòstols e Magdalena e les altres dones prengueren molta consolació: Establishing Female Identity through the Virgin’s words in the Vita Christi of Sor Isabel de Villena Lesley TWOMEY Northumbria University

It has often been said that a key aspect of Sor Isabel de Villena’s Vita Christi (Life of Christ) makes it stand out from other examples of the genre and that is the pride of place given to women, particularly the way in which Villena valorizes a multiplicity of female voices, including those of St Anne, Eve, the allegorical female figures (Faith, Hope, Charity), and St Mary Magdalene.1 Albert Hauf terms this the intención feminista of the Vita Christi.2 In this article I will contrast the raons or words of the Virgin in a number of Vitae Christi and Passion poems, focusing in particular on her planctus, in order to distinguish the features which particularly characterize female words in Isabel de Villena’s Vita Christi. Hauf 3 has argued that Villena worked closely with various Vitae Christi, having before her the Meditationes Vitae Christi of John of Caulibus, and also the Vida de Jesucrist by her fellow Franciscan, Francesc Eiximenis, and she may also have known Ludolph of Saxony’s Vita

1

2 3

Albert G. Hauf, “La Vita Christi de Sor Isabel de Villena y la tradición de las Vitae Christi medievales”, Studia in honorem del Profesor Martí de Riquer, 4 vols., Dámaso Alonso, ed. (Barcelona: Quaderns Crema, 1987), vol. 2, pp. 134–139; Albert G. Hauf, Vita Christi: estudio introductorio, 2 vols. (Valencia: Biblioteca Valenciana, 2006), pp. 75–84. Albert G. Hauf, “La Vita Christi de Sor Isabel de Villena…”, p. 134. Albert G. Hauf, “La Vita Christi de Sor Isabel de Villena…”, p. 106.

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Christi.4 She may have had sight of others, such as Joan Roís or Roïç de Corella’s translation of the Vita Christi, Quart del Cartoixà, for even though the Quart del Cartoixà was published after her death (1495), it was doubtless in circulation prior to that date in manuscript form. Hauf5 compares various sections of the Passion narrative from Eiximenis’s Vida de Jesucrist, from Meditationes Vitae Christi, from Ubertino da Casale’s Arbor Crucifixae Jesu Christi (Arbor), and from Ludolph’s Vita Christi, although he does not discuss the Planctus. Marinela Garcia Sempere6 also compares different versions of the Passion circulating in Valencia, which amount to a veritable tradició catalana de la Passió. This article will take as its key texts the Vida de Jesucrist, Vita Christi, Arbor, as well as various Passion poems in both Catalan and Castilian. I will first briefly trace the tradition of the representation of the Passion cycle. In his classic study Karl Young7 considered that the highly dramatic Planctus might have provided the seeds of the Latin drama of the Passion, an idea which Sandro Sticca rejected.8 The Latin tradition of the Planctus Mariae together with the topos of Mary’s compassion is

4

5 6 7 8

Francesc Eiximenis, Vida de Jesucrist (Barcelona: Biblioteca de Catalunya, MS 460) for which I have transcribed sections, selected because it is one of the few complete versions of the manuscript and because of its relative availability. Albert G. Hauf, “La Vita Christi de Sor Isabel de Villena…”, p. 115, shows the parallels between the Meditaciones Vitae Christi and the Vita Christi and between Eiximenis’s Vida de Jesucrist and the Vita Christi. The other copies of the Vida de Jesucrist are MS 299 which ends at Eiximenis’s sixth treatise. According to: Keith Whinnom, “The Supposed Sources of Inspiration of Spanish Fifteenth-century Narrative Verse”, Symposium, 18 (1963), pp. 268–291, the Meditationes Vitae Christi is nothing short of being a ‘kind of new apocryphal gospel”. Whinnom notes the differences between the Meditationes Vitae Christi and the Vita Christi even though the Meditationes Vitae Christi was a source for Ludolph, used in well over half the hundred and eightyone chapters of the Vita Christi. Albert G. Hauf, “La Vita Christi de Sor Isabel de Villena…”, pp. 139–147. Lo Passi en cobles, Marinela Garcia, ed. (Alicante: Institut Interuniversitari de Filologia Valenciana-Publicaciones de l’Abadia de Montserrat, 2002), pp. 153–166. Karl Young, “Observations on the Origin of the Mediaeval Passion Play”, Papers of the Modern Languages Association, 25 (1910), p. 311. Sandro Sticca, “The Literary Genesis of the Latin Passion Play and the Planctus Mariae: A New Christocentric and Marian Theology”, The Medieval Drama, Sandro Sticca, ed. (Albany: State University of New York, 1972), p. 40.

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further studied by Sticca.9 He considers that no real evidence exists for the Planctus of the Virgin as seminal in the development of Passion dramas. Nevertheless, the Planctus took its place in drama, in Vitae Christi, in poetry, and in sermons. Donna Spivey Ellington10 points to the recreation of ‘the feelings, responses, and very words of Mary as she witnessed her Son’s suffering’ in late medieval sermons for Good Friday. Pedro M. Cátedra, in his study of Passion poetry, points to the growing role of the Virgin by the late medieval period, which he associates with this parallel trend in sermons: La más antigua organización literaria del ciclo de la Pasión, acordemente con los Evangelios, reducía el papel de la Virgen casi a nada, para poco a poco, ir entramando la acción según iba adquiriendo una entidad teológica y afectiva.11 The earliest literary versions of the Passion cycle, in line with the Gospels, limited the role of the Virgin to next to nothing. Little by little, her role began to be integrated in the action as she took on a theological and affective entity.12

He rejects the idea of a common source in an earlier Planctus Mariae for Passion narrations which seem related, giving the example of Diego de San Pedro’s Pasión trobada and a vernacular Castilian Passion sermon, De Passione Ihesu Christi, believing both inspired by liturgical tradition. He13 links sermons, which include dramatic interludes and narrative Passion poems in what he terms a trasfondo textual común (common textual background). Studies of the Passion narrative as expressed by individual poets, like Dorothy Sherman Vivian’s of Diego de San Pedro (1974), run counter to what Jane Tillier saw as a scant emphasis on religious poetry in the Cancioneros.14 Keith Whinnom15 had also already undertaken his 9 10 11

12 13 14 15

Sandro Sticca, The Planctus Mariae in the Dramatic Tradition of the Middle Ages, Joseph R. Berrigan, trans (Athens (GA): University of Georgia Press, 1988), pp. 71–101. Donna Spivey, “Impassioned Mother or Passive Icon: The Virgin’s Role in Late Medieval and Early Modern Passion”, Renaissance Quarterly, 48 (1995), p. 227. Pedro M. Cátedra, Poesía de Pasión en la Edad Media. El Cancionero de Pero Gómez de Ferrol (Salamanca: Seminario de Estudios Medievales y Renacentistas, 2001), p. 387. All translations, unless otherwise stated are the author’s own. Pedro M. Cátedra, Poesía de Pasión en la Edad Media…, p. 227. Jane Yvonne Tillier, Religious Elements in Fifteenth-Century Spanish ‘Cancioneros’ (Cambridge: University of Cambridge (unpublished PhD dissertation), 1985), p. 10. Keith Whinnom, “The Supposed Sources of Inspiration of Spanish…”.

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study of the vernacular Vita Christi tradition as well as his study of San Pedro,16 albeit without emphasis on the Passion. Passion laments had been known in the Peninsula since the thirteenth century, best known in the Castilian Duelo que fizo la Virgen Maria el dia de la Passion de su Fijo Jesuchristo by Gonzalo de Berceo.17 In this version of the Passion, the Virgin already takes a leading speaking part. She begins a conversation with a monk (St Bernard) and then recounts to him the story of the Passion with stanzas 73–80 dedicated to her lament. The Virgin’s lamentations begin to take on an importance of their own in the fifteenth century, for, as Sherman Vivian shows with reference to San Pedro, pride of place is given to those scenes where the Virgin’s lamentations occur and they represent just under one third of the entire poem.18 Also referring to San Pedro’s Passión, Whinnom remarks on the ‘absurd Marian twist’ given to his account,19 although the exaggerated voicing of the Virgin’s sorrow, which he denigrates, might equally be applied to any number of Passion narratives. Whinnom sees the Virgin’s railing against Christ’s cruelty for saving mankind but forgetting his mother as being “in rather poor taste”, whereas it merely echoes many of the Vitae Christi, and is intended to show the depth of her sorrow. In Villena’s Vita Christi eight chapters are dedicated to the death of Christ and twenty to the procession of Patriarchs to honour Christ and the cross and kiss the Virgin’s hands. In her Vita Christi there is a planctus at each stage of the crucifixion, beginning with those in chapter 175 in which Christ meets his mother on the road to Calvary.20 The various Planctus form about one third of

16 17 18

19 20

Keith Whinnom, “The Religious Poems of Diego de San Pedro: Their Relationship and Their Dating”, Hispanic Review, 28 (1960). Gonzalo de Berceo, Duelo que fizo la Virgen Maria el dia de la Passion de su Fijo Jesuchristo, Archive of Santo Domingo de Silos, MS 93. In the Passión trobada, 63 verses are devoted to the road to Calvary and to the lamentations of the Virgin, with 141 to the arrest and sentencing. Only 23 are about the death of Christ (Dorothy Sherman Vivian, “‘La Passión Trobada’, de Diego de San Pedro, y sus relaciones con el drama medieval de la pasión”, Anuario de Estudios Medievales, 1 (1964), p. 465. Keith Whinnom, “The Religious Poems of Diego de San Pedro…”, p. 8. (II, 360, ll. 12168–70; 361–62, ll. 12201–12231; 363–64, ll. 12261–76).

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the chapter which is 154 lines long.21 In another parallel with Passion sermons, Ellington shows how they associated the Virgin’s suffering with that of her Son from “beginning to end”.22 Most versions of the Passion accord the Virgin a series of lamentations as responses to one or more of the words of Christ from the cross, a few include further responses to his death and burial. Villena’s version incorporates lamentations on every aspect of the Via crucis and they are more extensive than most other Vitae Christi. Such lamentations will form the corpus of the Virgin’s words for the purpose of this study.

1. The Virgin as an active participant in words and deed at the Passion Some Passion narratives, such as the Contemplaçio Divina Passionis, represent those present at the events of the cross as though they were part of an altarpiece of the Passion, perhaps even figures being carried in a procession: Ésta es la Virgen María, que nos gane gracia de fablar e tractar a su loor e a nuestra devoçion e passion (this is the Virgin Mary who earns us the grace to speak and act for her praise and for our devotion and suffering).23 Yet, despite the emphasis in Pero Gómez de Ferrol’s Passion on visual presence of the different characters in the events of the story, there are few words from the Virgin. Other Passion narratives, such as the Meditaciones Vitae Christi, as well as Rois de Corella’s Quart del Cartoixà, belong to the contemplative tradition of 21

22 23

It should also be noted that, besides the Planctus, there are similar types of literature in which the Virgin takes a lengthy speaking part. Among these are the courtroom debates in the style of the Processus Sathane, which Scott L. Taylor, “Reason, Rhetoric and Redemption: The Teaching of Law and the Planctus Mariae in the Late Middle Ages”, Medieval Education, Ronald B. Begley, Joseph W. Koterski, eds. (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005), links to the Planctus tradition. He discusses the baring of the Virgin’s breast, as she acts as advocate for humanity. Scott L. Taylor “Reason, Rhetoric and Redemption…”, p. 77, argues she speaks with reason, rhetoric, and sincerity in order to ‘transcend mere persuasion’ and win her case. Donna Spivey, “Impassioned Mother or Passive Icon…”, p. 229. Contemplaçio Divina Passionis is in an accessible edition as an appendix to Cátedra’s edition of: Pero Gómez de Ferrol, Cancionero (Salamanca: Cátedra, 2001), p. 449.

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exhorting the reader to participate through observation of the events. Even though they are very different, the words of the Virgin are secondary in each of them to this primary aim:24 […] pense donchs lo crestia: considere e contemple del senyor tota la passio per ordre: e cada dia recorde la mort dolorosa vergonyosa saciada de penes e opobris de son Déu e senyor e mestre. E curara la sua anima de qualseuol dolors, perdues e uergonyes: hi sera alegre que per amor sua les sostinga. E axi mort al mon e a les sues pompes e crucificat ab Iesus: acomanara lo seu sperit en les mans de Déu son pare.25 […] so the Christian should think, consider and contemplate all the Passion of the Lord step by step and every day remember the painful and shameful death, scorned and full of sorrows, of their Lord, Master and God. And that Christian’s soul will be cured of any troubles, losses and shame and it will be full of joy for they are to be borne in his love. And so dead to the world and all its pomp and crucified with Jesus, he will commend his soul into the hands of God the Father.

Hauf points to the heart of the Vita Christi when he comments that the difference between Villena’s approach and that of earlier versions of the Vitae Christi was that she develops the possibilities suggested in them, building entire scenes from a word here and an idea there: ‘Y no se limita a mirar pasivamente los hechos, sino que imagina también los dichos y discursos de todos los personajes’.26 A good example of this may be the scene in the Quart del Cartoixà where the Virgin requests her Son to be placed on her skirts, before addressing words of lament to Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea: O carissims amichs meus, comportau que·l mire: que·l abraçe: que·l bese: hi que en les mies faldes un poch repose. La dura creu ho ha tengut quatre hores: starà en lo sepulcre fins al terç dia: comportau la trista mare un poch spay lo tingua yol vos dare mort que viu le donat a la mort per la redempció humana e viu e mort clauat en la creu lo oferí al pare. Comportau que ara mort en la mia falda altra vegada a ell per tots les pecats del mon: anyell immaculat lo presente: en oferta de odorant sacrifici.27 24

25 26 27

On the differences see, for example: Keith Whinnom, “The Supposed Sources of Inspiration of Spanish…”, p. 272. In his view, the Meditaciones Vitae Christi is intended as a meditation ‘for the ordinary man’, p. 271, whilst Ludolph is more of an exegete and certainly makes full use of the apocryphal gospels, which John of Caulibus does not use at all. Lo Quart del Cartoixà, Joan Roïç de Corella, trans. (Valencia: n. p., 1955), fol. 87v. Henceforth Quart del Cartoixà. Albert G. Hauf, “La Vita Christi de Sor Isabel de Villena…”, p. 151. Quart del Cartoixà, fol. 87r.

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O my dearest friends, let me see him, embrace him, kiss him, and let him lie on my skirts and rest a while, for he has been held by the unyielding cross for four hours. He will lie in the tomb until the third day. Allow this sad mother to hold him a little and I will pass him to you lifeless, for he has been given up to death for the redemption of humankind and I offered him to the Father to suffer death on the cross. Leave him now on my skirt again, dead, so may I present him as a lamb to the Father, as an offering of sweet sacrifice.

In Villena’s version, the Virgin first takes action. She embraces and kisses her Son who has been placed on her skirts: O, la dolorosa mare, que·s veu lo fill mort en la falda, tan nafrat e alterat, abraçà’l ab força de amor e de extrema dolor, besant-lo stretament. Cuydà esclatar, no podent parlar per gran estona […].28 Oh, the sorrowing mother, seeing her Son dead on her skirts, so bruised and battered, embraced him with the power of love and extreme sorrow; kissing him tenderly, she thought her heart would burst and she could not speak for a long while […].

In Roís de Corella’s translation, the Virgin had referred to herself in the third person: la trista mare (this sad mother)29 and, tellingly, she asks permission from the two disciples to embrace and kiss her Son, comportau (permit), whereas Villena’s lamentation in the Vita Christi begins with a series of instructions from the Virgin to the two disciples. The Virgin’s orders are authoritative, as though to members of a noble household: Veniu açi, posau-lo (Bring him here, put him).30 In Roís de Corella’s Quart del Cartoixà ‘comportau’, also an imperative, has the effect of mitigating the action to be taken, because it is a request. Villena follows the tradition suggested in the Vita Christi and its translation and, like it, links the two instances when Christ had been laid on her skirts, at the Nativity and at the descent from the cross.31 At the Nativ28 29 30 31

Isabel de Villena, Llibre anomenat Vita Christi, ed. Ramon Miquel Planas (Barcelona: Casa Miquel Rius, 1916), vol. 3, p. 93. Quart del Cartoixà, fol. 87v. Isabel de Villena, Llibre anomenat Vita Christi…, vol. 3, p. 92. This study takes as its starting point an examination of the veils used to shroud the body of Christ at his Nativity, at his Passion, and at his entombment. See: Lesley Twomey, “Veiled Bodies”, The Fabric of Marian Devotion in Isabel de Villena’s Vita Christi (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2013), pp. 78–81. There, I develop the use of cloth to link Incarnation with its emphasis on the flesh of the Virgin and that of her Son.

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ity, Villena had already adapted her translation of the Latin words the Virgin addressed to the shepherds emphasizing the place of the child on her skirts. She bases her words on Proverbs 2.2–4. Si quis diligit sapientiam, ad me declinet, et eam inveniet. Volent dir: ‘Si vosaltres, diligents pastors, amau la saviesa divina e cercau aquella, levau-vos e veniu a mi, car en la mia falda la trobareu’.32 (For if anyone loves wisdom let him stoop to me and he will find it. Meaning ‘If you, diligent shepherds, love divine wisdom and are seeking it, then arise and come to me, for on my skirts you will find it.’) In the words the Virgin speaks is an echo of those of Proverbs: ut audiat sapientiam auris tua: inclina cor tuum ad cognoscendam prudentiam. Si enim sapientiam invocaveris, et inclinaveris cor tuum prudentiæ:si quæsieris eam quasi pecuniam, et sicut thesauros effoderis illam: tunc intelliges timorem Domini, et scientiam Dei invenies.33 so your ear may hear wisdom: incline your heart so as to get to know prudence. If you were ever to call on wisdom and were to incline your heart to prudence, if you were to wish for her as for money and long for her like treasure, then you will sense fear of God and come to knowledge of him.

John of Caulibus’s Meditaciones Vitae Christi has the Virgin speaking a lament after the death of Christ: Nolite tam cito, amici mei, filium meum accipere, uel me secum sepelite. Flebat lacrimis irremediabilibus, aspiciebat uulnera manuum et lateris, modo unum, modo aliud; […]34 (My friends, do not be so quick to take my Son, or else bury me with him.’ She wept incontrollably. She inspected the wounds on his hands and side, first one, then the other; […]).35 The Meditaciones Vitae Christi does not mention the placing of the body on the skirt but rather in gremio (on the lap) of the Virgin.36 The Virgin speaks in the Meditaciones Vitae Christi to prevent the two disciples taking the body for burial nolite… accipere (do not take). The Meditaciones Vitae Christi, often the closest version to Sor Isabel’s, approaches the scene differently. John of Caulibus 32 33 34 35 36

Isabel de Villena, Llibre anomenat Vita Christi…, vol. 1, p. 295. Proverbs, 2. 2–4. Johannis de Caulibus, Meditaciones Vitae Christi olim S. Bonaventurae attributae, Mary Stallings-Taney, ed. (Turnhout: Brepols, 1997), p. 281. John of Caulibus, Meditations on the Life of Christ, Francis X. Taney, Anne Miller, Mary Stallings-Taney, eds. (Asheville: Pegasus Press, 2000), p. 261. Johannis de Caulibus, Meditaciones Vitae Christi…, p. 281.

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has the Virgin hold the head of Christ, whilst Mary Magdalene holds his feet: Domina tamen semper tenebat capud ipsius in gremio suo quod sibi reseruauit aptandum et Magdalena pedes37 (Our Lady, however, throughout held his head on her lap, and reserved for herself its wrapping; and Magdalene held his feet).38 The Meditaciones Vitae Christi does not include any lament by the Virgin over the body in her lap, neither to ask for permission nor to command, and the words belong to the Magdalene, who pours out a lament over Christ’s feet, at this point in the narrative. In Villena’s version of the dialogue between the Virgin, Joseph of Arimathea, and Nicodemus, the Virgin’s words also echo the emphasis on God’s resting place in the Psalms39 and God as a place of rest, where the faithful can find sanctuary,40 contrasting them with Christ’s lack of resting place.41 She then refers to the way Christ was laid on her skirts as an infant, and finally to the great swell of suffering she undergoes, as she looks upon his body. Her words point to Christ as Messiah, as well as his dependence on his mother as a human baby, and his mortality because of his humanity: Veniu açi, posau-lo en la mia falda, car en aquesta mortal vida no ha hagut altre lit de repòs. Açí era lo seu delit en la tendra edat sua; açi·l tendré mort a creximent de la dolor e pena mia.42 Come here and place him on my skirts for in this mortal life he has never had anywhere else to lay his head. This was his delight in his babyhood and so I will hold him in death causing my own rising sorrow and pain.

Marinela Garcia Sempere has compared the planctus of Mary over Christ’s body in Villena’s Vita Christi with the one in the Passi en Cobles, finding many differences between them.43 She rightly argues that the Passi en Cobles, despite its lyric sequence about the song of the swan, shows its derivation from the Vita Christi in the opening verse: 37 38 39 40 41 42 43

Johannis de Caulibus, Meditaciones Vitae Christi…, p. 281. John of Caulibus, Meditations on the Life of Christ…, p. 261. Where the Ark rests Ps. 132: 8. Ps. 84: 1. Luke 9, 51–62. Isabel de Villena, Llibre anomenat Vita Christi…, vol. 3, p. 92. Lo Passi en cobles, Marinela Garcia, ed. (Alacant-Barcelona: Institut Interuniversitari de Filologia Valenciana-Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat, 2002), p. 248 (v. nº 468).

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deixau-me tocar lo seu cos insigne | e yo cantaré com fa lo blanc signe | lo cant de la mort ab molt dolces veus; | que blancs de greu dol tinch ossos e venes | en riu de grans làgremes que brollen mos ulls | hon, pres tab les ales esteses e plenes | de plors e sospirs, treballs, mals y penes| batré prest ma vida de mort en esculls44

let me touch the distinguished body | and I will sing like the white sign | the song of death with very sweet voices; | that white with such grief are my bones and veins | a river of great tears that well from my eyes| where, caught with outstretched wing and full | of weeping and sighs, work, pains and heartache | soon beat my life to death on reefs

In the Passí, as in the Quart, the Virgin asks for permission to touch the body of her Son. Ubertino da Casale does not include the scene of the Virgin embracing her Son on her skirt but depicts her in the same chapter embracing the tomb.45 Ubertino addresses the reader as deuota anima (devout soul), and encourages it to think about the feelings of the holy women.46

2. The Virgin’s autonomy to initiate devotions: the Virgin speaks as spiritual leader The same variations in the narration of the Passion can be observed after the burial and on the return of the mother and the disciples to the city. In the Meditaciones Vitae Christi, John of Caulibus mentions that the Virgin pauses to adore the cross and he includes a few brief words from the Virgin at the place of crucifixion: Cum autem fuerunt ad crucem, ibi genuflexit ipsa et adorauit crucem dicens: Hic requieuit filius meus, et hic est sanguis suus preciosus. Similiter et omnes fecerunt.47 (When, however, they reached the cross, she knelt there and adored the cross, saying, ‘Here is where my Son was and these are drops of his precious blood.’ And they all followed suit).48 In the Vita Christi, Villena creates an adoration of the cross with an emphasis on the torment suffered by Christ. The Virgin addresses the cross directly as the scene opens: 44 45 46 47 48

Lo Passi en cobles…, 409–420, ll. 4189–4198. Ubertino da Casale, Arbor Vite Crucifixae Iesus (Venice: Andreas de Bonetis, 1485), p. 337. Ubertino da Casale, Arbor Vite Crucifixae…, p. 337. Johannis de Caulibus, Meditaciones Vitae Christi…, p. 284. John of Caulibus, Meditations on the Life of Christ…, p. 264.

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[…] e dix, ab multíssima dolor e plor: “O crux cujus memoria mihi affert immensum dolorem et animi cruciatum.” Volent dir: ‘O, creu! La tua memòria dóna a mi infinida dolor e turmenta la mia ànima, recordant-me ab quanta pena lo meu fill, fermat e clavat en tu, ha donat terme a la vida sua!’49 […] and she said, with the greatest sorrow and weeping: “O Cross, whose memory affords me immense pain and torments my soul”. And this means, “O cross, your memory gives me the deepest pain and torments my soul, reminding me how my Son, constrained and nailed to you, came to give up his life with such pain”.

At the end of the meditation, the other disciples follow the Virgin’s lead, as in the Meditaciones Vitae Christi, but Sor Isabel adds explicitly that the Virgin had been the first person to adore the cross: fon la primera qui la adora (she was the first to adore it), even though in her Vita Christi Adam had already adored it in chapter 202, whilst Eve adored it in chapter 204. For Villena, the other disciples present at the adoration of the cross take the role of observers in the Franciscan tradition.50 Villena develops a three-part meditation which could be imitated by the nuns wishing to follow a Via crucis in the convent. Here, as elsewhere in the Vita Christi, the Virgin is made a model for future devotional practices and takes an authoritative lead:51 E tots los que aquí eren, veent aquesta Senyora ab tanta dolor e prudència fer les sues contemplacions, agenollaren-se tots ab moltes làgrimes, adoraren la gloriosa creu, a exemple de la piadosa mare, qui fon la primera que la adorà, no sens molta dolor e trencament de cor.52 […] and all those who were there, seeing that Lady make her contemplation with such sorrow and prudence, all knelt with many tears, adored the glorious cross, following the example of the pious Mother, who was the first to adore it, with great sorrow and with her heart rent in two”.

49 50

51

52

Isabel de Villena, Llibre anomenat Vita Christi…, vol. 3, p. 12. See: Lesley Twomey, “Sor Isabel de Villena, her Vita Christi and an Example of Gendered Immaculist Writing in the Fifteenth Century”, La Corónica, 32/1 (2003), pp. 89–103. And also: Lesley Twomey, The Fabric of Marian Devotion in Isabel de Villena’s “Vita Christi” (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2013), pp. 42–62. Lesley Twomey, The Fabric of Marian Devotion…, 204–229, chapter 10, where I discuss the Virgin’s authority in leading prayer and also her authority as ‘Doctoressa’ and ‘Papessa’. Isabel de Villena, Llibre anomenat Vita Christi…, vol. 3, p. 121.

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3. The Teaching Virgin: the Virgin as Doctoressa A similar autonomy is accorded the Virgin by Villena when she responds to her Son’s words from the cross. After the words of Jesus in which he cites from Psalm 22 as a prayer, in the Quart del Cartoixà, those contemplating the scene exhort the Virgin to intercede with God on their behalf: O dulcissim fill meu anima e vida mia, si deu ton pare te desempare yo dona, mare tua not desempare. Dauant tu stich baxa sobre la terra per que tu no vols que enla creu ab tu stiga […].53 O sweetest Son, my soul and my life, even though God your Father may abandon you, I, though a woman, your mother, will not abandon you. I am far below you on the ground because you do not wish me to be on the cross with you […].

In the Vita Christi, the Virgin responds to the words of her Son on the cross without being exhorted to speak, although the reader hears the words when they are read aloud: E la mare, que hoý lo seu parlar al pare ab tanta angústia, mostrant a ell ab quanta solitud passava les dolors sues, travessada de gran compassió, no podent parlar, ab dolorós plor lo mirava, e dins lo seu cor deya: ‘O, Senyor e fill meu, que no us ha desemparat lo vostre eternal pare, car la unió sua e vostra inseparable és; ni yo, mare vostra, no us he desemparat, ans só açí mirant les vostres dolors, sofferint ensemps ab vós pena inestimable! Lo no poder-vos ajudar és a mi creximent de molta dolor, supplicant al vostre pare haja pietat de les vostres grandíssimes penes e vulla donar fi en aquelles!54 […] and the mother, who heard him speak to the Father with such anguish, showing him that he was alone in his suffering, riven by great compassion, unable to speak, she looked at him weeping sorrowfully and in her heart said: ‘O Lord, my Son, your Father has not abandoned you for the bond between you and him cannot be loosed. Nor have I, your mother abandoned you, rather I am here watching your pain, suffering the greatest pain imaginable with you! Not being able to help you increases my suffering and pleading with your Father to take pity on your great pain and to bring it to an end!

She begins her lamentation by responding to the abandonment of Christ by his Father. In the Quart del Cartoixà, the Virgin’s words gave the im53 54

Quart del Cartoixà, fol. 73r. Isabel de Villena, Llibre anomenat Vita Christi…, vol. 2, p. 394.

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pression that she alone was standing by her Son and that the Father might abandon him: si Déu ton pare te desempare (even if God were to abandon you). Ubertino does not include the words from Jesus at the sixth hour with its origin in Matthew’s Gospel,55 since he follows56 the order of the words from the cross from John’s Gospel which do not contain Jesus’s citation of the Psalm. In Villena’s version, the Virgin instructs her Son that it is impossible for God to abandon him because they are one with each other. For Villena, the Virgin speaks with gentle correction, like a mother: O, Senyor e fill meu, que no us ha desemparat lo vostre eternal pare, car la unió sua e vostra inseparable és (O Lord, my Son, your Father has not abandoned you for the bond between you and him cannot be loosed).57 Her description of the Virgin’s compassion is also more measured than the Quart del Cartoixà version. It should be noted that in Villena’s version the instruction of the Virgin has a firm theological basis. It is impossible for the Father to abandon his Son for they are one Godhead: O, Senyor e fill meu, que no us ha desemparat lo vostre eternal pare, car la unió sua e vostra inseparable és (O Lord, my Son, your Father has not abandoned you for the bond between you and him cannot be loosed). Further, when the compassion of the Virgin is described it is less exaggerated than in the Quart del Cartoixà. For Villena, the sadness of the Virgin is increased by her lack of power: Lo no poder-vos ajudar és a mi creximent de molta dolor (Not being able to help you increases my suffering). The extreme outpouring of grief expressed by the Virgin in the Quart del Cartoixà, in which she desires death to join her Son in the grave, has disappeared. They are replaced by a wise authority which corrects in the same way that any noblewoman would correct her children. This is not the only example of wise words from the Virgin. If we compare the main planctus in the Vida de Jesucrist by Eiximenis which follows the fifth word of Christ from the cross with Villena’s, in the Vida de Jesucrist the Virgin addresses her Son, giving him the titles of Prince and King of all created things: Princeps e rey de tota creatura e senyor uer Déu e quanta es la vostra dolça amor car per amor uos lexats axí maltractar a axí turmentar en la uostra carn preciosa. O

55 56 57

Matthew, 27: 45–47. Ubertino da Casale, Arbor Vite Crucifixae…, pp. 319–334. Isabel de Villena, Llibre anomenat Vita Christi…, vol. 2, p. 394.

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resplendor del lum eternal com sots axi scurahit e axí amaguat que negú no.s coneix per que senyor meu sots al mon uengut ueus com uos ha rebut.58 Prince and King of all created things and true Lord God and how great is your love for out of love you let yourself be treated and your precious flesh to be tortured in this way. O resplendence of the eternal light how are you dimmed and brought to nothing for no-one knows why you came to earth, my Lord, seeing how it has received you.

These words do not connect directly with the fifth words from the cross, Sitio, but are merely a vehicle to demonstrate her compassion. In the Meditaciones Vitae Christi, there is no response by the Virgin to the word except that John of Caulibus notes that the words of Christ led to magna compassio on the part of the Virgin: Quintum fuit cum dixit: ‘Sicio’. In quo verbo fuit magna compassio matris et sociarum eius […] (The fifth was when he said, “I thirst”.59 There was great suffering in that word for his mother, their companions, and John […]).60 In Arbor, however, Ubertino da Casale provides a short discourse about the meaning of Sitio relating it to the Virgin: Nihilominus etiam matri et perfectis imitatoribus sui crucis: illo uerbo sitio ingerere uoluit: qu ipse in cruce pendens bibebat & incorporabat sibi omnes dolores, omnes passiones: omnes mentis angustias: omnia corporis martyria omnia lachrymarum suspiria: omnes onerosas obediencias: omnes austeritates uirtuosas ieiunorum fletuum: asperitatis uestimentorum: frigorum: calorum penuriarum quarumcumque opprobriorum: uituperiorum: uilitatum et iniuriarum: quas unque ipsi pro suo nomine sustinuerunt: unde tali sui siti nec fuit cyphus modicus super infusus.61 Nevertheless, for the mother and for perfect imitators of his cross, with the word ‘I thirst’, he wishes to imible himself. For he drank, hanging on the cross and took on himself every pain, every suffering, every mental anguish, every martyrdom of the body, every outpouring of tears: every burden of obedience, every harshness of fasting or of wailing; roughness of dress, of cold, of heat, of penury, and of any kind of insult, of name-calling, of baseness, of injury: these they bear for him for his name: whence such thirst as his was not a everyday thirst but a deep internal one.

In Villena’s version, the Virgin seeks in her words to establish her relationship with Christ but also to identify him as the centre of her being, 58 59 60 61

Biblioteca de Catalunya, MS 460, fol. 225r. John, 19: 28. Johannis de Caulibus, Meditaciones Vitae Christi…, p. 274. Ubertino da Casale, Arbor Vite Crucifixae…, p. 328.

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for he is fill meu e senyor (my Son and my Lord) and, later, senyor e vida mia (my Lord and my life).62 Villena begins by interpreting Christ’s thirst, set y fam (hunger and thirst), as an aspect of his spiritual desire to save humankind: O fill meu ý Senyor. Y tan manifiesta es la set y fam que vós teniu de la salvació dels peccadors que a tantes penes vos sou offert per ells! A vós mateix haveu oblidat per salvar-los. […] E posat en extrem de mort, yo no us puch ajudar d’una gota d’aygua […]. O Senyor. Si les làgrimes mies fossen aygua sufficient per a beure, y com vos daria yo abundosament a fartar la vostra set.63 O my Son and my Lord, so visible is your thirst and hunger for the salvation of sinners that you offered yourself to such torment for them. You have forgotten yourself to save them. […] and as you have been brought close to death, I cannot aid you even with a drop of water […]. O Lord, if only my tears were enough water for you to drink, how abundantly would I give them to slake your thirst.

Also embedded in her approach to thirst is the concept of satisfying physical necessity which she wishes to assuage with her tears, although she cannot: yo no us puch ajudar (I cannot assist you). Villena, like many medieval sermon writers, alludes obliquely in this liquid nourishment, tears, to the milk with which she was once able to satisfy Christ’s thirst.64 Ubertino’s Virgin emphasizes her longing to take on poverty and suffering in a planctus on Christ’s thirst which provides a short disquisition on poverty. He also includes in it the Virgin’s desire to assuage the suffering of her Son, expressed in a lyrical outpouring of grief, in which she pleads to be allowed to pour herself out to slake Christ’s thirst: Fili dulcissime sic sim circumcincta tue pauperitatis & doloris funiculis: ut nec tectum habeam: nec cibum possideam: nec uinum: nec aliquid temporale. […] Nec te clamentem pre siti & morientem possum uel aque modico humectare. O fili bibe me totam in tuis doloribus reliquatam: effusam: & sautiam: & me intra tuorum dolorum intima introductam exhaurias: ut in me penitus anihilata; tota sim in tuis intimis dolorata.65 62 63 64

65

Isabel de Villena, Llibre anomenat Vita Christi…, vol. 2, p. 394. Isabel de Villena, Llibre anomenat Vita Christi…, vol. 2, p. 396. Ellington finds commentary on the Virgin’s words in response to Christ’s thirst in the sermons of Jean Gerson and St Bernardino of Siena, among others. Donna Spivey, “Impassioned Mother or Passive Icon…”, p. 239 (n. 13). Ubertino da Casale, Arbor Vite Crucifixae…, p. 327.

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O sweetest Son, may I be so surrounded by the bindings of your poverty and pains that I have no roof, nor will I have any food, nor wine, nor any temporal goods. […] I cannot offer a little water, when you are calling out with thirst and dying. O Son, drink me wholly up in your pains; I am poured out and wounded, and you will empty me, drawing me into your innermost self in your pains, so that, in me, they may be inwardly wiped away; may I be wholly afflicted in your innermost being.

Villena’s version again reveals its relationship to Ubertino’s, in that the Virgin can only offer her tears as drink in a direct response to Christ’s words from the cross. Villena draws most closely in this section on the Arbor Vite Crucifixae Iesus of Ubertino da Casale. Ubertino, unlike other versions of the Vita Christi, provides a direct response by the Virgin to the Christ’s word ‘I thirst’ from the cross, in a chapter entitled Iesus amore sitiens (Christ thirsting with love). There is also a similar Franciscan emphasis on poverty: ý tan nafrada resta la mia ànima, […] vehent-vos morir en tan extrema pobrea que, de l’aygua que haveu creat e tan abundosament ne fartau totes les creatures, vós, Senyor meu, passeu tanta fretura en cars de tan extrema necessitat.66 And my soul is so torn, […] seeing you die in such poverty that of the water you created in such abundance to satisfy the needs of every creature, you, Lord, are so desperate in such dire need.

The most important variation in content between the Quart del Cartoixà and Villena’s Vita Christi is that the Virgin does not speak no podent parlar but merely holds the words in her heart in the Vita Christi, whereas in the Quart del Cartoixà, exhorted by humanity, she speaks on their behalf in response to Christ’s words on the cross. This device of words spoken in the innermost being at times of extreme emotion is found in Eiximenis’s Vida de Jesucrist but also in other lives of saints. One example is Roís de Corella’s Istoria de la santa Magdalena67 where, after Mary has been reproached by Martha, she speaks words in her heart regretting the need to leave her contemplation.

66 67

Isabel de Villena, Llibre anomenat Vita Christi…, vol. 2, p. 396. Joan Roïç de Corella, Obres de Joan Roiç de Corella segons els manuscrits i primeres edicions, ed. Ramon Miquel i Planas (Barcelona: Biblioteca Catalana, 1913), pp. 309–348.

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4. The power of the Virgin: she commands and the elements obey Villena emphasizes the authority of the Virgin in her version in words which are spoken. An excellent example occurs immediately after the third word of Christ from the cross, in which the Virgin invokes the elements: O cel e terra e les altres elements. Sentiu-vos de la honor del vostre Déu y Senyor, ja que los hòmens, per amor dels quals és vengut, lo han tant desconegut e poch estimat! […] Ajudau-me a plànyer la mia dolor, car és sens comparació veent morir lo qui és vida mia, e en extremes dolors lo qui és consolació e repòs meu.68 O heaven and earth and other elements, be sorrowful for the honour of your Lord and God for men, for love of whom he came to earth, have failed to know him and esteemed him little. […] Help me to lament my sorrow for it is without compare as I see what is my life dying and see what is my consolation and rest in extreme pain.

Like Christ himself who stilled the storm on the sea of Galilee, the Virgin, in the absence of her Son, shows how she too is maestressa (Master), and is capable of calling on the heavenly bodies to obey her: E hoÿt lo planct de aquesta senyora per los elements insensibles, mostrant gran sentiment e dol de la mort del seu creador; e lo sol qui és claredat e alegria del cel e de la terra, escurint-se e vestint-se de dol, foren fetes tenebres per tot lo univers món […]; e la terra, que de si és fexuga e ferma, movent-se tremola per donar terror als homens cruels […].69 And once the lamentation of the Virgin had been heard by the unfeeling elements, showing great feeling and sorrow for the death of their Saviour. As the sun, which is brightness and joy of the earth and the heavens, dimmed and dressed in mourning, darkness fell over the whole earth. […]; and the earth, which has the characteristic of being firm and immobile, moved, bringing terror to cruel men.70

68 69 70

Isabel de Villena, Llibre anomenat Vita Christi…, vol. 3, p. 392. Isabel de Villena, Llibre anomenat Vita Christi…, vol. 3, p. 392. For an examination of the term “fexuga” “immobile”, applied to the earth, as well as its cosmological implications in the writing of two of Villena’s contemporaries, see: Josep Lluís Martos, “La cosmología de March y Corella: ‘la que fexuga jau’ y ‘la termuntana ferma’”, Revista de Filología Románica, 27 (2010), pp. 101–130.

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Again, Ubertino da Casale’s Arbor has most in common with Villena’s version. The Virgin calls upon the elements as in Villena’s Vita Christi: Nunc ergo uirgo beata dabo imperium de filio meo deflendo toti orbe mundano. Sol obscurare: et totum mundum indue uestimentis nigris: & illam sponsam uirginem illius angustiati filii mei associes in lamentis. O terra: terra: terra: contremisce de scelere quod sustentas: & ille amaricate matri tuum prebe consortium & dolorem. O lapidosa duricies supra omnem duriciem creature argue corda maligna: que nolunt ad compassionem scindi: nec de morte filii mei pietate molliri.71 For now I, the Blessed Virgin, will give my Son’s command with the whole world weeping. O sun, become dark and let the whole world put on dark clothes: and draw close to that Virgin, his bride in lamentation for my Son. O earth, O earth, O earth, tremble with the evil you sustain; and offer your support and sorrow to this embittered mother. O hard stones, harder than any hardness of created beings reason with evil hearts that do not want to bend to compassion and soften in compassion for the death of my Son.

The response of the heavens to the Virgin is not so developed or lengthy in Ubertino’s version, although they still respond: Certe poterat bene concludere quando dicebat matrem illum flere: quem elementa insensibilia deplorabant (Truly it can be concluded that, when the Mother spoke her lamentation, the unfeeling elements wept with her).72 Neither Eiximenis’s Vida de Jesucrist nor Meditaciones Vitae Christi contain this type of planctus. Of all the versions which Villena used to write her Vita Christi, it is Arbor which suits her vision of the Virgin in her command over the heavens and she takes the idea of the lament of the Virgin to the elements, making them respond more exactly to what she has asked of them.

Conclusion I have examined some of the scenes where Villena has recourse to and develops traditions already established in other Vitae Christi. Of these only Arbor has numerous planctus and none of them have such a lengthy and developed approach as Villena’s. As I have shown with reference 71 72

Ubertino da Casale, Arbor Vite Crucifixae…, p. 319. Ubertino da Casale, Arbor Vite Crucifixae…, p. 319.

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to the words of the Virgin, Villena uses them first to establish her as an active participant in the narrative. As Ellington agues “the Passion sermon is one in which the Virgin emerges from her traditional role as icon of humility […] to become an individual in her own right”.73 However, the same is certainly true of the Virgin who spoke the planctus, particularly those of Villena. Through the Virgin’s words, even her words of sorrow as she accompanies her Son to his death and burial and later adores the instrument of his torture, the cross, Villena also wishes to establish the teaching role of the Virgin, giving her the authority to teach, preach, reason, direct the community’s prayers, corresponding to the titles of doctoressa, and maestressa which are accorded to the Virgin. The Virgin takes the authority to create paraliturgical acts, such as establishing the adoration of the cross, which the faithful, male and female, emulate. This could be seen as a transferral of competence from the male sphere to build a female identity capable of initiating practice. In this shift to a stronger female identity for the Virgin which is established by Villena, it has been possible to see how she works with her sources, combining ideas from them but ultimately making her own decisions for her own ends. The Virgin is not simply given empty titles but she demonstrates the authority to give instructions, teach, even teaching her Son, and establish new liturgical practices. In the later pages of the Vita Christi the Virgin increasingly takes on a role as model of authority for women, for the Poor Clares, and for Villena, abbess of the convent. Her raons, or reasoned discourse, provides consolation to the others, just as the words of the female authority heading the convent would have done. The authoritative discourse of the Virgin should be taken to correspond to the norms for communication between the nuns and the abbess in the convent, used for instruction, and also for preaching. Villena can take the example of the Virgin for her own authority to create liturgy for the nuns to follow, such as acts of devotion of the cross. There has so far been little critical awareness that the words of the Virgin, in a book written for women and by a woman, enable the modern reader to access a discourse of power. In this chapter I have begun to demonstrate how the Virgin’s words of authority provide a window on those of women of authority of Villena’s day. 73

Donna Spivey Ellington, “Impassioned Mother or Passive Icon…”, p. 229.

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Annexe

Bibliography Berceo, Gonzalo de, Obras Completas. El duelo de la Virgen, los himnos, los loores de Nuestra Señora, los signos del juicio final, ed. Brian Dutton (London: Tamesis, 1975), vol. 3. Cátedra, Pedro M., “De sermón y teatro, con el enclave de Diego de San Pedro”, The Age of the Catholic Monarchs 1474–1516: Literary Studies in Honour of Keith Whinnom, Alan Deyermond, Ian Macpherson, eds. (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1989), pp. 7–18. Cátedra, Pedro M., Poesía de Pasión en la Edad Media. El Cancionero de Pero Gómez de Ferrol (Salamanca: Seminario de Estudios Medievales y Renacentistas, 2001). Cátedra, Pedro M., Los sermones en romance de la Real Colegiata de San Isidoro de León (Salamanca: Seminario de Estudios Medievales y Renacentistas, 2002). Eiximenis, Francesc, Vida de Jesucrist (Barcelona: Biblioteca de Catalunya, MS 299). Ellington, Donna S., “Impassioned Mother or Passive Icon: The Virgin’s Role in Late medieval and Early Modern Passion”, Renaissance Quarterly, 48 (1995), pp. 227–249. Garcia, Marinela, ed., Lo Passi en cobles (Alicante: Institut Interuniversitari de Filologia Valenciana-Publicaciones de l’Abadia de Montserrat, 2002). Hauf, Albert G., “La Vita Christi de Sor Isabel de Villena y la tradición de las Vitae Christi medievales”, Studia in honorem del Profesor Martí de Riquer, 4 vols., Dámaso Alonso, ed. (Barcelona: Quaderns Crema, 1987), vol. 2, pp. 105–164. Hauf, Albert G., Vita Christi: estudio introductorio, 2 vols. (Valencia: Biblioteca Valenciana, 2006). Caulibus, Johannis de. Meditationes Vitae Christi olim S. Bonaventurae attributae, ed. Mary Stallings-Taney (Turnhout: Brepols, 1997). Caulibus, John of, Meditations on the Life of Christ, trans. and ed. Francis X. Taney, Anne Miller, Mary Stallings-Taney (Asheville: Pegasus Press, 2000). Martos, Josep Lluis. “La cosmología de March y Corella: ‘la que fexuga jau’ y ‘la termuntana ferma’”, Revista de Filología Románica, 27 (2010), pp. 101–130. Roïç de Corella, Joan, trans., Lo Quart del Cartoixà (Valencia: n. p., 1495). Roïç de Corella, Joan, Obres de Joan Roiç de Corella segons els manuscrits i primeres edicions, ed. Ramon Miquel (Barcelona: Biblioteca Catalana, 1913). Sticca, Sandro, “The Literary Genesis of the Latin Passion Play and the Planctus Mariae: A New Christocentric and Marian Theology”, The Medieval Drama, Sandro Sticca, ed. (Albany: State University of New York, 1972), pp. 49–68. Sticca, Sandro, The Planctus Mariae in the Dramatic Tradition of the Middle Ages, Joseph R. Berrigan, trans. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1998). Taylor, Scott L., “Reason, Rhetoric and Redemption: The Teaching of Law and the Planctus Mariae in the Late Middle Ages”, Medieval Education, Ronald B. Begley, Joseph W. Koterski, eds. (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005), pp. 68–79.

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Tillier, Jane Yvonne, Religious Elements in Fifteenth-Century Spanish “Cancioneros” (unpublished PhD dissertation, Cambridge: University of Cambridge, 1985), p. 13913. Twomey, Lesley. “Sor Isabel de Villena, her Vita Christi and an Example of Gendered Immaculist Writing in the Fifteenth Century”, La Corónica, 32 (2003), pp. 89–103. Twomey, Lesley. The Fabric of Marian Devotion in Isabel de Villena’s Vita Christi (Woodbridge: Tamesis, 2013). Ubertino da Casale, Arbor Vite Crucifixae Iesus, ed. and facsímile, Charles T. Davies (Venice: Andreas de Bonetis, 1485). Vivian, Dorothy S., “‘La Passión Trobada’, de Diego de San Pedro, y sus relaciones con el drama medieval de la pasión”, Anuario de Estudios Medievales, 1 (1974), pp. 451– 470. Whinnom, Keith, “The Religious Poems of Diego de San Pedro: Their Relationship and Their Dating”, Hispanic Review, 28 (1960), pp. 1–15. Whinnom, Keith, “The Supposed Sources of Inspiration of Spanish Fifteenth-century Narrative Verse”, Symposium, 18 (1963), pp. 268–291. Young, Karl, “Observations on the Origin of the Mediaeval Passion Play”, Papers of the Modern Languages Association, 25 (1910), pp. 309–354.

Les juifs portugais à Recife 1630-1654. Un modèle évanescent? Gérard NAHON École Pratique des Hautes Études

La mémoire brésilienne recèle une niche temporelle, le tempo de Flamencos, l’époque de la conquête et de l’exploitation du Pernambouc au Brésil par la compagnie hollandaise des Indes occidentales entre 1630 et 16541. Durant ce court laps de temps, du fait d’une singulière conjonction de facteurs économiques, sociaux et religieux, se structure dans cet espace la première communauté juive des Amériques. Ses fondateurs, issus de Nouveaux Chrétiens, c’est à dire de juifs convertis massivement sous la contrainte au Portugal en 1497, en butte aux poursuites des Inquisitions péninsulaires, avaient fui le Portugal et avaient récupéré à Amsterdam leur identité juive2. Certains d’entre eux s’étaient joints aux hollandais de la compagnie des Indes. Face aux portugais catholiques, aux hollandais calvinistes, aux indiens et aux noirs, leur identité ethnique, linguistique et onomastique – originaires du Portugal, lusophones, porteurs de patronymes portugais – les apparente aux 1 2

José Antônio Gonsalves de Mello, Tempo dos Flamengos, Influência da ocupação holandesa no vida e na cultura do Norte do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Topbooks, 2001). Carsten L. Wilke, Histoire des juifs Portugais (Paris: Chandeigne 2007), pp. 71-78. Sur la naissance et l’essor de la «Nation» juive portugaise d’Amsterdam existe une immense bibliographie, citons ici: Miriam Bodian, Hebrews of the Portuguese Nation, conversos and community in Early Modern Amsterdam (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997); Daniel Swetschinski, Reluctant Cosmopolitans. The Portuguese Jews of Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam (Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2004), et surtout les nombreux travaux de: Yosef Kaplan, Les NouveauxJuifs d’Amsterdam. Essais sur l’histoire sociale & intellectuelle du judaïsme sefarade au XVIIe siècle (Paris: Chandeigne «Péninsules», 1999). Sur les mentalités d’Amsterdam au Grand Siècle et la place des juifs dans la cité de l’Amstel, voir: Renata G. FuksMansfeld, De Sefardim in Amsterdam tot 1795. Aspecten van een joodse minderheid in een Hollandse stad (Hilversum: Historische Vereniging Holland, 1989); Henry Méchoulan, Amsterdam au temps de Spinoza, argent et liberté (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1990), et plus spécialement les pages 164-177.

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brésiliens colonisés. Leur appartenance politique les place aux côtés du pouvoir colonial hollandais. Leur identité religieuse – reconnue encore que mal tolérée – les confronte aux brésiliens catholiques comme aux hollandais calvinistes. Dans le court terme, l’insertion de leur communauté dans cette société coloniale composite constitue un cas de figure atypique, tant dans l’histoire du Brésil que dans l’histoire juive, puisqu’aussi bien le départ des hollandais en 1654 entraine ipso facto l’exode des juifs, la fin d’un tempo de Judeus 3. Comment se définit, comment se modifie, comment est ressentie l’identité collective et individuelle du microcosme juif portugais dans la société brésilienne sous domination hollandaise? Que deviendront les juifs exilés de Recife après 1654? Quelle influence exerça ce microcosme éphémère sur l’histoire subséquente du Brésil et des Amériques et des juifs issus de cet exil? Pour répondre à ces questions, j’envisagerai l’immigration et l’implantation des juifs portugais, leur structuration communautaire, leur insertion économique, sociale et militaire dans la colonie, leur odyssée enfin vers des havres de grâce dans l’ancien et dans le Nouveau Monde4.

Figure 1: Siège de la Compagnie Occidentale des Indes (West Indisch Huis) à Amsterdam. 3 4

José Antônio Gonsalves de Mello, Gente de Nação, Cristãos novos e Judeus em Pernambuco 1542-1654 (Recife: Fundação Joaquim Nabuco-Editora Massangana, 1989). Egon Wolff, Frieda Wolff, A Odisséia dos Judeus de Recife (São Paulo: Universidade de São Paulo-Centro de Estudos Judaicos, 1979); Arnold Wiznitzer, «Mistaken Identities of signatories of the congregation Zur Israel», Studia Rosenthaliana, 12 (1978), pp. 91-107.

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1. Immigration, insertion, économie, urbanisation, tolérance Fondée en 1618 à Amsterdam par des calvinistes dans l’objectif de mener une guerre maritime contre l’Espagne, la Westindische Compagnie, la Compagnie néerlandaise des Indes Occidentales, obtient le 3 juin 1621 le monopole de la navigation vers l’Afrique occidentale et l’Amérique, monopole qui lui permet de pratiquer la course et de capturer 547 vaisseaux espagnols et portugais5. Administrée par dix-neuf Heeren, la compagnie lance une expédition contre Bahia, capitale du Brésil, lequel relève de la monarchie espagnole depuis l’union dynastique de l’Espagne et du Portugal en 1581. Au sein de la société coloniale, les Nouveaux Chrétiens occupaient une position moyenne: propriétaires terriens, négociants artisans, socialement respectables, religieusement suspects, aujourd’hui bien connus grâce à l’exploitation des procès inquisitoriaux intentés à leur encontre. La Compagnie s’empare de Bahia et l’occupe du 10 mai 1624 au 1er mai 16256. Après cette tentative éphémère d’implantation au Brésil, elle réalise une conquête, une occupation et une exploitation plus durable du Pernambouc entre 1630 et 1654 avec un investissement de 11 millions de florins, 56 navires, 7.180 soldats et 1.170 canons. Le Portugal recouvrant son indépendance en 1640, évincera définitivement les hollandais du Brésil en 16547. 5

6

7

Sur la Compagnie, voir: Willem Johannes van Hoboken, «The Dutch West India Company, the Political Background of its Rise and Decline», Britain and the Netherlands, Anglo-Dutch Historical Conference (Londres: McMillan: 1960), vol. 1; Johannes Gerard van Dillen, «De West-Indische Compagnie, het calvinismen de politiek», Tijdschrift van Geschiedenis, 74 (1961), pp. 157-158; Henry Méchoulan, Amsterdam au temps de Spinoza…, pp. 133-143 pour lequel la création de la Compagnie est le fruit d’un «mauvais calcul». Signalons l’inscription en 2011 des archives de la WIC, la première multinationale capitaliste par actions, au Registre «Mémoire du monde» de l’UNESCO. Renvoyons d’une manière générale à: Charles Boxer, The Dutch in Brazil 1624-1654 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957); Charles Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire 1600-1800 (Londres: Penguin 1988). On consultera à cet égard l’ouvrage fondamental d’Anita Novinsky, Cristãos Novos na Bahia (São Paulo: Editôra Perspectiva, 1972), mon compte-rendu dans: Revue des Études Juives, 133 (1974), pp. 305-309 et le travail de: Bruno Feitler, Inquisition, Juifs et Nouveaux Chrétiens au Brésil (Louvain: Louvain University Press, 2003). Sur la période concernée s’est tenue les 20 et 21 janvier 2011 une conférence internationale «L’héritage du Brésil hollandais», sous les auspices de l’Université

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La population comprend donc – outre le conquérant calviniste –, des portugais catholiques, des Indiens, des esclaves noirs importés d’Afrique, des Nouveaux chrétiens portugais ainsi qu’une composante ouvertement juive venue d’Amsterdam dans «la ruée vers le Brésil néerlandais»8, une composante bientôt structurée en communauté9. Le peuplement portugais installé au Brésil depuis la fondation de la Vera Cruz par Pedro Alvares Cabral le 22 avril 1500 – comprend nombre de Nouveaux Chrétiens soupçonnés de pratiquer le judaïsme en secret. Leur entourage et les poursuites de l’Inquisition déléguées au Brésil aux évêques, en désignent certains mais l’historien peine à les identifier car ils portent des prénoms et des patronymes chrétiens et pratiquent le catholicisme avec une dévotion appuyée10. La conquête hollandaise entraîne plusieurs vagues d’immigrants juifs d’Amsterdam, pauvres, jeunes, célibataires, soldats en premier lieu. La Compagnie les prend à son service en qualité de vrijeluijden ou libres citoyens, leur accorde un passage gratuit vers la colonie et un contrat de trois ans. On relève parmi les soldats juifs les noms de

8 9

10

d’Amsterdam et du Musée Maritime National d’Amsterdam. En attendant la publication des actes, la synthèse de: José Antônio Gonsalves de Mello, Tempo dos Flamengos…, qui puise le meilleur de son information aux archives de la WestIndische Compagnie, reste l’ouvrage de référence. Carsten L. Wilke, Histoire des juifs portugais…, p. 170. Voir: Arnold Wiznitzer, Os Judeus no Brasil Colonial, Olivia Krahenbühl, trad. (São Paulo: Pioneira, 1966). Le professeur Daniel Oliveira Breda a cerné au plus près l’établissement des juifs à Recife dans: Daniel Oliveira, Vicus Judaeorum: os judeus no espaço urbano no Recife neerlandês (1630-1654) (Natal: Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, 2007) dont il m’a aimablement remis un CD Rom lors de ma visite – guidée par ses soins – au Centro Cultural Judaico de Pernambuco – Kahal Zur Israel Congregação Rochedo de Israel, Fundação Joseph Safra le 28 avril 2009. Je l’en remercie vivement ainsi que Même Tânia Neumann Kaufman, Présidente de l’Archivo Histórico Judaico de Pernambuc et conservatrice des expositions du Musée Synagogue Kahal Zur Israel, qui m’a dirigé vers lui; sur les juifs à Recife à l’époque contemporaine on se reportera à son livre: Tânia Neumann, Passos perdudos, historia recuperada. A presença judaica em Pernambuco (Recife: Editora Bagaço, 2000). Hélio Augusto de Moura, «Presença judaica-marrana durante a colonização do Brasil», Cadernos de estudos sociais, 18/2 (2002), pp. 267-292, et pour Bahia, l’ouvrage fondamental d’Anita Novinsky: Anita Novinsky, Cristãos Novos na Bahia… Sur la «tolérance», voir: Jonathan Israel, Stuart B. Schwartz, Michal van Groesen, The Expansion of Tolerance, Religion in Dutch Brazil (1624-1654) (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2007).

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Samuel Cohen, Antônio Manoel, David Testa et d’un Moisés Navarro cadet de marine dans la compagnie du capitaine Bonnet. Ce dernier obtiendra par la suite une licence de courtier en sucre et en tabac. A ces arrivées individuelles succédera en 1638 un contingent organisé d’immigrants juifs sous la conduite de Manoel Mendes de Crasto qui transporte sur deux bateaux deux cents coloniers ou colons11. Parmi ceuxci, des particuliers fortunés acquièrent des canaviais, des plantations de canne à sucre abandonnées par les Portugais. Les plus entreprenants construisent des engenhos, des moulins à sucre, l’outil de production par excellence. Sur 120 engenhos fonctionnant en 1639, quelque 6 % appartiennent aux juifs Duarte Silva, Moses Navarro, Fernão do Vale, Pedro Lopes de Vera. D’autres juifs bâtissent demeures et entrepôts à Recife où ils s’occupent de courtage, afferment les impôts, participent aux transactions sur les esclaves importés d’Angola. Ils contribuent d’une manière significative à l’urbanisation de Recife. Sur l’île de San Antonio devenue Antonio Vaz se bâtit une ville nouvelle appelée Mauritstad. Pour la rattacher à Recife en 1641, le juif Baltasar de Fonseca alias Samuel Bellilos, obtient – deux notables juifs, Gaspar Francisco da Costa, alias Joseph Atias et Fernando Valha [Fernão Dovale] – garantissant l’adjudicataire – la concession de la construction d’un pont sur le fleuve Beberibe12. Existe-t-il dans le Brésil hollandais une tolérance religieuse expliquant cette présence juive? Le clergé calviniste avec ses pasteurs venus de Hollande est résolu à combattre les papistes portugais, à extirper le paganisme des Indiens et des noirs, à tirer les juifs de leur erreur. Les synodes calvinistes s’efforcent en toute occasion de restreindre les droits des juifs. Dans leurs mémoires à répétition contre les juifs revient une accusation qui s’identifie à une explication: parlant le portugais, les juifs sont à même de traiter avec les catholiques brésiliens et les Indiens et d’acquérir à moindre prix les denrées et surtout le sucre revendu à la Compagnie13. 11 12

13

José Antônio Gonsalves de Mello, Tempo dos Flamengos, Influência da ocupação holandesa…, pp. 57et 58. José Antônio Gonsalves de Mello, Tempo dos Flamengos, Influência da ocupação holandesa…, pp. 99-102; relation détaillée dans: Arnold Wiznitzer, Os Judeus no Brasil…, pp. 66-67. A grande razão da preferência que os judeus têm sobre os nossos, nesse particular, é que eles usam da mesma língua que os naturais do pais, José Antônio Gonsalves de Mello, Tempo dos Flamengos, Influência da ocupação holandesa…, p. 268.

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De toutes manières, les juifs – mêmes fortunés – n’ont aucune part à la vie politique. En 1637, pressenti pour être échevin d’Olinda, Fernão do Vale doit se désister après que le négociant hollandais Jacob Stachhouwer eut déclaré toute personne d’origine juive inéligible à une fonction publique14. L’assemblée législative réunie à Recife par Maurice de Nassau du 27 août au 4 septembre 1640 – la première en Amérique – accorde cinquante députés aux catholiques portugais, mais aucun aux juifs. En 1653 seulement, face à la montée des périls, le gouverneur délègue en Hollande, outre deux émissaires hollandais, Gaspar van Heussen et Jacob Hamel, un émissaire juif Abraham de Açevedo15.

Figure 2: Jean Maurice de Nassau-Siegen (Johann Moritz Nassau).

Faut-il attribuer cette tolérance minimale à la Compagnie et plus précisément à son puissant Conseil des Dix-neuf? On a calculé que des actionnaires juifs d’Amsterdam détenaient 6 % du capital de la Compagnie. Dans le courant du XVIIe siècle un Bento Osorio avait souscrit pour 6.000 florins d’actions. Précisons ici qu’en 1623, le capital souscrit s’élevait à 7.108,106 millions de florins. L’article 10 des instructions secrètes données le 18 août 1629 par le Conseil des XIX au Général Hendrick Cornelissen Lonck, portait: 14 15

Lettre du 2 septembre 1637, José Antônio Gonsalves de Mello, Tempo dos Flamengos, Influência da ocupação holandesa…, p. 269. Arnold Wiznitzer, Os Judeus no Brasil…, p. 107.

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La liberté des Espagnols, des Portugais et des indigènes, qu’il soient ou catholiques ou juifs sera respectée. Il ne sera permis à quiconque de les molester ou de les soumettre à des poursuites sur des sujets de conscience ou en leurs résidences particulières, que nul ne s’avise de les inquiéter, de les troubler ou de leur causer quelque difficulté, sous peine de châtiments arbitraires ou, selon les circonstances, d’une réprobation sévére et exemplaire16.

On crédite de cette tolérance Jean Maurice de Nassau-Siegen (1604-1679) gouverneur général du Brésil hollandais du 23 janvier 1637 jusqu’au 22 mai 1644. A l’armée régulière, il joignit une milice composée de quatre compagnies comprenant tous les hommes libres, juifs compris, ceux ayant la faculté d’être dispensés de service le samedi. Maurice de Nassau aurait pris à son service comme contador mor Jacob Cohen Henriques. Dévot protestant, Maurice de Nassau nomme des ministres du culte réformé chargés de tirer les juifs de leur erreur. A plusieurs reprises il prête l’oreille aux doléances du synode du Brésil, le conseil suprême de l’Eglise réformée, contre les juifs qui circoncisent des chrétiens, qui engagent des servantes chrétiennes dont ils font leurs concubines. Maurice de Nassau transmet ces griefs au Conseil des Dix-neuf. Il fait état aussi de l’hostilité des portugais catholiques comme les échevins de Olinda, présidés par son ami Gaspar Dias Ferreira signant une pétition le 5 décembre 1637 à l’encontre des juifs. Il édicte à leur encontre plusieurs restrictions d’ordre économique et religieux17. Cependant lorsqu’en 1642 Maurice de Nassau fait connaître son intention de mettre fin à ses fonctions, la Nation juive lui adresse le 1er mai 1642 une pétition pour le supplier de rester et lui offrir trois mille florins d’étrennes en cas d’acceptation18. 16

17 18

Original néerlandais dans: Groot Placeat-Boek (La Haye, 1684), vol. 2, pp. 12361237, cité par: Arnold Wiznitzer, Os Judeus no Brasil…, p. 167, traduction portugaise, p. 49. Arnold Wiznitzer, Os Judeus no Brasil…, pp. 55, 63-64, 78. Sur cette pétition portant les signatures de Duarte Sarayva, Jossef Athias, Binjamin de Pina, Isaque Castanha, Isak da Costa, Jahacob Mocata, Miguel Roiz Mendes, Jacob Mose, Aharon Netto, Isaque Semah, Abraham Abeneka [?], voir: Arnold Wiznitzer, Os Judeus no Brasil…, p. 77. Facsimilé du manuscrit et texte intégral, de la pétition: Arnold Wiznitzer, Os Judeus no Brasil…, pp. 194-195. La personnalité de Maurice de Nassau a inspiré Maria Cristina Cavalcante de Albuquerque: Maria Cristina Cavalcanti, Jean-Maurice de Nassau, prince et corsaire, Monique Le Moing, trad. (Paris: l’Harmattan, 2007), roman historique «élaboré à partir de la correspondance de son secrétaire, le juif portugais Gaspar Dias Ferreira». Notable portugais, échevin bienconnu (voir: José Antônio Gonsalves de Mello, Tempo dos Flamengos,

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Le rabbin amstellodamois Menasseh ben Israel caresse le projet de s’installer au Brésil où l’avait précédé son frère Ephraïm Soeiro19. A cette fin, il dédicace en 1641 son opus magnum, le Conciliador de la conviniencia de los lugares de la S[anta] Escriptura que repugnantes entre sí parecen au Conseil émanant de la Compagnie, a los Nobilissimos, muy prudentes y inclitos señores del Consejo de las Indias Occidentales nombrados para la Iunta de los XIX deputados por los muy altos y poderosos Estados Generales. Et il signe Menasseh ben Israel, Theologo y philosopho hébréo. Si tolérance il y a, c’est bien à la Compagnie qu’elle est due.

Figure 3: Page de titre de Menasseh ben Israel, Conciliador (Amsterdam, 1641).

19

Influência da ocupação holandesa…, p. 196) affirme à Olinda en 1637 não ser verdade que ele seja de origem judaica, e que os seus ascendentes eram critãos-velhos e de tão nobre linhagem como qualquer um dos presentes, o que provou, nenhuma justificava de incapacidade poderia ser alegada contra ele e que era évidente que se tratava somente de uma perfídia…: José Antônio Gonsalves de Mello, Tempo dos Flamengos, Influência da ocupação holandesa…, p. 269. Dans une postface à son traité (Menasseh ben Israel, De termino vitæ: Libri tres Quibus veterorum Rabbinorum acrecentium doctorum, de hac controversias ententia explicatur (Amsterdam: Typis et sumptibus authoris, 1639), Menasseh ben Israel révèle que, vu la modicité du traitement que lui consent la Nation juive d’Amsterdam, il enverra au Brésil son frère afin examiner les perspectives de son installation éventuelle dans la colonie.

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2. La collectivité religieuse A quelle date apparaît une communauté juive de plein droit, la personne morale d’identité juive? Le document majeur à cet égard, le registre des délibérations de la Nation juive, tenu en portugais, ne couvre que les années 1648 au 28 septembre 165320. Mais son contenu postule une vie juive organisée plusieurs années auparavant. Dès 1636 la Compagnie reçoit un avis selon lequel les juifs bâtissaient une synagogue21. Vers 1637, Hayyim Sabbetai, éminent rabbin de Salonique instruit une consultation adressée par des juifs de Recife: le cours des saisons étant inversé au Brésil, doivent-ils maintenir leurs prières prescrites pour leur pluie de Tishri à Nissan (fin septembre - fin mars) ou adapter la liturgie aux saisons du Brésil?22 A son Conciliador publié en 1641, Menasseh ben Israel, savant rabbin d’Amsterdam, joint une deuxième dédicace aux Nobilissimos y magnificos señores el señor David Senior Coronel, el señor Doctor Abraham de Mercado, el señor Jahacob Muscate, el señor Ishac Castanho y mas señores de nuestra nascion habitantes en Recife de Phernambuco. Il s’agit des quatre dirigeants de la Nation juive de Recife constituant le Mahamad, c’est à dire le conseil restreint régissant la Nation en 164123.

20

21 22

23

Amsterdam, Stadsarchief, P. A. 334 (doc. n° 1304), texte original portugais publié par: Arnold Wiznitzer, «O Livro de Atas das Congregaçaões Judaicas ‘Zur Israel’ em Recife & ‘Maguen Abraham’ em Mauricia, Brasil 1648-1653, transcrição do manuscrito original, Introdução, notas e glossario», Anais da Biblioteca Nacional, 14 (1953), pp. 213-240 et en version anglaise par le même Arnold Wiznitzer, The Records of the earliest Jewish community in the New World (New York: The American Jewish Historical Society, 1954). Arnold Wiznitzer, The Records of the earliest Jewish…, p. 59. Hayyim Sabbetay, Sefer Torat Hayyim (Salonique: Abraham Nachman, 1722), IIIème partie, § 3, f ° 2 [en hébreu], sommaire de la consultation et de la réponse dans: Arnold Wiznitzer, Os Judeus no Brasil…, pp. 56-57. Menasseh ben Israel, Segunda parte del Conciliador o De la conviniencia de los lugares de la S. Escriptura, que repugnantes entre sí parecen. A los Nobilissimos, muy Prudentes, y Inclitos Señores del Consejo de las Indias Occidentales (Amsterdam: Nicolas de Ravesteyn, 1641); son adresse aux parnassim (syndics) de la Nation juive de Recife figure en tête du livre des Rois, texte portugais dans: Arnold Wiznitzer, Os Judeus no Brasil…, p. 74.

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Figure 4: Menasseh ben Israel, Dédicace aux Régents de la Compagnie.

La Nation comprend en fait deux communautés: Zur Israël, Roc d’Israël, désignation de Dieu, d’après II Samuel 23:3 et Isaïe 30:29 dans la ville même de Recife et Maguen Abraham (défenseur d’Abraham) à Mauristad. Ces communautés fonctionnent selon des règlements sophistiqués et contraignants analogues à ceux de Venise et d’Amsterdam. Elles élisent dirigeants et fonctionnaires, lèvent des taxes et impositions, décrètent des amendes, régissent la pratique du culte public en la synagogue, l’enseignement des enfants, confréries charitables de soutien aux pauvres, du rachat des captifs, de l’aide à la terre sainte. Elle se soucient des soins à apporter aux malades et offrent en 1644 un pont d’or au docteur Willem Piso s’il consent à demeurer à Recife24. La Nation rend également la justice entre ses membres. Le registre nous

24

Lettre au Conseil de la Compagnie du 10 mai 1644, José Antônio Gonsalves de Mello, Tempo dos Flamengos…, p. 176.

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livre les noms et les signatures de cent soixante-dix-sept chefs de famille de la Nation. Outre la synagogue, la Nation gère un champ de repos acquis hors la ville pour enterrer ses morts, le cimitério dos judeus au bairro de Coelhos25. A la suite du refus de Maguen Abraham de reconnaître l’autorité de Zur Israel, la Nation se pourvoit devant le gouvernement hollandais qui tranche en faveur de Zur Israel. Les deux Nations fusionnent en 1646. Le registre apparaît comme le sceau d’une structuration communautaire précoce, voire antérieure à la venue de juifs à Recife. Il s’en dégage l’étrange impression d’une vie communautaire intemporelle: la Nation poursuivrait à Recife le déroulement d’un quotidien habituel à Amsterdam. En fait, dans le fond et dans la forme ces règlements s’inspirent de ceux d’Amsterdam, eux-mêmes modelés sur les statuts de la Nation juive portugaise de Venise. Depuis 1642, la Nation a engagé un chef spirituel prestigieux, le rabbin Isaac Aboab de Fonseca, érudit, poète et surtout prédicateur réputé à Amsterdam. Il est assisté du lettré Raphael d’Aguilar, de maitres d’écoles, d’employés. La structuration communautaire s’accompagne d’une mutation identitaire pour un certain nombre de Nouveaux Chrétiens. Revenant ouvertement au judaïsme, ils changent leur nom, tel Simon Lion et son épouse Philipina de Fonseca qui adoptent respectivement les prénoms Abraham et Sara tandis qu’un Gaspar Francisco da Costa devient Moses de Cunha. D’où le grief formulé tant par les portugais catholiques que par le clergé calviniste: grief selon lequel les juifs convertissent des chrétiens et qu’il convient d’y mettre bon ordre26. Les dispositions règlementaires du registre s’efforcent à la fois de contraindre à la circoncision les nouveaux Chrétiens rentrant dans la Nation et d’interdire tout prosélytisme.

25

26

Alexandre Ribemboin, José Luiz Menezes, O Primeiro Cemitério Judeu das Américas péríodo da dominação holandesa em Pernambuco (1630-1654) (Recife-PE: Edições Bagaço, 2005). Doléances du synode calviniste de 1645, voir: Arnold Wiznitzer, Os Judeus no Brasil…, p. 80.

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Figures 5 et 6: Registre de la Nation juive portugaise de Recife.

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3. Le corps économique, social et militaire Façonnée par les normes et règles religieuses, la Nation juive – quelque 1.450 âmes pour une population civile blanche de 2.899 âmes, soit près de 50 % – a défini son espace propre, la Bockestraat qui devient la Jodenstraat. S’y trouvent la synagogue, un édifice à deux étages bâti de pierre et de chaux, et les demeures édifiées par des notables de la Nation dans le style hollandais, même si tous les juifs n’y habitent pas nécessairement. Sa vie économique est fondée surtout sur le courtage du sucre et du pau de tinta ou paubrasil, le bois couleur de braise, l’afferme des impôts et divers métiers et commerces. Alors qu’avant la conquête hollandaise, la société était faite des planteurs de sucre d’une part, des esclaves de l’autre, les juifs constituent une sorte de classe bourgeoise essentiellement urbaine. Certains membres de la nation créent des manufactures comme David Gabai de Morais qui fonde une faïencerie27. La Nation a ses grands notables comme Abraão Azevedo, l’avocat Michael Cardoso, Gaspar Francisco da Costa, le médecin et pharmacien Abraham de Mercado, Moise Navarro, David Senior Coronel, Fernão do Vale, Pedro Lopes de Vera. Elle possède aussi son propre corps militaire a guarda de judeus et ses membres appartiennent aussi aux companhas de burgenses. Cet aspect militaire de la vie urbaine découle du péril permanent d’un soulèvement portugais. Un soulèvement qui survient en 1645 et fait peser un danger mortel sur le pouvoir hollandais. Devenu indépendant en 1640, le Portugal a certes signé un traité d’alliance avec les Provinces Unies. En sous-main il appuie pourtant les préparatifs de révolte des Portugais appuyés par des Indiens contre la domination hollandaise.

27

Marina Carolina Medeiros de Silva, A Presença judaica na urbanização do Brasil nos séculos XVII et XVIII e (Dissertação de Mestre, 2007).

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Figure 7: Isaac Aboab de Fonseca, premier rabbin des Amériques.

En février 1644 une première rébellion portugaise bouscule les garnisons hollandaises et reprend le Maranhão. Le soulèvement – a guerra da libertade divina – débute le 17 juin 1645 à Ipojuca sous le commandement de João Fernandes Vieira et de André Vidal. Plusieurs localités et places fortes hollandaises, dont Olinda, tombent aux mains des rebelles. Le 19 juin 1645 le gouverneur hollandais supprime la dispense accordée aux juifs d’assurer la garde le sabbat. Le 25 juin juifs et hollandais doivent troquer leurs rifles contre des mousquets. Dix-sept juifs défendent un fortin aux abords de Recife. En novembre 1645 un bateau avec quarante juifs et un capitaine juif quitte Recife en direction du nord pour rejoindre à Itamara une troupe d’Indiens. Le Conseil Suprême ordonne le retour à Recife des compagnies de soldats juifs. Plusieurs localités et places-fortes tombent et les insurgés mettent le siège autour de Récife. La ville connait une pénurie de vivres et mobilise tous les hommes. On rationne les vivres, on décrète des réquisitions de vin et d’huile. Le 23 janvier 1646 deux navires arrivent de Hollande avec vivres, munitions et promesse de secours. Des renforts parviennent dans

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les jours suivants et, le 12 août 1646, un nouveau gouverneur Valter van Schonenburgh entre en fonctions28. Le rabbin Isaac Aboab de Fonseca compose alors un poème d’action de grâce en hébreu – la deuxième production littéraire hébraïque des Amériques – Zekher ‘asiti le-nifla’ot El, J’ai composé un mémorial des prodiges de Dieu, resté manuscrit mais qu’il rappelle en tête de sa traduction hébraïque de l’ouvrage espagnol du kabbaliste Abraham Cohen de Herrera, Puerta del Cielo29. C’est à la suite de cette alerte que la Nation promulgue le nouveau règlement qu’elle fait transcrire sur son registre.

4. L’exode et ses retombées Plusieurs facteurs précipitèrent la chute du Brésil hollandais: les progrès de la rébellion portugaise, la poursuite du siège de Recife, la dévastation des plantations et la chute drastique des exportations de sucre en premier lieu, la guerre menée contre l’Angleterre depuis la promulgation par Cromwell de l’Acte de Navigation en 1651, guerre qui mobilisait des fonds, des troupes, des navires refusés au Brésil ensuite, l’entrée en lice d’une Companhia Geral para o Estado do Brasil créée à Lisbonne le 8 mars 1649 enfin. La Compagnie, à laquelle des Nouveaux Chrétiens portugais parmi lesquels Duarte de Silva – par la suite arrêté, condamné comme judaïsant et figurant comme tel à l’autodafé du 1er décembre 1652 – fournirent des capitaux, alignait treize navires de guerre, soixante-quatre vaisseaux de commerce et des troupes commandées par Pedro Jaques de Magalhães. Une attaque contre les défenses de Recife le 15 janvier 1654 aboutit le 26 janvier 1654 à la capitulation des hollandais signée entre les mains du général Francisco Barreto de Menezes, commandant en chef de l’armée au nom du roi de Portugal.

28 29

Sur ces péripéties, voir: Arnold Wiznitzer, Os Judeus no Brasil…, pp. 80-85. Abraham Cohen, Sefer Sha‘ar-Shamayyim, Isaac Aboab da Fonseca, trad. (Amsterdam: Emanuel Benveniste, 1655), en hébreu, voir: R. Abraham Cohen de Herrera, Le Portail des cieux, Michel Attali, trad. (Paris: Éditions de l’Eclat, 2010).

Les juifs portugais à Recife 1630-1654. Un modèle évanescent?

Figure 8: Immeuble restauré de la synagogue de Récife.

Figure 9: Synagogue (intérieur).

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Les juifs – quelque 600 âmes en 1654 – s’embarquent pour Amsterdam sur seize vaisseaux, abandonnant biens, maisons et synagogue. Un de ces vaisseaux, le Valk fut capturé par les Espagnols: ses passagers juifs étaient destinés aux geôles du Saint Office lorsqu’un bateau français les libéra. Vingt-trois d’entre eux débarquèrent en septembre 1654 de la frégate française la Sainte Catherine à la Nouvelle Amsterdam – la future New York –, où en dépit des efforts du gouverneur Peter Stuyvesant pour les refouler, la Compagnie autorisa leur séjour. La plupart des juifs regagnèrent effectivement Amsterdam. Quelques-uns s’en furent dans les Caraïbes, voire jusqu’au Surinam, conservant parfois une nostalgie de l’espace brésilien perdu. Le 23 avril 1725, à Bayonne Isaac Henriques Julian donne procuration à son beau-frère Abraham Pacheco à Amsterdam pour acquérir une maison laissée par son père à Amsterdam, Langue Houtgracht, avec magasin et dépendance, maison appelée Le Récif en Brésil 30. Egon et Frieda Wolff ont enquêté longuement sur le devenir de chacune des cent soixante-dix-sept personnes figurant sur le Registre de la Nation31, lequel registre rapporté de Récife, fut conservé dans les archives de la Nation juive Portugaise d’Amsterdam, aujourd’hui déposées aux Archives Municipales. Une portion des rescapés juifs de Recife, après un séjour à Amsterdam, forts de leur expérience des plantations de canne à sucre et des techniques des ingenhos, fondent dans les Amériques, à La Barbade, à Curaçao, à la Jamaïque, au Surinam une entité juive, la Nação, portugaise et lusophone jusqu’à la fin du XVIIIe siècle. Sur le continent colonial hispano-portugais, désormais contrôlé entièrement par l’Inquisition, ne subsistera du temps des Flamands et des juifs que le souvenir d’une tolérance «scandaleuse». Vers la fin du XXe siècle, le grand historien José Antônio Gonsalves de Mello, entreprend de rechercher les vestiges matériels de l’ancienne présence juive. Des fouilles sont entreprises sous la direction de Marcos Albuquerque de l’Université Fédérale du Pernambouc. La synagogue est localisée, reconstruite en 2001, convertie en lieu de mémoire sur son site d’origine,

30

31

Sur l’exode définitif, voir: Arnold Wiznitzer, Os Judeus no Brasil…, pp. 123-126; acte bayonnais, notaire Guillaume Monho, Archives des Pyrénées Atlantiques, III E 3726. Egon Wolff, Frieda Wolff, A Odisséia dos Judeus…

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la rua do Bom Jesus antiga rua dos Judeus32. Le cimetière localisé sur le site de Nossa Senhora da Gloria, attend les fouilles prévues par une convention ad hoc passée le 23 juin 1975 entre l’Université de São Paulo et l’Université fédérale du Pernambouc.

Figure 10: Plaque actuelle de la Rua dos Judeus.

Conclusion Dans le court terme – moins de vingt-quatre ans –, la Westindische Compagnie, première entreprise capitaliste, mit en place un système efficace de production et de commercialisation du sucre. Ce faisant, nécessité économique, politique et militaire aidant, la compagnie secréta un prélude à la tolérance religieuse. Dans le court terme aussi, une composante du judaïsme anéantie par les expulsions de l’Espagne et du 32

Larry Rohter, «Recife Journal: Brazilian City Resurrects Its Buried Jewish Past», New York International (19 mai 2000); Boris Berenstein, «A Primera sinagoga de América», Confarad II Congresso Sefaradi. A presença dos judeus sefaradis e orientais na cultura brasileira (São Paulo: W-Edith Produções, 2006), pp. 24-26: Exposición: Recife: La primera Sinagoga de América y la Ruta Judía en Pernambuco, Museo Judio de Buenos Aires, 20 août 2013.

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Portugal en 1492 et 1496, les Nouveaux Chrétiens portugais, construisit, dans la mouvance d’Amsterdam, un nouveau modèle identitaire, a Nação, la première communauté juive du Nouveau monde. Ce modèle, comme les communautés médiévales fixées dans la longue durée en France, en Angleterre, en Espagne, sombra dans un exode total en 1654. Pourtant, peu après la chute du Brésil Hollandais, la Nação renaissait dans les Caraïbes, au Surinam et en Amérique du Nord et contribuait à façonner, face au bloc espagnol et portugais étouffé par les Inquisitions, un monde de relative liberté sur le registre de l’économique et aussi du religieux33.

33

Mordechai Arbell, Spanish and Portuguese Jews in the Caribbean and the Guianas: A Bibliography, Dennis C. Landis, Ann P. Barry (New York-Providence, The John Carter Brown Library-Inter Americas, 1999); Mordechai Arbell, The Jewish Nation of the Caribbean. The Spanish-Portuguese Jewish Settlements in the Caribbean and the Guianas (Jérusalem: Gefen Publishing House 2002); Jane S. Gerber, ed., The Jews in the Caribbean (Oxford: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2013).

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Le tracé de l’identité européenne de l’Espagne aux Pays Baltes Kaspars KLAVINS Emirates College of Technology – Rigas Tehniska universitate

L’intelligibilité de l’identité européenne peut être approchée en palpant les traits communs des régions et des frontières traditionnelles allant du Sud-ouest au Nord-est européen. La péninsule ibérienne qui fut la frontière de l’islam et du christianisme, la Livonie catholique, voisinant la Lituanie païenne (jusqu’au 14e siècle) ainsi que la Russie orthodoxe, ont durant tout le Moyen-âge représenté les entités unies tant sur le plan idéologique qu’institutionnel et culturel dont les empreintes témoignent encore aujourd’hui de la présence de cette unité, bien que fluctuante, mais capable de se reconstruire en permanence. Sans compter la coopération économique et politique, les peuples européens sont unis par les épopées nationales, les mythes communs (ou similaires) et les stéréotypes. Ce sujet est souvent repris dans la littérature, quelquefois sous un angle critique.1 Toutefois, malgré le regard critique que l’on peut porter sur ces phénomènes, ces derniers ne sont pas moins importants que les mythes de l’histoire contemporaine, tels que le marché libre par exemple.

1. Le folklore et la mythologie Avant tout, les peuples européens se ressemblent par leur culture traditionnelle, surtout en ce qui concerne l’ethnographie, la mythologie préchrétienne, ou le folklore etc… Cependant il a fallu attendre longtemps avant que ces phénomènes intéressent les chercheurs et que ceux-ci 1

Patrick J. Geary, The myth of nations: the medieval origins of Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003).

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soient considérés et étudiés. Parallèlement, bien d’autres éléments lient les peuples européens avec les peuples et cultures d’autres régions du monde, telles que la Chine, l’Inde, l’Amérique latine etc… Toutefois, le folklore, en tant que mouvement idéologique, servait avant tout de lien unificateur des peuples européens eux-mêmes, les incitant à s’émerveiller devant les régions considérées dans le passé comme «barbares». Le Romantisme, dans le sens de l’étude et du recueil du folklore, a débuté à Riga, sur le territoire de l’actuelle Lettonie grâce aux recherches de Johann Gottfried Von Herder qui entre 1764 et 1769 étudia les traditions ancestrales des peuples baltes vénérant l’alternance des solstices.2 Ses découvertes passionnantes ont le mérite d’avoir fait naître l’idée de la tolérance et du respect des différences culturelles qui s’est ensuite rapidement propagée dans toute l’Europe inspirant les initiatives d’action allant dans le même sens. Par exemple, Françoise Morvan dont le travail de recherche a abouti à la publication d’un recueil de Comptes de Bourgogne, écrit: Au printemps de 1870, je reçus la visite d’un personage célèbre […], Jégor von Sivers. Poète très estimé, critique et historien, […]; grand seigneur territorial et initiateur de méthodes de culture dans les provinces baltiques, Jégor von Sivers avait recueilli, traduit et publié à Riga les chants populaires de l’Estonie. Plusieurs lettres reçues de lui inauguraient déjà entre nous des relations, resserrées encore par mon admission, comme membre correspondant, dans la Société poétique de Riga. […] Dans ma conversation avec Jégor von Sivers, les chants populaires occupaient une large place, […] À Jégor von Sivers, j’exprimais mon admiration pour ces magnifiques ballades; je lui chantais ensuite nos plus belles, compliments, estimant à haut prix nos chansons de France encore peu connues.3

Ce recueil de chansons traditionnelles estoniennes en Lettonie (Riga) contribué à inspirer les français à recueillir les leurs, c’est pourquoi cet exemple peut être considéré comme le symbole de l’identité européenne dans le domaine du folklore. Cependant, comparant l’héritage de légendes des pays de l’Europe occidentale avec l’Europe du Nord-Est, l’exemple le plus remarquable est celui de la surprenante ressemblance de l’épopée nationale lettone Lacplesis avec le conte populaire occitan 2 3

Peter Burke, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), p. 28. Achille Millien, Contes de Bourgogne (Rennes: Editions Ouest-France, 2008), p. 25.

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‹Jean de l’Ours› qui est un des contes les plus connus dans la mythologie pyrénéenne. L’héros principal de l’épopée nationale lettone Lacplesis, décrit par le poète Andrejs Pumpurs en 1888, de même que ‹Jean de l’Ours› (Juan Artz ou Xan de l’Ours des Basques jusqu’au Joan de l’Ós catalan) est un hybride, mi-humain, mi-animal, né d’une femme et d’un ours.4 Dans l’épopée lettonne, la conception de héros Lacplesis se perçoit à travers le mouvement d’indépendance libéral-démocratique en Europe, ce qui lui attribue le caractère quasi messianique: Le vénérable vieillard, Vaidelots,5 | Dit avoir trouvé en pleine forêt | Agrippé à la mamelle d’une ourse | Un extraordinaire petit d’homme. | L’enfant, dit-il, par volonté divine | Un jour deviendra héros national | Dont le seul nom sera craint désormais | De tous les ennemis de notre peuple.6

50

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Imaginez, à quel point ce serait intéressant si Andrejs Pumpurs – l’auteur de l’épopée avait pris connaissance à son époque avec ce conte mythologique des Pyrénées…

2. L’unité culturelle de l’Europe médiévale Quoi qu’il en soit, l’idée de l’unification de l’Europe avait encore un long chemin à parcourir avant de pouvoir se réaliser malgré le contexte du siècle des Lumières et du Romantisme. Toutefois, il est remarquable que les prémices de cette idée aient été engendrées dans le Moyen-Âge et apparaissent dans les épopées de l’époque et leurs héros. 4

5 6

Bernard Duhourcau, Guide Des Pyrénées Mystérieuses (Paris: Sand & Tchou, 1978); Anonymes, Histoires et Légendes du Languedoc Mystérieux (Paris: Sand & Tchou, 1976). Une sorte de druide chez les proto baltes. Reproduction en vers par André Crépin, La version complète de Lacplesis en langue française sera publié prochainement.

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Un des chefs d’œuvre culturels du Moyen-Âge chrétienne est incontestablement le poème épique Chanson de Rolland datant du XIème siècle qui décrit comment, après une campagne en Espagne, l’arrièregarde de Charlemagne doit faire face à une attaque surprise au col de Roncevaux dans les Pyrénées. Ce poème met au grand jour tous les postulats de base, que ce soit politiques, sociaux ou religieux de l’Europe moyenâgeuse qui se perçoivent à travers la chevalerie, l’honneur féodal ou la foi, y compris le principe impitoyable de différenciation des hommes en chrétiens – païens (sarrasins – musulmans) démarquant ainsi la position commune des européens de ce qu’ils appellent «l’ennemi» et «les leurs». Cette représentation s’est maintenue jusqu’au fin du XVIe siècle et les conflits qui suivirent entre les turcs et la Russie. Dans la Chanson de Rolland, les peuples Baltes sont représentés par les lives7 (qui peuplaient le territoire actuel de la Lettonie) et les prussiens,8 qui dans le XIe siècle n’étaient pas encore inclus dans l’Europe chrétienne et de ce fait, ces pays figurent parmi les «étrangers». Il est assez surprenant et invraisemblable de lire que les peuples Baltes aient combattu du coté des «non-croyants» (musulmans) ensemble avec les arabes, les turcs, les kurdes, les persans et les nubiens…,9 d’autant plus que ces peuples, malgré leur non-appartenance à «l’Union européenne», ont influé autant la culture de cette région que les peuples qui en faisaient partie. Même l’épopée nationale allemande datant du XIIIe siècle, la Chanson des Nibelungen, nous démontre que les saxons de même que les Huns (hunniques – peuple nomade d’Asie centrale) étaient représentés comme «ennemis». Il est surprenant que les païens saxons, soumis et christianisés au VIIIe siècle par «le feu et l’épée» du souverain Charles le Grand, ont encore longtemps représenté dans la littérature européenne le symbole du paganisme. Nous comprendrons encore mieux la singularité de la Chanson de Rolland si nous tenons compte du fait, que pendant la bataille de Roncevaux, les chevaliers carolingiens ont, en fait, affronté la milice basque et non l’armée sarrasine. On peut 7 8

9

Dans la Chanson de Roland cités comme Leus. La Chanson de Roland, Cec)lija Dinere, trad (Riga: ALI S, 2010), p. 104. Le peuple dont le caractère ethnique et linguistique est proche des Lettons et Lituaniens qui se germanisa totalement jusqu’au fin du XVIIIe siècle. Dans la Chanson de Rolland sont cités comme Bruns, Bruise. La Chanson de Roland…, p. 104. La Chanson de Roland…, p. 104.

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dire que cette épopée est une sorte d’énumération originale des peuples européens allant des Pyrénées jusqu’à la Scandinavie. Cependant, durant la fin du Moyen-âge et le début des temps modernes, la Chanson de Rolland conquiert les villes riches du Nord de l’Europe au même titre que les oeuvres littéraires du Moyen-âge. À cette époque, les artisans et marchands avides de richesse et d’indépendance, adoptent de nombreux éléments de culture du temps des chevaliers,10 et notamment l’organisation des tournois etc. Les nombreuses villes du Nord (y compris Riga) organisèrent «les cours du roi Arthur» (curia regis Artusi, Artushof )11, a fin d’instaurer ainsi jusqu’au NordEst de l’Europe le mythe commun des chevaliers que partagent également les citadins. En tant que symbole de l’identité des chevaliers et des citadins, les places de marché et les places de l’Hôtel de ville de nombreuses villes se voient ériger la statue de Rolland: Dortmund, Haldensleben, Halberstadt, Bremen et bien sur à Riga – ville hanséatique, fondée en 1201. La municipalité de Riga a alloué des fonds pour la construction de la statue de Rolland en 1412 et en 1473, toutefois, ces statues n’ont pas pu être conservées jusqu’à nos jours. En 1895 il a été décidé de restaurer cette tradition moyenâgeuse et d’ériger une nouvelle statue du chevalier Rolland à la place de l’Hôtel de ville à Riga. Inaugurée en 1897, elle a été sculptée de fin grès gris de Silésie et sur son fondement ont été posées quatre colonnes de granit sombre de Finlande. La hauteur du puit et la statue mesurait 6, 3 mètres. Jusqu’à la fin de la Seconde guerre mondiale la statue de Rolland représentait le centre géographique de la ville. Lors de la fusillade de juin 1941, la statue de Rolland de la vieille ville de Riga n’a pratiquement pas été touchée. Après la guerre, la statue a été déplacée à l’église de Saint Pierre où elle se trouve encore aujourd’hui. En l’an 2000, une copie à l’identique de la statue de Rolland a été posée à son emplacement historique sur la place de l’Hôtel de ville. Ainsi, on peut dire que ce mythe lie encore de nos jours la région des Pyrénées avec les Pays Baltes. 10 11

Johan Huizinga, L’Automne du Moyen-Age (Paris: Editions Payot & Rivages, 2002). . Elzbieta Pilecka, «Die Mittelalterlichen Artushöfe in Preussen als architektonisches Phänomen. Regionales Kuriosum oder materielles Zeugnis des Mentalitätswandels der Hanseaten im Mittelalter?», Mittelalterliche Kultur und Literatur im Deutschordensstaat in Preussen: Leben und Nachleben, Jarosùaw Wenta, Sieglinde Hartmann, Gisela Vollmann-Profe, ed. (ToruĹ: ‘Wydanictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikoùaja kopernika, 2008), pp. 173-203.

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La formation de l’identité européenne de l’Espagne au Pays Baltes s’est clairement dessinée durant le XIIIe siècle, la période pendant laquelle l’Europe s’est distinguée à travers aussi bien son expansion religieuse que technologique et institutions sociopolitiques. Dans ce sens, Robert Bartlett a raison de dire que le culte des Saints vénérés à Valence et à Séville, au XIIIe siècle sont aussi vénérés à Riga.12 De plus, ces régions frontalières comportent de nombreuses similitudes sur le plan de la conception religieuse. La Prusse dominée par les chevaliers teutoniques, de même que la Livonie dont les territoires frontaliers se confrontent en permanence avec les païens lituaniens, ou encore les russes «schismatiques», implorent la Sainte Marie qui est un lieu de culte très populaire. De nombreuses cathédrales des villes conquises par l’Espagne portent le nom de Marie. Quant aux Pays Baltes, la Sainte Marie fut la patronne des chevaliers teutoniques, et d’ailleurs, la Livonie du temps de Moyen-âge s’appelait Terra Mariana. Les deux pôles européens géographiquement opposés attachaient une grande importance aux ordres spirituels des chevaliers. Si la Livonie fut un pays des chevaliers teutoniques, la péninsule ibérienne comptait avec les ordres religieux militaires: Templiers, Santiago, Calatrava, Ordres d’Alcantara et d’Avis. En quelque sorte, les Templiers lient les deux régions car cet ordre, même si c’est dans la moindre mesure, existait dans la Baltique (en Prusse). La Prusse orientale (Strasburg an der Drewenz, Rheden) et la Livonie – le foyer des chevaliers teutoniques –, voient arriver l’influence de l’islam présent dans l’architecture repris du Moyen-Orient, de l’Espagne et de Sicile dont témoignent plusieurs ruines des ordres. Il est pertinent que même l’ordre de Calatrava participe modestement à la défense des chrétiens en Prusse et installe une commanderie à Thymau (en polonais, Tymawa)! Plus directement, le lien qui lie la partie occidentale de la péninsule ibérienne avec la Baltique à travers toute l’Europe est celui des chemins de Saint-Jacques de Compostelle, tenant compte du fait que le pèlerinage de Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle sur le tombeau supposé de Saint Jacques est devenu un des plus importants pèlerinages de la Chrétienté au Moyen Âge. Ainsi, Saint-Jacques de Compostelle et la 12

Robert Bartlett, «Colonial Aristocracies of the High Middle Ages», Medieval Frontier Societies, Robert Bartlett, Angus MacKay, eds. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), pp. 23-48.

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Livonie catholique (Terra Mariana), avec le siège de l’archevêché à Riga, les chevaliers teutoniques avec leur centre à Wenden (actuellement la ville de C&sis en Lettonie) ainsi que les villes estoniennes – Reval et Dorpat – ont constitué les deux pôles géographiques qui marque la limite du christianisme occidental. Durant le Moyen-âge, en Lettonie et en Estonie, la toponymique reprend le nom de Saint-Jacques (Jakobsberg, Jakobshof, etc…). Selon Christian Krötzl, ces noms toponymiques sont incontestablement liés à Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle,13 de même que le cloître cistercien des femmes, fondée en 1255 à Riga qui fut à son temps appelé ‘le cloître de l’église du Saint Jacob’ (monasterium sanctae Dei genitricis ac virginis Mariae ac sancti Jacobi Rigense).14 Toutefois, l’appellation du cloître provient du nom de l’église Saint Jacob dont la première mention date du 1226. Cette église se trouvait en dehors des fortifications de la ville et fut, probablement, construite pour les lettons nouvellement baptisés.15 Quoi qu’il en soit, la plus grande ville de la Livonie – Riga, est devint à son tour la ville de pèlerinage,16 dont le centre équivalent à l’extrémité Ouest fut SaintJacques-de-Compostelle. Encore de nos jours, l’Espagne (et le Portugal), et la région catholique de Latgale en Lettonie, constituent les pôles géographiquement opposés du catholicisme dans l’Union européenne. Le Moyen-âge fut une période déterminante qui a permis de faire naître les valeurs européennes. Faisant abstraction de l’ironie et de la critique concernant le Don Quichotte de Miguel de Cervantès, cette œuvre reflète l’ensemble de la culture des chevaliers qui s’est également répandue à travers les événements organisés par l’Ordre allemand en Prusse et en Livonie avec la participation des chevaliers de toute l’Europe.17 13

14 15 16

17

Christian Krötzl, «Del Mar Báltico a Santiago de Compostela. Peregrinajes e influencias culturales», Santiago: La Europa del Peregrinaje, Paolo Caucci Von Saucken, dir. (Barcelona-Madrid: Lunwerg Editores SA, 2003), pp. 385-391. Indrik¸is Šterns, Latvijas v&sture 1290-1500 (Riga: Latvijas vestures institńta apgĪds, 1997), pp. 293-294. Indrik¸is Šterns, Latvijas v&sture 1180-1290. Krustakari (Riga: Latvijas vestures institńta apgĪds, 2002), p. 539. Andris Levans, «Die lebendigen Toten. Memoria in der Kanzlei der Erzbischöfe von Riga im Spätmittelalter», Kollektivität und Individualität. Der Mensch im östlichen Europa, Karsten Brüggemann, Thomas M. Bohn, Konrad Maier, dirs. (Hamburg: Verlag Dr. Kovaį, 2001), pp. 3-35. Werner Paravicini, Die Preussenreisen des europäischen Adels (Sigmaringen: J. Thorbecke Verlag, 1989).

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Grâce à leur situation géographique, l’idéologie du Saint-Siège de Rome) comparait la péninsule ibérique et la Baltique avec la «Terre sainte» – la Palestine. En tant que territoires frontaliers marquant la limite entre les «catholiques» et les «non-croyants» (islam, les païens lituaniens et les orthodoxes russes), ces deux régions éloignées furent la destination prestigieuse du pèlerinage des chevaliers qui affirmaient ainsi leur «courage et détermination». Au XIVe siècle, les chevaliers venus de la Péninsule Ibérique partaient à destination de la Baltique pour combattre les païens et schismatiques mais également pour jouir de la somptueuse hospitalité de l’Ordre allemand, dîner à la table ronde comme ce fut le cas du temps de la cour du Roi Arthur, organiser des tournois, écouter les chants et profiter de bien d’autres prestations, ou bien encore, recevoir la bénédiction des chevaliers après une brève bataille en Lituanie ou sur la terre russe. A ce propos, on peut se joindre à l’idée de Danielle Buschinger et Mathieu Olivier, qui écrivent: «Telle est donc l’expédition de Prusse qui revendique une place, au 14e siècle, parmi les lieux incontournables de l’univers chevaleresque.»18 Bien entendu, la Livonie s’intègre également dans ce contexte compte tenu de l’information recueillie dans l’Armorial de 1334 à 1372 par Gelre, Héraut d’Armes.19 Les expéditions des chevaliers occidentaux dans la Baltique ont contribué, entre autres, à l’impulsion à la littérature française à travers la renaissance de la Chanson de Rolland: Le roman Jehan de Saintré, d’Antoine de La Sale, composé vers 1455 et centré autour du chevalier éponyme, sacrifie également à cette veine nostalgique en faisant de la Prusse le théâtre d’une expédition imaginaire de tous les princes chrétiens contre une multitude païenne tout aussi disparate, dans la tradition de la Chanson de Rolland. Cette reise20 fictive et fort peu réaliste est ponctuée par une bataille quasi apocalyptique.21

18

19 20 21

Danielle Buschinger, Mathieu Olivier, Les chevaliers teutoniques (Paris: Ellipses Édition Marketing S. A., 2007), p. 168; Werner Paravicini, Die Preussenreisen des europäischen… Victor Bouton, Wapenboeck ou Armorial de 1334 á 1372 par Gelre, Héraut d’ Armes (Paris – Bruxelles: M. Victor Bouton, 1881). Reise: de l’allemand. Expédition militaire sur le territoire de la Lituanie, qui a été suivi par chevaliers de l’Europe occidentale. Danielle Buschinger, Mathieu Olivier, Les chevaliers teutoniques…, p. 170.

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3. Les Jésuites Le prochain moment décisif qui démontre la relation entre ces régions éloignées est la période de la Réforme et la contre-réforme avec ses événements dramatiques qui ont très tôt touché la Baltique. En effet, à Riga, la religion luthérienne domine déjà en 1522, ce qui place la capitale de la Lettonie comme première ville en dehors de l’Allemagne où la religion luthérienne s’impose et s’installe définitivement. Le lien plus direct qui lie la presqu’île des Pyrénées avec la Baltique apparaît durant la période de contre-réforme du fait de l’activité influente de l’ordre jésuite. Ignace de Loyola – le fondateur de la Compagnie de Jésus et gentilhomme basque, évoque la mythologie et le folklore des pyrénéens, si proche des baltes et leurs représentations très anciennes du monde. Si les observations d’Ignace de Loyola au monastère de Montserrat (Catalogne) sont connues des visiteurs de ce lieu, les événements qui se sont déroulés dans la Baltique restent oubliés. La compréhension de l’Europe ne passe pas uniquement par la retranscription de la culture commune, il est indispensable d’étudier les traits communs très anciens. Le premier livre publié (et conservé) en langue lettonne date de 1585. Il s’agit de catéchisme de Petrus Canisius (1521-1597), publié à Vilnius. Toutefois, le tout premier livre en letton date du 1525, qui est une traduction en letton faite par les jésuites. Petrus Canisius, qui fut un des plus grands intellectuels de son époque, a contribué à publier des livres dans plusieurs langues européennes, et de ce fait, il a avancé, en quelque sorte, l’idée sur «l’Union européenne».22 Suite à la contre-réforme ou la Réforme catholique, les jésuites d’origine allemande, italienne ou espagnole, affluent en Pologne, Lituanie et en Livonie.23 Le lien des Pays Baltes avec l’Europe occidentale devient plus perceptible. La région balte servit de pont qui véhiculait et propageait les idées de l’Europe occidentale à l’Est – en Biélorussie et en Russie, contribuant ainsi à l’européanisation de la Russie et favorisant le terrain à la naissance du

22 23

Rainer Berndt SJ, Petrus Canisius SJ (1521-1597): Humanist und Europäer (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2000). Jan Joseph Santich, Missio Moscovitica: the Role of the Jesuits in the Westernization of Russia 1582-1689 (New York: Peter Lang, 1995), p. 56.

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nouveau Empire russe. Les langues officielles des missionnaires jésuites dans la Baltique furent le polonais, l’allemand, le letton, le lituanien et l’estonien.24 L’activité des jésuites dans la ville de Dünaburg (Daugavpils), marque une étape importante dans l’histoire de l’éducation dans la région balte lorsqu’en 1638, Georg (Juris) Elger – un prêtre d’origine lettonne, ouvrit une école de grammaire. Cette école s’est ensuite transformée en collège et devint pour un temps, l’établissement scolaire le plus élevé en Lettonie.25 Georg Elger (1585-1672), qui au courant du XVIIe siècle, publia plusieurs livres ecclésiastiques, voit, grâce au jésuite espagnol Pedro de Ribadeneyra (Petrus Ribadeneira), intégrer son nom dans le recueil bibliographique26 des jésuites les plus renommés du monde, publié en 1676, ce qui nous démontre, sous un autre jour, la relation que les Pays Baltes entretenaient avec l’Europe occidentale jusqu’aux Pyrénées. Il faut dire que les jésuites rassemblent aussi bien les territoires de l’Europe occidentale – l’Espagne, la France et l’Italie avec la Baltique, que l’Europe avec le monde entier – l’Amérique latine, la Chine et l’Inde. L’ordre jésuite venu de l’Europe occidentale a atteint la Baltique afin de marquer d’une manière significative son histoire a, bien entendu, eu plus de succès en Amérique latine, conquise par l’Espagne et le Portugal. Il est curieux de remarquer, comment les liens établis dans le passé unissant les jésuites de l’Europe de péninsule ibérique jusqu’à la Baltique, sont encore perceptibles de nos jours à travers les contacts des scientifiques et chercheurs. Par exemple, en 1996, un étudiant brésilien Bernardo Christophe a soutenu son diplôme de Master sur la problématique philologique des travaux de jésuite letton Georg (Juris) Elger

24 25 26

Jan Joseph Santich, Missio Moscovitica: the Role of the Jesuits…, p. 82. Heinrihs Strods, Latvijas katol¸u baznĶcas v&sture (Riga: PoligrĪfists, 1996), pp. 167168. Petrus Ribadeneira, Bibliotheca scriptorum Societatis Jesu (Romae: Jacobi Antonii de Lazzaris Varelii, 1676), p. 287: Georgius Elger, natione Liuo, ingressus in Societatem anno 1607. aetatis 22. docuit in ea humaniores litteras; Concionatorem, & Operarium multis annis egit Duneburgi, ubi, & praefuit Superior Nostris; in Coadiutorem Spiritualem pridm formatus. Demum octoginta, & octo annorum cum esset ibidem quieuit in Domino 30 Septembre 1672. Scripsit lingua Lotauica, cuius in Liuonia usus est. – Plus largement sur les écrits de Georg (Juris) Elger, lire les travaux de Stanislavs Kucinskis.

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au XVIIe siècle.27 De même, le philosophe catholique letton, immigré au Brésil – Stanislavs Ladusans, a enseigné la philosophie et devint un philosophe de renommé internationale dans la sphère des intellectuels. S. Ladusans créa, notamment, le cercle des philosophes catholiques au Brésil et à partir de 1972 occupa le poste de président de «l’Union américaine et latino-américaine des philosophes catholiques».

4. Le rôle de Bartolomé de Las Casas dans la formation de l’Etat social dans la Baltique et les mythes de l’assujettissement Bartolomé de Las Casas (Séville, 1474 - Madrid, 1566), est un prêtre dominicain espagnol, célèbre pour avoir dénoncé les pratiques des colons espagnols et avoir défendu les droits des indigènes en Amérique. Cette information est connue de tous et figure même dans le Wikipédia. Toutefois, les idées des grands penseurs ont souvent eu un impact plus important que prévu. De plus, il n’est pas rare que ces idées connaissent un succès dans une région d’Europe éloignée. Autant les travaux de J. G. Herder à Riga ont influencé toute la pensée européenne jusqu’au Portugal, les idées de Bartolomé de Las Casas ont attent au XVIIIe siècle leur apogée dans la Baltique grâce aux philosophes du siècle de Lumières opposés à l’idéologie conservative de la noblesse foncière. Les penseurs germanophones de Kurland, Livland et Estland se révoltèrent fermement contre la servitude dans les provinces Baltes, comparant les paysans lettons et estoniens aux indiens assujettis d’Amérique latine et créèrent ainsi le mythe du Moyen-âge présenté en tant qu’âge sombre de l’Europe qui a, notamment, «assujetti les peuples baltes, libres et bienheureux». Dans ce contexte, l’activité des chevaliers teutoniques ainsi que celle de l’archevêque de Riga et les marchands de la Hanse, a été comparée à celle de l’expansion des conquistadores espagnols dans

27

Bernardo Christophe, Zur Deklination der Substantive in den Eangelien und Episteln von Georg Elger: historisch-vergleichende Studie über die Nominalmorphologie eines altlettischen Textes aus der Zeit um 1640 (Göttigen: Magisterarbeit, 1996).

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les terres incas et aztèques. Le mythe sur l’assujettissement des peuples baltes est aussi infondé que celui de la «légende noire» concernant le passé de l’Espagne. Au XIIe siècle, les habitants de la Lettonie, habitués aux guerres incessantes avec les scandinaves, les lituaniens, les estoniens la ville de Polock, Pskov ou Novgorod ont enfin eu l’occasion d’affronter la supériorité militaire de l’adversaire en unissant leur force avec les migrants de l’Europe occidentale et garantir ainsi une certaine défense, paix et tranquillité. Et ces migrants n’étaient pas seulement les allemands: les gotlandais, les hollandais, les flamands, les français etc. Les accords conclus entre les souverains locaux et les migrants alliés permettaient de combattre de concert contre les estoniens, lituaniens, Novgorod, Pskov et Polock. Ainsi voit le jour la Livonie. Craignant la résistance, ce n’était pas dans les intérêts de l’ordre allemand de donner aux permettre aux vassaux une parcelle de pouvoir et de constituer une unité solide, c’est pourquoi la priorité était donnée à la formation de chevaliers (sergents) modestes, choisis parmi le peuple.28 Il faut se souvenir que les lettons pouvaient également devenir des frères de l’ordre.29 L’ordre allemand se composait de chevaliers, prêtres, serviteurs (sergents) et parmi ces derniers, il y avait un pourcentage significatif de personnes issues de la population locale. La servitude ne verra pas le jour au XIIIe siècle en Lettonie. Klaus Militzer souligne qu’après la formation de la Livonie, les paysans demeurèrent libres et pouvaient porter une arme.30 La servitude s’est installé progressivement à partir de la fin du XVe siècle. Toutefois, l’historien Leonid Arbusow considère qu’encore au XVIe siècle, on ne peut pas parler de l’esclavagisme en tant que réalité.31 La situation de la paysannerie s’est vue considé28

29

30 31

Paul Johansen, Siedlung und Agrarwesen der Esten im Mittelalter. Ein Beitrag zur estnischen Kulturgeschichte (Dorpat: Verhandlungen der Gelehrten Estnischen Gesellschaft, 1925), p. 11. Parmi les chevaliers teutoniques encore XIIIe siècle pourrait devenir n’importe qui, indépendamment de sa nationalité. Voir: Klaus Milizter, «Brun¸ inieku brĪl¸i VĪcu ï urnĪls, 3 (1994), orden¸ a Livonijas atzarĪ 1237-1562», Latvijas V&stures Instit-ta Z pp. 47-55. Klaus Militzer, Die Geschichte des Deutschen Ordens (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 2005), p. 86. Leonid Arbusow, «Die altlivländischen Bauerrechte”, Mitteilungen aus der livländischen Geschichte, 23 (1924-1926), pp. 1-141; Latvijas v&sture 1500-1600, Edgars Dunsdorfs, Arnolds Spekke, eds. (Stockholm: Daugava, 1964), p. 440.

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rablement se dégrader au courant du XVIIe siècle (excepté la Livland, sous tutelle de la Suède), et devint très difficile lorsque les Pays Baltes furent occupés par la Russie. Ainsi, la servitude de la paysannerie ne fut pas introduit par les explorateurs occidentaux au XIIIe siècle mais bien par Pierre le Grand au XVIIIe siècle qui donna des privilèges considérables à la noblesse foncière allemande comme compensation pour l’occupation de la Baltique. Cependant, les Germano-Baltes qui s’opposaient à l’hégémonie de la noblesse foncière, comme Karl Philip Michael Snell, Heinrich Johann von Jannau, Garlieb Helvig Merkel et bien d’autres, ont établi de fausses parallèles entre la servitude instauré par la Russie tsariste au XVIIIe siècle dont ils étaient des témoins directs et l’assujettissement de la paysannerie au XIIIe siècle – l’idée – directement inspirée des penseurs des Lumières qui considéraient le Moyen-Âge comme l’âge sombre de l’histoire. Parallèlement, et ce depuis l’époque des salons publicistiques parisiens, l’attention critique de la société fut portée à l’assujetissement impitoyable des indiens d’Amérique latine (dans le passé). A ce propos, les conceptions humanistes du XVIe siècle, et notamment, celles issues des articles de Bartolomé de Las Casas deviennent particulièrement actuelles pour les défenseurs de la cause paysanne. Garlieb Helvig Merkel, devenu célèbre en Allemagne avec la publication de son livre Les Lettons,32 s’est inspiré de la critique de Bartolomé de Las Casas à propos de l’assujettissement de la population ainsi que des travaux de Guillaume-Thomas Raynal et son livre Histoire philosophique et politique des établissements du commerce des européens dans les deux Indes, ce dernier reflétant la pensée de Las Casas. G. H. Merkel écrit que la «Livland (Livonie – la province Balte qui intégrait la région Nord de la Lettonie et la région Sud de l’Estonie), ne possédait pas de mines, sinon, dans le sens contraire, les habitants trouveraient leur mort comme les mexicains».33 A ce propos, vient à l’esprit l’ouvre de Las Casas Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias paru en 1552, peu après son voyage au Mexique. Aussi, G. H. Merkel cite directement Raynal: «Les laboureurs des champs sont partout les plus honnêtes et les plus vertueux des hommes, lorsqu’ils ne

32 33

Garlieb Helwig Merkel, Die Letten vorzüglich in Liefland am Ende des philosophischen Jahrhunderts (Leipzig: Gräff, 1797). Garlieb Helwig Merkel, Die Letten vorzüglich in Liefland am Ende…, p. 26.

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sont ni corrompus, ni opprimés par le gouvernement».34 Dans ce cas précis, il s’agit de la transcription directe des idées de Bartolomé de Las Casas au sujet de ses nombreux plans de réforme en Amérique latine dans lesquels il suggère d’améliorer la situation des indigènes à travers une nouvelle réglementation du travail et la fin des travaux forcés. L’influence de Historia de las Indias (1561) de Bartolomé de Las Casas, est perceptible dans les écrits d’un autre publiciste balte, Karl Philip Michael Snell et notamment son livre Beschreibung der russichen Provinzen an der Ostsee (1794). Dans ce livre, Snell retrace l’histoire de la Lettonie et de l’Estonie comparant la situation avec les premiers contacts des indigènes latino-américains décrits par Las Casas, pour démontrer que dès le début, le but des envahisseurs de la Baltique était d’assujettir les peuples baltes à l’image des conquistadores.35 La perception de la pensée de Bartolomé de Las Casas dans la Baltique est fortement redevable au physicien, chimiste et théologien français Georges Frédéric (Georg Friedrich) Parrot (1767-1852) qui fut élu premier recteur de l’Université de Dorpat (aujourd’hui, Université de Tartu en Estonie) lorsqu’en 1802 Alexandre Ier a ordonné sa réouverture. A cette époque, l’Université de Dorpat était située sur le territoire de Livland (Livonie) dont le centre administratif se trouvait à Riga. Parrot arrive en Livonie (sur le territoire de l’actuelle Lettonie) en 1795 et occupa le poste de professeur particulier dans le domaine du Compte Karl von Sievers à C&sis.36 Parrot a été touché par la situation déplorable des paysans, ce qui probablement, l’incita à s’intéresser aux idées de Bartolomé de Las Casas sur la nécessité de mettre fin à la servitude.37 Inspiré par Las Casas qui voulait mettre en place les réformes permet34 35

36 37

Garlieb Helwig Merkel, Die Letten vorzüglich in Liefland am Ende…, p. 191. Karl Philip, Michael Snell, Beschreibung der russichen Provinzen an der Ostsee. Oder: Zuverlässige Nachrichten sowohl von Russland überhaupt, als auch insonderheit von der natürlichen und politischen Verfassung. dem Handel, der Schiffart. der Lebensart. den Sitten und Gebräuchen, den Künsten und der Literatur, dem Zivilund Militairwesen, und andern Merkwürdigkeiten von. Livland, Ehstland und lngermannland (Jena: in der akademischen Buchhandlung, 1794), pp. 164-165. Janis Stradin¸ š, ZinĪtnes un augstskolu sĪkotne LatvijĪ (Riga: Latvijas v&stures instit.ta apg"ds, 2009), p. 313. A. . , . . , «    -

       (     -

   )»,     .       (! : "  , 1966), pp. 125-140.

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tant améliorer la situation économique et garantir les droits humains des indigènes, Parrot commence à s’intéresser sérieusement à la question des paysans baltes. Il publia anonymement un ouvrage Über eine mögliche ökonomische Gesellschaft in und für Livland qui analyse la situation économique des paysans et incite à l’améliorer. Il est notable que Parrot a non seulement exprimé la nécessité et l’urgence d’améliorer la situation économique de la paysannerie, mais également le besoin de se préoccuper des soins médicaux, et de ce fait, Parrot peut être considéré comme pionnier dans l’histoire de l’Etat sociale moderne non seulement dans la Baltique mais en Europe en général. Après le succès de la brochure de G. F. Parrot, le Landtag a pris une décision de mettre en place la Société générale économique de Vidzeme (Kaiserliche Livländische Gemeinnützige und Öconomische Societät) dont le poste de secrétaire général en 1796, fut attribué à G.F. Parrot lorsqu’il s’installa à Riga. Officiellement, Parrot ne cite Bartolomé de Las Casas que le 6 août 1806 lors de son discours à l’Université de Dorpat à l’occasion de l’inauguration de la bibliothèque. Son discours n’a pas été publié, toutefois, il est conservé aux archives d’Etat en Estonie.38 Parrot évoque notamment l’histoire des peuples baltes dans le contexte du mythe de la soumission, rappelant qu’au Moyen-âge, le territoire fut conquis par les troupes des chevaliers allemands et les serviteurs de l’Église avides de pouvoir. Cependant, sans préciser le nom, Parrot écrit que la Baltique à son tour, ‘avait son équivalent Las Casas’.39 Le discours de Parrot en 1808 fut la première citation du nom de Bartolomé de Las Casas dans la Baltique et de ce fait, dans l’Empire russe en général. Parrot s’occupait également de la scolarisation des paysans, il a d’ailleurs, personnellement aidé le jeune K"rlis Viljams – fils de serviteur à intégrer l’Université de Dorpat pour les études de mathématiques. Cet étudiant devint ensuite administrateur d’un domaine et ensuite directeur d’usine de verrerie en Finlande et Ukraine. K. Viljams en tant que représentant étudiant de l’Université de Dorpat, ensemble avec G. F. Parrot, ont posé les briques dans le fondement du bâtiment principal de l’Université.40 38 39 40

Collection 402, description 3, conservée dans l’unité en 2467, pp. 47-55. A. . , . . , «    -

      …», pp. 125-140. A. . , . . , «    -

      …», p. 129.

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Si, au courant du XIXe siècle, la Lettonie et l’Estonie (bien avant l’indépendance) se sont formées en tant que région moderne et développée favorisant l’épanouissement de l’Empire russe, les prémices de ce processus ont germé grâce aux propriétaires fociers baltes de pensée libérale ainsi qu’aux intellectuels de la fin du XVIIIe siècle. C’est ainsi qu’à partir du début du XIXe siècle, de nombreuses lois concernant les paysans se succèdent. Incontestablement, la pensée de l’humaniste espagnol y a laissé sa trace témoignant aujourd’hui du lien étroit qui unie la péninsule ibérique à la Baltique et de la pensée qui a favorisé la génèse de l’héritage intellectuel européen à l’heure de la société moderne. L’interprétation de l’histoire et le lien intellectuel qui s’était établis au niveau Européen, dans le contexte du siècle des Lumières, a favorisé la naissance des mythes et stéréotypes, dont les sources sont puisées dans la perception assez négative à l’égard du Moyen-âge. Ainsi, la «légende noire» de l’Espagne a favorisé le terrain qui a mené à l’apparition du mythe de «l’assujettissement des peuples baltes au XIIIe siècle».

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The construction of Spanish national identity Juan Sisinio PÉREZ Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha

1. Introduction and initial considerations When discussing memory and National identity, Spain offers us an archetype of identity and memory in a state of continuous unrest. In the certificate of its birth as a State-Nation, in the Cadiz Constitution of 1812, deep contradictions were already lurking beneath that flat definition which read “the Spanish Nation is the union of all Spaniards from both hemispheres”, because before two decades had passed, the greater hemisphere of those referred to by the liberal legislator had separated from this constituting Nation. Moreover, nowadays we conclusively know that the 1978 Constitution remains open to new kinds of State and identity organizations which are currently sheltering in its midst.1 This means that in the State’s two centuries of life, the implementation of the principle of territorial and citizen representation and the specification of identity have always been complex and problematic. 1

The political and legal dimensions arise in a large number of works, of which we highlight the following titles among the most recent: Democracia y pluralismo nacional, Ferran Requejo, ed. (Barcelona: Ariel, 2002); El federalismo pluralista. Del federalismo nacional al federalismo plurinacional, Miquel Caminal, ed. (Barcelona: Ariel, 2002); Derechos históricos y constitucionalismo útil, Miguel Herrero, Ernest Lluch, eds. (Barcelona: Crítica, 2001); and the perspectives suggested in: Pedro Cruz, La curiosidad del jurista persa, y otros estudios sobre la Constitución (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Constitucionales, 1999); and the interesting legal unraveling of the constitutional conflict in the Basque Country undertaken in the unpublished paper by: Bartolomé Clavero, “Entre desahucio de Fuero y quiebra de Estatuto: Euskadi según el doble plan del Lehendakari”, Jornadas de Estudio sobre la Propuesta del Lehendakari, Universidad del País Vasco, Donostia-San Sebastián, 4–7 de febrero 2003. Bartolomé Clavero: [email protected], whom I thank for the use of the text. Moreover, the works cited in footnote 19 of this text are references to learn about the historiographical debate surrounding this matter.

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Therefore, to establish the contours of a coordinated reflection on Hispanic identities in the mainland, it seems appropriate to raise certain initial considerations. Above all, that the Nation is not so much a natural reality as a symbolic representation which objectively exists in the consciousness of individuals, and for this reason it is not enough to dismantle the historical artificiality of its process of creation because, beyond its ideological nature, we find the social acceptance of this identity. In this state of affairs, and since identity is based on memory, we must not forget that memory is the ability to reproduce and that this reproduction is always activated by selection. This occurs in biological and physical memory, in computer science or the individual psychological memory and in the social memory of different groups. However, since memory is a “re-construction” of previous events it is not reliable, it does not exactly coincide with each and every one of the aspects of a past reality, but is always elaborated upon new and different experiences in which we must not disdain that which is omitted or forgotten. This can be easily seen in individual memory in the way each of us remembers or, what is the same, reconstructs the experiences from when we were five, fifteen or thirty years old… García Márquez has fully expressed this in the introduction to his memoirs: “Life is not what one has lived, but what one recalls and how one recalls it to tell it”.2 We would now like to highlight how the collective memory which supplies a social group, in this case the national group catalogued as Spanish, with an identity is organised and presented. Memory is a part of, but also concerns the identity of a society, and historians play a crucial role in its construction, especially in the creation and delimitation of western national memories. Moreover, the nation became the most important and operative mode of collective identity during the process of transition to capitalism because it reabsorbed previous collective identities and stood as a key element of collective action.3 Thus, if the task classically performed by history has been the construction and management of memory in every society, group or culture; in the 2 3

Gabriel García Márquez, Vivir para contarla (Barcelona: Mondadori, 2002), p. 8. The issues raised in the works of a sociological nature gathered in: Marisa Revilla, “Movimientos sociales, acción e identidad”, Zona Abierta, 69 (1994), should be applied to the identity references of the nationalization process.

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case of national identities, since the nineteenth century the Liberal State has explicitly and in an institutional sense assigned this task to the historian and this is what has happened in Spain too. If a society’s process of creating memory is based upon a reconstruction mechanism, it seems inevitable that history should attract the interest of society’s governing bodies,4 and that the control they exercise over the creation of their own memory be indeed verifiable, be they a State, an institution or a football team. Whoever owns the power of narrative and discourse, and in literate societies the power of the alphabet, is who monopolises the voice that creates memory. It is a competence related to political power that is maybe even a part of political power. These pages’ thesis is, therefore, simple: if memory is a political construction, power acquires a crucial role in its production because, as part of its domain, it uses its capacity to create memory – and to also encourage omissions – to shape collective behaviours and social identities. In this case, the historian, from Herodotus and Thucydides to the current historiographical productions, is always submerged in this political task of creating and managing memory in his own society. All societies need memory, and there is not a political, ideological, cultural or even sporting organization that does not programme its future with reasons rooted in the past, either to recover it, overcome it or not repeat it. Ultimately, memory does not only build identity, but it shapes and determines human beings, their way of living and behavioural patterns. It is not by chance that in the Greek God’s Olympus, Mnemosyne was the muse who possessed the divine power to recall, the muse who treasured the memory of all that the group should preserve to keep its own identity. Because memory is not only an individual issue, but it is also inherent to the existence of any historical group. As a result, these pages will adhere to a historiographical task because history is the science or discipline which, as designated in western culture, acts as custodian of the memory of a society, group or institution, 4

If we look at the proposal of Roger Chartier that any social relationship is cultural because it is influenced by a certain symbolic space from which individuals act, then we will understand the State’s interest in controlling the educational system, for example, and monitoring the power emanating from cultural instituitions: Roger Chartier, El mundo como representación. Historia cultural entre práctica y representación (Barcelona: Gedisa, 1995).

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and the historian is the creator and manager of this social memory.5 Moreover, we will focus on how the Spanish nationalist discourse is formulated based on a historiographical development which perceives the entire peninsula’s past in a unitary national sense. In particular, Spanish national identity has developed with a cultural distinctiveness, it has become mixed up with the State’s own history, and it has been conceived as a historical project of unity whose teleology has been in the hands of monarchs and statesmen, at least since the Middle Ages. Therefore it is difficult to discern Spanish identity and not confuse it with the memory of the State, that is, with the political history in which the concept of Spain is considered by accepting and assuming as valid the territorial proclamations and ambitions of successive dynasties which have reigned the peninsular territories. A similar perspective was forged in the nineteenth century as part of the construction of the first unitary State which was really organised as the Spanish nation, and continues to this day by making the history of institutions a support for patriotism with a constitutional history included.6 Since the nineteenth century there have been successive phases of reworking a common past, in an effort to cement the implementation of a homogeneous civic memory defined as Spanish. Since the nineteenth century the prevailing political and cultural groups have presented the unitary existence of a State in Spain as unquestionable and logical, always at the expense of systematically obviating or forgetting other cultural memories and other possible national memories. The State has been turned into the culmination of a long process of differ5

6

The following works are, in this regard, indispensable: the classic book by Maurice Halbwachs, Les Cadres sociaux de la mémoire (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1952); Reinhart Koselleck, Futuro pasado. Para una semántica de los tiempos históricos (Barcelona: Paidós, 1993); Les lieux de mémoire, 3 vols., Pierre Nora, dir. (Paris: Gallimard, 1984–1992); Josefina Cuesta, “Memoria e Historia”, Ayer, 32 (1998); Alicia Alted, Entre la memoria y la historia (Madrid: Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, 1995); Memorias colectivas de procesos culturales y políticos, Dario Páez et alii (Bilbao: Universidad del País Vasco, 1998); Paul Ricoeur, La Mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli (Paris: Le Seuil, 2000). The identification of institutional history with constitutional history is to be found in: José Ignacio Lacasta-Zabalza, “Tiempos difíciles para el patriotismo constitucional español”, El vínculo social: ciudadanía y cosmopolitismo, Mª José Añón Rubio et alii (Valencia: Tirant lo Blanch, 2002), pp. 31–126.

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ent communities’ unitary aspirations, and the winning argument for the existence of the Spanish nation.7 Reality has been warped and the aspirations of past monarchies, as different as their possessions were scattered, have been reinterpreted as the feelings of the Spanish people, who did not exist as a nation or commune with the dynastic ambitions which have defined the frontiers made unquestionable by the State since the nineteenth century. This is why the process of creating a collective Spanish identity in the nineteenth century is crucial because its result was not only a socially manufactured reality but a reality that, by being socially objectified, has since become an element of personal identity through socialization processes. Power, the State and their respective mechanisms of reproducing memory, among which we should emphasise the teaching of history in the education system, have been equally critical in such processes. Moreover, the transmission of memory has also been carried out by other means, such as family tradition, the system of military recruitment, periodically organised elections, civic holidays, journalism, newspapers and magazines, historical literature, art, music and the organisation of public spaces as places of collective memory. Such an accumulation of realities and the complexity formulated in the respective processes of nationalization confront us with the risks that the notion of identity harbours, especially when applied to groups such as those in Spain. Moreover, the debate is between psychologists and sociologists: is it possible to speak of group identity or only of personal identity which, in turn, shares common ingredients with the collective to which it belongs? To what extent is this element of collective identity which each person has unchanging, transient and fully induced by contradictory factors? Specifically, in Spain in 2003 we witnessed how political groups induced social actors to define themselves in terms of national identity, neglecting other symbolic references of

7

This point of view has an unusual force which the political scientist Andrés de Blas clearly expresses when defining the Spanish nation as “a State with a defined historical personality, whose mere existence throughout decades and even centuries is a far from negligible source of legitimacy” by: Andrés de Blas, “A vueltas con el principio de las nacionalidades y el derecho de autodeterminación”, Revista Internacional de Filosofía Política, 3 (1994), pp. 60–80.

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mental management of the priorities in today’s society.8 In fact, it can be seen how political parties use the national identities of the groups in Spain as key elements to create a subjective reality, understandable only in the “dialectic between individual and society”.9 As a result national identities are manufactured which, like social products, can have a more or less stable life but which, nonetheless, are part of a symbolic universe with a wider repertoire of identities and which, during the socialization of every person, are internalised with different hierarchies. During this process, the awareness of belonging to a nation can be transformed into a quasi-nature, into the essence of each individual. However this does not happen if we have not first offered a categorical definition of social reality in terms of a nation. That is, a nation does not exist unless there are social actors who have asserted the existence of said nation as a community of elements which become symbols for an entire social group. So, because the national community is imagined, intellectuals – according to the happy formula of B. Anderson – acquire a determinant role in the defining of elements of national collectiveness.10 Moreover, among intellectuals, historians have above all 8

9 10

It is fair to remember the wisdom of the following words: “History is freedom, not destiny, and the collective subjects who make it are not defined from eternity or from some immutable natural base, but from flexible and relative political, linguistic and cultural constructions”. These words belong to the late lamented: Francisco Tomás Valiente, Escritos sobre y desde el Tribunal Constitucional (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Constitucionales, 1993), p. 194. Peter L. Berger, Thomas Luckmann, La construcción social de la realidad (Buenos Aires: Amorrortu, 1968), pp. 216–217. Benedict Anderson, Comunidades imaginadas. Reflexiones sobre el origen y la difusión del nacionalismo (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1993). From the rich production on nationalism, it is necessary to at least remember: Miroslav Hroch, Social preconditions of national revival in Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), and from the same author, “La construcción de la identidad nacional: del grupo étnico a la nación moderna”, Revista de Occidente, 161 (1994), pp. 45– 60; Elie Kedourie, Nacionalismo (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Constitucionales, 1985); John Breuilly, Nacionalismo y Estado (Barcelona: Pomares-Corredor, 1990); Ernest Gellner, Naciones y nacionalismo (Madrid: Alianza editorial, 1988); Liah Greenfeld, Nationalism. Five roads to modernity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992); Gil Delannoi, Pierre André Taguieff, Teorías del nacionalismo (Barcelona: Paidós, 1993); Eric Hobsbawm, Naciones y nacionalismo desde 1780 (Barcelona: Crítica, 1991); Michael Mann, “Los estados-nación y otros continentes. Diversificación, desarrollo y supervivencia”, Debats, 46, (1993); Anthony D. Smith,

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been those responsible for categorising social reality in a national and nationalist way because with their definitions of the contours, contents and evolution of Spain they have contributed to unfolding the performative capacity of the language.11 In any case it goes without saying that we will not enter into the debate about the success or force of the nationalization process promoted by the Spanish State since the nineteenth century, because, to avoid falling into the emptiness of a mere analysis of ideas,12 such questions would have to be analysed in conjunction with the social process of which the momentum of national Spanish identity is a part. It is increasingly more evident that nationalism should be investigated in its economical and social aspects, and not just in the cultural aspects of its symbolic representations, because only then will we understand the nationalization process by which some groups become nations. This is a particularly complex process in the case of Spain because besides the new elites that, with the support of the liberal State, developed the reference frames for national Spanish identity, other identity references simultaneously appeared within the same State, alongside the national perspectives rooted in values of the old regime. In all these cases, history became the support for building the natural story of Spain as a nation, and also for rethinking its identity with alternative principles of a federal political nature or based on premodern social values.

11 12

Las teorías del nacionalismo (Barcelona: Península, 1976), and by the same author, La identidad nacional (Madrid: Trama editorial, 1997); Anthony Giddens, Consecuencias de la modernidad (Madrid: Alianza editorial, 1997); Montserrat Guibernau, Los nacionalismos (Barcelona: Ariel, 1996); Tomás Pérez, Nación, identidad nacional y otros mitos nacionalistas (Oviedo: Editorial Nobel, 1999); and the Proceedings from the Congress on nationalism in Beramendi: Nationalism in Europe: Past and present, 2 vols., Justo G. Beramendi, Ramón Maíz, Xosé M. Nuñez, eds. (Santiago de Compostela: Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, 1994). John L. Austin, Cómo hacer cosas con palabras (Barcelona: Paidós, 1982). These questions are raised in Juan Sisinio Pérez, “La nación, sujeto y objecto del Estado liberal español”, Historia Contemporánea, 17 (1998), pp. 119–138.

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2. History and historians: national memory and the country’s thinkers History became a social science from the nineteenth century onwards when it was turned into the backbone of the memory of nations organised as States or of States organised as nations. We are not interested in going back to mythical tales or the historians of classical antiquity to corroborate the need of historical and sociological knowledge, which is as old and universal as the need for knowledge of nature. A human group that is unaware of its own past would be as anomalous as an amnesic individual. Both in the case of social groups and individual people, memory – it should be reiterated – is not a record but a construction. Each period has had a record of the past, although it has been built on changing parameters. If myth contained the most primitive form of history, with its own internal logic,13 chronicles emerged as the tale of a period’s unique events observed from an interested point of view. From Renaissance till Enlightenment historiographical formulas coincided which ranged from the literary genre to the development of coherent systems of explanation. In any case, documents became a resource and source for the knowledge of past group memory because they contained a collection of real experiences. Now is not the time to remember the history of history, that is, the process by which history, like social science and humanistic knowledge, was forged no later than the eighteenth century when, as part of modern thinking, it was shaped into scientific knowledge. It was precisely with modernity that man built the tale of his own genealogy as a social being and as a creator of civilization and culture. The architects of modernity14 13 14

Rollo May, La necesidad del mito. La influencia de los modelos culturales en el mundo contemporáneo (Barcelona: Paidós, 1992), especially pp. 61–68. The classical books on this issue are those by: Georges Lefebvre, El nacimiento de la historiografía moderna (Barcelona: Martínez Roca, 1974), that by: Eduard Fueter, Historia de la historiografía moderna, 2 vols (Buenos Aires: Nova, 1953); and that by: George Peabody, Historia e historiadores en el siglo XIX (México: Crítica, 1981); George Peabody, La historia de los hombres (Barcelona: Crítica, 2001); Juan José Carreras, Razón de historia. Estudios de historiografía (Madrid: Marcial Pons-Prensas Universitarias de Zaragoza, 2000); Elena Hernández, Los caminos de la historia (Madrid: Síntesis, 1995); Gonzalo Pasamar, La historia contemporánea. Aspectos teóricos e historiográficos (Madrid: Síntesis, 2000).

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explicitly and emphatically connected with thinkers of Greco-Roman antiquity and, therefore, by gathering the etymologies of the word “history” broke it down into two meanings: the set of human events occurred in the past, and the tale, knowledge or record we have of them. So, since then, the word has had a double sense which is threatened with the danger of confusing knowledge and memory with the very contents of that knowledge and memory. The past, as a past time, is by definition unrepeatable, but we confuse it with the image that has been transmitted of it and which is inserted in our memory as part of our identity. A similar conceptual ambivalence – already found in the Indo-European root of the word history – has generated intense debate, not only because of the distinction between matter and knowledge, reality and memory, but especially because of the implications of such different contents. A single example should suffice: when we speak of Spain’s history, we understand the set of passed events referred to an organised human group which is currently called Spain; but we also understand the accumulated knowledge and record we have of these events, a knowledge primarily reflected in the most familiar history manuals and a record which is indistinguishable from our current experiences. The past – being unrepeatable – becomes mixed up in our perception with what has been transmitted to us and with what we have assimilated as memories that support our civic behaviour. Knowledge and memory of the past therefore interfere with the unrepeatable reality of bygone times. In any case, let us now shift our interest to the time when, as part of the cultural formulation of nation-States in Europe, history became a school subject in the nineteenth century. It was during these decades that the past was adjusted to a pedagogical method and the overabundance of events was filtered to extract a defined and easy to assimilate product for students and citizens. It was then that in every country and every case, the enormous and undifferentiated mass of all the traces people had left behind on those lands throughout centuries, was arranged in order to build the corresponding national memories. So history was the effect of an intellectual transmutation which imposed the transparency of a national reading over the opacity of the thousands of past events of any given territory now encapsulated in the borders of a representative State. This, in turn, was made up of citizens

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who were required to show allegiance and loyalty to the institutions that expressed the sole of a nation. This process was part of the social organization of liberalism whose subject and legal support was the nation: it first happened in the countries where the processes of economical modernization, that is, the move towards capitalism, implied the secularization of thought and the subsequent re-writing of the past. Citizens’ “national behaviour” could not only come from market development, but required a bond of loyalty with the respective State. Therefore, nationalism became the ideology which created the supports and contours of the group identity predominant since the nineteenth century. People’s behaviour started to be defined and delimited as civic behaviour identified with a nation and loyal to a cultural and political identity that erased old institutional or religious allegiances. It also stood above social classes because its highest value was the idea – which is part of the core meaning of the word nation – of a deep national bond that invades the private sphere and flows into a religious ritual (national holidays, civic processions…). This identity, which they attempted to objectify in historical, cultural and customary characters, was as natural as timeless. On the one hand, it was supported with the force of the States that, originated in absolutist monarchies, were re-launched as nations. On the other, it had a distinguished creator and architect in the figure of the intellectual historian. This behaviour was instilled in the intricacies of society through memory policies developed by liberalism, among which historiography, whose unanimously accepted mandate was to recreate the past from a nation’s parameters, especially stood out. Thus public writers formulated historic knowledge and used a cultural practise intertwined with the demands of the middle classes who were carriers of modernisation, liberalism and nationalism. These intellectuals of revolutionary liberalism simultaneously organised history as a science of national memory, and a knowledge which was as humanistic and scientific as patriotic. As a result, the professional historian of the nineteenth century, by rescuing classical tradition, gave preferential treatment to the political future and put together a new story to explain the construction of liberal States as sovereign nations. Thus, although they did not always specifically discuss political history, liberal historians developed their research and analysis on state

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chronology, supported by successive monarchs who became representatives and an expression of the life and political soul of the nation.15 Therefore, a country’s history was primarily forged as the science of its corresponding State-nation and at most it expanded its horizon to Europe to contextualise and analyse the future of those States organised as nations in the nineteenth century by liberalism and romanticism. In fact, throughout Europe a similar phenomenon occurred: the writing of general histories which explained in solid and numerous volumes the history of a nation from inception, taking for granted the immemorial time of the reality of the nation identified with the State. Suffice it to recall the examples of Macauly, Guioberti, Thierry, Michelet, Taine and Modesto Lafuente, whose works became authoritative references to contend their respective national identities. Due to the fact that historians were responsible for cementing the foundations of the feeling of patriotic identity, objectivity and impartiality became a methodological obsession. By no means were historians self-proclaimed impartial referees but, on the contrary, part of the elite of cultural power gathered around the State-nation. Sociologically they were enlisted on the side of society’s governing power which they endowed with memory. If during the Old Regime, monarchs and clergymen had the monopoly to dictate history, after the modernisation led by the liberal State control was handled in an interposed way, that is, through regulation mechanisms for the common good, patriotic love or national civic identity. Since the nineteenth century history is not dictated, it is no longer an ad usum delphinis tale, because political powers were set up as the spokespersons for the needs of national groups or social identities. For this same reason the Liberal State overthrew the cultural power of the Old Regime, monopolised by aristocrats and clergymen, and implanted something completely revolutionary: the obligatory education system for all citizens. Thanks to the Liberal States’ educational system, history became an obligatory subject for primary and secondary school students. It was the nationalising and patriotic knowledge par excellence. Therefore, history was shaped into a national knowledge, a patriotic subject and a social science. 15

Charles O. Carbonell, La historiografía (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1986); and also the works by: George Peabody, Historia e historiadores…; Georges Lefebvre, El nacimiento de la historiografía…

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In the middle of the nineteenth century, a history scholar explained the social and educational role of history in establishing civic memory and identity. His argument was the following: “since Kings are not the sole arbiters of nations, since communities have also aspired to be absolute, history should be written for everyone because everyone has to learn from it”. Thus the history of Spain should be taught to “all the classes” of the nation, so that they can know their past, “one by one and [know] what to expect and fear, what to seek and flee from, as evidenced by the teachings of the past”.16 Our profession arose on these parameters and continues to follow their tracks. Nowadays we can see it in our surroundings: all institutions, autonomous governments or old towns, ecclesiastical dioceses or football clubs are concerned about organising and ordering their own memories to record their history which is ultimately set up with future aspirations. Nonetheless, these institutions are simultaneously concerned about how history is written and transmitted. They all approach history from their perspective as entities and in all their cases a similar mechanism is triggered, that of creating a group memory and formulating an identity for a specific allegiance.

3. State, history and civic allegiances In Spain, the role of the historian as an intellectual creator of national memory unfolded in the long decades since the implantation of the Liberal State in the first third of the nineteenth century culminating with the organization of the Centre of Historical Studies at the beginning of the twentieth century, in 1910 exactly. We could go back to the organization of the Royal Academy of History in 1738 with the Bourbon absolutist monarchy to outline the mechanisms of memory control by those in power. The same thing was done, but with new objectives, from the very birth of the State-nation driven by the liberals of the Courts of Cadiz. The organization of an education system which illus16

José Zaragoza, Discursos leídos en la Real Academia de la Historia, el 12 de abril de 1852 (Madrid: Imprenta de D. Agustín Espinosa y Compañía, 1852). The first citation is on page 7; the second on page 9.

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trated citizens’ reasoning and also their national awareness as children of a common homeland was soon anticipated in the Informe Quintana [Quintana Report]. It is not the time to remember the various vicissitudes through which the national educational provisions of the liberals passed; suffice it to remember two facts: the first, the testimony of the main architect of the liberal educational reform in the 1840s, Antonio Gil de Zárate who clearly stated the State’s requirement: “the question of teaching is a question of power, he who teaches dominates because to teach is to train men, and men shaped in the views of he who is indoctrinating them. To hand over teaching to the clergy is to want to train men for the clergy and not for the State; it is to pervert the ends of human society; it is to move power from where it belongs to he whose mission is to be outside all power, all domain; it is, in short, to turn into a sovereign someone who should not be one”. He resoundingly concluded: “the question, as I have said, is a question of power. One must know who has to dominate society: the Government or the clergy”.17 Therefore it was a struggle in which the event of enlightening citizens through history became one of the largest goals.18

17 18

Antonio Gil de Zárate, De la Instrucción Pública en España, 3 vols ([Madrid: 1855], ed. facsimil (Oviedo: Pentalfa, 1995), vol. 1, pp. 146–147. On the educational system of the liberal State and the role assigned to the contents of geography and history in instilling identity with the homeland, see, among others, the following works: Jose Luis Peset, S. Garma, Juan Sisinio Pérez, Ciencias y enseñanza en la revolución burguesa (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 1978); Antonio Viñao, Política y educación en los orígenes de la España Contemporánea (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 1982); Àngels Martínez, Ensenyament, burgesia i liberalisme (Valencia: Diputación de Valencia, 1983); Joaquín García, Los textos escolares de Historia en la enseñanza española: 1808–1900. Análisis de su estructura y contenido (Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, 1993); Horacio Capel et alii, Geografía para todos. La geografía en la enseñanza española durante la segunda mitad del s. XIX (Barcelona: Libros de la Frontera, 1985); Manuel Puelles, Educación e ideología en la España Contemporánea (Barcelona: Labor, 1991); and the innovative contributions of: Rafael Valls, “La exaltación patriótica como finalidad fundamental de la Historia en la educación obligatoria: una aproximación histórica”, Didáctica de las Ciencias Experimentales y Sociales, 5 (1991); Raimundo Cuesta, Sociogénesis de una disciplina escolar: la Historia (Barcelona: Pomares-Corredor, 1997); Carolyn Boyd, Historia patria. Política, historia e identidad nacional en España, 1875–1975 (Barcelona: Pomares-Corredor, 2000); Juan Sisinio Pérez et alii, La gestión de la memoria. La historia de España al servicio del poder (Barcelona: Crítica, 2000).

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The other fact to be remembered is the law that systemised all the measures decreed by the State until 1857. The Moyano lay definitively regulated the educational system as a public function of the State because teaching was a question of national sovereignty which affected the concept of citizenship. For this reason the law regulated the contents of text books and the access to teaching jobs, in full knowledge that the process of nationalization or Hispanization faced rivalry from the Church. Hence the farsightedness of Gil Zárate’s aforementioned words and the liberals’ decision to involve the catholic religion in teaching, by giving it the character of national identity. Not all liberals believed the same about the role of the Church, although it was widely accepted among those who had hegemony and power in the State institutions. So, if they wanted to consolidate the new ties of civic identity, they had to develop a language to legitimise their power which was none other than that built around the “nation” as a sovereign entity and as a way of secularising power. In the beginning it was an anticlerical language, to define itself from ecclesiastical power and to nationalise the clergy’s riches. However, from the start Spanish liberals wanted to have the support of Catholicism, constitutionally declared the religion of the nation since 1812. They valued religion as a referent of group identity and as a crucial support to consolidate the changes made in the symbolic universes in time to social and economical shifts.19 Ultimately, and without forgetting the weight of religion and the Church, with the liberal revolution of the nineteenth century history became the national knowledge with the best resources to consolidate allegiance towards the unitary organization of Spain. Logically the State turned history into a compulsory and patriotic subject which was institutionalised as knowledge taught by civil servants. Since then history in Spain, like in the rest of the West, has been solidly connected to the vicissitudes of the State and tied to the creation of collective signs of identity and allegiance to the State represents citizenry. Therefore, the historian’s profession was born and developed in Spain in the lee of the

19

Juan Sisinio Pérez, “El Estado educador: la secularización de la instrucción pública en España”, Secularización y laicismo en la España contemporánea, Manuel Suárez, ed. (Santander: Sociedad Menéndez Pelayo, 2001), pp. 95–119.

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process of modernisation formulated as national and aimed at nationalising society. So, independently of whether it was civil servant State historians or intellectuals who competed in the market of social prestige with their works – as was the case of paradigmatic authors like Modesto Lafuente and Antonio Pirala – they all amalgamated into a symbiosis in which there was not a archivist, librarian and teacher or public writer (in the manner of Lafuente) who was not politically committed and who did not emphasize the concept of Spain as a referent of civic identity. For this reason, neither was there a politician who did not write history. As intellectuals of a nation under construction, they were all implicated in the organization of a memory defined since the nineteenth century as Spanish and whose identity was clearly established as a result amassed over centuries. They were looking to consolidate and strengthen the memory of Spain – born as a nation – as a State and a market. This memory had to be unitary to offer historical arguments to the new political and economical reality of the nationwide spread of capitalism. Thus, it was a homogeneously written memory to substitute and overcome the memories of the different communities housed in that State. Old allegiances to the monarchy, religion or disparate institutions from medieval kingdoms had to be substituted with a new kind of allegiance, an allegiance to the Spanish homeland. This task involved the long and excellent list of blacksmiths of liberal historiography in Spain, such as the aforementioned Lafuente and Pirala as well as Alcalá Galiano, Andrés Borrego, Víctor Balaguer, Juan Cortada (author of continuously reedited manuals), Juan Rada, Pi Maragall, and a long etcetera of authors of history books. They were public writers who argued from several angles – history, law, politics, the press box – the forms and structures of the national bourgeoisie State under construction. History became a combat weapon to argue about the future. This sheaf of intellectuals held the power of the alphabet and written culture and were the architects of the challenge of culturally homogenizing peasant and urban masses rooted in disperse and disparate traditions and allegiances from the Old Regime. It was a challenge that unfolded as a zigzagging, slow and difficult process, due to it being a part of the subsequent development of the capitalist modernisation whose

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vicissitudes are not to be analysed in these pages.20 In any case, these public writers or generic intellectuals21 supported the new social and economical logic of a bourgeoisie-natured development in such a way that, along with the nationalisation of sovereignty, institutions, amortised property, debt and the railway, they nationalised the past to make it coherent with the present. They practised law, as well as journalism and politics – liberal professions par excellence – and could also be doctors, engineers and in quite a few cases State civil servants like teachers, soldiers or archivists and librarians. They all wrote history books because they contained crucial knowledge to argue about the present. They acquired a high degree of consideration because they had the cultural capital which placed then in an exceptional situation in society. They turned professional and became the exclusive owners of the legitimate knowledge to establish the cultural norm and the paradigm of what was specifically Spanish. Therefore, history unfolded as a symbolic fight for the control of a historic memory which would give substance to the ideological demands on the organization of Spain, in a way that history acquired a clear political purpose following the example marked by Guizot in France.22 This new reality unfolded from Romanticism onwards, reaching the maximum interdependence between State and national historiography when Cánovas del Castillo not only lead a political party and 20

21 22

The debate on the transition to capitalism is long and with important contributions, for which we need only cite as historiographical assessments: Josep Fontana, “La historiografía española del siglo XIX: Un siglo de renovación entre dos rupturas”, La historia social en España, Santiago Castillo, coord (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 1991), pp. 325–336; Antonio Fernández, “Introducción”, Los fundamentos de la España liberal (1834–1900). La sociedad, la economía, las formas de vida, in Historia de España Menéndez Pidal, José Mª Jover, dir. (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1997), vol. 33; Pedro Ruiz, “Del Antiguo al Nuevo Régimen: carácter de una transformación”, Antiguo Régimen y Liberalismo. Homenaje a Miguel Artola (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1994), pp. 159–192; José Antonio Piqueras, “La revolución burguesa española. De la burguesía sin revolución a la revolución sin burguesía”, Historia Social, 24 (1996), pp. 95–132. Christophe Charle, Los intelectuales en el siglo XIX. Precursores del pensamiento moderno (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 2000). This historiographical process can be seen in: Paloma Cirujano, Teresa Elorriaga, Juan Sisinio Pérez, Historiografía y nacionalismo español 1834–1868 (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1985).

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successive governments, but also was head of the Royal Academy of History and drove historiographical projects of undoubted Spanish nationalist scope. Thus, during the decades of the Restoration, there was a decisive impulse to the institutionalization of history which became solid with the creation in 1910 of the Centre of Historical Studies, when the ways of reproducing history were consolidated. It was then that historiographical nationalism acquired its definitive status as a science. Spanish nationalism was supported by the most important public representations of culture, such as the Academy of History, the National Archaeological Museum, the National Library and the Athenaeum to which was added, first under the baton of Menéndez Pelayo and then under that of Menéndez Pidal, the Academy of Language in a task it continues to do to this day with enthusiasm.23 However there was a new process during this period: the organization of alternative historiographical nationalisms, that is, of other memories which resumed the feelings of other identities. Despite the importance of the State, the political system did not exclusively coincide with the State. If the State is a system of organised decisions, beyond the State other powers and organizations existed which did not produce directly binding decisions, but which in the Spain of the end of the nineteenth century shaped group behaviours. These were powers which also used history as a legitimising knowledge for their formulation and reproduction. So, next to the Spanish national historiographical effort, promoted from the State-sponsored institutions, other historiographies were consolidated which did not necessarily confront State purposes, but also turned history into an instrument for legitimising an ideology, a cultural reality or even an alternative national organization. Throughout the nineteenth century it was already possible to differentiate between a conservative historiography and one with democratic and republican commitments, for example, or it was also possible to check 23

These questions are investigated by: Ignacio Peiró, Los guardianes de la historia. La historiografía académica de la Restauración (Zaragoza: Institución Fernando el Católico, 1995); and by the same author, “Los Historiadores oficiales de la Restauración (1874–1910)”, Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia, 193/1 (1996), pp. 13–72; and by the same autor and Gonzalo Pasamar, La Escuela Superior de Diplomática. Los archiveros en la historiografía española contemporánea (Madrid: ANABAD, 1996).

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that the organization of the unitary State had opposing approaches with proposals of a federal interpretation. However, above all it was regional historiographies, born in the heat of Romanticism, which were strongly reactivated – in the Catalan and Galician case – with national historiographies in the Restoration decades.24 In time these gave way to the respective alternative nationalities, especially in Catalonia, Galicia, Andalusia and the Basque Country, which were in political, cultural and interpretative competition with Spanish national historiography. What is more, a characteristic of Spanish nationalist historiography is the systematic neglect or failure to consider other historiographies, not to mention other historiographical realities. Moreover, that the different ideological sectors, cultures and the corresponding political boundaries resort to the past to justify their own positions in the present is a constant that reaches our times. Suffice it to recall a strange event in our recent history: the involvement of professional historians in the preparation of the various memories of the new political entities – the Autonomous Communities – created with the 1978 Constitution. So, at the beginning of the 1980’s, in the process of organizing the autonomous State, various editorial initiatives – some public and some private – of varying quality emerged which launched a new product, that of the necessary autonomic histories and regional and national encyclopaedias in whose list of directors and contributing authors we find the involvement of a large majority of the cream of historiography of the time.25 Thus, we have been witnesses to how history has once again become a crucial resource in the shaping of the new autonomous citizenships and in the appropriate establishment of signs of identity. Each autonomous community’s history has undoubtedly set up the great historical symbols which the corresponding autonomous 24

25

Justo G. Beramendi, “La historiografía de los nacionalismos en España”, Historia Contemporánea, 7 (1992), pp. 135–154; and the references contained in the work by: José L. Granja, Justo Beramendi, Pere Anguera, La España de los nacionalismos y las autonomías (Madrid: Síntesis, 2001). Aurora Rivière, “Envejecimiento del presente y dramatización del pasado: una aproximación a las síntesis históricas de la Comunidades Autónomas españolas (1975–1995)”, La gestión de la memoria, Juan Sisinio Pérez et alii (Barcelona: Crítica, 2000); Isidoro Sepúlveda, “La eclosión nacionalista: regionalismos, nacionalidades y autonomías”, Historia de la transición, Javier Tusell, Álvaro Soto, eds (Madrid: Alianza, 1996).

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governments have of course accepted as their own – as in the Catalan, Basque, Galician or Andalusian cases, which are the best known, but also in those of Aragon, Cantabria, Extremadura, Murcia and Castile and Leon. Moreover the history of the use of history would become endless with just recalling the use politicians make of it, as in the case of the President of the Constitutional Court, to mention a revealing example of the defence of ideological positions with arguments from essentialist history.26 In conclusion, citizen allegiances do not only arise through institutional coercion, because they also and above all need to be secured with loyalty bonds defined by membership to a group – be it national, autonomous or cultural and religious – beyond social classes. In fact, in the same semantic core of the concept of nation, a deep bond – relating to birth or nation – is set as the highest value which invades the private sphere and results in a religious ritual. A similar nationalising and nationalist ideology had to be instilled in the intricacies of Spanish society 26

See the declarations of Manuel Jiménez de Parga, President of the Constitutional Court, in El País, 22 January 2002, pages 1 and 16. Among the many comments about the difference between “historical communities” and those that are not constitutionally considered as such, the approach of the President of Extremadura, Juan Carlos Rodríguez Ibarra is worth quoting, as an example, for its political relevance, “Tormenta en un vaso de agua” [Storm in a teacup], El País, 24th January 2003. An analysis of the points of view, written in newspapers and books in recent years, about the concept of Spain and the subsequent political and cultural derivations, are sharply contrasted by: José Ignacio Lacasta-Zabalza, España uniforme. El pluralism enteco y desmemorizado de la sociedad española y de su conciencia nacional e intelectual (Pamplona: Gobierno de Navarra, 1998). Moreover, academically speaking, besides the books mentioned in the first footnote of this text, it is necessary to refer to the historical analysis contained in: España ¿Nación de naciones?, Anna Maria García, coord (Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2002) and the political contributions exhibited in: España ¿Cabemos todos?, Tomás Fernández, Juan J. Laborda, eds. (Madrid: Alianza, 2002). These two works undoubtedly reflect that the concept and the identity of what Spain was, is and should be continues open on various sides and with solid arguments in each case. Equally necessary works for the debate are, among others, those by: Xosé M. Núñez, Los nacionalismos en la España contemporánea (siglos XIX y XX) (Barcelona: Hipòtesi, 1999); Estado y nación en la España Contemporánea, Antonio Morales, dir. (Madrid: UIMP-Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deportes, 2000); and the best historical síntesis, the aforementioned work by: José L. Granja, Justo G. Beramendi, Pere Anguera, La España de los nacionalismos y las autonomías (Madrid: Síntesis, 2001).

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to consolidate civic allegiance to the Liberal State which claimed to represent it; the best way to do this was to repeatedly insist on the historical roots of its foundations. Thus, history supplied the sacred tale of the timeless foundation of the Spanish community, whose nature had unfolded in time as an unquestionable reality, over centuries and political or cultural vicissitudes. A similar mechanism worked equally throughout Europe, and in Spain it was also repeated by nationalities, regions and localities. In any case the perpetual essence of being a community rooted in the land which established a presumably natural religious bond that also carried a sense of belonging and group identity with an affective determination that provided each person not only with a memory of the past, but especially a behavioural code and a project for the future. In the following pages we will analyse how the myth of existence of the Spanish community, unscathed from prehistory to the present, can be found in the structure of any manual about the History of Spain, as in the alternative manuals about the History of Andalusia, the Basque Country, Murcia, etc., in which such discourse is always related to the categories of land, race, religion and language. The valuations made in these works about the Jews and the Muslims are very revealing: they range from the denial of their Spanishness, because the nation was identified with Christianity which, in turn, relates to Europe, to the exaltation of certain Muslim or Jewish contributions to emphasise and give a differential character to autonomous communities like Andalusia, or cities like Toledo, for example.27 This is reliable proof that memory is also built on subsequent omissions and rejections, and that in the case of Spain the perspective one adopts towards the centuries of Muslim history proves this.

27

On these historiographical assessments, see the cases analysed by: Juan Sisinio Pérez, “El debate nacional en España: ataduras y ataderos del romanticismo medievalizante”, Italia-España. Viejos y nuevos problemas históricos, Juan Gay, ed. (Madrid: Marcial Pons, 1999), pp. 159–176; and the issues concerning the Muslims in: Eduardo Manzano, “La construcción histórica del pasado nacional”, La gestión de la memoria. La historia de España al servicio del poder, Juan Sisinio Pérez et alii (Barcelona: Crítica, 2000), pp. 39–62; and the suggestive reflexions of: José Mª Ridao, Contra la historia (Barcelona: Seix Barral, 2000).

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4. Spanish identity and historiographical essentialism Nineteenth century liberal Spain did indeed organise history as a type of knowledge whose genetic linkage to the nationalisation project was backed by the State’s historical action and the cultural expression represented by Castile.28 The idea of Spain was transfigured into a nation which deployed the imposition of an exclusivist and standardising identity over the different communities, kingdoms and entities that had developed in a differential way over previous centuries. For this reason, since the nineteenth century the idea of nation and of Spain has become synonymous with a community made up of all the State’s citizens joined in an identity that is quasi-religious or mystic. It is true this project did not override the social and political meaning of the cultural realities of those regions which were able to maintain their differential relations within the unitary State, in a process of political demands which now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, remains open. The fact is that during the process of transubstantiating the idea of Spain into an identity and fellowship of the citizens of one State, history became the social science whose method of objectiveness and documental rigour could reliably prove that Spain’s nature was national and its essence unitary.29 Therefore, historiographical knowledge developed into the hallmark of national knowledge and also nationalist 28

29

Juan Sisinio Pérez, “Castilla heroica, Castilla culpable: cuestiones del nacionalismo español”, Castilla en España, Pedro Carasa, ed. (Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid, 2003). The formulation established in article 2 of the present Constitution (that of 1978) is forthright in this respect: “The Constitution is based on the indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation, common and undividable homeland of all Spaniards”. It seems the constituent was concerned about someone questioning this unity, because he reiterated in the same sentence that the unity is “indissoluble”, and that the “common homeland” is “undividable”. All this to immediately add in the same article that the Spanish Nation is composed of nationalities and regions; thus the full text is as follows: “The Constitution is based on the indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation, common and undividable homeland of all Spaniards, and it recognises and guarantees the right to autonomy of its member nationalities and regions and the solidarity amongst them”. [article 2 of the 1978 Constitution: La Constitución española de 1978 (Madrid: Anaya, 1982), p. 229]. For an análisis of this perspective, see: Xacobe Bastida, La nación española y el nacionalismo constitucional (Barcelona: Ariel, 1998).

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justification.30 The paradigm acquired its definite shape in the work of Modesto Lafuente who, by collecting the vast amount of information accumulated by previous writers and scholars, and by using editions of texts and sources and directly consulting documents, built a discourse whose arguments and interpretative consistency became so clear that, in effect, it achieved the purpose of becoming the national history of Spain.31 In effect, Lafuente built a tale whose nationalism can today be classified as organist because he saw Spain as a living being which had always existed, and which had proven its extraordinary vitality since its first settlers. “The Iberians and Celts are the creators of the base of the Spanish character”, he emphatically stated, and he continued his reasoning with the following words: Who does not see the same genius revealed in all ages, from Sagunto to Saragossa…? Unique community! Whatever period the historian studies, he finds this primitive nature, created long ago, in the times that are beyond our historical chronology”.32 The Spanish case, therefore, seems to be perfectly delimited, in continuous temporal development with dramas, divisions, gains, losses, but always aspiring to the territorial unity which defines it. Thus history ceases to be just a chronological list of kingdoms and dynasties

30

31

32

I obviously do not use as synonyms the qualifiers national and nationalist because, according to the Diccionario ideológico [Ideological dictionary] by Julio Casares, national is the adjective which qualifies that which belongs or relates to a nation, and in such a case we can describe as national the history written during the century of liberalism in Spain. If nationalist is applied to those in favour of a nation, that is, to those who profess nationalism – with the corresponding attachment to a nation’s nature in such a way that one tends to exalt this personality –, the historians of those years are classifiable as nationalists because they turned Spain into the explicative and eulogistic reference of the vicissitudes occurred over centuries. On this matter see: Marín Cirujano, Teresa Elorriaga, Juan Sisinio Pérez, Historiografía y nacionalismo español, 1834–1868 (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1985), the already mentioned work by: Raimundo Cuesta, Sociogénesis de una disciplina escolar: la Historia (Barcelona: Pomares-Corredor, 1997); Ramón López, O concepto de nación no ensino da historia. Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela (PhD Dissertation), 1999; Juan Sisinio Pérez, “Modesto Lafuente, artífice de la historia de España”, Historia de España (Pamplona: Urgoiti, 2003). Modesto Lafuente, Historia de España (Madrid: Tip. Mellado, 1861), vol. 1, p. 14.

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to place the “Spanish community” as the true protagonist of an immemorial reality.33 Consequently, the history of the “Spanish community” would not have been a result of chance, but the logical result of an original reality unfolding on a provident and unquestionable path. This development had culminated with the unitary liberal State, so State and nation overlapped in the same and common destiny, endorsed by none other than divine providence. At the time, the liberals were obsessed with the unity of Spain. So another intellectual architect of moderate liberalism, Andrés Borrego, who was ideologically close to Lafuente, wrote at about the same time that “a community’s personality, which modern writers call nationality, is made up of race, language and history, and wherever these three links join men, it is a violent and anti-providential act to separate them”.34 With what ingredients was Spanish identity built, according to Lafuente, and on what supports did he define Spain? Firstly, the land and, derived from this, the character or nature of what is Spanish and the Spaniards, substrate of an “inalterable common character”.35 Also religion – a factor of unity for such disparate territories –, and the State,

33

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For the use of the contents transmitted by medieval writers and historians the following work is crucial: Diego Catalán, “España en su historiografía: de objeto a sujeto de la historia”, Los españoles en la historia, Ramón Menéndez, ed. (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1982), pp. 9–73. Similarly, to know the reuse of old history, from Tubal to Pelayo, by modern and contemporary historiography, see the solid research by: Fernando Wulff, Las esencias patrias. Historiografía e historia antigua en la construcción de la identidad española (siglos XVI–XX) (Barcelona: Crítica, 2003). Andrés Borrego, De la situación y los intereses de España en el movimiento reformador de Europa, 1848 (Madrid: Imprenta de F. Andrés, 1848), p. 133. The identification of individual and group behaviours with regions was and is so widespread that it is not currently difficult to quite often find, expressions like reciedumbre castellana [Castilian strength], pragmatismo catalán [Catalan pragmatism], alegría andaluza [Andalusian happiness], etc. This can be found in current wise writers and political explanations. So in addition to the analysis of historians, it would be necessary to recall the simultaneous spread of geography as a science, which has been researched in the works of: Horacio Capel et alii, Ciencia para la burguesía. Renovación pedagógica y enseñanza de la geografía en la revolución liberal española, 1814–1857 (Barcelona: Ediciones de la Universidad de Barcelona, 1983); Alberto L. Gómez, La geografía en el bachillerato español (1836–1970) (Barcelona: Publicacions de la Universitat de Barcelona, 1985).

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monarchic, of course, which is a catalyst of such ingredients because it is the form best suited to the Spanish character. For this reason, in the successive dynastic vicissitudes, the State appears in Lafuente’s work as the decisive element in the configuration of unity and also as the result of a national identity feeling that existed in each and every Spaniard. Thus, Lafuente’s work had a virtue that exceeded the limits of success of the time; this virtue was none other than having offered the idea of Spain as a structure based on the moral consensus of belonging to a nation and, therefore, being organised in a State. A similar perspective has persisted in our historiography as an unquestionable reference.36 As regards Spain’s performative definition, we have to go back to the second half of the eighteenth century when the enlightened European elites used climatic and psychologist and political and cultural arguments to explain the different evolution of each kingdom or community. It was then that the first characterizations of European communities were made and, in a context of conflict between modernity and tradition, the contour of what is “Spanish” was outlined from the images created and spread by Montesquieu, Mabillon, Voltaire and the provocative Masson de Marvillers, as well as by Feijoo, Cadalso, Forner and Masdeu. Then, in the nineteenth century, Romanticism would develop the elements that had been established as belonging to the Spanish character with new contributions from European authors, but also with those of Spaniards who, like Modesto Lafuente, turned the psychological traits attributed to the Spanish into the base of a common identity so that Spain, in this other way, was as timeless as resistant to the vicissitudes of centuries. In any case, in the main decades of the nineteenth century, the idea of what was Spanish was promoted and spread among historians and writers, politicians and artists, and the result was the configuration of a new identity, endorsed by a historiographical knowledge rooted in the essence of Spain.37 The validity of what was Spanish, therefore, did not 36

37

On the persistance of such premises: Juan Sisinio Pérez, “Los mitos fundacionales y el tiempo de la unidad imaginada del nacionalismo español”, Historia Social, 40 (2001), pp. 7–27. The process of aesthetical reductionism and folklorization of what is Spanish, in those decades, with the establishment of the stereotypes that continue to plague us today in certain everyday behaviours have been investigated. The most important

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depend on its accuracy but on an ability to mobilise people in favour of political projects which required interclass identity adherence. This had already been seen in the “glorious revolution” of 1868 when a large coalition of social forces dethroned Isabel II to the cry of “Long live Spain with honour!” Although there have been precedents in other political situations,38 since 1868 the existence of a social aggregate called Spain has been an obvious political reality with the ability to produce and reproduce a sense of belonging between the State’s citizens. Since the Glorious Revolution with the generation of 1868 as its intellectual protagonist, the idea of Spain has become the axis of political reflections.39 Arguably, Spain became a benchmark for interclass political parties, including the new emerging options, like those associated with the working classes. Of course, opposing views of the concept of Spain arose there were antagonisms in the way of socially and politically organising the country; for example, federalism acquired an unusual strength. Nationalist alternatives, particularly the Catalan one, were deployed in the following years which, however, continued to be

38

39

works on this matter are: Celsa Alonso, La canción lírica española del siglo XIX (Madrid: Instituto Complutense de Ciencias Musicales, 1998); Hempel Lipschutz, La pintura española y los románticos franceses (Madrid: Taurus, 1988); Hempel Lipschutz, Actas del Simposio sobre la imagen de España en la Ilustración alemana (Madrid: Görres-Gesellschft, 1991); Francisco Calvo, La imagen romántica de España. Arte y arquitectura del siglo XIX (Madrid: Alianza, 1995); Carlos Reyero, Imagen histórica de España (1850–1900) (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1987); from the same autor La pintura de historia en España: esplendor de un género en el siglo XIX (Madrid: Cátedra, 1989), and also La escultura conmemorativa en España: la edad de oro del monumento público, 1820–1914 (Madrid: Cátedra, 1999); Pintura orientalista española (1830–1930) Carlos Reyero, ed. (Madrid: Fundación Banco Exterior, 1988). For all other aspects, the following work is crucial: Carlos Serrano, El nacimiento de Carmen. Símbolos, mitos y nación (Madrid: Taurus, 1999). See the different contents found of the revolution of 1808, in the uprising against Napoleon’s troops and their nationalist mystification, in: José Álvarez, Mater Dolorosa. La idea de España en el siglo XIX (Madrid: Taurus, 2001), pp. 119–149. It is appropriate to recover the following text which is based on texts by writers: Dolores Franco, España como preocupación (Madrid: Alianza, 1998), originally composed in 1943, because we find that the concept of Spain especially changed with Enlightenment and Romanticism, and that it consolidated as a national project with the generation of 1868 and has become a permanent concern since the generation of 1898.

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a demand for a decentralised Spain. Conservatism, meanwhile, tried to monopolise loyalty to the Spanish essence, and it turned Spain into the protective shield of obvious oligarchic interests.40 Thus the crowning moment of Spanish nationalist essentialism was reached when the large and excellent list of intellectuals belonging to the generations of 98 [1898] and 14 [1914], who were mainly progressives and democrats, upgraded the concept of Spain to that of a cultural myth. This “historical reality” was as unquestionable as capable of explaining politics, feelings, economy, behaviours, literature and everything considered the expression of a soul, a nature and a spirit which plunged its roots into the centuries to express itself through the community and the poets, the masses and the leaders.41 Of course there were notable and important differences between Altamira, Unamuno, Machado, Azcárate, Cossío, Azorín, Maeztu, Ortega, Azaña, Menéndez Pidal and Bosch Gimpera, although proof is found in all of them that those elements formulated by historiographical nationalism in the 1850’s were now seen as “historical and psychological realities”. This conceptual formula was used by history to give actual existence to the nature or psychology of the Spanish community, to its daily life, its individualist colours and its Castilian embryos, its spiritual inventiveness or democratic capacities, and its anomalies or pre-eminence, depending on the author.42 Thus, that what is Spanish, primarily defined by cultural and psychological aspects and issues, became synonymous with a way of being, a 40

41

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A state of affairs of these decades: Manuel Suárez, “La Restauración (1875–1900) y el fin del Imperio Colonial. Un balance historiográfico”, La Restauración, entre el liberalismo y la democracia, Manuel Suárez, ed. (Madrid: Alianza, 1997), pp. 31–107. Borja de Riquer, “El surgimiento de las nuevas identidades contemporáneas: propuestas para una discusión”, España ¿Nación…, pp. 21–52; and the most extensive work by: Javier Varela, La novela de España (Madrid: Taurus, 1999), as well as the works by: Vicente Cacho, El nacionalismo catalán como factor de modernización (Barcelona: Quaderns Crema-Residencia de Estudiantes, 1998); Vicente Cacho, Los intelectuales y la política. Perfil público de Ortega y Gasset (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 1999). For the change of intellectual parameters in 98, see: Francisco Villacorta, “Fin de siglo: Crisis del liberalismo y nuevos procesos de mediación social”, Revista de Occidente, 202–203 (1998), pp. 131–148; Vicente Cacho, Repensar el 98 (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 1997); Debates en torno al 98: Estado, sociedad y política, Santos Juliá, coord. (Madrid: Comunidad de Madrid-Consejería de Educación y Cultura, 1998); Manuel Tuñón, España: la quiebra de 1898 (Madrid: Sarpe, 1986).

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national character that, historically forged, was turned into an explicative talisman for such varied and disperse, although suggestive and valuable analysis like, for example, the literary studies by Azorín, Machado and Unamuno, the political investigations by Ortega and Maeztu, the aesthetical analysis by Ortega, Cossío and Gómez Moreno, and the scientific and social studies by Altamira, Azcárate, Menéndez Pidal, Sánchez Albornoz and Américo Castro. Perhaps it is appropriate to emphasise in these pages the transcendence of the contribution of the most relevant historian of the time, Rafael Altamira, whose work Psicología del pueblo español [Psychology of the Spanish community], composed between 1898 and 1902, had a decisive although little-known influence that was especially far-reaching in the development of Spanish historiography and the subsequent discussions on the being, the mystery and the reality of Spain. From an idealist conception of history, Altamira did indeed mystify the archetypes and contents of the national character and personality of the Spanish as a cultural unit and, in partially rectifying Fichte, he established “the theory of the special missions nations fulfil” in spite of “the vagueness that still reigns – Altamira acknowledges – regarding the definition of the words nation, community, race, homeland and analogous”.43 In any case, the interdependence between Altamira and Fichte’s idealist and pedagogical nationalism is direct and explicit, especially in his proposal to consolidate a “cultural community of nationalist feelings” through the educative enlightenment of the masses. For this reason he wrote this work, to define and rebuild the true national character or way of being of the personality of the Spanish community, because it would be a way to reinforce national solidarity. And for this reason, he 43

Rafael Altamira, Psicología del pueblo español (Madrid: Doncel, 1976), vol. 3, p. 43. (A more recent reprint of this work can be found in Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 1997). The first edition of this work was in 1902 and the second in 1917. We find a detailed and suggestive análisis of this work in: Alfonso Ortí, “Regeneracionismo e historiografía: el mito del carácter nacional en la obra de Rafael Altamira”, Estudios sobre Rafael Altamira, Armando Alberola, ed. (Alicante: Instituto de Estudios J. Gil-Albert-Caja de Ahorros de Alicante, 1987), pp. 275–351. Also see the work of: Irene Palacio, Rafael Altamira: Un modelo de regeneracionismo educativo (Alicante: Caja de Ahorros provincial, 1986); and for Altamira’s concept of history, the introductory study of José M. Jover to the recent reprint of Historia de España y de la civilización española, 2 vols (Barcelona: Crítica-Biblioteca Valenciana, 2002).

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explains that “against the unfavourable legend of our history and our character”, we must investigate “the psychology of the Spanish community”, its “character”, “temper” or “national soul” in order to deploy the authentic task of popular education, and awake and reinforce the contents of this character to regenerate and modernise Spain. These were the same proposals Fichte had stated in his “Addresses to the German nation”.44 This task corresponds to a minority of the nation’s educators, who have ideas because “ideas are strength and they breed it”.45 Altamira defended a modernising project whose institutional reforms answered the aspirations of the middle class which, in the decisive decades of the turn of the century, represented the best of the liberal tradition forged since the Cadiz Courts. This class which democratically grew believed this modernisation would only be possible through the building of a national identity valid for inter-class consensus. Therefore, it strove to delimit national identity with the legitimacy of scientific assumptions which it proposed to instil in most of the population through an appropriate education policy. It was a centralist nationalism that included classic positions, but that was turned into an instrument with new social horizons when it was assigned with nothing less than the ability to legitimise the challenges of the urgent modernising of the country. In any case, regardless of the supplied idealism that undoubtedly constitutes the foundation of the historiographical essentialism of its generation and other successive batches of historians and intellectuals, now we wish to emphasise the scientific nature of the claim with which Altamira outlined the existence and contents of a collective Spanish psychology. In his work he anthropomorphises the notion of community to attribute it with a collective will with custom features that are analogous and only belong to individuals. Altamira finds these features – or the “intellectual and sentimental modality” of “the personality” of each community qualitatively defended – differentiated and reflected in his history, because above all he writes as a historian. Furthermore, we must not forget, he was a historian politically committed to the democratic values represented by republicanism of which he was a militant and which gathered the principles of the generation of 1868 that had 44 45

Rafael Altamira, Psicología del pueblo…, p. 27. Rafael Altamira, Psicología del pueblo…, p. 165.

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been the first to impulse the democratic modernisation of the Spanish community. In Altamira the concept of community is deployed with democratic contents, and if he transfigures it into a national essence it is just to give it a complete role in political life against the monopoly exercised by the despotic oligarchies that at the time were denounced by his fellow historian Joaquín Costa.46 Otherwise, Altamira’s work contains sufficient sociological complexity to record the difficulty of its aim. He knew he would not find categorical arguments to define a psychology or common national character because he knew of the obvious existence of “specific class psychologies”, and he specified that the “truth is that at every moment, beside the common points shared by the spirit of any social group…there are specific class psychologies, of a cultural, professional, etc. level which produce a different and genuine grading scale”.47 According to Altamira, Spain like “any community, is internally composed of many communities”,48 statement which lead him to an explicit proposal: the “democratic education” of the Spanish people to achieve cultural homogenization because, in his words, “the true work of educating a people is to reduce those differences to the point of homogenising as much as possible the whole social body in culture and ideal of life”.49 This is a project of cultural and educational nationalisation that undoubtedly aimed to strengthen Spain’s regeneration as a nation, because Altamira, in tune with the Regenerationist environment of the time, above all expressed the concern that Spain was still a nation “poorly welded with the sense of a common patriotism”.50 Altamira thought it was a nation in which divisive internal forces existed and acted alongside the characteristic and slightly paranoid feelings of the historical juncture of 98 when Spain was defeated by the United States and lost territories which symbolised bygone grandeur. 46

47 48 49 50

Joaquín Costa, Oligarquía y caciquismo como la forma actual de gobierno en España: urgencia y modo de cambiarla (Madrid: Ediciones de la Revista de Trabajo, 1975). Especially see the innovative introduction by Alfonso Ortí. The work was originally edited by the Athenaeum of Madrid in 1902, the same year in which the work of Rafael Altamira appeared. Rafael Altamira, Psicología del pueblo…, p. 138. Rafael Altamira, Psicología del pueblo…, p. 139. Rafael Altamira, Psicología del pueblo…, p. 139. Rafael Altamira, Psicología del pueblo…, p. 210.

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He thought that these “internal divisive forces” had no other aim than to weaken the Spanish nature, that is, to denial the Spanish national spirit in all its aspects: “there are still parties or groups – Altamira wrote – whose patriotic ideal is to weaken the Spanish nature of their country, that is, to erase even the slightest trace of tradition or Spanish influence as a harmful expression of backwardness, tyranny and intransigence throughout its history and present reality”.51 Altamira selected the Catalan nationalist Antonio Rovira as scandalous proof of the “spiritual separatism” of his contemporary who had written that “at most, among the communities of the peninsula the coexistence of various ideals, instead of a common chimerical ideal is possible, if the formula is found whereby one community does not interfere with the others”52. In return, Altamira answered unambiguously: “I continue to believe in the common Iberian root and in the reality of a Spanish psychology. I sincerely, scientifically and without the slightest political intention believe in it”.53 Therefore, here we have one of the dimensions of the issue of the contents of Spain as a political and cultural project: the reality of ideological competition between different nationalist idealisms that were already competing in 1900. What today in Spain can be surprisingly heard about federalism largely reproduces what was written in the time of Altamira who, with an indubitable pro-Spanish spirit, refuted what he believed was the Catalan nationalist project with the following words: “The importance of this movement is not its purpose of separatism or federal autonomy but, as I said, its indifference to the rest of Spain and its belief that there is nothing in common between the country’s different parts or, at least, between some of them. The unavoidable consequence is the ideal and sentimental separation of the various communities of Spanish population which are thus differentiated. The federal State built on these beliefs and feelings would be equivalent to being lonely in a crowd”.54 As for the rest, Altamira’s recipes did not even 51 52

53 54

Rafael Altamira, Psicología del pueblo…, p. 141. Rafael Altamira, Psicología del pueblo…, p. 64. The work gathered by Altamira is that of: Antoni Rovira i Virgili, El nacionalismo catalán, edited in Barcelona, as cited in: Alfonso Ortí, “Regeneracionismo e historiografía…”, p. 340 (n. 191). Rafael Altamira, Psicología del pueblo español…, p. 64. Rafael Altamira, Psicología del pueblo español…, p. 143.

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reach the rank of political formulas with minimum effectiveness because his first demand was the cultural homogeneity of the Spanish, based on “the true historical knowledge of this authentic and positive nucleus of psychology or national character”.55 With this he aimed to promote a “common ideal” of the feeling of Spanish national unity because, in the future, “victory would be for the more homogeneous and united communities with a generally felt common ideal”.56 Moreover, it must be stressed that Altamira did not consider himself a nationalist, and here we find a resource that has been turned into a norm for Spanish nationalism since the nineteenth century until today. His nationalism was not seen as such, because he identified with the scientific method of positivist rigour and with the emancipatory educational project which, originated in rationalist Enlightenment, thought that, through the light of knowledge, the chauvinist tendencies of nationalisms would be avoided57 (of the other nationalisms, of course). A similar paradox has been a usual constant in wide sectors of Spanish democratic thought which has repeatedly insisted on refusing its nationalism in order to stigmatise the nationalisms that disquieted the unitary organisation of Spain. The recent partisan use of the figure of R. Altamira, which mitigates that he was a banished democrat and enhances his unitary convictions about Spain, has also contributed to this.58 55 56 57 58

Rafael Altamira, Psicología del pueblo español…, p. 164. Rafael Altamira, Psicología del pueblo español…, p. 20. Rafael Altamira, Filosofía de la historia y teoría de la civilización (Madrid: Ediciones de la Lectura, 1915). The re-print of Altamira’s work, Historia de España y de la civilización española, 2 vols (Barcelona: Crítica, 2002), was such an important cultural event that it was presided over by the Prime Minister, José María Aznar, who made headline news in El Mundo newspaper in a way that revealed the symbiosis between objectivity and patriotism: Aznar considera que Rafael Altamira hizo “de la erudición un acto de patriotismo” (“Aznar believes Rafael Altamira turned ‘erudition into an act of patriotism’”). The writer avoids the cause of the exile: A lo largo de su dilatada trayectoria intelectual, que acabó en un largo exilio mexicano, Altamira pergeñó una de las obras maestras de la historiografía moderna (“Throughout his long intellectual career, which ended in a long exile in Mexico, Altamira drafted one of the master works of modern historiography”). The event was attended by the historians Juan Pablo Fusi and Rafael Asín. Someone had to write the following text for the Prime Minister which the journalist reproduced: Al recordar a Rafael Altamira en el cincuentenario de su muerte en México, no puedo por menos decir que estamos

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5. By way of an epilogue: Spain’s identity on the crossroads of political legitimacy59 If we have presented what Altamira thought with a little more detail, it has been to emphasise that in this debate about the identity of Spain and its subsequent political formulations, he was neither a conservative nor a traditional intellectual. On the contrary, he was an active militant all his life, compromised with the building of Spain as a democratic nation, and this earned him the tragedy of exile when faced with Franco’s dictatorship which paradoxically, in the name of Spain, banished, imprisoned and murdered.60 In 1939 there was a confrontation between at least two ways of conceiving Spain, and even the dictatorship harboured Catholic and Phalanx Nationalism, in the sense that the name of Spain was turned into a talisman to express the suffering of banished Spaniards and the imperial cravings or religious desires of the dictatorship.

59 60

cumpliendo un acto de verdadera justicia. Hizo de la erudición un acto de patriotismo. Su aproximación a nuestro pasado le devolvía la imagen de una España plural, espacio de encuentro de pueblos y culturas. Pero, desgraciadamente, no han desaparecido aún los riesgos de los que alertó el propio Altamira, acerca de una utilización de la Historia y su enseñanza como instrumento para fomentar el desprecio y el odio (“To remember Rafael Altamira on the fiftieth anniversary of his death in Mexico is to fulfil an act of true justice. He turned erudition into an act of patriotism. His approach to our past gave him the image of a plural Spain, a meeting point of communities and cultures. Although, unfortunately, the risks to which Altamira alerted us about the use of History and its teaching as an instrument to encourage contempt and hatred” have still not disappeared”) (El Mundo, Tuesday 5 February 2002). No doubt after the controversy sparked by Aznar’s government in 1997 about the teaching of history (see footnote 59 of this text), Altamira was used to oppose other nationalisms not only outside the context in which he lived, but more seriously betraying his drama, for it seems he died in Mexico by chance, and the reason of his tragic exile is clamorously silenced as if it were just a long anecdote of his life. Franco’s dictatorship, the ideology which killed in the name of Spain, is not mentioned or made responsible for the exile of such an eminent and active militant of democracy. Juan Sisinio Pérez, Eduardo Manzano, La memoria histórica (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas-Catarata, 2010). See the biographical work: Rafael Altamira, 1866–1951 (Alicante: Instituto de Estudios J. Gil-Albert-Diputación Provincial de Alicante, 1987).

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In short, the long debate developed throughout the nineteenth century about what was specifically Spanish has not been confined to certain political or ideological positions, but has become inseparable from the process of representing a State-nation since its birth at the Cadiz Courts. It has been shaped on two fronts: on the one hand, the idea of nation as a political pact of sovereign citizens, built from the territorial inheritance of a monarchy which had been imposed on various peninsular communities, with different governing formulas, and which had even extended its domain to other continents; and, on the other, the idea of a nation conceived as a collective subject with a universal future, with essentialist cultural and psychological traits. There was an attempt to combine and synthesize all this in the word Spain, when it was organised as a political collectiveness, that is, as a sovereign nation during the constituting and extraordinary act of the Cadiz Courts. For this reason, in those Courts from which Spain originated disputes arose. If the nation was the basis of political sovereignty: how could one organise, on the one hand, such disperse and varied communities and territories from America to the Peninsula? How could one tackle the internal diversity of the Peninsula? On the other, how could one develop the rights of its inhabitants who had now become free and equal citizens, when there was such an extreme variety of races and such inhumane situations as the slavery of the native Africans and the servitude of the indigenous communities in the nation proclaimed over “both hemispheres”?61 Moreover, in the name of what was genuinely Spanish the revolution was legitimised in Cadiz or, on the contrary, it was rejected as being opposed to Spanish tradition. In both cases history was the argument, and a past that was being nationalised as Spanish was being turned into a referent and justification of the present. Without a doubt the most virulent positions corresponded to those who refused nationalist naturalisation papers to the liberal programme; although, paradoxically, their arguments were the mimetic reproduction of everything the French re61

Suffice it to refer to three works: Bartolomé Clavero, “Derecho histórico (vasco) y Derecho constitucional (español)”, Foralismo, derechos históricos y democracia (Bilbao: Fundación BBV, 1998); Manuel Chust, La cuestión nacional americana en las Cortes de Cádiz (Valencia: Centro Tomás y Valiente, 1999); Juan Sisinio Pérez, Las Cortes de Cádiz, el nacimiento de la nación liberal (1808–1814) (Madrid: Síntesis, 2008).

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actionaries had divulged years before against the French Revolution.62 Therefore, writers and politicians explained the past and its resulting present correlation according to what is characteristically Spanish, and so they defended a type of monarchy or liberties or social interests, according to how closely they conformed to the alleged pattern of life of the Spanish nation. It should be reiterated, historians played a decisive role in these matters, by turning the past into an arsenal of timeless reasons to create an identity, implant a homogeneous memory and develop patriotic allegiance in the “national behaviour” of its citizens. With history they aimed to establish new political allegiances, sustained by their Spanish identity, beyond social classes. The idea of a deep national bond nestled in the private sphere, which was expressed during religious rituals such as national celebrations or civic processions, was what they aimed to establish as a supreme value. It was a new ideological event. Traditionalists, moderate doctrinarians and progressives and democrats all found in the past that they were defining as Spanish the constants which legitimised their respective political proposals for the present, and so they individually rejected their opponents’ interpretation judging it alien to Spanish identity and considering it the result of foreign influences which bastardised the national being. For the first time, Spanish identity became a weapon of political debate that, since then, has not ceased to be present, with more or less force, in political controversy which has, after all, dealt with the organization of the national collective. For this reason, decades later, on the same line, Cánovas del Castillo emphasised that the “nation is a thing of God or of nature, not a human invention”. Although Cánovas also realised and left written, as a historian and politician, in 1884 that “patriotism, as most Spaniards now understand it”, did not exist before the war against Napoleon or before the liberal revolution.63 This is because the Spanish as such with the ability to decide the Nation’s direction have only existed since the nineteenth century, like Germany and Italy which only then unified and which Cánovas uses as examples for Spain. 62 63

The classical work of: Javier Herrero, Los orígenes del pensamiento reaccionario español (Madrid: Alianza, 1988), vol. 2. Antonio Cánovas, “Discurso del Ateneo en 1884”, Problemas contemporáneos (Madrid: A. Pérez Dubrull, 1884–1890), vol. II, p. 166.

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This citizen patriotism, “without class distinction”, inaugurated in 1808 and turned into a synthesis of the qualities of a new category of Spanish who did not bear allegiance to a monarch or kingdom, or to a social class, stratum or guild, was set up as a reason and basis of interclass identity. Under this label there was no room for social differences, only a feeling of belonging to Spain. In order to connect this patriotic identity to the people, memory had to be common and for this reason the State and the leading classes turned Spain’s history into a national science and a patriotic subject. Not long ago a wide controversy broke out in Spain about the teaching of history to students, its contents and their purpose.64 It became apparent that the concept of Spain was built on as many uncertainties as tensions and pretensions exist in its citizens who also have to face the new challenges of Europeanization, on the one hand, and globalization, on the other. In any case, there is evidence that the nationalisation process deployed in Spain, in the lee of modernisation, has differed from that of European counterparts, because it is in the areas of greater capitalist development where those other nationalisms (which are far more than the word “peripheral” with which they are classified suggests) have built their political hegemony – and another identity memory. This situation not only requires us to historiographically rethink the wicker that forms the memory of a possible Spanish identity, which should turn toward a multinational perspective, but also affects our integration into the European Union.65 The great value and weight of the identity conflict in the current situation of coexistence that Spain is trying to connect under the label “constitutional patriotism” is evident. However to have a bearing on the present goes beyond the scope of this paper, primarily designed as an analysis of the past for the debate that, as citizens, concerns us on future projects. Moreover, the development of a new collective memory no longer belongs with such prominence 64

65

From the abundant production on this matter, suffice it to note, as basic references, the meeting included in: José María Ortiz, “Historia y sistema educativo”, Ayer, 30 (1998); Ramón López, “La nación ocultada”, La gestión de la memoria, Juan Sisinio Pérez et alii (Barcelona: Crítica, 2000), pp. 111–160; and the monograph about “Nacionalismos y Enseñanza de las Ciencias Sociales”, Con-ciencia social, 4 (2000). Juan José Carreras, “De la compañía a la soledad. El entorno europeo de los nacionalismos peninsulares”, Nacionalismo e Historia, Carlos Forcadell, ed. (Zaragoza: Instituto “Fernando el Católico”, 1998), pp. 7–27.

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to historians – those privileged subjects of the liberal society –, because they do not currently monopolise teaching or the reproduction of the knowledge of the past. Nor does the State, in spite of its omnipresence, control the contents of the new media powers that create and expand identities in senses and directions in whose meaning we are already immersed.

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Spain/ France: Reciprocal Images during the Restoration Period (1875–1931) Paul AUBERT Aix-Marseille Université

Beyond the memory of Spain’s diplomatic and material dependence on its geographical neighbor, which provides a basis for severe inequalities, and the interest in studying the consolidation and use of stereotypical representations that are confirmed again during times of crisis, we have tried to understand and explain the causes and consequences of a French-Spanish misunderstanding that persists in different forms during the Restoration period, at an official level as well as in intellectual spheres. The heated debate it sparked conceals France’s loss of real influence at the outset of World War I.

1. Dominant images and stereotypical representations Spain and France usually represented as two countries opposite in every way (the first embodied obscurantism, monarchy, clericalism and reaction, in other words the past; the second, from this point of view, symbolized science, industry, democracy, secularism and progress, hence the future) but that react according to the image they have, or that they believe they have, in the neighboring country. The descriptions of the French and Spanish pavilions during the Universal Expositions in Paris (1855, 1867, 1878, 1889 and 1900) are significant in this regard: Spanish visitors saw in France the symbol of an industrial civilization, whilst the French found in the Spanish representation the traditional image of a museum-country.1 1

Jean-Louis Guereña, “España en París: Les Espagnols à l’Exposition Universelle de 1867”, Voyages et séjours d’Espagnols et d’Hispano-américains en France (Tours: Publications de l’Université de Tours, 1982), pp. 79–111.

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We could also counter pose the image of a catholic France to that of a Spain full of conspirators, and hostage to social agitation. “The country, so quiet and apparently sleeping, lives under the constant threat of a revolution”, said Marvaud upon finishing his mission in Spain.2 In fact, beyond the vicissitudes of history, each faction would imagine France as was most convenient for them. If, for Castelar or Blasco Ibáñez, it embodied the Republic, for Araujo Costa it always symbolized catholic tradition.3 In fact there was a conservative Francophile group, particularly opposed to the heir of Carlism, Don Jaime, Count of Melgar, that favored German speaking Vázquez de Mella. The mission of the Director of the Catholic Institute of Paris, Mgr. Baudrillard, in Spain from September 20th to October 20th, 1917,4 was intended to calm that sector of public opinion as well as the high clergy which was usually German speaking – but above all a catholic audience that was unhappy about France’s anti-clerical reputation, often exploited by German propaganda, which liked to portray France as the anti-Christ.5 But it is the image of a Republican France that prevails and maintains this Manichaeism at all costs, and which is, in Restoration period Spain, the main weapon of the intellectuals opposed to the regime. If we judge by Luis Morote’s quoting of Salmerón’s lecture in 1904: Democracia y Monarquía son incompatibles, y lo son fundamentalmente. El unotiene por base la herencia, el otro la elección y la soberanía nacional; el uno es el poder anterior y superior a la voluntad del pueblo, el otro es la voluntad del pueblohechacarne; el uno es el pasado, con todosu peso muerto; el otro es el presente y el porvenir; el uno es Maximiliano en Querétaro, el otro es Washington en el Capitolio, el uno es Suiza y es Francia y la América libre e independiente, el otro es Rusia y es Turquía y es China, es Marruecos y es el Dahomey; el uno es el progreso que avanza, el otro es en Francia la Declaración de los Derechos del Hombre; el uno se conden-

2

3 4 5

Angel Marvaud, “Le mouvement ouvrier en Espagne”, Revue Politique et Parlementaire, 1 (1910), p. 87. Angel Marvaud was in Spain from 1908 a 1910, in charge of the mission of the “Fédération des Industriels et Commerçants français”, and the “Musée Social”. Luis Araujo, Francia, el noble país (Barcelona: Bloud and Gay, n. d). Jean Baudrillard, Notre propagande (Paris: Ed. La Revue Hebdomadaire, 1916). Archivo del Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, Europe 1914 –1918, Spain, vol. n. 486, German propaganda, from the French Ambassador in Spain to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, October 31, 1916.

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sa en el Tratado de París, el otro en la emancipación del mundo; el uno es el gobierno de los menosaptos y de los privilegiados, el otro es el gobierno de los mejores; el uno es el derecho divino de los reyes, aunqueatenuado por los tiempos; el otro es el único sistema compatible con la dignidad humana […]. Democracy and Monarchy are incompatible, and they are fundamentally so. One is based on inheritance, and the other on choice and national sovereignty. One is the former and superior power to the will of the people; and the other is the embodied will of the people. One is the past, with all its dead weight, and the other is the present and the future. One is Maximilian in Queretaro, and the other is Washington in the Capitol. One is Switzerland and France and a free and independent America, and the other is Russia and Turkey and China, it is Morocco and the kingdom of Dahomey. One is progress moving forward, and the other is the Declaration of the Rights of Man in France. One is represented in the Treaty of Paris, the other in the emancipation of the world. One is the government by the least suited and the privileged; the other is government by the best. One is the divine right of kings, however dimmed by time; the other is the only system compatible with human dignity […].6

Republican France becomes an land of asylum for defeated Spanish republican revolutionaries – whom had themselves welcomed exiles from the Commune, among them Paul Lafargue and his wife Laura Marx, and certain leaders of the workers’ movement – whilst monarchic Spain welcomed the members of religious congregations who were expelled from France.7 In 1916, for example, the two countries respective cultural missions would be composed of personages most susceptible to understanding the other party; just as one might imagine, progressive intellectuals in the Spanish delegation, and monarchic scholars or member of Action Française on behalf of France.8

6 7

8

Luis Morote, “Salmerón”, Alma Española, 12 (1904). Jean-Marc Delaunay, “Des réfugiés en Espagne: Les religieux français et les décrets du 29 mars 1880”, Mélanges de la Casa de Velázquez (Paris: de Boccard, 1981), vol. 17, pp. 291–319; V. Jean-Marc Delaunay, “De nouveau au Sud des Pyrénées: Congrégations françaises et refugiés espagnols, 1901–1914”, Mélanges de la Casa de Velázquez (Paris: de Boccard, 1982), vol. 18/1; Jean-Marc Delaunay, “La grande Guerre ou la clé du retour”, Mélanges de la Casa de Velázquez (Paris: de Boccard, 1983), vol. 19/1, pp. 347–368. Paul Aubert, “La propagande étrangère en Espagne pendant la Première Guerre mondiale”, Españoles y franceses, Manuel Espadas, ed. (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1986), pp. 361–362.

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1.1 Complot on this side of the Pyrenees, repression on the other In times of social unrest (in 1896, in 1902–1905, in 1909 or in 1917), France is generally suspected of having fostered conspiracies from abroad and wanting to promote the implementation of a republican regime or the activities of movements for vindications in Spain;9 when in fact, France is trying by all possible means to prevent support for the political campaigns of the progressive parties which might harm French interests in the Peninsula.10 So much so, that in 1917, at the time of the 9

10

For example, it is said that during the strike in August 1910, in Bilbao, miners received subsidies from France to maintain their strike (Archivo del Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, Nouvelle Série, Spain, vol. 10). Archivo del Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, Nouvelle Série, Spain, vol. 10. From the French Ambassador in Spain, Jules Cambon, to Mr. Delcasse, Minister of Foreign Affairs, on August 5, 1903. After an attempted general strike in Spain, Jules Cambon has the following thoughts: Nous devons souhaiter, du point de vue de nos intérêts matériels, que ce pays-ci ne soit pas abandonné au désordre: sa faiblesse ne serait pas pour nous une garantie de son amitié, bien au contraire. On peut penser ce qu’on veut de la monarchie espagnole, mais ce symbole fragile de l’unité du pays suffit à y maintenir une sorte d’ordre et de cohésion. Sans la couronne, tous ces hommes qui dans leur propre parti se divisent et se déchirent, comme les Maura et les Villaverde, les Montero Ríos et les Vega et les Armijo, les Salmerón et les Costa, se disputeraient le pouvoir sans merci. Aussi les hommes publics et nos publicistes d’opinion avancée vont-ils directement contre nos intérêts quand ils manifestent leurs sympathies personnelles pour des mouvements politiques qui ne peuvent en aucune façon être assimilés à ceux qui nous agitent nous-mêmes et le Département devrait user de l’influence qui peut lui appartenir pour décourager les campagnes qui pourraient être faites chez nous, en faveur des partis avancés espagnols. French diplomacy shows the same prudence at other critical moments; in 1905, in 1909, in 1912 and in 1917. Ambassador Leon Geoffray’s recommendation, on July 15, 1917 perfectly summarizes the concerns of the French authorities over the meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly in Barcelona, on the 19, since they didn’t want either to help nor to prevent a revolutionary movement: Ne soyons pas les agents de la Révolution. Ne soyons pas non plus les agents du gouvernement actuel au point de dire qu’il s’agit d’un mouvement allemand. C’est faux. Les journaux qui impriment ce mensonge tendancieux provoquent l’indignation de tout le parti révolutionnaire […] et il n’est pas mauvais de rappeler que si l’on dressait une liste des révolutionnaires et une liste des amis de la France, ces deux listes se ressembleraient singulièrement. Ne nous mettons pas de gaité de cœur et gratuitement mal avec ceux qui seront peut-être les maîtres demain et qui sont dès aujourd’hui nos amis (vol. 479). See also the comments made by Hispanophile member of Parliament Jacques Chaumie in his summary on August 9, 1917, to the Commission of Foreign Affairs of the

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general strike, they would be divided between the desire not to harm their revolutionary friends and that of protecting their investments. We can see, in fact, an interaction of economics, politics and ideology. There are two relevant, although not equally important, examples. The wave of hostility towards France that rose due to its wine-growing policy, starting 1891, after the reconstitution of the Lenguadoc vineyard, was accompanied by a decline of Spanish purchases, in general, and in particular the imports of silks and books.11 The increase in sales of goods “from Paris” declined at that time. However, when analyzing the evolution of Spanish trade, in the case of imports, we must keep in mind the constant depreciation of the peseta as of 1881, which accelerates in 1882 and reaches a tragic collapse in 1898.12 French products had become too expensive. The deflationary policy, implemented by Fernández Villaverde, maintaining a balanced budget until 1909, revitalized the peseta which returned to the same exchange rate as in 1890 in relation to the pound Sterling. On the contrary, French and foreign protests against Ferrer’s execution seriously harmed the city of Barcelona – trade and industrial crisis, land prices dropped, building stopped, tourism declined – followed by the relative decline of French interests, since the press in

11 12

National Assembly, to denounce French ingratitude after the series of “political meetings of the left wing” on behalf of the Allies: Ce sont les hommes qui ont manifesté ces sentiments que nous avons fait quelques semaines plus tard traiter par notre presse d’agitateurs à la solde de l’Allemagne […]. Il ne faut pas croire, cependant, qu’il n’y ait pas hors de cette opposition des francophiles, mais cette opposition est ardemment, nettement francophile, notre cause est pour elle un drapeau (vol. 480). See, finally, the letter from Ambassador Leon Geoffray to the Director of Political Affairs and Trade on August 22, 1917, regarding the general revolutionary strike in August 1917: En ce qui touche les intérêts français, il n’est pas douteux qu’il eût été préférable que ces événements ne se produisent pas (vol. 481). During this period, according to official figures (eventually unreliable since they don’t take into consideration undocumented immigration), the French settlement in Spain did not develop, since it remained in fourth place, with about 20,000, while the Spanish settlement in France multiplied almost by four, going from 62,000 in 1876 to 250,000 in 1921 (third place). (Annuaire statistique de la France, Résumé rétrospectif, vol. 72, Nouvelle Série, n. 14 (Paris: Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques, 1966), pp. 61–62). See: Albert Broder, Le rôle des intérêts étrangers dans la croissance de l’Espagne, 1767–1923 (PhD Dissertation) Paris: Université de Paris I, 1981). Jaume Vicens Vives, Historia económica de España (Barcelona: Vicens Vives, 1979), p. 675.

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Catalonia blamed France for the campaign carried out all over Europe and America against the Spanish government.13 It’s true that the neighboring country has frequently been the refuge for Spain’s political exiles and supports much of their subversive activities, and there are feelings of solidarity among militants on both sides of the Pyrenees. All of Ruiz Zorrilla’s republican statements were prepared in France. Doctor Luis Simarro, Grand Master of the Gran Oriente Español (Great Spanish Orient) and a protagonist in all the demonstrations in which intellectuals took part between 1909 and 1917, went to Paris frequently.14 In 1917, Melquíades Álvarez and Alejandro Lerroux tried to get money from a mysterious French woman who was presumed to have helped many Russian revolutionaries;15 not to mention Ferrer’s heritage a few years earlier. So, all these facts and rumors contribute to the idea of a France that favored Spanish revolutionaries. It’s true that the Montjuic process seems to have brought closer together Spanish and French anarchists, whom were suspected of preparing riots in Spain. Una banda internacional debe cruzar los Pirineos para dar a los españoles la señal de insurrección […]Kropotkine se ocupa de preparar los mítines de protesta contra las condenas de Montjuich. (“An international group will cross the Pyrenees and give the Spaniards the signal for insurrection […] Kropotkine is preparing meetings to protest against the Montjuic sentences”) said the Director of Security on 4 January 4, 1897, who concluded: El mundo revolucionario internacional tiene clavados sus ojos en España. (“The international revolutionary world has its eyes fixed on Spain”.)16 This sensation of interference from the neighboring country was accentuated in Catalonia by the creation of a Committee for “Franco-Iberian Confederation” in 1901, that wanted Spain to, simply, become a part of France under the Federative regime17 13 14 15

16 17

See note sent by French Consul General in Spain to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs [Archivo del Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, Nouvelle Série, vol. 9 (23. IX. 1909)]. Files from Police Departament in Paris, B. A. Series, File n. 205, Rapport des Renseignements Généraux, 20 July 1817. Archivo del Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, Europe Series 1914–1918, Spain, vol. 479, Consul General of France in Barcelona, F. Gaussen, to the Presindent of the Board, Foreign Affairs Ministry, June 15, 1917. Archivo del Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, Nouvelle Série, Spain, vol. 10. Archivo del Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, Nouvelle Série, n. 9, Catalan Affairs, September 24, 1917.

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(Admiral Fournier, chief of the French Squad, during his visit to Barcelona in 1903, was cheered with ¡Viva Cataluña francesa! [“Hurray! Long Live French Catalonia!”]); and by the establishment of the National Catalan League, by Díaz Capdevila the following year in Paris, which adhered to the “Catalan Union”.18 (Eventually, Francophiles and Catalanists merged in such a way that around twelve thousand Catalan volunteers fought in the French Foreign Legion).19 Later, Spanish socialists and anarchists living in France were accused of wishing the Spanish expedition to Morocco to fail and engaging in active anti-military propaganda in the barracks in the peninsula.20 Since 1898, in Paris there was a Spanish Socialist group organized around Fabra Ribas, for the purpose of creating links among all Spanish activists living in France.21 At one point, Fabra Ribas, Rodríguez Romero and Miguel V. Moreno were suspected of having organized the general strike in Barcelona (even though Fabra Ribas is known to have been reticent to any kind of violence)22 and it’s known that the anarchist newspaper Tierra y Libertad, which reappeared in Nice after the “Tragic Week”23 (Semana Trágica), published extremely violent articles (such as Consumatum est by J. Estevalis). On 23 July 1904, the Consul General of France in San 18

19

20 21 22 23

After the war, the wish for autonomy would lead some Catalans to seek Germany’s protection and to even suggest to the President of the United States, T. Woodrow Wilson, that he accept Catalonia as a State of the Union (Archivo del Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, Nouvelle Série, n. 9, Catalan Affairs, 24.IX.1917). Archivo del Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, Europe 1914–1918, Spain, vol. 469 (21.IX / 1.X.1914). It seemed Lerroux made a fruitless first move, which the French authorities mistrusted, divided between the desire to have soldiers and that of not enrolling “anarchists”. Later, the French Consul General in Barcelona, Gaussen, would make a list avec l’assurance, donnée par le comité local organisateur, qu’aucun élément douteux ne serait admis (1 October 1914). See also: Albert Balcells, “Los voluntarios catalanes en la Gran Guerra (1914–1918)”, Historia 16, 121 (1986), pp. 51–62. Archivo del Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, Europe 1914–1918, Spain, vol. 469 (21.IX / 1.X.1914). September 11, 1911. Paris Police Files, B.A. series, vol. 205, Rapport des Renseignements Généraux, July 12, 1916. Archivo del Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, Nouvelle Série, Spain, vol. 10, Revolutionary Agitation (1896–1914), Paris, Sûreté (1.XI / 12/XI.1909). Archivo del Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, Nouvelle Série, Spain, vol. 9, Catalan Affairs, October 21, 1909. The official address of the newspaper was: 13, Boulevard de l’Impératrice de Russie.

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Sebastian didn’t hide his excitement over the possible participation of Paul Lafargue and Jules Guesde in a socialist meeting. But it’s true that twenty years earlier Jose Mesa had been in touch with the French socialists continuing, in a way, the organizational work Paul Lafargue had started in Spain during the First Republic. So when France tried to teach a moral, raising international consciousness about a Spain apparently indifferent to its own flaws, for example, in the Ferrer Case – and to a lesser degree after the Montjuic case, from 1896 to 189924 (or in other moments of repression: the events in Jerez in 1892, the La Mano Negra (“The Black Hand”) case in 1902, the case of the protagonists of the events in Alcalá del Valle in 1903, etc., which provoked more outrage in Paris or London than in Spain) –, the French are accused of encouraging an international (anarchist or French-freemason) complot. Even more so as public opinions shifting in behalf of the condemned prisoners, quickly transformed into campaigns against Spain, its Government, its regime and its King, which brought old clichés back to life, contrasting an Inquisitorial Spain which easily committed political murder, to a France which symbolized, even more so after the Dreyfus case, the triumph of collective reason over the reason of the State. The Dreyfus case had a lot of echo in Spain, in the press, among intellectuals and scholars25 who forged themselves as a critical conscious when the French polemic was resumed. Thus, Blasco Ibáñez, “Clarín”, Unamuno, Pardo Bazán, José Martínez Ruiz or Rodrigo Soriano and many more, would speak out against militarism, clericalism or antiSemitism and in favor of the Law that Zola symbolized. Even more so because this Case coincided with, and was a reference for, the Montjuic process in Spain. In fact, these two events contributed to the emergence, at almost the same time in both countries, of the figure of the intellectual (as the adjective became a subject by means of self-definition in the famous Manifiesto published on January 14, 1898, in L’Aurore) as someone who knew how to use his reputation in Literature and Science, for political goals. It was after the Ferrer Case was made public that the 24

25

In Paris on January 5, 1898, Luis Bonafoux created a weekly journal La Campaña, with the single goal of demanding a review of the Montjuic process. Unamuno, José Martínez Ruiz, Federico Mella, etc., were among the collaborators. See the anthology by: Jesús Jareño, El Affaire Dreyfus en España, 1894–1906 (Murcia: Godoy, 1984), p. 352.

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Dreyfus case was taken into account, to lament even more that nothing could defeat the Reason of the State in Spain.26 Those, in France, who denounce the repression perpetrated by the Spanish Government, want to fight against intolerance and obscurantism, independently of events and people like Corominas in 1896, Nakens in 1907, or Ferrer in 1907 and 1909. Inspired by examples from Spain, they want to undertake a great struggle throughout Europe for what they consider to be freedom and civilization. There was not just a single Ferrer case, there were several, if, furthermore, we believe in Lerroux’s desire to see something similar to what the Dreyfus case represented for France, develop in Spain, in order to unite the opposition to the regime, and we consider the mobilization, that beyond the movement on behalf of the condemned, the Spanish activists who wish to change their country’s political regime hope to sustain. Civilization on this side of the Pyrenees, barbarity on the other! The shouts of the socialist and union demonstrators beneath the windows of the Spanish Consuls in France would make one believe it were so.27 In fact, this campaign had greatly upset the Spanish authorities who had seen it as an interference in the country’s Internal Affairs. An article in the Heraldo de Madrid, published December 3, 1909, entitled “Depressive Guardianship”, was a sufficient reminder of Iberian susceptibility on the subject: Reconozcamos la necesidad de corregir nuestrascostumbrespolíticas; queremos democratizarnos, queremos avanzar pero solitos, sin la tutela de los que nos desconocen, sin que labren nuestro jardínunos jardineros que ignoran como es nuestra tierra y como son nuestrasplantes. Let’s acknowledge the need to correct our political customs; we want to become a Democracy, we want to move forward, but on our own without the guardianship of 26

27

See for example: Gabriel Alomar, La política idealista (Barcelona: Minerva, 1922), p. 272; Antonio Machado, Obras. Poesías y prosas, ed. Aurora Albornoz, Guillermo de la Torre (Buenos Aires: Losada, 1964), pp. 780–781. Archivo del Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, Nouvelle Série, Spain, vol. 10, On February 8, 1903, the General Safety Commissioner in Lille reported important demonstrations in the North of France on behalf of the Spaniards involved in the “Black Hand” case, organized at the Casa del Pueblo by the Fédération de la Jeunesse Laïque with the collaboration of Laurent Tailhade. People shouted À bas l’Inquisition espagnole!. See also: Luís Simarro, El Proceso Ferrer y la opinión europea (Madrid: Imprenta Eduardo Arias, 1910), vol. 2.

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those who don’t know us, without those who don’t know our land and our plants doing our gardening.

King Alfonso XII had given the same answer to the 154 French intellectuals that constituted the Committee, created – headed by Professor Seailles, Professor of Literature at the Sorbonne, and Monod, Theology professor – to demand that Francisco Ferrer’s case be reviewed and, later, to protest against his execution: Oyendo a algunos franceses parece que seamos un país de salvajes. ¿En que punto de nuestra historia se encuentra nustedes? ¡En esa Inquisición de la que hablan tan facilmente sus periódicos! Pues bien, ¿y susguerras de religión? […]Sería conveniente que el extranjero se ahorrase las críticas y los consejos para con las naciones que no conocebien, Listening to some of the French it seems that we are a savage country. What point in our history are you referring to? In times of the Inquisition which your newspapers mention with such ease! Well then, what about your own religious wars? […] It would be better for foreigners to keep their advice and criticism to themselves28 when it comes to countries they don’t know well […],

this, quickly placed France under the general label of countries that didn’t know the Spanish reality. And the Monarch, in the position of pointing out that the recent developments of the Dreyfus Case, in which Spain did not become involved, should incite the French to be more moderate. But he also made mention of his sympathy towards France, so that he could, in turn, voice a reproach: “French criticism has saddened me more than any other, because I love your country”. From this point of view defending Ferrer was an attack on Spain.

1.2 The Ghost of the French Revolution The “black legend” the French brought back to life, in accordance with the idea of a folkloric Spain, was accompanied on the other side of the Pyrenees by the memory of bloody representations, inherited from the War for Independence, which took hold of an even more virulent Manichaeism: the “unhealthy origins of the Encyclopedia” and the 28

Interview with the Monarch, by G. de Mazière, Le Journal, (2/XI/1909). See: Maurice Soulié, Les procès célèbres de l’Espagne (Paris: Payot, 1931), p. 250.

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French Revolution threaten the throne and the altar, the growing democratic sentiments put the Monarchy at risk, the Rights of Man are an insult to the Rights of God. In other words, an inquisitorial Spain versus a revolutionary and Napoleonic France. If we look up the adjective “Jacobean” in the dictionary of the Royal Academy we are surprised by the absence of any historic definition, and find only a passionate one: “Jacobean: bloody demagogue and violent revolutionary”, even in the most recent editions.29 In the same way, up until 1923 the Republic was a synonym of “chaos, disarray” for official lexicographers. The Lumières’ contradictory interpretation of the French Revolution and its principles, of the War for Independence (traditionalists consider themselves the heirs of the people of May 2, 1808),30 later on of other revolutions, and especially of the “Commune”, and finally, the War of 14–18, nurtured the bipolarization of Spanish ideological and political movements. The polemic that confronted Menéndez Pelayo with G. Azcárate and M. de la Revilla first, (1876) and with J. de Perolo, afterwards, is based on two opposing interpretations of the French XVIII century. In this context the famous traditionalist thinker made an effort to demonstrate the importance of Spanish science for Europe, suggesting the decay started at the end of the XVIII century, that is, according to him, Spanish tradition was destroyed by the French influence – the spirit of the Encyclopédie – and the secularization of thought.31 (In fact, this argument about the existence, or not, of Spanish science, was no29

30 31

Julio Casares was more careful in his dictionary, 1959 edition: “Jacobean: Name given to a member of the most demagogic and bloody party in France in the Revolutionary period. By association, this is also the name given to demagogues who advocate violent and bloody revolution”. Diccionario ideológico de la Lengua española (Barcelona: Editorial Gili, 1959), p. 487; this Word is still used as a synonym of “demagogue, encyclopedist, rationalist, atheist”, in the latest edition of the Diccionario español de sinónimos y antónimos, Federico Carlos Sainz, ed. (Madrid: Aguilar, 1985), p. 656. Only María Moliner’s dictionary suggests a definition that has to do with History. “Jacobean: Refers to individuals from the most passionate faction of the French Revolution, the name comes from San Jacobo Street, where the house where they held the first few meetings was. Fig.: very passionate or extremist in terms of any revolutionary ideology” [Diccionario de uso del Español, María Moliner, ed. (Madrid: Gredos, 1983), vol. 2, p. 18]. Diccionario de uso del Español…, vol. 2, p. 18. Historia de los Heterodoxos (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1965), vol. 6, p. 323 and following, 486 and following, 530 and following.

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thing but a resumption – with the same political bias – of what Masson’s article raised, published in 1782 in the Encyclopédie Méthodique, it described a Spain imprisoned in spiritual darkness). In 1885 traditionalist press still condemned the spirit of the Revolution of 1789 or the “Commune” upon the death of Victor Hugo and how he was honored in Spain. The use of anathema prevailed over literary critique. So, Hugo’s work was considered, with no roundabouts, as “literary garbage”,32 and the poet himself, who was presented as a town crier for Social Revolution, “as the embodiment of a plague that comes from abroad and threatens eternal Spain’s national values”.33 Because of this there was lament for the contamination of Spanish works, such as those of Emilia Pardo Bazán, by the French naturalists Goncourt, Zola, Daudet,34 and other French literary cooks who seasoned food for pigs”35 This literary style was considered immoral and subversive; Pedro Antonio de Alarcón didn’t hesitate to say it was the literary extension of international terrorism, when he described it as the “Black Hand” of literature. This is not a rare comment about Spanish writers, but it generally phrased in a more polite or appropriate way: Algo perdió Galdós con afrancesarse en los procedimientos (“Galdós lost something when he became so French in his procedures”), said Menéndez Pelayo blandly in 1897;36 while Fray Candil (Emilio Bobadilla’s pseudonym) said that Blasco Ibáñez imitated Zola perfectly, to the point of seeing in mankind an animal seized by irresistible desires.37 And it is known that Baroja had to apologize more than once for his “French-like”38 syntax. 32

33 34 35

36 37 38

L. M. de Llauder, “Crónica hebdomadaria”, La Hormiga de Oro (6/1885), in Solange Hibbs-Lissorgues, “La presse traditionaliste face à la littérature: La Hormiga de Oro”, Typologie de la presse hispanique (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes 2, 1986), p. 72. Solange Hibbs-Lissorgues, “La presse traditionaliste face à la littérature…”, p. 74. See: Emilia Pardo, La literatura francesa moderna. El naturalismo (Madrid: Renacimiento, 1911). Emilia Pardo, “La pena de muerte: Carta a la señora Emilia Pardo Bazán”, La Hormiga de Oro, (11/1890), in Solange Hibbs-Lissorgues, “La presse traditionaliste face à la littérature…”. Marcelino Menéndez, La ciencia española (Madrid: Imprenta Central, 1879), vol. 2, p. 120. Vicente Blasco, “Desde mi celda”, Alma Española, 4 (20.XI.1903). Pío Baroja, “Estilo modernista”, Lunes de El Imparcial (24 August 1903).

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With the celebration of the 100th Anniversary of the French Revolution in 1899 comes an important campaign in Spain, by confessional magazines such as La Cruz, La Unión Católica or El Movimiento Católico, targeting catholic opinion. In fact, the conservative media still perceive the French Revolution as a moral and political catastrophe.39 Merry y Colom, for example, describe its causes and consequences as follows: “The anti-religious and anti-social ideas the Ecyclopedists proclaim in France became a fact and the most horrible revolution, rising up against God and his Church, against the Throne and social order, and turned France red”.40 The “Black Hand” process conjures up the ghost of the Commune and the threat of the International Workingmen’s Association, which would symbolize the return of revolutionary violence in Europe. There was an attempt to frame the recent Declaration of Human Rights, as being in opposition to the eternal duties of the people and the Rights of God which were considered mocked by the principles of ’89. The timely resurrection of the myth of the Terror was accompanied by a general offence against anything that symbolized the French Revolution. For this reason, the 1330th Anniversary of Recaredo’s conversion to Catholicism – which allowed for Spain’s catholic unification – was moved forward and celebrated most solemnly on the 8 May 1889, to undermine the celebration of the anniversary of the Revolution. This ceremony was, also, a good time to demonstrate the country’s devotion to “The Holy Heart of Jesus” and magnify the great national myths;41 while the democratic principles of 1789 were reduced to the evocation of nothing more than the guillotine, the Terror and atheism.

1.3 Distinction, perversion or French morals? Instead of the systematic abuse and denigration by the reactionary circles, there was praise and admiration from the progressive elements who saw the “City of Lights” as a symbol of distinction and freedom, the 39 40 41

María Victoria López, “La mentalidad conservadora durante la Restauración”, La España de la Restauración, José Luís García, ed. (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 1985), p. 81. Manuel Merry, Compendio de Historia de España (Sevilla: José María Ariza, 1889), p. 200. See: El mensajero del Corazón de Jesús, (July 1889), pp. 35–37 y 47.

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capital of art and civilization. In fact, at the end of the XIX century, Paris attracts a large number of artists from Barcelona and Valencia. However, even when French preponderance is accepted, it is constantly pointed out that this intellectual fever or refinement – so common in the neighboring country – is accompanied by a certain perversion of their own customs.42 The appeal the France of champagne and the “Moulin Rouge” exerts on Spanish bohemian writers and artists in particular, and on the imagination of the bourgeois in general, the preferential and insistent use of the adjective “French” in erotic and pornographic vocabulary,43 reveals an exclusively sensual image of France – that of refined eroticism and cuisine – which has the advantage of contrasting with the traditional representations of the austere Castile. According to Unamuno in En torno al castisismo (On being Castilian), this relaxed way of conceiving life is totally anti-Spanish: No son castizos ni el sentimiento obsceno ni los aderezos artificiosos del onanismo del amor baboso. No sale de esta casta un marqués de Sade, que en su vejez venerable suelta con voz suave una ordure con una cortesía admirable. (“Neither obscene feelings nor the elaborate adornments of self-indulgent foolish love are Castilian. This lineage has produced no Marquis de Sade, who in his venerable old age lets ordure (filth) slip out of his mouth in a soft voice “with admirable courtesy”).44 But, beyond evoking this vain and dissolute “Parisian life” so favorably described in cheap literature, the journalist highlights the cosmopolitan nature of the French capital, its amazing capacity to assimilate, to emphasize its impersonal nature. “Large towns, like large inns, don’t usually have a personality of their own”, wrote “Claudio Frollo”45 (The pseudonym Victor Hugo gave his character Ernesto López) who observed how Paris “reproduces things, just like the Seine river reproduces the images of what comes to its bank. Four cocottes, four strange artists, four montmartrenses who see themselves as representing the ville lumière, just try to tell them they are not 42 43 44 45

See: Fray Candil (pseudonym of Emilio Bobadilla), “Desde mi celda – Baturrilo, Crónica desde París”, Alma Española, 11 (17 January 1904). See, for example: Ramón Draper, Guía de la prostitución femenina en Barcelona (Barcelona: Martínez Roca, 1982), p. 288. Miguel de Unamuno, En torno al castisismo (Barcelona: Imprenta de Heinrich y Cia, 1902) p. 131. Ernesto López, “Desde París. París Barcelona”, Alma Española, 20 (27.II.1904).

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Paris”. The same way an intellectual could reproach the country of Human Rights for having diluted the features of its own personality, with a premature universalism. Francia, cuyo patriotismo exaltado no sabe ser egoísta, estuvo a punto de perecer por la locura de su gran revolución de aspiraciones universales, de tendencia cosmopolita. (“France, whose exalted patriotism is anything but selfish, was about to perish for the madness of its great revolution, with its aspirations for universality and its cosmopolitan tendencies”) Clarín points out.46 The memory of the socio-economic reality will not change anything in this complex game of stereotypical representations: France is not a cocotte, just as Spain is not a bullfighter or a friar, nor England a pick-pocket. France is industry in Lyon, trade in Marseille or Havre, agriculture in Turenne or Beauce, the great universalist soul of Paris. France is not squandering, but saving; not orgy, but work. France is, with respect to modernity, the august midwife of human kind, and Paris her heart and brain”, Alejandro Sawa says.47 This clarification always fuels a polemic that extends beyond the uncomfortable memory of French cultural dominance. Francophilia was certainly vindicated, from within, as a symbol of liberalism, but also as a symbol of public morality. This is what writers as different as Sawa,48 Araquistáin, Manuel or Antonio Machado, for example, would remember with pleasure after the review of the Dreyfus process, or the Caillaux, Malvy or other cases 46 47 48

Leopoldo Alas Clarín, “Un discurso”, Folletos literarios, 7 (1891), p. 52. Alejandro Sawa, “De moral”, Alma Española, 13 (31 January 1904). Bien saben cuántos me conocen que si París es uno de los amores de mi vida, disto mucho de ser lo que se llama un afrancesado. Pero de eso, a tolerar que los castrados de por aquí y los bárbaros de por allá presenten siempre y en toda razón a la capital de Francia como el centro de todas las inmoralidades, hay gran distancia, y yo no perdono ocasión de establecerlo cada vez que la casualidad lo depara. Precisamente hoy mismo, y con motivo de la revisión des asunto Dreyfus, un periódico de Madrid que, sin ser una excepción tienevistas en el Vaticano, se desata en denuestos contra Francia, sugobierno y la influencia corruptora del boulevard, citando como modelos de pueblos, por la pureza de suscostumbres y por el alto espíritu de civilización que los informa, a Inglaterra y Alemania, las dos naciones precisamente, después de España, máscorrompidas e hipócritas que conozco. “Everyone who knows me knows I love Paris, however, I am far from being Frenchlike. But, from that, to tolerating that the castrated from here and the barbaric from there always talk about the French capital as if it were the center of all immorality, there is a distance. And I don’t miss the chance to say so.

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(por esto mereció Francia la admiración del mundo [“this is why France earned the world’s admiration”] said Antonio Machado in 1913, referring to the reopening of the Dreyfus Case);49 in order to prove that only a democracy is strong enough to admit its mistakes and, in broad daylight, fight against the corruption which reasoned tyranny and electoral fraud have institutionalized in their country. And for Araquistáin, in

49

Precisely today, because of the review of the Dreyfus case, a newspaper in Madrid, not the only one with its eyes turned to the Vatican, has openly insulted France, its Government and the corrupting influence of its streets. It mentions England and Germany as examples to follow, given the purity of their customs and their civilized spirit. Precisely, the two most corruptible and hypocritical peoples I know after Spain”, says Alejandro Sawa in “De moral…”. Meanwhile, in 1917 Araquistáin considers that la pureza de Francia se manifiesta precisamente en esto: en que el Estado francés, no solo no se dejacorromper como tal Estado, sino que se dispone a eliminar de suseno a los individuos corrompidos (proceso Caillaux, Bolo, Malvy, Loustalot, etc.). Ésta es una de las grandes virtudes de toda verdadera democracia como Francia: la capacidad de purificación […]. Sólo las democracias pueden sacar al sol suslacras, y ésto, lejos de ser signo de desmoralización, revela, al contrario, una fuerte moralidad. “the purity of France is manifested precisely in this: the French State not only does not let itself be corrupted as such, but also eliminates corrupt individuals from its midst (the Caillaux case, Bolo, Mailvy, Loustalot, etc.). That is one of the virtues of any real democracy such as France: the capacity for purification […]. Only democracies can display their flaws in daylight. Far from being a sign of disillusionment, it reveals, on the contrary, a strong morality” [Alejandro Sawa, “La pureza de Francia”, El Liberal (19. XII. 1917)]. Regarding Manuel Machado, even though he never forgot some cruel or disdainful opinions France had of Spain, he confesses his admiration of French courage in reference to the Caillaux case: Lo que sí nos conviene es recoger esta soberbia lección de vida que nos da, una vezmás, Francia admirable, desbridando a la luz del día sus heridas para aplicarles el sano cauterio antes que la gangrena de los falsos pudores pueda envenenarlas, llevando a la barra, sinmiedo al escándalo, sin más consideración de la que alcanzaría un ciudadano innominado, a uno de los más altos prestigios políticos, jefe de un partido, muchas veces ministro, ex presidente del Consejo, dueño hoy mismo de una fuerte opinión y millonario por añadidura. “We need to look at this superb life lesson France is teaching us once again Displaying its wounds in broad daylight, so they can heal before the gangrene of fake modesty rots them; taking to court one of the most prestigious politicians, head of a party, he was a Minister several times, former President of the Board, a strongly opinionated millionaire, treating him as if he were a regular citizen”. [Antonio Machado, “Memorándum de la vida española en 1918, Día por día de mi calendario”, Prosa (Sevilla: Publicaciones de la Universidad de Sevilla, 1984), p. 93]. Antonio Machado, Obras. Poesías y prosas…, p. 780.

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contrast, to point out that the Spanish regime pushed away from political life all of those who were incorruptible, and who wished to renounce intrigues and be judged on their own merit.50 In spite of the repeated advice regarding civility and democracy, the constant reminder of Spain’s political immaturity, and above all, this complex game of reciprocal representations, used when convenient – powerful with old and readily available imagery – according to internal political goals, ends up tiring and irritating even those who have invoked it themselves. Unamuno, first of all – who, in 1909, didn’t conceal his indignation after Anatole France’s call to Spanish youth,51 and had rebelled against the abusive idea of Spain as a land of mission for old Dreyfusists – has described the mechanism (before he himself used the debate about foreign politics, and the anti-German feelings it provoked, to galvanize the national democratic forces, bringing back a bellicose and barbaric image of the reactionary media that supported Germany): “In a way, Spain has been the beachhead for other peoples’ internal disputes. Sometimes praised by those on the extreme left who say they want to help those here who fight to emancipate their country from who knows what inquisition and who knows what horrors they say Spaniards suffer from. Other times, praised by the extreme right, who see in Spain, I’m not sure why either, the last pillar of Catholicism”. And the philosopher concludes: El nombre de España es un arma de combate, ya en manos radicales, ya en manos de reaccionarios. (“The name of Spain is a weapon of combat, whether in hands of the radicals or in hands of the reactionary”.)52 Each political discourse is really based on the interplay of representations to justify political actions and construct an emblematic national history using negative examples from the neighboring country. Thus, the bloody image of the other salvaged or deformed to serve ideological ends, is used to designate, identify and better contain the risk at the border. The memory of the “Black Legend” conveniently justifies the anti-clericalism of the radical media and the French social50 51 52

Luis Araquistáin, “Bosquejo de un programa de izquierdas”, España, 146 (24. I. 1918). Reproduced in the work by: Sol Ferrer, La vie et l’œuvre de Francisco Ferrer. Un martyr du XX e siècle (Paris: Fischbacher, 1962), p. 182. Miguel de Unamuno, “España en moda”, La Nación (Buenos Aires, 19.II.1914), Obras Completas, ed. Manuel García (Madrid: Escelicer, 1968), vol. 4, p. 1253.

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ists, whilst the myth of the revolutionary Terror and the memory of the Napoleonic invasion are aptly kept alive by Spanish fundamentalists to combat the arousal of any democratic sentiments and any desire to change the established order. Static and comfortable antagonism, a denial of dialectics that becomes an impeccable drama: a conservative France and a Spain seized by social agitation, which will be used, precisely, as propaganda, negatively interpreting the image of the other that they want us to oppose. This ideological discourse, difficult to rationalize because it is reduced to axiological language, which denigrates or glorifies, establishes a mythical word on the basis of a cyclical moment. This is, no doubt, the main reason why the French-Spanish misunderstanding persists: the uneven evolution of a series of complex images that grew poorer on the French side while France’s representations grew richer on the Spanish side with all the symbols of the debate on modernity. The consequence of this imbalance is the absence of a clearly defined policy on Foreign Affairs, because the State Departments react according to how they view their counterpart, and stereotypes were not less numerous – with some exceptions – in Diplomatic correspondence than elsewhere, with some extraordinary pages on Spanish laziness. At the beginning of World War I, this French-Spanish misunderstanding sparked a heated debate which concealed France’s loss of real influence, without diminishing, however, its reputation among its friends, as the cradle of democracy.

2. Always a fruitful myth in spite of France’s loss of influence If up to the late nineteenth century, as we’ve seen, scientists were trained in France especially, and were in touch with the French doctors over a long period of time (Pedro Mata Fontanet, founder of psychiatry in Spain, around 1860, or his student José María Esquerdo were trained in Paris; Aureliano Maestre de San Juan was influenced by the French school of histology; surgeon Federico Rubio studied in Montpellier and later in Paris with Alfred Velpeau and Pierre Paul Broca), the new gen-

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erations of scientists and doctors always spend some time in Paris (psychiatrists Nicolas and Gonzalo Rodríguez Lafora, for example, still go to work with Charcot’s disciples, Pierre Marie in Salpetriere, Babinski in Pitie or Valentin Magnan, etc.), but before that they now spend a long period of training in Germany (Achúcarro in Wiesbaden and Marbourg in 1899, Negrín later in Kiel, etc.), especially in the field of psychiatry where Germany was a pioneer at the beginning of the century.53 The same thing happened in Literature and in Humanities. If up to 1900 it was almost compulsory to travel to Paris: Unamuno in 1889, Baroja in 1987, etc., thanks to the scholarships granted by the “Board for Continuing Studies”, the best known intellectuals of the generation of 1914 went afterwards to study in Germany afterwards, where the center of philosophic thought had moved (except for Azaña or Madariaga, who finished their training in France). Rafael Altamira put it this way: ¿Quiénes pueden llamarse con más justo título maestros de la historiografía moderna sino esos alemanes a cuyas cátedras han ido a aprender los hombres nuevos de todas las naciones y cuyos métodos de trabajo prevalecen en el mundo entero? Nosotros –que en tantas cosas (más de las que creen los galófobos) somos hoy hijos intelectuales de Alemania […] Who can call themselves teachers of modern historiography if not the Germans who have lectured to new men from all over the world, who have gone there to learn from them, and whose work methods prevail world-wide? We – the children of Germany in so many ways (more than what those who dislike the French would like to think), are today Germany’s intellectual offspring […].54

And we could quote many more statements, such as those of political scientist A. Posada55 or pedagogue L. André,56 which reveal a critical attitude towards the inevitable mediation of France. These young intellectuals will try to create a synthesis of socialism and neo-Kantianism, just as their predecessors tried to reconcile Krausism and positivism. 53

54 55 56

José María López, Thomas F. Glick, Víctor Navarro, Eugenio Portela, Diccionario histórico de la ciencia moderna en España, 2 vols. (Barcelona: Península, 1983), p. 554 and p. 574. Rafael Altamira, Cuestiones modernas de Historia (Madrid: Antonio Pérez, 1904), p. 213. Adolfo Posada, Para América desde España (Paris: Sociedad de Ediciones Literarias y Artísticas, 1910), p. 89. L. André, “Mirando a España desde Alemania”, Nuestro Tiempo (December, 1911), p. 298.

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They would dream sometimes of freeing Spain from French intellectual tutelage and they would make an effort to curb collective passion felt at some point towards the “City of Light”. Much more so when French influence seems to wane; in any case it is no longer exclusive, which doesn’t mean it is no longer important. France remained the positive rule or the negative reference which provoked a movement of attraction or rejection movement, sometimes even both at the same time, as Baroja pointed out.57 A model to follow – Francophilia was often conceived by democrats as a superior form of patriotism, subject to a trend in which excess had to be fought, or simply, an annoying neighbor aspiring to political hegemony or cultural leadership (In 1918, Manuel Machado pointed out that Sorolla’s and Zuloaga’s best paintings were seen in Paris first):58 there were so many French forms and representations just before World War I, in spite the deep attachment to the values of Jacobean France, this didn’t prevent the revival and breeding of feelings of Francophobia even in the intellectual spheres traditionally addicted to French ideas (which would partially explain Baroja’s appreciation for Germany).59 It’s enough to remember, for example, the ambiguous opinions about French decadence, expressed by Unamuno, A. Machado or Ortega. A whole controversy about nature and the reach of French influence, in fact, separates the statement of an amazed Bernardino de Cándamo in 1899: Hoy la luz llega de París. ¡Abrid la ventana, dejad que penetren los rayos del sol de Francia. (“Today the light is coming from Paris, open the window, let in the sunrays from France!”),60 from Antonio Machado’s raging desire in 1913: ¡Oh, si los Pirineos se convirtiesen en el Himalaya! (“Provided that the Pyrenees became the Himalayas”).61

57

58 59 60 61

Pío Baroja, “Spaniards feel a mixture of admiration and desdain for the French”, wrote the novelist in: Pío Baroja, Nuevo Tablado de Arlequín (Madrid: Caro Raggio, 1917), p. 208. See: José Corrales, Baroja y Francia (Madrid: Taurus, 1969), 250 p. José Corrales, Baroja y Francia…, p. 187. Pío Baroja, “Nuestra franco-fobia. Nuestro españolismo”, Obras completas (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 1978), vol. 5, p. 130. Bernardino de Cándamo, “Libros y folletos”, Revista Nueva, 6 (5. V. 1899). Antonio Machado, “Algunas consideraciones sobre libros recientes. Contra esto y aquello de Miguel de Unamuno”; Antonio Machado, Obras. Poesías y prosas…, p. 783.

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2.1 A decadent France Just before World War I Unamuno, who in 1895 hadn’t stopped praising the spirit of the Commune, is irritated by what he calls: la leyenda ferrerista (“The legend of Ferrer”). He intends to respond to a series of French criticisms of his country that he considered at least hasty, at the same time he remembers with wicked pleasure that which Voltaire’s France owes to English and German influence.62 To begin with, he fears that France’s interest in Spain, and even the recent emergence of Hispanicism,63 are nothing more than the reflection of a fashion and an attraction to exoticism which would indicate no real interest in contemporary Spain and wouldn’t yield any reciprocity.64 Unamuno even re62 63

64

Miguel de Unamuno, “España en moda…”. The first post of Spanish Language and Literature professor was created in Toulouse in 1886 and held by Ernest Merimee. The Revue Hispanique appeared in 1894; The Bulletin Hispanique in 1899. In 1900 two posts were created under the same scope. Menendez Pelayo had already expressed such fears, especially criticizing the abuse of Spanish terminology by French Hispanists: “Some who do so may boast of knowing our language well, but in most cases it is simply mockery, which offends and mortifies us as Spaniards. Spain, even though it is a fallen tree that everyone uses for fire wood, has as much right as any other people for its language, its history and its customs not to be made fun of”. [Marcelino Menéndez, Estudios de crítica literaria (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Contemporáneos, 1908), p. 149 (note 1)]. See: André Baron, Menéndez Pelayo et la culture française depuis sa formation jusqu’à l’achèvement de la “Historia de las ideas estéticas”, Paris (PhD Dissertation), 1981). Unamuno’s reproach of the Hispanists is more concise: They would disdain contemporary Spain, without having studied any further than the 18th century: “You know well, – he wrote to Eloy Luis André – how old and deeply-rooted is my dislike of the Frenchmen. Well, in spite of all that there is complicity with Mérimée de Tolosa. From France we get some studies of “contemporary” Spanish literature, we get none from Germany. And what I blame the French Hispanists for, the most, is that for them, it’s as if Spain were culturally stuck in the 18th century, but they are actually much more so than us. They haven’t learned from them. In a way, was it Germany who showed Calderon to the world? But is there someone there today who has desinbiesto (sic) Benavente? Ganivet died there; did you know? And it is sad, really sad, but each one takes interest in other, to the extent that the other takes interest in him. I’m afraid that today’s Spain, not being the fantastic Spain, created by the Ferrer legend, does not exist for the learned Germans, not even the Hispanists”. [Miguel de Unamuno, Epistolario inédito, Laureano Robles, ed. (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1991), p. 167]. It is true that, during that time Unamuno had excellent relationships with Marcel Bataillon, Camille Pitollet or Jean Cassou, to mentions just a few.

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proached Angel Marvaud’s having resorted to unreliable Spanish sources to write his study on La question sociale en Espagne.65 According to him: Se ha puesto unas gafas negras de fabricación española (“He’s wearing black glasses made in Spain”).66 Beyond humor and caricature remains the idea, so dear to some traditionalists such as Menéndez Pelayo,67 that a people cannot live off of mimicry and imported science forever, nor off of the bitter sensation of contributing to exoticism at the end of the century. But it’s clear above all that the philosopher considers as inconvenient the way France used the Ferrer Case, to denounce – as Jaurès did – the damage done by clericalism; and that he is willing to defend all the wrong blamed on his country, to the point of provocation. “Azorín” on the other hand, seduced by “l’Action Française”, takes it out on Ferrer’s French and German advocates, such as Anatole France or Haeckel. Machado, just the same as Araquistáin, Azaña and Alomar, has not forgotten what French culture has contributed to his country – ¿was he not a professor of French? –; but he tries to limit the positive effects of this influence to the two previous centuries in an attempt to better denounce the current Hispanic mimesis. Y nosotros que formamos un pueblo lleno de vitalidad, de barbarie y de porvenir, simpatizamos con eseviejo verde, podrido hasta la médula, por su maestría en el arte cosmético. Error gravísimo y afición nefanda. Nuestra salmas necesitan quien les enseñe a lavarse la cara, no a pintarse de colorete. ¿Qué 65

66

67

Angel Marvaud, La question sociale en Espagne (Paris: Alcan, 1910) (Spanish translation, Madrid, by editors of the Revista de Trabajo, 1975, p. 447). Marvaud explains the French lack of knowledge of Spanish reality, by the fact that no joint work on Spanish society had been undertaken prior to his, except for a few pages by Laveleye, by Lavollee and two monographs that Le Play dedicated to Spanish sharecroppers and fishermen from San Sebastian in his work on: Frédéric le Play, Les Ouvriers Européens (Tours: A. Mame et fils, 1877), vol. 4, p. 278 and following, 291 and following. The study by Robert Leger about the new Spanish Labor Law: Robert Léger “La legislation du travail en Espagne”, Annales des Sciences Politiques, (1906), pp. 494–515; or Lorin’s works about the rural world of Andalucia and Guipuzcoa, and Escarra’s work about industrial development in Catalonia, recently produced at the initiative of the Social Museum. Miguel de Unamuno, “Horror al trabajo”, La Nación (Buenos Aires, 5/VII/1914), Obras Completas…, p. 1259. Marvaud, who also carried out many surveys, sometimes found inspiration in the work of: Ricardo Macias, El Problema Nacional (Madrid: Imprenta Victoriano Suárez, 1899). Marcelino Menéndez, La ciencia española…, vol. 2, p. 472.

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absurda ceguedad nos lleva a imitar todo lo francés? (“We are a vital, barbaric people with a future; we sympathize with that dirty old man, rotten to the bone, for his mastery of cosmetic art; a serious mistake and a despicable hobby. Our souls need to be taught to wash their face, not to wear makeup. What absurd blindness makes us imitate everything which is French?”) he exclaimed.68 Actually, Don Antonio takes delight in making a distinction between two Frances opposite in every way: the neo-Catholic and reactionary France (“and especially fake, the classic triumphant France which has oppressed us with Racine’s divinity”)69 which he detests, the very one that seems to attract Azorín;70 and that of the French Revolution, from which he doesn’t hesitate to vindicate his heritage: La otra Francia es de mi familia y aún de mi casa, es la de mi padre y de mi abuelo y mi bisabuelo; que todos pasaron la frontera y amaron la Francia de la libertad y del laicismo, la Francia religiosa del affaire y de la separación de Roma, en nuestros días. The other France is that of my family and my home, it’s that of my father and grandfather and great-grandfather; all of them crossed the border and loved the France of freedom and secularism, the France that believes in “affairs” and separation from Rome.71

But the current prestige of that presumptuous neighbor (that great people who are spiritually exhausted) seems much exaggerated. And Machado, darkening the picture even more, carries on with this inventory of French cultural contributions: Hoy recibimos de Francia productos de desasimilación, toda clase de génerosa veriados y putrefactos: sensualismo, anarquismo, pornografía, decadentismo y pedantería aristocràtica. (“Today we receive from France unassimilated products, all sorts of damaged and rotten goods: sensuality, anarchy, pornography, decadence and aristocratic pedantry”),72 which Baroja, who also warned his fellow citizens about the French immorality and cynicism, wouldn’t have denied. Francia proyecta hacia nosotros una porción de cosas inútiles o per 68

69 70 71 72

Antonio Machado, “Algunas consideraciones sobre libros recientes. Contra esto y aquello, de Miguel de Unamuno”, La Lectura, 151 (1913); Antonio Machado, Obras. Poesías y prosas…, p. 783. Letter to Unamuno, 16.I.1915; Antonio Machado, Obras. Poesías y prosas…, p. 920. Antonio Machado, Obras. Poesías y prosas…, p. 920. Antonio Machado, Obras. Poesías y prosas…, p. 920. Antonio Machado, “Algunas consideraciones sobre libros recientes…”.

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judiciales, modas, libros pornográficos, literatura de bulevar, vinos, licores; en cambio, guarda todo lo que tiene de bueno: sabios, ingenieros, médicos, mecánicos… (“France casts on us a portion of useless or harmful things, fashions, pornographic books, cheap literature, wine, liquor; however, it keeps everything good it has to itself: wise men, engineers, doctors, mechanics…”),73 the novelist wrote. But by way of the irritation that the ostentatious nature of evermore-debatable of French supremacy breeds, what is being denounced is the lack of discernment by official Spain, ripped of all international prestige, as well as that of a society which is ready to give in to the effects of the most superficial mimicry. Tengo una gran aversión a todo lo francés, con excepción de algunos deformadores del ideal francés. (“I have great aversion to everything French, except for some deformers of the French ideal”), wrote Machado, who took it out on the hegemonic aspirations of the classic French spirit, especially in 1913; but he acknowledges by comparison that the situation in his country, at the time, puzzles him just as painfully: Tengo un gran amor a España y una idea de España completamente negativa. Todo lo español me encanta y me indigna al mismo tiempo. (“I love Spain very much and I have a totally negative idea of Spain. I love everything Spanish and it is outrageous to me at the same time”.)74 According to Ortega, who was very critical about the influence of Taine over his generation,75 the times of Cousin or Renan have ended. Bergson’s philosophy (whom Unamuno admired so much) – has become “semi-mundane”, so much so that, according to him, if France has always symbolized elegance, it is Germany – a country of science, philosophy and socialism – that represents thought from now on.76 73 74

75

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Pío Baroja, Nuevo Tablado de Arlequín…, p. 214; Antonio Machado, “Algunas consideraciones sobre libros recientes…”. Autobiography sent to “Azorin” in 1913, published by Doctor Francisco Vega Diaz “A propósito de unos documentos autobiográficos inéditos de Antonio Machado” Papeles de Son Armadans, 160 (1969). “All the Spanish generation that has intellectual concerns today, has been educated, badly educated by Hipolito Taine”, (Alphonse Aulard, “Taine, historien de la Révolution française”, Lunes de El Imparcial, 11 May 1908, Obras Completas (Madrid: Editorial Taurus-Santillana Ediciones Generales-Fundación José Ortega y Gasset, 2004–2010), vol. 1, p. 86). José Ortega y Gasset, “Alemán, latín y griego”, El Imparcial (10/IX/1911), Obras Completas…, vol. 1, pp. 206–210.

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Besides, upon his return from Germany Ortega y Gasset, on his own account, takes up an old critique by Menendez Pelayo, who claimed to be convinced that French skill and distinction were nothing more than thoughtlessness and shallowness.77 The author, who nevertheless seemed to fear in many cases the opinion of the writers in the neighboring country, would later change many of his judgments. However, he critiqued all of French literary production, since the Song of Rolando, comparing modern France to medieval France, to find in classic culture – or in the spiritual attitude of rationalism that created its aesthetics – a uniformity that, in his opinion, only a genius such as Moliere could avoid. Beyond that he approved of Taine, who insists on the prosaic nature of the French, and makes fun of the desire to organize everything which he perceived as an insult to the complexity of life, since it according to him it often produced an apparent order and a false clarity.78 Ortega would mistrust Cartesianism and its art of reasoning. En el pensar, pues –escribe– no ha de buscarse la claridad latina, como no se llame claridad a esa vulgar prolijidad del estilo francés, a ese arte del “developpement” que se enseña en los liceos. (“In thinking – he wrote – one should not pursue the clarity of Latin, if that vulgar and lengthy French style can be called clarity, that art of developpement taught in schools”.) But what really concerns the philosopher is the fact that that decadent France still exercises a real influence on a Spain that he consideres to be deprived of cultural tradition and civic freedom.79 But if decadence exists, thinks Ortega, this cultural phenomenon is present in all Mediterranean peoples los pueblos mediterráneos llevamos las de perder (“the Mediterranean peoples always loose out”) and Spain and France are equally touched, except for the difference France has been able to give an artistic name to that gliding towards anarchy: decadentism.80

77 78 79

80

Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo, Historia de las ideas estéticas…, vol. 5, p. 134. Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo, Historia de las ideas estéticas…, vol. 8, p. 219. “The non-contemporary man, who walks through life thanks to an impulse from behind, cannot be sensitive to the reality that surrounds him”, he points out: Miguel de Unamuno, “Problemas culturales” and “III. Francia poder conservador”, La Prensa (Buenos Aires, 15/VIII/1911), Obras Completas…, p. 550. José Ortega y Gasset, “El pathos del sur”, Obras Completas (Madrid: Alianza, 1983), vol. 1, p. 499.

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The constant affirmation of the French hegemonic aspirations regarding ideology, politics and culture, especially when all these seem exaggerated, hadn’t stopped irritating certain progressives and Francophile intellectuals (such as Larra previously or more recently the young “Clarín”, not very enthusiastic about this progress that we are obliged to receive from abroad),81 worried about seeing their country define and locate itself in the concert of European Nations, but not in relation to its neighbor. France’s patronizing attitude, official or not, and its failed wish to be the tutor of a new Spain, in the end provoked a certain exasperation even among its friends (a misunderstanding caused by the effect of imitation or non-reciprocal domination as well as a one-way mediation from France trying to transfer to Spain all the European culture, without wanting to receive anything in return except a few notes of exoticism). The most convinced Francophiles insist that it is not humiliating to be open to foreign influences, or to seek recognition in Paris, like Engineer Torres Quevedo did, and that the French spirit, its sense of collective life, can contribute a method likely to solve many problems in Spain. But the official affirmation of neutrality doesn’t prevent the generation of young writers soaked in European culture, and who are, no doubt, the first to have internationalist thoughts, from understanding the ideological dimension of the conflict (especially if they work in the allied Capitals, like Araquistain in London, “Corpus Barga” or Madariaga in Paris). The intellectuals who, disappointed by the Lerroux’s radical republicanism, share Ortega y Gasset’s political project since the creation of the League of Political Education from within the Reformist Party in 1913; or those who feel attracted by the Socialist Party, still consider France to be country of the Rights of Man – and even more so since the Ligue des Droits de l’Homme was created after the Dreyfuss case. That’s why they don’t hesitate to consider the victory of the Allies as a victory of democracy and humanism.82 81

82

“A progress that’s not due to us nor does it excite us… None of this is very pleasing…, but it’s the least bad you can choose”. Leopoldo Alas Clarín, Nueva Campaña (Madrid: Librería de Fernando Fe, 1887), p. 12. Antonio Zozaya summarizes this position in a realistic way: “This is what’s being discussed with weapons all over Europe […] if men are lambs or not”. Antonio Zozaya, “La verdadera crisis”, El Liberal (13/I/1917).

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2.2 1914–1918: The reasons for Francophilia It is during the debate that led to Spain’s neutrality in World War I, that the intellectuals again question the causes and consequences of their country’s isolation. Therefore the reflection about French influence – at a time in which France is threatened as a culture and a State – and about the opportunity of opening up to Europe always becomes a disillusioned meditation about the essence of Spain. Even more so because Europeanization that, for Costa,83 is synonymous to neo-liberalism or a condition for re-discovering Spain according to Unamuno84 or Ortega;85 is still a senseless triviality for neutral Spain. ¿Qué es España?, ¿Qué será de España? (“What is Spain?, What will become of Spain?”) wonders again Marcelino Domingo,86 posing the issue that had worried the “Regenerationists” as much as the writers facing the crisis at the end of the century, with a totally different political perspective, because in their eyes, it would have been enough for the Government in Madrid to abandon neutrality for Spain to find an identity. Most of the intellectuals now share the same concerns. From Unamuno87 to Álvaro de Albornoz,88 Salvador de Madariaga,89 Gabriel Alomar90 or Luis Araquistáin,91 they see in neutrality the proof of Spain’s impotence.92 For that reason their activism becomes a reasoned Franco83 84 85 86 87

88 89 90 91 92

Joaquín Costa, Oligarquía y caciquismo, Rafael Perez, ed. (Madrid: Alianza, 1967), p. 20. Miguel de Unamuno, En torno al casticismo (Madrid: Espasa Calpe, 1943), pp. 141–143. Miguel de Unamuno, “Nuestra revista”, El Imparcial, 27 (April 1910), Obras Completas…, vol. 1, p. 144. Marcelino Domingo, En esta hora única (Tortosa: Monclus, 1917), p. 332; Marcelino Domingo, ¿Qué es España? (Madrid: Suc. de Rivadeneyra Branch, 1925), p. 246. Miguel de Unamuno, “L’unité morale de l’Europe”, Le Soleil du Midi (Marsella: 18/ I/1916), Desde el mirador de la Guerra, Louis Urrutia, ed. (Paris: Hispanic Research Center, 1970), p. 483. Álvaro de Albornoz, El temperamento español. La democracia y la libertad (Barcelona: Minerva, 1921), p. 207. Salvador Madariaga, La guerra desde Londres (Madrid: without publisher, 1918), p. 318. Gabriel Alomar, La política idealista (Barcelona: Minerva, 1922), p. 359. Luis Araquistáin, Polémica de la guerra: 1914–1915 (Madrid: Renacimiento, 1915), p. 317. See also: Marcelino Domingo, En esta hora única…, p. 72.

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philia that eclipses all previous bitterness. And even though it imposed itself as an attraction to Jacobean France, in a cultural terrain of Germanic tradition93 or in a substratum of xenophobia – like Machado’s dislike for the French in 1913, which in a few months’ time would become faith in Francophilia94 – intellectuals immediately become aware of the seriousness of the time. During the heated dispute over Spain’s entering the war that divided public opinion, their critical attitude towards France has been considerably toned down. Yo también, en el fondo, acaso sea francófilo. Mi antipatía a Francia se ha moderado mucho en eso que usted llama estallido de barbarie de las derechas. (“I may be a Francophile down deep, too. My dislike of France has diminished a lot in what you call the barbaric outburst of the right”), confessed Antonio Machado in January 1915 in a letter to Unamuno.95 According to Unamuno, commenting an article by Edmond Jaloux, it’s true that because of the war, behind the frivolous and dissolute France of mundane novelists such as Jean Lorrain, Huysmans, Pierre Louys, who, in his opinion, wrote execrable books; not to mention the Claudine novels by Willy which he detested – one discovers another brave, Christian and Jacobean France, “believing and heroic”: creyente en el eterno destino del hombre (“believing in the eternal destiny of mankind”).96 And Unamuno, who becomes a passionate supporter of the Allies and heads the Anti-German League, explains in a letter to Imbart de la Tour, the former attitude of numerous Spanish authors: Alguno de ellos, como yo, eran conocidos anteriormente, en verdad no como hostiles a los 93

94 95 96

Many were the members of this generation who studied in Germany thanks to the scholarships granted by the “Junta para Ampliación de Estudios” (Board for Continuing Studies), see: Paul Aubert, “La propagande étrangère en Espagne…”, p. 360. On the other hand, Germanophilia among doctors is well known given their attraction to German science (see, for example, Archivo del Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, Guerre series 1914–1918, Spain, vol. 487, Letter from the French Consul in Cadiz to the French Ambassador, July 25, 1917; see: Paul Aubert, “La propagande étrangère en Espagne…”, p. 363. Antonio Machado, “Algunas consideraciones sobre libros recientes…”; Antonio Machado, Obras. Poesías y prosas…, p. 783. 16/I/1915, Antonio Machado, Obras. Poesías y prosas…, p. 920. Miguel de Unamuno, “Nada de pretensiones”, La Nación (Buenos Aires, 29/4/1916); Miguel de Unamuno, De mi vida (Madrid: Espasa Calpe, 1979), pp. 131–140.

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franceses sino hostiles a los españolesa francesados (“Some of them, as myself, were known before, in fact, not as hostile to the French but to Spaniards who imitated the French”),97 and the philosopher adds: He protestado cada vez que un escritor francés ha pretendido aleccionarnos como a pobres alumnos o ha ignorado nuestro genio nacional. Pero ahora su compromiso en esta lucha ideológica y verbal es total. Por ello la mayoría de los intelectuales progresistas han vivido la neutralidad como una humillación, como una hipocresía o como una traición, es decir como una verdadera desgracia, y, en todo caso, como una pruebamás del retraso y de la inferioridad de España. I have protested every time a French writer pretends to lecture us as if we were poor students while ignoring our national genius.98 But now their commitment to this ideological and verbal struggle is total. For this, most progressive intellectuals have experienced neutrality as something humiliating,99 like treason or hypocrisy,100 in other words as a true disgrace101 and, in any case, as one more proof of Spain’s backwardness and inferiority.

Manuel Azaña, who had debated with Pío Baroja since 1912 for defending French culture, and who had claimed Germany had not yet created a new civilization102 like France or England, does not hesitate, when returning from a trip to France in 1916 after the Germans bombed the Reims cathedral, in declaring that France are fighting for universal jus-

97

Apendix to Pierre Imbart de la Tour, L’opinion catholique et la guerre (Paris: Bloud et Gay, 1915), p. 35. 98 “One of the things that most alienated the Spanish towards France was the selfsufficient tone of superiority with which the French writers referred to Spanish matters, that is to say those who even dealt with the subject. Even when they tried to be benevolent toward us and our concerns, there was a certain way of saying: ‘well, well, not bad for Spaniards! Good guys! You have really learned from us’”. 99 Antonio Machado, Obras. Poesías y prosas…, p. 920; Miguel de Unamuno, “El Zorillismo estético”, La Nación (Buenos Aires, 14/5/1917), Obras Completas…, vol. 3, p. 1004. 100 Julián Besteiro, Discursos y vida parlamentaria, 1918–1920 (31/10/1918), Fermín Solana, ed. (Madrid: Taurus, 1975), p. 256; Miguel de Unamuno, “Discurso en el mítin de protesta contra la suspensión de garantías constitucionales”, Heraldo de Madrid (Madrid, 19/II/1922). 101 Ramón Pérez de Ayala, prologue to the edition of Política y toros, Obras Completas (Madrid: Aguilar, 1963), vol. 3, p. 832. 102 Manuel Azaña, Obras completas (Mexico: Ediciones Oasis, 1966), vol. 1, p. 81.

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tice.103 Araquistáin insists in pointing out that the war is nothing other than the continuation of the French Revolution and other revolutionary wars;104 while Zuleta sees, even in the present, signs of the moral heritage of 1789.105 It is this same France, which he calls glorious under the bombs, the one Antonio Zozaya delighted in praising in hyperbolic terms – when the German troops threatened Paris – in an article that perfectly portrayed the exaltation of the most passionate Francophiles.106 Zozaya, who truly worshiped the neighboring country Descubramos la frente. Vamos a invocar el santo nombre de la divina Francia. (“Heads high. Let us call out the holy name of divine France”), praises the universal character of its history Francia y su historia es la del mundo; sus triunfos son los de todos los seres humanos. (“France’s history is the history of the world; it’s triumphs are those of all humankind”), conjugating the time of utopia and the space of epic in a historic summary that goes from Vercigetorix to Bonaparte before remembering what he thought its reach was. Which led to the conclusion that todos los hombres tienen dos patrias: Francia y la suya (“everybody has two homelands: France and their own”). Before making an inventory of France’s contributions to universal culture and celebrating the greatness of the eternal France. Ortega, too, changed his opinion about France when the war broke out and won’t hide his joy or his admiration for the heroism of the people at the time of the armistice.107 Even though he signs a few manifestos in favor of the Allies and participates in most of the Francophile banquets, he doesn’t let himself get dragged into the debate on culture and civilization, yet always considering Francophilia as a “painful fatality”.108 103 Miguel de Unamuno, “El esfuerzo francés”, España, 111 (8/III/1917); See: Miguel de Unamuno, “Los motivos de la germanofilia”, Obras Completas…, vol. 3, pp. 140–157. 104 Luis Araquistáin, “La Nueva Santa Alianza”, España, 180 (15/IX/1918). 105 Estanislao Zuleta, “La herencia de la Revolución francesa”, El Liberal (4/IV/1917). 106 ‘Las naciones hermanas. Francia gloriosa’, La patria ciega (Madrid: Sociedad Española de Librería, 1919), pp. 241–244. 107 On the day of the armistice he even cheered: “Glorious France, land of freedom, sister to perseverance, master (teacher) of a joyful life! You arrived… ill at the trenches, but your heroic and quiet will brought you out of there filling your body with new and eternal youth”. José Ortega y Gasset, “Acto de afirmación patriótica”, El Sol (19/XI/1918). 108 José Ortega y Gasset, “Una manera de pensar”, España, 37–38 (7/X/1915–14/X/ 1915); Obras Completas…, vol. 10, pp. 336–347.

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Beyond the appeal of the neo-positivist practice of compared psychology of the peoples, which had just come into vogue in France because of Alfed Fouillée109 and in Spain due to some Krausists like Manuel Sales y Ferré, and later on Rafael Altamira,110 the new generation was making a effort to update Spain. And they don’t stop analyzing their frustration when confirming that their country hasn’t been able to take advantage of the opportunity to integrate politically into Europe, confirming their solidarity with democratic regimes in the summer of ’14. Marcelino Domingo, the passionate representative from Tortosa, explains it in a reiterative style forged in the heated atmosphere of the meetings: Quiere decir que España no es una realidad nacional, no es un pueblo formado, no es una sociedad europea. Quiere decir que ha de crearse esta realidad, que ha de levantarse esta sociedad. Quiere decir que estos pueblos que luchan están por su riqueza, por su técnica, por su política, por sus organismos militares, en el siglo XX. Y, nosotros no. Nosotros estamos en otro siglo, en un siglo por el que ellos, esos pueblos, hace siglos que han pasado. It means Spain is not a national reality, it is not an educated people, and it is not a European society. It means that reality has to be created; that society has to be built. It means those peoples that struggle are in the XX century because of their wealth, their technology, for their politics and their military organization. We are not. We are in another century, a century through which those peoples passed a long time ago.111

And Unamuno concluded, with the bitterness of one who cannot assign to his powerless testimony any other time or place: Y aquí seguimos en eso, en que no pasa nada. Somos nosotros los que pasamos. Y queda el vacío, la felicidad de los pueblos sin historia. (“And here we remain in this, in which nothing happens. It is us passing. And a void is left, the

109 Alfred Fouillée, Esquisse psychologique des peuples européens (Paris: without publisher, 1903), p. 283. 110 Rafael Altamira, Psicología del pueblo español (Barcelona: Minerva, 1917). This trend also inspired Salvador de Madariaga, who would publish, a dozen years later: Salvador Madariaga, Ingleses, Franceses, Españoles. Ensayo de psicología colectiva comparada (Madrid: Espasa Calpe, 1929). 111 Marcelino Domingo, En esta hora única…, p. 107.

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happiness of peoples without history”).112 Meanwhile Perez de Ayala searches for the answer to his eternal question in the evocation of a distant past: “Spain a failed people?”.113 Alomar first justifies Spain’s backwardness in the failure of all the attempts of reform since Cadiz, and later given the protectionist attitudes of the successive governments: España es un cuerpo postradísmo, un alma ausente. Sus gobiernos han pasado medio siglo consagrados a la tarea de anestesiarla, de adormecer en ella su doble conciencia intelectual y moral. Y luego se han tendido ante la gran puerta de sus fronteras, como mastines de ganado, velando […]. Spain is a weakened body, with an absent soul. Its governments have anesthetized it for half a century, putting both its intellectual and moral consciousness to sleep. And then they lay at the great door of its borders, like cattle mastiffs, keeping watch […].114

This is why the French who were interested in Spain were nothing less than impressed by this phenomenon of mortification that makes the Spanish accept the “black legend”, giving in to a sort of historic determinism, even in 1914, after the inhibition that followed the disaster of 1898, when their country’s decline began; because, just like their elders, the new generation thinks that the modernization of Spain cannot be achieved except at the cost of rectifying its traditional spirit before History. At any rate, they couldn’t gain better knowledge of Spain by reading critical writings or the repetitive judgments of some travelers.115 112 Miguel de Unamuno, “¡Y aquí no ha pasado nada!”, El Día Gráfico (4/5/1916), Artículos olvidados sobre España y la Primera Guerra Mundial, Christopher Cobb, ed. (London: Tamesis, 1976), p. 39. 113 Ramón Pérez de Ayala, “El 98”, Política y toros, Obras Completas…, vol. 3, p. 1019. 114 Gabriel Alomar, La política idealista (Barcelona: Minerva, 1922), p. 349. 115 Most of these stories tell us more about the writers than about the countries they visited. If we believe Baroja, the French are too self-assured to know how to travel: “The French have always been arrogant and dogmatic thinking that they are the standard setters in cuisine and in everything. That’s why they are such bad travelers”. Pío Baroja, Amores tardíos (Madrid: Editorial Caro Raggio, 1926), pp. 18–19. Regarding Unamuno, he doesn’t really appreciate French writers who sought in Spain a source of inspiration: “…isn’t there anyone else but Prospero Merimee who has reached the core the Spanish soul? And Corneille did so in the past, too […] Victor Hugo’s case is more complicated…”. Miguel de Unamuno, “Nada de pretensiones…”.

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The European countries – and especially France – because of their disdain (“the professorial petulance” that Unamuno reproaches them for)116 are all equally responsible for Spain’s inhibition and cultural complex. The French representative Jacques Chaumié – Valle-Inclan’s translator – regretted, in his 1917 report to the Foreign Affairs Commission, before asking his country’s National representation for a clear policy regarding Spain: No sentimos acaso que España a la que hemos ayudado a encerrarse en sí misma con nuestros desdenes, o mejor aún a empujar la hacia nuestros enemigos, es un país con porvenir. (“Don’t we feel that Spain, which we have helped to lock in itself with our slights, or even more to push her towards our enemies, is a country with a future”).117 But nothing in France’s attitude later confirms that temporary interest in a country that had helped the Allies so much in time of war: All the passing fancies of Latin Union or Mediterranean Friendship would be forgotten. But, beyond collective passions, there was logic of commitment which turned every democrat into a “supporter of the Allies”. It is what Luis Arquistáin vindicated to explain his zeal as a propagandist.118 Little by little the political slogans penned by intellectuals, substituting mere comments on the events taking place, clearly confirmed their faith in an imminent democratic revolution in Spain.

2.3 The spirit of 1789 During the demonstrations in favor of France and the Allies, opposition to the regime – which points out what it owes to French culture and what it expects from the spirit of the Revolution of 1789 –, is re-unified and national political separations occur with respect to international politics. Manifestos, demonstrations in favor of the Allies, would at the same time be symbolic signs of breaking with dynastic Spain; so much so that numerous intellectuals feel invested with a mission: defending the future of democracy in Spain, beyond the Allied cause. To the point 116 Miguel de Unamuno, “Nada de pretensiones…”. 117 Archivo del Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, Europe series, Guerre 1914–1918, Spain, vol. 480, (9.VIII.1917). 118 Luis Araquistáin, “Defensa contra una difamación”, España, 60 (16/III/1916).

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where the “Anti-German League” is practically transformed at the end of the war into the “Spanish Democratic Union”,119 whose manifesto, signed first of all by Unamuno,120 concludes with a call for the democratization of political life: Españoles: ha llegado la hora de demostrar que somos dignos de pertenecer como pueblo y como Estado a una comunidad de democracias civilizadas, y que no queremos seguir viviendo aislados de los dolores y esperanzas del mundo ni regidos por poderes irresponsables ante la única soberanía del pueblo. (“Spaniards: the time has come to show we are worthy of belonging to the community of civilized democracies, as a people and as a State; and show we don’t want to keep living isolated from the pains and hopes of the world, nor ruled powers not responsible to the only sovereignty, which is that of the people”). In fact, the crisis of 1917 can hardly be understood out of the context of war, but it can’t be understood, either, without the French revolutionary symbol, because the unionists, who spark the first revolutionary general strike in History, think that in Spain in the summer of 1917 they are carrying out the French Revolution of 1789,121 (the Parliamentary Assembly in Barcelona would be often compared to the “Oath of the Jeu de Paume”).122 In this regard, what Marcelino Domingo meant, when he published ¿Qué espera el Rey? (“What does the King expect?”), is clear. The cover of the book shows, in a moving historical synthesis, the Spanish monarch losing his crown as he flees from revolutionaries sans-cullotes armed with a scythe and wearing the Phrygian cap and a tricolor rosette. The author insists on the fact that if Luis XVI’s France couldn’t have been governed as that of Luis XIV, Alfonso XIII is mistaken when he tries to rule Spain the way Fernando VII123 would have 119 España, 187 (7/XI/1918). 120 As well as Luis Simarro, Manuel. B. Cossío, Adolfo A. Buylla, Luis Hoyos Sáinz, Gregorio Marañón, Gustavo Pittaluga, Manuel Azaña, Juan Madinaveitia, Luis de Zulueta, Ramón Menéndez Pidal, Álvaro de Albornoz, Emilio Menéndez Pallarés, Luis Bello, Américo de Castro, Ramón Pérez de Ayala, Manuel Pedroso, Manuel Núñez de Arenas, Luis García Bilbao and Luis Araquistáin. 121 See: Paul Aubert, “Los intelectuales en la crisis de 1917”, La crisis del Estado Español (Madrid: Cuadernos para el Diálogo, 1978), pp. 245–310. 122 Ramón Pérez de Ayala, “De vuelta a España”, Política y toros, Obras Completas…, p. 845. 123 Marcelino Domingo, ¿Qué espera el Rey? (Tortosa: Monclus, 1918), p. 38.

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done. And the passionate representative of Tortosa announces the end of the reign of “the last Bourbon” and the beginning of the Spanish revolution, before demanding, in the name of the royal country, the organization of a responsible power and requesting of The Courts on November 12, 1918, the day after the armistice, the abdication of the constitutionally irresponsible124 King of Spain. He also justifies this step evoking French History and the example of Luis XVI, he invites Alfonso XIII to meditate, giving up the crown (like Amadeo) unless he wants to be deposed (like Isabel II); and commenting on the latest events: after the victory of the Allies which means the victory of democracy over autocracy, it is the duty of the kings to abdicate. Other liberal and socialist intellectuals would, in this same period, reflect on the foundations and essence of power. The first ones, like Ramón Pérez de Ayala, would define a fourth moderating125 power aimed at neutralizing the King, based on the model imagined by Benjamin Constant. The second ones, like Fernando de los Rios, would denounce the Canovist fiction of double sovereignty, reaching the conclusion that it is judicially impossible for a constitutional monarchy to work.126 While Álvaro de Albornoz declares himself a Girondist and a liberal socialist, inspired by the principles of ’89, and who continues celebrating the spirit of “The Great Revolution” of the Third French Republic.127 Spanish intellectuals project onto national affairs (from the Montjuic process to the Ferrer Case or the recession in 1917), the critical conscience they have forged from the international context and, especially, from the events of French Political life (the Commune, the declaration of the Third Republic, the Dreyfus Case, the War in ’14–18). And when their enthusiasm, at the time of the Great War, diverges from nuanced analysis to be spontaneously Manichean, it allows us to asses to what extent the myth of the French Revolution is always fruitful. Because it’s also true that it helps structure the political discourse of the left, as well as that of the right, in Restoration period Spain. 124 Marcelino Domingo, ¿Qué espera el…, p. 96. 125 Ramón Pérez de Ayala, Política y toros, Obras Completas…, p. 704. 126 Fernando de los Ríos, La responsabilidad de los monarcas en el moderno derecho público, ¿Adónde va el Estado? (Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 1951), p. 139. 127 Álvaro de Albornoz, El temperamento español, La democracia y la libertad (Barcelona: Minerva, 1921), pp. 195 and 206–207.

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Conclusion During the first world conflict France turns to Spain to find a needed supplier, sensing that this interest might be profitable. But nothing in its later behavior will confirm, in spite of Chaumié’s optimistic report, this temporary interest in a country that has greatly contributed to the Allies during the war. Third Republic, France – whose regime has not always symbolized the Golden Age of Freedom,128 in spite of its persistent liberal efforts – takes little interest in Spain’s benevolent superiority, however with the patronizing attitude of one who expects nothing from a country that is politically reactionary and economically backward. Given Spain’s feelings of inferiority, upon which an extreme sensitivity regarding French cultural and political heritage is based, and that explains the evolution and richness of a critical discourse, as well as the persistence of a fertile imagery, the French attitude seems immutable. Indifference is still its substance and universality guarantees its legitimacy. In fact, even though maintaining an ill confirmed will to be a tutor of the new Spain, France expects to keep Spain in the background, fulfilling at most a secondary role in Morocco or constitute an exotic reservoir,129 a yet unexplored market, and a temporarily indispensable supplier. For all that, after the cataclysm of World War I and the revision of values it implied, Ortega momentarily had a hunch that Spain might be able to adapt – if it wanted to – easier than other countries, to contemporary necessities, since it had not shared the out dated values of the Modern Times Age130 that, to him, the neighboring country embodied so well. But this hypothetical change of historical perspective did not lead to the possibility of foreseeing a reciprocal future with clarified relationships, either. 128 Jean-Michel Machelon, La République contre les libertés?, Les restrictions aux libertés publiques de 1879 à 1914 (Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1976). 129 See for the period studied: Daniel-Henri Pageaux, “Les Français de la Belle Époque en péninsule Ibérique. Voyages, images, idées”, Arquivos do Centro Cultural Portugués (Paris: Fundaçao Calouste Gulbenkian, 1976), vol. 10, pp. 213–260. 130 José Ortega y Gasset, “España Invertebrada” (1921), Obras Completas…, vol. 3, p. 123.

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However, in spite of the persisting mutual misunderstanding and a certain lose of influence by France – due to the questioning of its expectations to exercise on Spain some sort of political and cultural tutelage, as well as Spain’s opening up to other European influences – Francophilia, lived as profession of democratic faith, symbol of the secularization of thought and of breaking with the dynastic Spain, left a mark on the new generation of intellectuals of 1914, who contributed to the events of the Second Republic131 and who sang “La Marseillaise” at the Puerta del Sol, with the people of Madrid on the evening of April 14, 1931.

131 See: Paul Aubert, “Los intelectuales en el Poder (1931–1933): del constitucionalismo a la Constitución”, La II República – El primer bienio (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 1987), pp. 169–231.

Identities on the Move, Foreign and Colonial Students in France (20th century – 1960s) Caroline BARRERA Centre Universitaire Jean-François Champollion

From the XIX century to the 1960s France received a growing number of students, from the colonies and from other countries as well, going from 585 students in 1885 to 5000 in 1910, 17,000 in 1931, and 10,000 in 1950; from 6 per cent in 1890 to 10 per cent from 1908 to 1940. What happened to these students in terms of identity is complex; first of all of course, because they were youngsters, constructing their lives. Second of all, because there were different kinds of study trips and each of them involved different problems. In the case of students who were simply on a study trip, and would be going back to their own countries, what was most important was the influence this student’s travel might have on their homeland, for example, regarding political or economic modernization. When dealing with exiled students, students who were traveling under pressure, their identities were more subject to being seduced by the host country, especially if it was more democratic and there was more freedom. In both cases, they were confronted with the local culture and the need to affirm their own identities while living in France. It’s a typical problem but this inner confrontation was complex because of what France represented to these foreign guests. On one hand, they had been welcomed in the universities since the XIX century, according to the country’s foreign policy at the time, which entailed a significant promotion of French universities and the French model. On the other hand, there was also xenophobia and anti-Semitism which developed alongside the inflow of foreign students, as a result of ideological and domestic problems. There were also contradictions regarding colonial students in a country that promotes the right of the peoples to self-government, but which had a colonial empire up to the 1950s and even up to 1962, when Algeria became independent.

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1. The various identities of foreign and colonial students: individuals and foreign policy In the first part of this paper, I’d like to quickly introduce the official identities of these foreign students, and then see why they were in France, presenting the situations that existed in their countries of origin and what was at stake at an international level.

1.1 France and foreign and colonial students First, who were the foreign students who came to France? There were successive waves. In the XIX century and before World War I, undoubtedly, the largest numbers of foreign students were from the Russian Empire. In 1894 for example, there were 394 Russians out of 1680 foreign students, which represents 22 per cent and in 1914/5, there were 3176 out of 6188 (51.3 per cent). In Paris, as in other university cities in the country, Russian student communities were important until World War I. Later, with the War and the Russian Revolution in 1917, the inflow of Russian students decreased and changed in composition; they were not the same kind of Russians as before. White Russians came then and after World War II, dissidents. In the late XIX century, Turkey was in second place, but only until 1898, when the Turkish Empire started sending its students to the German Empire. From 1899 on, the Central European countries were in second place until the end of World War II. There were 2358 students from Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia in 1920; which was 46.4 per cent of the total number of foreign students; and 2811 in 1938 (35.3 per cent). There were also a significant number of students from Serbia. The other waves were less important. There were Asian and African students from the Colonial French Empire. In 1900, 7.86 per cent came from Asia and 11 per cent from Africa. In 1938 they were 4.9 per cent and 11.7 per cent, respectively. Those who came from Asia were mainly from China, up until the Japanese invasion in 1931. From 1918 on, students came mostly from Tunisia (50 in 1922, 317 in 1934) and Indochina (300 in 1929). There were also students from territories under French domin-

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ion like Syria and Lebanon. In 1931, when the numbers were highest, there were 585 Chinese, 420 Indochinese, and 416 Syrian/Lebanese. In the second part of this paper we’ll see that to truly understand the real identities of these students, we can’t be limited by their official nationalities, especially during that period. After World War II, the number of African and Asian students grew. In 1980, those coming from Africa accounted for 54.4 per cent of the total number of foreign students in France, and those from Asia, 17.4 per cent. We should point out that there are variations over time and among the different countries. After 1950, there were many students coming from Vietnam (former Indochina), Tunisia and Morocco; and after 1962, from Algeria.1

1.2 What was at stake at an international level, regarding student mobility What was at stake at an International level with this kind of mobility? The first thing we have to keep in mind is that these movements had a diplomatic aspect. Thus, from 1894, when the French-Russian Alliance took place, the presence of Russian students in France corresponded to France’s desire to strengthen that indispensable military alliance which also had other components: a financial one, involving some Russian loans that were never paid back; or cultural ones, involving students. Just before World War I, the French intent to find allies in Central Europe (Serbia, Romania, Poland, Czechoslovakia…) explains these students’ presence in French universities. After decolonization, cooperation agreements explain the presence of people of certain nationalities in French higher education institutions. This mobility also had a cultural aspect. For the students’ countries of origin it had to do with using them as a means for importing intellectual and technical capital. The problem was that in these countries there were not enough universities to educate the elites they needed for economic development (to produce engineers, for example) and the development 1

André Cabanis, “Les flux d’étudiants étrangers et les aléas de la politique internationale de la France”, Les étudiants de l’exil. Migrations internationales et universités refuges (XVIe–XX e siècles), Patrick Ferté, Caroline Barrera, eds. (Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Mirail, 2009), pp. 177–190.

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of modern States, especially new States, but also in the case of older ones such as Russia. At the end of the XIX century, this Empire had only ten universities, while France had fifteen, but with a population three times smaller than Russia’s. At the same time, there were only two Polish universities (Cracow and Lemberg) and two in Romania (Bucharest and Yassi). In Bulgaria and Croatia there was only one university.2 The same problem existed in the French Colonial Empire: there were not enough universities. These universities also lacked equipment: there were not enough labs, libraries or professors. Then, at the end of the XIX century, France engaged in an unprecedented modernization of its universities.3 From the French perspective, which was also the case for countries like Germany and England, receiving these students was a means of exporting their philosophical, political, legal and technical models. Throughout their colonial empire there was a need for people who could act as intermediaries between the French and the local populations. The students that came were carefully chosen and controlled, especially those who were granted scholarships.

2. Trengthening or transforming identity through mobility The students arriving in France bring their identities with them. In some difficult cases they might have even viewed this journey as an act of resistance against what was happening in their countries, an act against an external or internal enemy. Resistance can also be emancipation.

2 3

Victor Karady, “La migration internationale d’étudiants en Europe, 1890–1940”, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, 145 (2002), Introduction. Caroline Barrera, Étudiants d’ailleurs. Histoire des étudiants étrangers, coloniaux et français de l’étranger de la faculté de droit de Toulouse (XIX e–1945) (Albi: Presses du centre universitaire Champollion, 2007), pp. 36–51.

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2.1 The student’s journey as an act of resistance First, the journey could have been an act of cultural or political resistance. Cultural resistance can entail choosing to go to another country, when fleeing from some sort of cultural imposition. Students belonging to minorities within the Russian Empire such as the Polish, Ukrainian or Baltic, preferred to study abroad rather than in Russian or Russianized universities. The same is true for Egyptians who preferred to study in France rather than in England. It could also have been political resistance. From the time of the French Revolution, France decided to take in those fighting against tyranny. So, the French Government has allowed many students who are political refugees to study in French universities: The Polish from the 1830s to 1860s after rebelling against Russia; Russian Socialists before the Russian Revolution or, afterwards, the white Russians; Nationalists, and most surprisingly, students from other countries’ colonies, such as Egyptians fighting against the British. For example, Moustapha Kamel, founder of the Egyptian Nationalist Movement, studied in Toulouse.

2.2 The student journey as an act of emancipation The journey could also have been an act of emancipation, which might have been the case for Jewish, female or colonial students. At the end of the XIX century, Jews accounted for a significant number of the foreign students in France. In fact, with the influence of the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment), there were a growing number of Jewish students attending secondary schools and who wanted to continue their education at colleges and universities. In high levels of government there was a Jewish phobia after Alexander II’s assassination. In 1887 a numerous clausus (number limit) was imposed to restrict access to secondary school and universities for Jews to between 3 and 10 per cent, depending on the place. At the same time, Russia intensified its pogroms. All that stimulated an important emigration process towards the West, especially to Germany, Switzerland and France, which was the first State to emancipate Jews in 1791, making them regular citizens equal to everyone else. In France, access

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to universities was easy, free and cheap, and police control was less harsh than in Germany. So, many of the Russians that came to France to study were Jewish. Irina and Dmitry Gouzevitch have calculated they accounted for 75 per cent of the Russians who came between 1905 and 1914.4 Thus, problems arose with respect to a student’s real, official, personal or expected identity. For example, some students registered in their information files as having been born in Russia, may have identified themselves as Polish (or other) while they were studying in France, but their parents lived in Palestine, which was under British dominion. These students belonged to the elites that were being trained for the future State of Israel. It is known that an anti-Jewish policy spread throughout Eastern Europe in the years between the World Wars. Also in universities there was a harsh anti-Jewish atmosphere; they were harassed, physically assaulted, taunted, and segregated to separate sections of lecture halls. Therefore there were many Eastern European Jews in France, as well as Russian Jews. For example, in the Law School in Toulouse 50 per cent of the students were Romanian Jews. Female student mobility can also be a form of emancipation. In fact, since the XIX century women started coming to France to study. For example, since 1894 women accounted for a significant number of the students who came from Russia; there were almost as many women as men. Consequently, in France the first women to study were foreigners, who mainly studied Medicine. In 1890, women accounted for 13 per cent of the total number of foreign students in Paris and 30.5 per cent5 from 1905 to 1909; the reason being that women were not allowed to study in universities in Eastern Europe.6 4

5

6

Irina Gouzevitch, Dimitri Gouzevitch, “Étudiants, savants et ingénieurs juifs originaires de l’Empire russe en France (1860–1940)”, Archives Juives, 35/1 (2002), pp. 120–128. Pierre Molinier, “Les étudiants étrangers à Paris au XIXe siècle. Origines géographiques et cursus scolaires”, Les universités: des ponts à travers l’Europe /Universitäten als Brücken in Europa, Hartmut Rüdiger Peter, Natalia Tikhonov, eds. (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2003), p. 96. Natalia Tikhonov, “Les étudiantes étrangères dans les universités occidentales: des discriminations à l’exil universitaire”, Les étudiants de l’exil. Migrations internationales et universités refuges (XVI e–XX e siècles), Patrick Ferté, Caroline Barrera, eds. (Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Mirail, 2009), pp. 105–118.

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Paradoxically, for students from the colonies, student mobility represented only a partial emancipation, but emancipation at least to some extent. The first thing is that in France police surveillance is important, but not as much so as in the colonies, so there was more freedom after all. The second thing is that “freedom is learned in Paris”. Most of those who became leaders of independence movements were educated in French universities, especially in Law Schools.

2.3 Modalities for strengthening identity in a foreign land The most effective way to strengthen identity is, surely, by belonging to National associations, or specific student associations. For example, those called white Russians had many associations throughout France, in Paris and in the provinces. Thus, Toulouse had a White Russian Student’s Association created in 1929 and there was a Central Board for Russian University Students in Paris, financed by American and French funds, which granted scholarships. There was also a Russian Academic Group in Paris (1920). During the 1830s and 1860s the Polish created a Polish Doctor’s Association in France in 1858 to unite those Poles who had finished their studies in France after exile. There were also Jewish Student Associations. There were several in Strasbourg, for example, where Lynda Khayat has studied them: the Zionist Student Association (created in 1925); the General Jewish Student Association in Strasbourg (Zionist as well, with many Romanian and Polish members), and the Communist Jewish Students who were not controlled by the Jewish community.7 There were lots of associations that help to maintain the identity of one’s country of origin and, in the case of exile, create a sense of belonging to a Diaspora. There were Colonial Student’s Associations as well.

7

Lynda Khayat, “Les étudiants juifs étrangers à Strasbourg au tournant des années trente”, Archives Juives, 38/2 (2005), pp. 124–135.

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3. A Host-country-proof identity In a host country, identity can be strengthened and saved, but also diminished or lost; especially in a country like France, where assimilation is a requirement for civil peace and the Republican pact. So, it’s all about learning how France behaves. In fact, however, the country’s position is ambiguous and shifts over time, especially because France’s foreign interests may be in opposition to those of groups within the country.

3.1 A rejected identity, later confirmed France, as a State, was very welcoming to foreign students. Access to universities or Engineering schools was very easy, and affordable. That doesn’t mean that being a foreigner was necessarily easy; actually, foreigners were often reminded of their status. Medical students, who feared competition from their foreign peers, succeeded in having a law passed on November 30, 1892, which made it compulsory to have a French Degree in order to be a doctor, surgeon or dentist.8 In 1897, France authorized the creation of university degrees designed especially for foreign students but not appropriate for professional practice in France. We should point out that now if foreign students want to earn a French degree they may do so. Tension increased especially during the 1930s with the affluence of refugees from Eastern Europe, who had foreign degrees that could be converted into National French Degrees. French students protested, especially medical students who mobilized around slogans such as “Medicine for the French” or “Down with the Metecos”.9 A law was passed on April 21, 1933 (called the Armbuster law) which prevented 8

9

Serge Slama, “Statut juridique de l’étudiant étranger en France et protection du travail national, contre la concurrence étrangère (1890–1940)”, Colloque Etudiants sans frontières: Migrations universitaires en Europe avant 1945”, château de Coppet, Genève, juin 2003. Translator’s note: Metecos is a pejorative term for foreigners who have permanently moved to France from another country.

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all foreigners from practicing Medicine in France. Then, law students, who were always a bit less prone to protests (because French citizenship is necessary be a Notary or a Judge), began attacking naturalized citizens. A law was passed in 1934, prohibiting naturalized citizens from being lawyers, holding ministerial positions or any position financed by the Government or any Public entity for the first ten years that they lived in France. Medical students achieved the same measures for medical professions in 1935. The worst was during World War II when there was a Jewish statute, applicable to French as well as foreign Jews, with a numerus clausus (limited number of spaces) for university admissions in 1941, and afterwards deportation.

3.2 An instrumentalized identity In reference to the first instrumentation of students’ mobility, even if they were unaware of it or if they didn’t really want to acknowledge it, what seemed to be a personal trip was part of an international policy for cultural promotion. The most efficient tool for this was study grants as part of the country’s foreign policy. For students from the colonies, the goal was to train intermediaries between the local population and the French authorities. Conversation between a European student and an Indochinese (1927): – – – – – – – – – –

Pardon, Monsieur, vous êtes Chinois, n’est-ce pas ? Non, Monsieur. Japonais ? Non plus. Et alors ? Je suis de l’Indochine. Vous êtes donc Annamite ? Pas tout a fait. Français. Pas toujours. C’est que nous autres, nous avons une nationalité variable. Elle change suivant les circonstances. – Une nationalité variable ? Qui change selon les circonstances ? C’est la première fois que j’en ai entendu parler, et ce sera intéressant pour le droit, par exemple. – Oui, Monsieur, nous sommes tantôt Français et tantôt Annamites. Quand nous nous fîmes inscrire à la Faculté, on dit que nous sommes Français, et comme tels nous devons présenter le bachot français. Mais plus tard, si nous demandons une

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place, un emploi dans l’Administration, ou même l’autorisation d’exercer une profession libérale, en présentant notre licence ou notre doctorat délivrés par la faculté, on nous répondra que nous sommes Annamites et comme tels nous ne pourrons les avoir. Ainsi que vous le voyez, Monsieur, nous sommes Français quand il y a des devoirs à faire et Annamites quand il s’agit de jouir des droits. – Quelle situation compliquée ! – Nous le croyons aussi. C’est pourquoi nous attendons impatiemment qu’on nous en donne une plus nette. – – – – – – – – – – –

–

– –

Excuse me sir, are you Chinese? No, Sir. Japanese? No, Sir. Then? I’m from Indochina. Are you Annamese then? Not exactly. French? Not always. The thing is, we have flexible citizenship. It changes according to the circumstances. Flexible citizenship? Changes according to the circumstances? This is the first time I have ever heard of such a thing, and it would be an interesting point of law, for example. Yes, sir. We’re sometimes French and sometimes Annamese. When we register at the University we say we’re French, and as such we have to have a French high school diploma. But later, if we apply for a job in the public sector, or want to engage in professional practice, with our French degree or doctorate, they say we’re Annamese, and as such, we can’t have those credentials. So, as you can see, sir, we’re French when there are obligations involved and we’re Annamese when it comes to enjoying rights. What a difficult situation! We think so too. That’s why we’re waiting restlessly for our situation to be clarified.10

3.3 An asimilated identity Another kind of instrumentation takes place when the host country agrees to keep the student and, thus, keeps the brains. France’s main goal was to export its model for foreign students, just like Germany, England and the United States did during the same period. But, France also welcomed many exiled students who were susceptible to remaining there. 10

Ly-Binh-Hue, Journal des étudiants annamites (15 May 1927), p. 19.

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This is why analyzing the French Law is very interesting. The possibility of obtaining French citizenship is an old practice but the law of 1889 is particularly relevant: it establishes birthright citizenship, but it also bases French citizenship on socialization, on acquiring social codes more than on origin or place of birth. That gives a sounder argument to those wishing to become French, because those who study in French universities have achieved this. That’s why the following phrase can be seen on naturalization files: “Must be considered as fully assimilated because attended French schools”. Later on the Law of 1927 seeks to compensate the dead from World War I (more than one million dead) and to naturalize 100,000 people a year. Everybody, students or not, can become French after living in France for three years, which is rather quickly. But there’s an additional disposition: if the student has a college degree or a doctorate, a year is enough.11 To illustrate what happens we can take naturalized students from the Haute Garonne region in the South of France as an example. How does one decide to change their citizenship? A good question is whether or not leaving one’s homeland violently makes it easier to change citizenship. It seems not, as shown for example by the Polish in the XIX century or the Russians after the Russian Revolution; there was no visible acceleration in the process, because these people still hoped to return to their homeland. Making this decision can take a long time, perhaps after coming and going a few times. Lea Rosentstein for example, whose family was split – her brother was a refugee in Bulgaria – went back to Russia in 1915 after studying in Paris and Toulouse to be a dentist. After the Russian Revolution she returned to Toulouse in 1922 to work as a dentist. She became a citizen in 1928. Naturalization can also be a personal choice, different from one’s parents’ decision, as in the case of Max Cwik, Medical student in Toulouse and Paris who wanted to become a French citizen, even though his parents, Ovchi and Rebecca, moved to the US where his father practiced law. In the 1930s, with the Great Depression, the number of naturalized students in the region declined. Forty five per cent of the applications 11

Marie Waxin, Statut de l’étudiant étranger dans son développement historique (Paris: Impr. Yvert & Co, 1939), p. 259.

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for citizenship were rejected. But at the same time the total number had never been higher. Between 1931 and 1940, students accounted for 71 per cent of the total number of naturalizations since the beginning of the XIX century. The same held true at the national level for all types of refugees.12 Who were the students naturalized during this period? Fifty two per cent were Jewish, 27.5 per cent were Romanian, 17.3 per cent were Polish and 13 per cent were Russian (white Russians), 7 per cent came from Spain (Spanish refugees). Many of them became naturalized while they were students, like Romanian Eising Schemerler-Mayer, former student at the School of Commerce in Vienne who lived in France in 1929. He became naturalized French in 1934 while he was studying for his doctorate in Law. He didn’t want to go back to Romania where the situation for the Jews was very difficult. That was also the case for the Polish Jew Nurdka Turower, a Law student since 1930 he naturalized in 1933 early on in his studies. His family arrived in France in two stages. However it might have be necessary to apply two or three times before being granted the citizenship, the reason being that the applicant had not finished studying or did not yet have a French degree. This was the case for Leon Gelber,13 Polish, whose first application was rejected in 1936. It is important to point out that in those years, in naturalization files, there was a phrase specifying that if the applicant would be a competitor for French professionals, he or she could not be naturalized. Surprisingly, however, this phrase was often crossed out. To obtain citizenship, having a professor’s support was crucial. The Doctor’s Union didn’t want to approve Efim Sribnai’s application because he didn’t have a degree, but his professor Paul Gillem, supported him and the prefect – who in France is a representative of the State – decided to re-submit his citizenship application. Efim was naturalized a few months later, a month before he got his Degree. Military Service also facilitated naturalization, especially with the perspective of War at the end of the 1930s. The Pole Isaac Orekin, was naturalized French in 1939 for military reasons. He arrived in Toulouse 12 13

Patrick Weil, Qu’est-ce qu’un Français? (Paris: Grasset, 2002), p. 91. Departmental Archives of Haute-Garonne (Toulouse), 6M664.

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in 1924 and got a degree in Engineering from the Electro-technical Institute in 1936. He came from a typical Jewish Diaspora family. He had a sister in Tel Aviv, and two sisters in Warsaw and his wife had one brother in Argentina and one in Palestine. However there were consequences to acquiring French citizenship. For example, the Russian Empire didn’t like Russians to become naturalized in other countries, especially if they had not complied with their military obligations. Those who did so were deprived of their civil rights, and if they went back to Russia they were arrested and deported and their property was confiscated. During World War II, all naturalizations were suspended. At the end of the War the new government overruled the Vichy regime’s ban. Many foreign students fought in the French army and after the military defeat they kept fighting underground in France, like Gabriel Nahas, a French-Lebanese; Doctor Barsoni, a Romanian Jew with a degree from the School of Medicine, who fought in the International Brigade and then in the 35th Brigade of the “francs-tireurs partisans” in July 1942; Leon Brafman, a Chemical Engineer and a communist militant, born in Poland who was deported to Germany; David Freiman, who came from Romania and studied at the Agricultural Institute in the School of Science in Toulouse; or Georges Ollubwicz, student in the Humanities School and later on the School of Sciences, member of the FrenchPolish network “F2”, that helped people flee France by hiding them in country estates in the region of Gers where Polish farmers worked.

Conclusion What happened later on? Those students who became naturalized adopted the French culture little by little, especially their children who studied at French schools, which are a huge integration machine. For example, in two or three generations the native language is forgotten. For those who went back to their homeland, their original identity was clearly dominant, but the time in France had a significant influence on their professional careers.

Literature and Shows of Modern Customs in Catalan. “Ethnotypism” and the creation of some modern imaginary of popular catalanity Joaquim CAPDEVILA, Teresa SERÉS and Sònia RUBIÓ Universitat de Lleida

1. Introductory notes. The modern customist literature in Catalan In Catalonia, since the decade of the tens in the twentieth century, a modern and populist literature in Catalan is being developed, which is characterized by a modern, popular and highly self-referential ethnicity. It is a literature characterized by a recreation of customs – and types in general – of those aspects represented as idiosyncratic: mainly those regarding one’s own village or city and those related to a broader domain such as Catalanity. Its development and success mainly takes place between the tens and the seventies of the twentieth century, having to take into account the interruption of the first years of the Franco Regime with regard to the Catalan culture. Regarding its topics, where does this literature start? It mainly does so from current villages and cities of the moment: Barcelona becomes its main motif. However, we must take into consideration an important issue: although this literature deals with a modern and current framework, it still conceives the logic of the social bounds from the tradition of a rural or village community. It is in relation to these fields that this literature expressions make recreations of types – stereotypes, in fact – of some collective referents and, especially, of some collective customs. In this sense, we must keep in mind another very important aspect: the typism of customs always comes up from the conceptions of the rural and village community. Therefore, in the threshold of the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries the booming development of this kind

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of literature in the European literature – such as the Spanish or the Catalan one – can not be dissociated from the crisis of the community of the modern city – Madrid, Barcelona… – coinciding with its modernization. In narrative terms, there is another very defining aspect of this literature, which is inherent to this typism now referred and that comes up from the conceptions of the community from the rural or village society: the customs dealt with are recreated with satire, a satire which is more jocular or humorous, more critical or more Dionysian. To end with this introductory note, another basic pragmatic aspect of this literature should be specified: what is its immediate aim? This literature essentially seeks the public success and the réussite éconómique1 in a more specific way. This great success is achieved by developing its modern ethnicism. Therefore, this literature contributes to a number of emblematic products of the modern cultural popular consumerism. Limited to the Catalan literature and regarding the period between the tens and the thirties of the twentieth century, the genres that conform this literature are mainly the variety song cuplet (fashionable in the main European cities)2, certain popular realistic poetry by local authors, and also both popular theatre and novel. With regard to the sixties and seventies of this century the two representative genres are: the Nova Cançó, developed from the French song, and the monologue, whose main paradigm is the comedian Capri.

1 2

Pierre Bourdieu, “Le champ littéraire”, Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales, 89 (1991), pp. 4–46. Peter Gay, La cultura de Weimar. Una de las épocas más espléndidas de la cultura alemana (Barcelona: Paidós, 2011), p. 144.

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2. The first stage of the modern customist literature and shows in Catalan: between the tens and thirties of the Twentieth Century. Its generative framework and basic definitions The first stage of the modern customist literature in Catalan starts in the 10s of the twentieth century. The text by Rossend Llurba Elogi del cuplet català3 is from 1910. This modern literary and theatrical typism is linked to the Catalan Renaissance literature, and especially to the bountiful and diverse literature of customs in this cultural period. This modern customism links, in fact, with the most populist expressions of the customist Renaissance literature mainly represented by the theatre of customs by Pitarra, Arnau, Feliu i Codina, Vidal i Valenciano, etc. This new typist literature means a cultural modernization: it leads to a referential modernization of customism: it sets in the current urban sphere and, above all, in certain urban landscapes of Barcelona, the Catalan capital. A group of authors, who try to turn semi-professional in the context of the commercial literature in fashion at the time, mainly carries out the definition and development of this modern customist literature and its genres. In these years, the commercial literature becomes intensely reformulated and dynamized. These authors write song lyrics (cuplets, sardanes, lieds, tango, etc.), popular theatre (mainly (tragi)comic and lyrical genres), popular novel and cinema, too. It is a kind of genres Bourdieu categorized as ‘the most heteronomous’ part of the champ littéraire.4 Its most relevant authors are Rossend Llurba, Josep Amich (Amichatis), Lluís Capdevila, Manel Fontdevila, Gastó A. Màntua, Miquel Poal-Aregall, etc. The most representative authors among them come from the last modernist bohemian5 and they combine, in 3

4 5

Joaquim Molas, “Notes sobre la cançó popular moderna: el cuplet”, Actes del Cinquè Col.loqui International de Llengua i Literatura catalanes, Jordi Bruguera, Josep Massot, coords. (Barcelona: Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat, 1980) pp. 325– 348. See also: Rossend Llurba, “Tangos del Poble Sec” Mirador, 333/4–7 (1935), p. 5. Pierre Bourdieu, “Le champ littéraire…”, pp. 4–46. Joaquim Molas, “Notes sobre la cançó popular moderna: el cuplet…”, pp. 327 and following.

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one way or another, the act of writing (also in Spanish) with journalism, which forms, thus, a kind of journalistic and intellectual proletariat.

2.1 Modern customism in the popular shows and literature. General issues about its sociogenesis and the key to its popular success The customs we refer to is neither a Catalan nor a Spanish phenomenon. The phenomena that take place at the same time in several European cultures between the last decades of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century are the following: the conversion of the traditional popular cobla into a cuplet; the definition of a new group of comic theatre genres; the spread of the operetta, the vaudeville, the variety theatre and the emergence of the popular novel, as well as the unmistakable success of all these genres. Therefore, the coincidences – and interferences – between the Spanish, French and Catalan expressions are obviously clear. These genres, with the modern customism they represent, turn into similar expressions in the modern European literatures between the nineteenth century and the early twentieth Century. They become the quintessential content in the literature and the commercial shows at this period. This literature leads to a new commercial and strictly modern populist customism. What are the main traits of this literature and shows? How are the representations of the world constructed? What are their most common topics?6 We must assume that the societies in which such events occur are societies in a process of modernization. They are societies that go through the early stages of social modernization and are, in one way or another, immersed in basic processes such as urban development, promotion and social differentiation in popular sectors, the integration in cultural and symbolic areas of the state, and the new mass culture, etc. This complex process produces significant inflexions regarding the levels

6

In this analysis, we have started this analysis in its expressions within the Catalan and Spanish fields, as they are common traits with other national cultures at the moment.

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of social complexity related to (the final aspect of that issue) its perception, evaluation and some social excitement. On the other hand, such circumstances – a greater awareness of some more social excitement and complexity – make people experience the crisis of some basic anthropological notions: those most core notions in defining their social identity. This phenomenon, when this first modern costumism arises, affects larger social sectors, which in turn become more differentiated from the humblest popular sectors. Moreover, this phenomenon takes place with greater and greater intensity. What experiences do we mean? A set of experiences self-interrelated. Let’s see them briefly. First, they are experiences of crisis in relation to the communitas: with regard to the notion of community of the village, city and family, as well as to a sharpening process of these experiences. They are also some new experiences – both suggestive and critical – as far as eroticism and lust is concerned, and also, concerning the perception and the emotional of these both experiences. In the same way, they are new experiences critical in relation to patriotism or nationalism that, after all, comes up from the subliminal processes of one’s lust. Moreover, they are experiences of moral dissonance with regard to economical, political, religious and etc. practices in the public sphere and, especially, in the local one. These practices are considered to be against basic equal relationships. These experiences of crisis – mainly related to the communitas, to eroticism or patriotism – lead to the emergence of new perspectives of the social reality as well as new feelings. These new perspectives and emotions are characteristic of those societies in a process of modernization, as the ones that are host to this modern customism. They – here it is the core of the conflict they produce – affect the privacy of people’s identity. They also affect their biographical plausibility. For that reason, these perceptions and feelings, with a cathartic and some other aims, lead to some recreations of the social reality that project these experiences in a metaphorical and symbolical way. Here is the deepest layer related to the emergence and success of this type of modern literature and shows of customs. After all, it is all about the large social processes that remain sociologically and psychologically latent but incisive.

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2.1.2 The keys to success The aforementioned factors have the deepest influence on the emergence of the popular modern customism between the last decades of nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. The key to its success is mainly due to the capacity of the customist literature and shows of suggesting a universe of feelings and senses. It is about some senses and experiences which are critically experienced throughout the social modernization of these years: the community of traditional nature, erotism, patriotism or nationalism, etc. There is one aspect to be highlighted in relation to the logic now pointed: this customist literature and shows, the feelings and senses suggested in them are much more important than the customs there explained. Therefore, we must keep in mind that these senses and emotions arise from the implicit dimensions in the speech. They are pragmatically suggested by means of humorous misunderstandings, mistaken naive intonations (in cuplets, comedies…), with signs of cruelty related to sexuality (in melodramatic narrations), etc. In this literature and shows, one of the most suggested aspects related to the love or erotic experience is death: physical death and, above all, symbolic love or a kind of nihilism. This kind of sense, its characteristic emotional traits, is mainly developed in the melodramatic novel, but also in the melodramatic popular theatre and even in the melodramatic cuplet. Related to this, we should consider that in modern societies, and above all from the end of the nineteenth century, eroticism and the feelings and senses related to death, and life, become one of the most basic, sensitive and troubled issues of the experience of the world and its definition. Consequently, in them, the transfer of these basic experiences (eroticism or rather feelings and beats of nihilism)7 to the cultural life, and in a broad sense to their areas, become intensified, further elaborated and troubled in a subtle way. This is a phenomenon that becomes particularly intense and visible from mid twentieth century, when due to a group of deep changes in the economic, existential and cultural domains, a real eroticisation of cul7

Beats and feelings associated to the gradual erosion of the erotic principle in its original sense.

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ture takes place (advertising, fashion, design of any types of consumer goods, pop culture, etc.). Paradoxically, this has been increasingly linked to the phenomena of symbolic, psychological and existential thanatization of the eroticism and the culture alike in its broadest sense (as a civilisation phenomenon). Returning to the modern customist literature, we must highlight that the feelings and senses it raises become more sophisticated along with a higher capacity of excitement (in the Spanish culture from the tens and in the Catalan one through the twenties and thirties). This coincides with the development of the society in general (distinction of the popular classes, higher access to culture of the popular classes and in the modern times: in relation to the State, to the modern mass culture… or to the complexity of the new society in general). This greater development of the senses and feelings, this greater distillation ends up with the truly modern love lied, which remains close to erotic feelings and it’s written aside the narration or customist veryshort stories as it happens with the strictest cuplet, or with the cobla or the patriotic song that usually seeks a latent customism sublimated to the nation. In conclusion, it can be said that the success of this customist literature lies in the fact that it allows to experience new senses, new feelings and new customs regarding basic critical experiences of the moment in an attractive and plausible way. Those experiences are related to the community one and to the basic issues (and so linked to societies in modernization like these ones) such as eroticism, patriotism or moral relationships that govern the social life represented in terms of community. Its success also lies, of course, in the fact that it turns out a very important business.

2.2 The first stage of modern customism in Catalan. Its generative framework What are the factors that explain the emergence and success of the modern literature and shows of customs in Catalan? They are diverse, as usually happens in such artistic and cultural expressions. We will try to tackle them.

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Firstly, to understand this literature, a number of transformations and social and political circumstances that affect Catalonia in the tens and 20s of the twentieth century must be taken into consideration.8 This cannot be understood without those new gazes caused by these transformations: a new gaze at the city, the own city, the immediate, popular, real city (the popular Barcelona, for instance). They are new gazes at the city intensified by the perception of a deep crisis of the (own) city as a community structure. Therefore, these feelings of community crisis of the city are the ones that invite to do customist recreations – a basic feature – that reproduce, despite the modernity of its object, community conceptions characteristic of rural and village communities. This social phenomenon remains within another larger one. Its starting point is the most basic foundations of the old regime societies that are in transition to modernity, and also, villages, districts and cities of the nineteenth century and most decades of the twentieth century. That is, the customs have been the basic forms of objectification or institutionalization of the social reality to the extent that people have noticed the villages and cities as realities of community in accordance with senses of the community of old regime tradition. If so, it is not surprising that the intense crisis that people feel, between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with regard to villages – and also cities – as anthropological structures of community type, is transformed into a great booming of customism, and specially, of very different customisms: the traditionalist rural, new forms of customist speaking, frivolous genres of modern customism, etc. And that is not strange if we take into account that modern realities as the State-nation, the political parties, modern ideologies and social classes, etc. still often have a few or limited capacities of symbolic integration or of social identification. Once here, a note in the opposite sense must be done. Most aforementioned expressions of customism clearly recreate community conceptions of the old regime tradition mainly in relation to villages or cities. However, the customist literature that we are analyzing (cuplets, popular comedies of urban customs,…) and a modern customist litera-

8

We must take into account certain levels and circumstances of social complexity that mainly affect Catalonia in these decades.

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ture also rises modern feelings of Catalanity, though a Catalanity that is still pre-national, that particularly affects the popular classes of the moment.9 To understand the nature and the reasons of this first modern customist literature in Catalan, along the community crisis of the city, the aspect that we have just dealt with, there is another basic factor to have into account. This is the fact that, when it emerges and becomes successful, the Catalan Renaissance is already a successful reality thanks to the efficacy of Noucentism. In addition, there is obviously a last factor to take into account: when the mentioned circumstances took place, a number of genres (coming directly from the oral literature or the commercial literature) are in fashion (the cuplet, the romanced copla, the comedy of urban customs, etc.) and useful to carry out a suitable transmission. Now, we will try to display a major precision of the aforementioned aspects. 2.2.1 The worsening of the crisis of the community traditional conceptions. The community crisis of the city If we have to ask for the factors that stimulate the emergence and success of the modern customist literature in Catalan, we must begin to refer to a number of political, cultural and social circumstances. Therefore, we must consider those aspects such as the mental and ideological effects 9

Very different is what happens with the Spanish cuplet (and needless to say the subsequent copla) in the tens of the twentieth-century and onwards, performed by Raquel Meller, Pilar Alonso, etc. that distil feelings of a clearly proto-national sense (Spanish). They arise from new symbolic codes of traditional substratum that refer to by highlighting, in this sense, a universe of codified symbols with a strong emblem of Spanish feeling (such popular cuplets as Gitanilla, El relicario, La violetera, Mariana, etc. are very paradigmatic). With regard to Catalan culture, coinciding functions are made by Choral songs and sardanes, above all some of the most emblematic compositions as La sardana de les monges or La Santa Espina (we must take into account that the Choral society songs and sardanes are very successful between the tens and thirties of the Twentieth-Century), and also the new lied by new soloist artists that play as singer-actors like Emili Vendrell, Maria Barrientos, etc. Cuplets and coplas in the Spanish culture, or choral society songs, sardanes, and lieds in the Catalan society, achieve, between the tens and the Civil War, a preeminent function in the nationalization of the (rising) popular classes.

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of the First World War, at the same time that its results decisively contribute to the final crisis of social, cultural and political identities with clear roots from the eighteenth c. Also, in an opposite sense, they operate in pro of a more democratic, realistic and even sensualistic perspectives of the social reality. We also have to mention the Restoration crisis in haste since 1917. The important migrations occurred in Barcelona between the tens and thirties of the twentieth century must also be mentioned, which are nourished, in first term, by waves of people coming from the rural Catalonia (a basic aspect that is often obviated) but also (in a sociological opposite way) by the first migratory wave of Spanishtalking people. The modernization of the Catalan society and, specifically, Barcelona (the urbanization of the Montjuïc Mountain, its first underground, the Paral.lel train, the Port reform, the Universal Exhibition in 1929, etc.) has also to be taken into account. Or rather, we have to emphasize the intense emergency – the main reality of the twenties and thirties – of prominence and affirmation of popular classes mainly materialized in the framework of an intense activity in sport, parties, sociability of leisure, culture, associations and also politics. These and other factors increase in the Catalan society of the moment and, especially in the (proto)urban (Barcelona), the levels of complexity, the opening of perspectives to the world, expectations and frustrations, and social excitement (the most essential aspect in every social change dynamic). This new state of things intensifies the crisis of the community-based social conceptions: for that, these moments are when everywhere in Catalonia it is emerging societies of all kinds that suppose a first stadium of social individualization, trying to reproduce community models. However, this community crisis is especially felt in relation to urban areas. It is when this crisis really arises when the intense moments before the Civil War are lived. It is this community crisis – especially the community city crisis – the one that nourishes this modern customism by providing it with some sensual insinuation. On the other hand, the opposite factor is that the Primo de Rivera dictatorial regime in respect to these dynamics of complexity and excitement did not but tension it as well as its results.

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2.2.2 The consolidation of the Catalan ‘renaissance’ Another factor that stimulates the success of this customist literature and the framework of the plebeian cultural Catalanist in which it is circumscribed is the consolidation of the Renaissance in its wide sense, as Catalan renaissance in the tens of the twentieth century. In this sense, we must mention two basic aspects: the hegemony of the Lliga Regionalista – the political party of the Catalan bourgeoisie – in the Catalan politics from 1906, and in relation to this aspect, the modernizing and normalizing efficacy of the Catalan culture leaded by Noucentisme. That is, the ideological and cultural task (in a wide sense) primarily codified and promoted by la Lliga. This last circumstance – the fact that the emergence of the modern customist literature, is possible thanks to the action of Noucentisme – can seem a paradox. But it is not. Noucentisme is certainly a bourgeois, rationalist, classicist and statist ideology which has little to do with the urban populism in the modern customist literature in Catalan. However, without the consolidation and prestige of the Catalan culture achieved by Noucentisme, the emergence and success of this literature would not have been possible. We must keep in mind that, in a framework of vigorous, popular and populist emergence, the referential crisis of Noucentism and its lost of hegemony in the Catalan society since the mid twenties, is a factor that contributes to the codification, creativity and diffusion of the plebeian Catalanism in which the modern customist literature studied in this text is inscribed.

2.3 The first stage of modern customism in Catalan. Its topics, fields and expressive genres When did this modern customism start in the Catalan literature and Catalan shows? Which are the most produced fields and genres? In the Catalan literature, this customism starts at the first decade of twentieth century. However, it will be in the twenties when it will become more important and consecrated. On the other hand, it starts losing popularity at the time of the Republic, when the consolidation and emergence of the new mass media – the cinema and radio – and when the new

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genres appear – lied, copla (in the populist Castilian literature), musichall, fox, swing, etc., the most modern expressions of the popular music – coincide with some new visions of the social reality. What are the essential topics of this literature? They are basically three. Frequently, we can find two or three of them at the same time. Obviously, these topics are common in other more or less contemporary expressions of this kind of customist literature and shows. One of these topics is the customist typism. Customism is a common trait in this literature. Its expressions appear essentially in connection with specific cities, with a generic rural past or with catalanity or Catalonia and with families, too. These compositions, from the customist evocations, recreate these frameworks in which the community structures are projected. Cuplets like I és el tramvia, Tot pel pis, El tres tombs, Baixant per la font del gat, La balladora, Ja vull ser “miss”… recreate, thus, a popular and essentially modern Barcelona that keeps a community substrate. The other basic topic of this customism is eroticism. Of course, erotic stories and evocations are the other main motifs. These are dealt with in a dual way: in accordance with a frivolous humour with popular and traditional roots and, on the other hand, with a modern melodramatic quality. Anyway, we should show that this eroticism has a focusing that comes from the projections (essentially metaphoric and symbolic) of new feelings, provoked by the new social customs, and it also comes from some new more complex experiences and those of more social excitement. In this modern customism, eroticism is globally developed in terms of a major elaboration, sublimation and density. Thus, strictly in reference to the Catalan literature, we can find that the fresh craftiness of most cuplets in the tens, twenties and thirties, or the new humorous comedy makes way to new cuplets that are already new examples of the Nova Cançó or the sentimental lied – Rosó by Llurba (from Maragall’s poem) so successfully played by Emili Vendrell from that moment. Another example is the patriotic lied, like Sol a Catalunya, from the homonymous sardana, played by the cuplet singer Mercè Serós.10 10

If we checked this eroticism in the modern customist literature in Spanish, which has a longer and contrasted evolution, we could see some evolutions towards a more sexual eroticism, which, in turn, it is subtlely more wicked, more linked to contemporary times and scenes. Thus, it is more self-centered. We could see this if we

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A new important aspect of the modern customism is the complaint of economical, political and religious abuses. They are essentially abuses that take place in the local sphere. Regardless how, they are tackled in a moral and community way. Josep Santpere’s monologue, about the political activity at that moment in Barcelona and Catalonia, is a good example of this kind of topics.11 Regarding the fields and genres of this literature in Catalan, we can distinguish two very different basic spheres that can be also found in the French and Castilian literature. What are they? On the one side, we can find a group of genres about humour and music. The satire (more or less jocular) is the common denominator. And the principal topic is eroticism – the erotic customes: courting, free-and-easy seductions, tearaway actions. They are a group of genres – globally but especially in reference to the humoristic register – that makes clear an origin in the popular and traditional culture. These genres start a typifying customism regarding the cities and villages and also catalanity, but in this case in a more subsidiary way. In this study, this property will be called ethnotypism. The genres we will mention are essentially the cuplet, the popular urban customs and manners comedy, the variety theatre, the vaudeville and the monologue. We can also join to this field some other genres formed more directly – in a more autonomous way, out of the commercial aspect – from the oral tradition. We are essentially referring to some forms of poetry (called poesia arromançada), that revise some spheres of the collective life and, especially, the local one with a formal production and in accordance with the realistic and satirical vocation. On the other side, we can find a group of narrative and dramatic genres characterized by a melodramatic quality, by the melodramatic customism. This melodramatic quality fit a kind of emotional scenes that, as we can find in the popular European literature between the nine-

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analysed this literature from sainete lírico at the end of the XIXth c. to the magazine and sarsuela from the twenties and thirties, along the green and sicalíptic sarsuelas so much performed in the first decades of the Twentieth-Century, the operetta that remplaces this genre, the “artistic” cuplet… See, for example, this monologue: Josep Santpere, Reflexions d’en Pep Bonafè (El que demana un ciutadà de bona fe). This is from 1931. See Youtube Channel called “Recordem Mary Santpere!.”

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teenth and twentieth century, are modern. It starts with the newspaper serial in the nineteenth century. What is the most essential feature of this melodramatic quality? The emotional scene connected to death is one of these features: a group of emotions or feelings with a tendency to represent death or, if we prefer, a group of emotions that forms a kind of ‘popular nihilism’. We can also add to this definition another element: the fact that these nihilist emotional scenes are associated with eroticism, erotic motifs and erotic transgression. It is in this way that the ‘popular novel’ codifies and consolidates, in terms of culture, a kind of sentimentality – the thanatization of the Eros – that is transferred to the radio serial and the photo romance since the twenties and thirties of the twentieth century. From this moment, it is also transferred to the other genres of the ‘popular’ literature and culture of the twentieth century and the twenty-first century. Perhaps, the connection between thanatos and Eros – even though they appeared in accordance with different emotional experiences and cultural productions – has been one of the most basic features, the most nuclear one of the modern (and consequently emotional and social) cultural life. This melodramatic customist literature does not create an ethnic typism, a feature that makes it different from the more humorous literature. This is another basic difference. What are the genres that connect this populist melodramatic quality in the Catalan literature during the 20s and 30s of the twentieth century? They are, basically, the novel or the book of ‘popular’ sayings and the popular melodramatic theatre expressed as a ‘tragicomedy’, ‘dramatic comedy’, ‘popular drama’, etc. We can find some emblematic collections of novels and narrations, like La novel.la nova o La novel.la d’ara and also in the theater field, for example the collection La novel.la teatral. If the above mentioned are the basic topics, in the expressive fields and the genres of this literature we can find some cognitive and stylistic dispositions that fill these topics, fields and genres. What are they? On the one side, we can mention the naive style, the daydreaming tendency and even exoticism. They are features that belong to some basic dispositions of the thought tradition of the popular pre-modern classes. Some samples can be found in the traditional popular literature. This naive style not only affects the most humorous customism, but also the melodramatic one. This naive style involves a customism

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that is not controlled by criterion of realism or verism in an exactly modern sense; this is a feature that makes it different from the bourgeois realistic and naturalistic literature. And the other basic cognitive and stylistic disposition, also from forms of traditional popular tradition, is the humorous tendency: the disposition to humour, more jocular or more satirical, a nuclear disposition in the non melodramatic customist literature, next to the erotic evocations and also the sociopolitical ones.

3. Literature and shows in Catalan in the Twentieth Century and modern ethnotypism 3.1 Basic traditions of the modern ethnotypical literature in the Twentieth Century Catalonia In the literature we have called modern customist literature –that is, in fact, an ethnotypical and popular literature – we can establish two approaches – two basic traditions.12 One of these aspects is the most connected to the evocation of some motifs of basic pleasures that have traditionally been the popular

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It should be said that these two aspects of the modern customs and manners literature – or the ethnotypist one – connect the two basic traditions of the oral literature (the traditional one) that is very powerful until the beginning of the twentieth century. We are referring to a literature managed by gambling (jocularity), partying humor, sexuality, pleasure/ joy, by other elements of original pleasure (wine, good food, wandering…). It is a literature that starts from the excitement of the pleasure in the framework of sacredness with primitive roots that has formed the most primitive part of our collective psyche. Probably, the romance of Xauxa, Cucanya or la Gandòfia are the most important expressions of this kind of literature. On the other hand, we are referring to a literary tradition ruled by a moral censure: by a more avenging moral censure, more aggressive, more annihilating or sharper, finer and closer to irony. This is a satirical tradition eminently moral: connected to the denunciation and moral catharsis. Some current characters and facts or new social customs appeared in this literature during some decades between the nineteenth and the twentieth century, when this kind of literature has already appeared in leaflets.

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enjoyments – sexuality (courting, sexual games and sexual consummation), delicious food and drinks, partying, gambling, … In this approach, it is common the recreation of some motifs from different popular traditions. This is a distinctive feature from the other more connected tradition to the spatial immediacy and the present times. The most common perspective is the jocular satire. Next, we present – in a diachronic sense – the main exponents of this festive tradition of the modern ethnotypist literature in Catalan. The first sphere obviously belongs to the Catalan cuplet,13 with Rossend Llurba, Joan Misterio, Amichatis, Faust Casas, Miquel Poal-Argall, etc. as the most representative authors. We have to say that the singers of cuplets and coblas (Càndida Pérez, Mercè Seròs, Pilar Alonso, etc.) make a specific and important contribution to the introduction and establishment of an erotic modern imaginary in the Catalan culture and the catalanophone sphere. This role is played – in a wider sense – some years before by the género chico and género ínfimo in the Castilian language and culture.14 We can find some other important expressive fields for the expression of this tradition in the popular theatre written in Catalan and opened between the second half of the twenties and thirties in the twentieth century. Two different kinds of theatre stand out. In one side, the realistic and populist theatre especially produced by Amichatis (Josep Amich), Joaquim Montero, Lluís Capdevila, Gastó A. Màntua (Gastó Alonso) and M. Poal-Aregall as well. These authors coincide with the recreation of a typist imaginary of contemporary plebeian Barcelona by using different fashionable genres of popular theatre, more referential than real (tragicomedy, comedy, scenic novel, talked film, farce, etc.) and melodramatic plots (with festive and comical episodes) that are useful to express social condemn. Three basic symbolical frameworks are involved in this definition that works with contradictory logic. Thus, while a popular and old-aged catalanity with traditional roots (the most important sphere of categorization of motifs) and very connected to Barcelona 13

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We take this expression from El llibre del cuplet català, subtitulat Col.lecció selecta de les populars cançonetes que han creat nostres coblejadores (Barcelona: Llibreria Bonavia, 1919). See: Joaquim Capdevila, Oci, espectacle i festa. Les seves expressions més massives en la Calalunya de tombant de segles XIX i XX (Barcelona: Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat, forthcoming).

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and its neighbourhood, and a regenerationist republicanism with clear nineteenth-century roots globally operate as a symbolic and positive ideological parallel narration, the urban modern vice (cabarets, prostitution, gambling, etc.) and its main characters (fool bourgeois youth, bourgeois women and men with a double morality, dealers of women, etc.) usually represent as something that must be socially extirpated.15 This theatre of authors like Pitarra or Conrad Roure supposes a redefi15

See: Just Arévalo Cortés, Cultura de masses a la Barcelona del nou-cent (Barcelona: Enciclopedia Catalana, 2002). A very indicative sample of this theatrical trend is La Campana de Gràcia o el fill de la Marieta by Amichatis. This author emphasizes the recreation of a modern Barcelona and plebeian imaginary, started firstly from a popular catalanity along a strong-willed and regenerationist republicanism with moral elements that turns to be assimilated with some catalanity and some implied catalanism. Some nineteenth-century roots stand out in this catalanity and republicanism. Thus, we can confirm that in this tragicomedy there are both symbolic elements related to a popular catalanity and the definition of who is Catalan and, especially, the Catalan popular classes as eminently honest, hard-working, and tradition lovers (a tradition that is considered as a liberal one by the authors according to the revolutionary and ninenteeth-century sense) (pp. 70, 76, 78–79). Or referents of a popular catalanity (situated in Barcelona) like la Font del Gat (pp. 14–15, the Montjuïc mountain (pp. 38, 73), Marieta and the soldier’s legend recreated by Amichatis, the traditional giants (de Gràcia) that made dance Nandu (pp. 11, 15, 17, 64, 70, 79), Clavé choirs (the factory’s choir El Vapor Nou de Gràcia, were Maria is working as a caretaker, sings Sota el sàlzer, Les flors de maig, Adén siau turons…) (pp. 19–20, 25, 30), the country house next to Barcelona where Maria, Cimentó and Sang settle before the 1870s revolution and where they work as farmers; the Catalan cap (barretina) that Pau (who had been the young soldier and Marieta’s court boy) says is going to wear when the captain has found Marieta and their son (Mariet and Pau’s son) called Cimentó, hidden in the country house. He asks Cimentó to become a soldier, as he is going to be a farmer (p. 78), the Catalan volunteers of the Africa campaign in 1860 commanded by the general Prim. On the other hand, some symbolic references to republicanism appeared in this text. Thus, in the sphere of the most basic principles, it can be found the values inferred from the good characters or from the ones that turn good (Maria, Cimentó, Nandu and Sang i Fetge), from the types that they represented, from their vicissitudes; they are the values of the people, of their sovereignity, of Freedom, of the social equity; the values, that, on the other hand, are especially verbalized and approved with some characters’ words that become a moral and ideological summary (see Cimentó’s speech – pp. 47, 61 – or at Cinteta’s one). Concerning the human types, some ones can be considered because of their progressive ideological values: the mother type, the paintful mother type, the martyr and heroine one and the Freedom, represented by Marieta: the type of the convicted

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fighter and the leader of the Freedom, the son who redeemed the unfairly offended mother, who wants to redeem her and who redeems her from the ignominy that begins because of her maternity [I’ll wash with blod the lyrics of the song (p. 47)] and she leads it for some decades; the type of man (Cimentó) who redeems with his sincere love the young Cinteta who got into bad habbit because of the desilusion and the Ernest’s abandonment (a bourgeois young man got into bad habbit), the type of the old Catalan ninenteeth-century revolutionary working-man, represented by Nandu; the woking-man embodied by Sang i Fetge and got into bad habbit, a flashy customer of the cafe chantants, who finally was morally redeemed. Thus, in another symbolic material order we can point out the typical narratives that establish, firstly, the abovementioned stereotype. Regarding Marieta it can be emphasized her role as the leader of the revolution against the drafts. With regard to Cimentó, we must point out his participation in the American Succession War for the Americans and for Freedom, his detention (he remained in prison for three years), ha had defended a slave (p. 39), his wish of coming back to Europe in order to fight there for Freedom (p. 38), the desire that he says he has always felt for Freedom and, especially, his role as the leader of the revolution against the drafts; or, on the other hand, his support to the abovementioned revolution in Gràcia (even he was against it in the beginning) and also the leadership of this revolution as a gesture of solidarity with his mother and in order to redeem the curses that she has received, or Cinteta’s defense against Ernest’s threats and, finally, Cimentó’s love for the young girl, even though she was stigmatized for her relationship with Ernest. At the same time, the symbols inherent in these characters are also symbolic factors of liberalism and republicanism. And, finally, some items can be considered in this amount of symbolic references: the Gràcia village, its Orient square (it becomes later Rius i Taulet) and the bell of its dome – Gràcia’s bell –; mass media as the weekly magazine, La Campana de Gràcia; characters connected to the ninenteeth-century liberalism and republicanism, like Agustina d’Aragó or Joan Prim (pp. 11, 15, 67–68), Francesc Pi i Margall (p. 11), or Anselm Clavé, Valentí Almirall, Abdó Terrades, Antoni Altadill, i Martí (pp. 58–59, 62); or mytical historical episodes for the referential universe of the progressive liberalism of the twentieth century like: the attack to the fortress of Barcelona in 1843 (p. 15), the Gloriosa revolution (p. 62), the Catalan volunteers expedition with Prim in the Africa War, the USA Succession War or the revolution against “the blood contribution”, a term used by republicanism to refer to the compulsory draft. The fact that Marieta (Marieta de l’ull viu, an important figure of the Catalan popular tradition of the twentieth century Barcelona) embodies the type of painful and martyr mother of the People and Freedom, becomes a symbol and also the fact that her son personifies and symbolizes the redeemer of the moral and social injustice and the volunteer and leader of Freedom emphasizes the agreement between a popular catalanity (and catalanism), clearly pre-nationalist, and a revolutionary liberalism and republicanism with its origins in the nineteenth century that becomes the essential framework of the proto-modern Barcelona’s recreation and furthermore of a modern and plebeist barcelonism that appears, essentially concerning to

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nition of a popular nineteenth-century theatre of popular atmospheres in Barcelona. In relation to the abovementioned theatre, a similar popularist and modern theatre – basically insignificant – does an active categorization of motifs, concerning the Barcelona’s society of the moment.16 After the first two decades of the Franco’s regime period, some cultural expressions were produced that meant to recover the literature and shows with a vocation to a populist categorization of some motifs with a community value. Consequently, in la Nova Cançó (the most important expression of the Catalan culture’s new starting), we can find different expressions that share the same objective as to recover the customist and festive song. Guillermina Mota, Núria Feliu, Enric Barbat or La Trinca17 had the same purpose to recover and recreate some cuplets of the twenties and thirties,18 and La Trinca had the intention to update

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its catalanity, in a very typist way. Or in an ethnotypist way. This is a conjuction (very common in the Amichatis, Capdevila, Màntua… theatre) that we can find in the emblematic speeches like this one put into words by a working man at the end of the story: Here you have the story / of the bell in Gràcia. / Some, for Freedom, die / others […]. And thus life goes on / in the Catalan country / that it will be always these people / the most hard-working ones / the ones who have always defended Freedom and motherland. [Amichatis i Màntua, La Campana de Gràcia o el fill de la Marieta (Barcelona: Llibreria Bonavia, 1924)]. Agustí Collado Nogué is an indicative example of this modern populist, comical and musical theatre. Furthermore of the specific cuplets we can see that la Trinca uses the English expression “yes, yes, yes”, that Joan Misterio, some decades before, had used for the cuplet Jo vull ser miss. Thus, see Núria Feliu’s discographic works (Barcelona, 1941): El cuplet a Barcelona (1970), Cuplets tradicionals catalans (1974), Cançons d’entre-guerres (1986) or Els nostres cuplets (1995); de Guillermina Mota (Barcelona, 1942): Els snobs (1964), Remena nena (1970) (or the dramatic show with the same name directed by Mario Gas and opened in La Paloma in Barcelona in 1971), Jo sóc barcelonista (1974), and quite similar to the cuplet, the show (also directed by Mario Gas) Tango and the disc played by Enric Barbat, started from Barbat’s tagos traductions (Barcelona, 1943 – Sant Lluís, Menorca 2012); or La Trinca, with some couplets – played some of them during the interwar period – that are the populist and mercantilism dawn of the genre, like it happens in “Ball de rams”, “El vestit d’en Pascual” or “El castell de focs”, that are also recovered by some artists contempory with La Trinca or created for the group from some original themes recreations of the oral popular tradition, like in “Ay, niña salerosa”, “Baixant de la font del gat” or “El rabadà” – or songs inspirited in the couplet word as it can be proved in “A collir pebrots”, “Del Poble Sec a Texas” o el “El canonge de la Seu” with lyrics by Maria Aurèlia Capmany.

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a tradition of satiric and jocular songs of customs and popular types. In the same sphere of this customist and festive song, we have to mention some other authors and groups’ contribution like Els Pavesos o Joan Monleón. As it has been said, La Trinca has obviously become an excellent and paradigmatic example of the cuplet restarting the tradition of the recreation of this kind of songs as well. Other singers’ songs, like the abovementioned ones sung by groups from Valencia, and La Trinca members’ songs and shows have supposed a strong recreation practice of motifs, topics and songs in different levels of popular tradition: the oral one and the codified one during the previous decade to the War. We have to say, as well, that all this tradition, from Llurba and Misterio’s cuplet, etc. to La Trinca songs, has supposed, for the Catalan culture and its imaginary, the recreation of the profane and festive calendar (The Village party, Eastern songs, Els Tres Tombs of Saint Anthony) and a framework of partying and leisure (football, the soirées during the village party, fireworks, etc.) with the popular custom power. In the same tradition, we can mention some scattered samples and more recent ones like Les Teresines show of Dagoll-Dagom or, in the same period, La Trinca’s television shows. More recently, we can find Josep M. Cantimplora’s songs, with an obscene and jocular satire applied to the social and politic customs and Quimi Portet’s lyrics, marked by a festive surrealism, both connected to this festive songs tradition, satiric and ironic as well, with the vocation to confirm the collective ethnicity. The other basic tradition formed in the modern typist literature involves the adjustment and censure of collective customs and moods, the condemn of a collective ethics; considering that it means a morality and ethics that can be identified as idiosyncratic of a city or a national community. In this literature, the ethnicity value or the idiosyncratic value is a collective ethics or a collective morality that can be identified, as we have abovementioned, with a city, its people, some groups or classes of its inhabitants or with a (crypto)national catalanity. We will give some examples of the Catalan literature in a diachronic sense: One of the first expressions of this tradition can be found in the populist cobles as the ones referring the Cinema Targarí (1929) which carry out an exhaustive ironic and satiric revision of the human types and customs of Tarrega:

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Si sentiu predilecció per un país de disbauxa no teniu necessitat d’arribar-vos fins a Xauxa.

If you have some predilection for a fool country you don’t need to arrive up to Xauxa

Tàrrega, poble ideal, l’hermosa ciutat llatina, és pels totxos un edèn i pels vius una gran mina.19

Tàrrega, ideal village, The beautiful latin city Is an eden for the stupids And for the cunning ones a great mine.

Before the period of Franco’s regime, since the late fifties of the twentieth century, Els Setze Juges’ members, the founder group of La Nova Cançó, (Miquel Porter, Delfí Abella, Josep M. Espinàs, Xavier Elies, Martí Llauradó, Pi de la Serra, Enric Barbat, Remei Margarit i Carme Pedrerol) write and sing some songs that are unequivocal and interesting samples of a costumes satire with a collective vocation or moral ethnotypism. Songs like L’agenda, Cap al futbol, El piset, Polítics de saló, Els vells, El burgès, L’home del carrer, etc., are themes of this satiric and urban song that lay the foundations of the cançons d’ara that Lluís Serrahima cried out in 1959 for. As it has been emphasized at length, this kind of song is quite similar to French chanson and especially to Georges Brassens’ songs. In fact, some themes of this chansoniere are sung by some abovementioned singers. Actually, Brassens takes part in ethnotypical and urban songs with moral sense, a kind of songs with deep roots in the far Modernity, with compositions like Bonhome, Le bistrot, La mauvaise reputation, Les casseuses, Le vieux Léon, Le modeste, Le mauvais sujet repenti, La rose, la bouteille et la puignée de matin. Another essential exponent of this literary ethnotypism with a moral sense can be found in Capri’s monologues. In these texts the humorist from Barcelona refers to a lot of collective customs and types that come from his close society, Barcelona’s one in the sixties and seventies. Capri does with an attitude of condemnation, of humorist censure that balances between sarcastic humour (very typical of this artist), irony and satire; and he does, as it is typical of the ethnotypical literature that we are raising, from an attitude of collective and community commitments. Samples as El nàufrag, La guerra del 600, Vivendes protegides, El 19

Magí Escribà, Cinema targarí. Filmoteca humorística de cintes ràncies. Edició d’homenatge al seu autor (Tàrrega: Camps i Calmet, 1967), pp. 23–24.

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casament, El maniàtic, etc. are illustrative examples of the ethnotypical, popular and urban (from Barcelona) direction of his monologues. In connection with this tradition of moral ethnotypism, some other exceptional expressions could be some Joglars’ theatre plays. 3.1.1 Ethnotypical literature and shows in Catalan since the sixties of the Twentieth Century: personal gazes – the first authors’ gazes – in the ethnotypical definition of the social reality. Personalization of the ethnotypical identities From the fifties of the twentieth century the ethnic typism of this pro popular literature starts a personalization process. This is a general phenomenon that is evident not only in its Catalan expressions from the last years of this decade, but also, for example and paradigmatically, in the French chanson. It is in this direction that this typism, that emerges from a deep sense of civic and community commitment, carries out a personalization of motifs. These ones become closer, more realistic and specific and more personal as well. And that happens beyond the ethic personalization, from which a moral selection and consideration of the abovementioned motifs have been done. In France, Brassens maximizes this personalization of the ethic so much that he creates, from his opus of songs, a contra ethic (in an pro anarchic sense) regarding to the ethic of power and the social conventionalism one, but at the same time he keeps a basic latent consideration of a social and community commitment.20 Concerning to the etnotypist modern literature in Catalan language written during the 60s and 70s in the twentieth century, Joan Camprubí’s – Capri-monologues are obviously a clear sample of social typism, or more exactly examples of ethic typism. That means a typism which 20

Obviously, if we have a look at the French chanson, or if we pay attention to the first cançó in Catalan at the end of fifties and sixties or other expressions of the ethnotypist literature in Calatan at this period, like Capri’s monologues, we can notice that, since the end of the 40’s and 50’s, a bigger customization of the (human) types and, in general, of the typism take place in this type of literature. Thus, a singling of referents has happened and, at the same time, a bigger subjective footprint of the artist in his selection. Furthermore, this bigger personalizing footstep of the artist is clear in a bigger personal and ideosincratic creativity of him; in a bigger artist production of irony and satire, of the richer humour with more shade of meaning; or with a bigger thematic digression, but from a basic realism.

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deals with the ordinary costumes of his society with which he still keeps a certain commitment. This society refers to Catalonia and Barelona in the sixties and seventies in the process of modernization after the hardest decades in the Franco regime. However these monologues emphasizes, in another way, a deep personal mark of Capri, a clear personalization of the artist concerning to the motifs, stories or even the sense of humour. This increasing personalization of the ethnotypist modern literature produced from the fifties of the twentieth century is due to the bigger and progressive social complexity which takes place from that moment on. Some more complex and panoramic perceptions of the social reality, which demand a greater affirmation of the individuals, lead to an increasing personalization of this ethnotypist literature. All this takes place at the same time as another important phenomenon: the convergence or hybridization of the two traditions that have shaped this ethnotypist literature: one tradition of moral censure and another jocular and festive one. Obviously the convergence of both ethnotypist traditions – one headed basically to the primary enjoyment and jocularity, and the other associated to the moral and collective censure (essentially ethical) – becomes more frequent from the abovementioned period. 3.1.2 The ethnotypism crisis in the popular literature and shows in Catalan A hard crisis and the substitution of the ethnotypist literature studied in this text take place during the deep transformation from the sixties to the early eighties that coincided with the social emergency called Postmodernity or the late Modernity. We have to emphasize that it is a general phenomenon that breaks the limits of the analysed area, the calatalanophone one. In fact, the crisis and substitution of this ethnotypist literature take part between the sixties and eighties of the twentieth century. This is very obvious in the Nova Cançó: Raimond’s songs (and naturally the younger judges’ ones) are very different from the first judges’ customist, sometimes ironical sometimes satirical, songs of moral collective censure: Porter, Abella, Elies, Pi de la Serra, etc.

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The substitution of this customist songs with social commitment, very typical in the early beginning of the Cançó, cannot be separated from the contemporary substitution of life conceptions connected to some identification to the community sense relating to the (own) city or, in general, to the community. Consequently, we have to consider the fact that the ethnotypist song of the Nova Cançó – not only the first judges’ one relating to the moral censure, but also the most festive one represented by La Trinca or some other authors and works – starts, in its deeper roots, with the identifications of the community and some sense (festive and moral) that is inherent in them and a background of sacredness that invests these senses and identification, too. We are talking about some identification that was perceived as one given critically in a context of transformations and social complexity that brings about an identity reflexion. Obviously, this ethical customism – more ethical or more festive – of some Catalan singers or Nova Cançó works is impossible to understand without these community identifications (a community sense with pre-modern roots).

3.2 The definition of some modern imaginary of popular catalanity As we have already said, the new customist and populist literature that emerges in Catalan from the tens in the twentieth century, suppose not only a continuity in the literary customist tradition of the Renaixença, but also an essential renovation of its characteristics. What are the modern aspects that this Catalan customist literature and shows provide? What are the characteristics that suppose a clear inflection to the previous customist literature? We first have to say that this literature and shows are more realistic than the customism in la Renaixença. Their narratives draw more specific references, more real, closer ones. A significant personalization is carried out in the referents. The works of this literature are based on more specific characters, closer to the real singularity. This realism goes with an intense categorization. We have to be aware that the typist hypercorrection – the ideal and at the same time realistic evocation of human types and other motifs –

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is an essential feature of the cuplet and the modern ethnotypist literature in general. In order to obtain the ideal and realistic nature of the motifs, the authors turn to motifs from the past. The idealizations which the motifs of this literature are revised with, make easy their evocation and the fact that they appear with more powerful typicity. The identification with some modern geographic frameworks: emerging villages, suburbs and a (crypto)national Catalonia as the starting point of this modern customist literature is another of its essential features. Consequently, Barcelona and, especially, the popular and burgess Barcelona of the fifth district (Raval), la Ronda (Sant Antoni) – the charismatic route that is the division between Raval and Eixample – Poblenou, etc. become recurrent and typical frameworks of the cuplet and the realistic theatre in Catalan (humoristic and melodramatic) produced between the 10s and 30s in the twentieth century. This framework defines a geosymbolic universe that can be identifiable in these literary expressions. Furthermore, we have to bear in mind that these identifications are in the basis of this kind of literature. They confer the last and general coherence. And the ethnotypical portraits come from these identifications aforementioned. According to the previous matter, another aspect that makes this literature singular – if we refer to modernity – is the prominent role of the popular classes and the bourgeois; and essentially the role of the urban burgess or some wealthy popular classes (la menestralia urbana). The Catalan cuplet produced between the tens and thirties of the twentieth century, Capri’s monologues in the sixties and seventies or the Judges’ satiric songs (customist and modern) are clear proofs of this. The important role of the working class and the burgess in the cuplet during the twenties and thirties and in other literary expressions of modern customist literature cannot be dissociated from the public emergence of these classes. It can be illustrative on the subject that in 1925 the young republican economist Carles Pi i Sunyer, from an ethnoeconomical study of the traditional songbook, reaches the conclusion that the idiosyncratic values of Catalan people, the values that have formed their secular character and have guaranteed their survival, are the burgess values. We have already suggested Typism – an intense typism – is an essential characteristic of the modern customist literature and shows. Consequently, these expressions are characterized by a simple categorization, schematic and, nevertheless, intense, with themes and specific

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motifs. In this case, we have to wonder how this typism is built. We have to wonder what the logic that leads to its form is and, consequently, it makes the success of this literature as (consumption) products that offer ideal outlines of types and social frameworks: with regard to a village, a suburb or a town in Catalonia. To understand the specific logic of this kind of typism, first of all we have to bear in mind that the themes and referents of this literature are usually used in accordance with the symbolic frameworks that are directly involved in the definition of the social imaginary. What are these symbolic frameworks? Human types, possible narratives, universes of experience, basic definitions of value and action, etc. Moreover, we must bear in mind that this type of literature maximizes the value of typicity of these frameworks. In connection to this, we have to highlight that this literature selects those more suitable references (jobs, streets, celebrations, events, etc.) to maximize the value of typicity. From a social perspective, this modern customist literature is a result of some important structural changes that modify the urban life from about the tense of the XXth c. Regarding Barcelona, these changes are the powerful growth of the city because of the modernizing politics of Noucentisme, the consequence of the Spanish neutrality in the Great War, the building of the first undergrounds, the building of the International exhibition in 1929, etc. From a phenomenological and cognitive perspective, this literature is the consequence of new looks about the city and Catalonia. This literature is specially the result of some subjective experiences of crisis in relation to the city as a community (a place that gathers some shared traditions of sacred meaning) and some looks and reflections about the city caused by this crisis. It can be said that these experiences of crisis related to the city-community and the consequent looks and reflections that arise frome these experiences are the last cause of typifying power of this customist literature. There are, in this literature, a lot of examples of an intense categorization of motifs that affect categories as diverse as men, women, possible stories of the social reality, places, dates, rituals, language, etc. We’ll report some indicative examples of this typism. At the beginning of this literatur, between the second and third decades in the twentieth century, we can easily check that it deals with the most important celebrations

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and leisure in the popular Barcelona at the time: Saint Anthony fest and Els Tres Tombs, Easter with the typical songs called caramelles, saint John’s night, excursions to Montjuïc, Sunday leisure in neighbour associations with their balls, games, etc. We can see that this literature deals with many places and human types in the so-called suburb Raval, which is the 5th district in Barcelona. On the other hand, in the same period, in Tàrrega – a town that had an intense urban growth and at the same time it kept its rural roots – the author Magí Escribà – an amateur artist and scrivener – takes a modern and complete X-ray of the town in Cinema targarí (1923). Escribà, with some series of modern cobles arromançades with jocular irony, typifies the social customs and the social levels of the town (the bourgeois who usually goes to the casino; the worker who eagerly goes to the café to play cards, the village main celebration with the raspa of Barcelona that attracts the young people attention, the football with the abducted supporters, etc. On the other hand, this author depicts a wide range of human types who go to a health resort. The author is probably inspired by the bourgeois who go to the health resort in Vallfogona de Riucorb. In the 60s and 70s of the twentieth century, some Nova Cancó’s songs and Capri’s monologues are good examples of the typifying sense that characterizes the modern customist literature. It’s for that reason that the first Judges’ compositions or versions (Espinàs, Porter, Abella, Elies, Llauradó, Pedrol, Pi de la Serra o Barbat) deal with a new group of social customs and human types: the habit of having an agenda, football, massive tourism, the young couples’ flat purchase, bourgeois, the alienated worker, so-called politicians, etc. On the other hand, La Trinca successfully recreates a universe of customs, motifs, festive types – old and new – that have a strong popular tradition. Themes by La Trinca such as Festa Major and Botifarra de Pagès succeed for their witty typism. To conclude with these examples, we would like to highlight some very eloquent samples of this typism. Some motifs that appear in the typist literature of the twenties and that reappear in La Nova Cançó. An example is the flat’s purchase and the difficulties that it involves, which had already been narrated in the twenties by Joan Misterio in the cuplet, called Tot pel pis, and later in the sixties by Xavier Elies in El piset. Another example is football, evoked in a monographic way by Magí Escribà in La pilota misteriosa (1923) and by Delfí Abella in Cap al Futbol (1962).

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4. Scenic Catalan literature and recreation of types in an ethnic or national catalanity. Factors for ethnic types 4.1 Symbolic references of ethnic types. Essay about the elements of a popular imaginary of ethnic or national types of catalanity Basic symbolic structures of the social imaginary formulated according to ethnic types. Very basic definitions of the (world) reality. Human types.

Possible narratives. Plausible stories about the social reality.

Value definitions of values of the social reality.

Assessment on the social reality in relation to very certain basic principles of worldview architectures. The literature on types, which this research deals with, usually works with very recognisable social types that are clearly defined and simplified in the narrative. It is about stereotypes. It is about stories very closed to fiction within the boundaries of fiction patterns. These narratives (in this literature) are about agreed social behaviours, which are very established in the social sphere. These stories are mainly situational: they are largely based on situations or states rather than action plots. These (micro)narratives make mainly reference to: a) very common rituals, which take place in everyday life (family meals…); b) group rituals of certain importance in social life (family celebrations, festivities; interest in modern sports, tourism; organization of the modern working life. c) festive rituals or important group parties; and d) (in an encrypted way) institutions and wellknown institutional actors within the society. The definitions of social values are the evaluations of quality (in terms of moral quality, mainly) made over several fields in the society. These evaluations are basically made in two ways: 1) by means of standard expressions and above all, 2) by means of irony and satire in the speech and by means of the implied meanings conveyed through the aspects of the discursive narratives. The definitions of values can have more cognitive traits (‘telling’ how something is) or more

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Worlds of life. Universes of experience. Places and holiday days in terms of typicity. Topotypes and Cronotypes.

Group rituals and habits perceived as full of typicity. Elements of the group material culture full of typicity.

Language. Linguistic resources formulated in term of typicity. Logotips.

Typical references to the present time.

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regulating ones (‘telling’ how something must be). On the one hand, these definitions can deal with more marginalised social aspects, on the other hand, they can refer to basic definitions of social life. It is also worth mentioning that these definitions can be both explicit and implicit. The worlds of life are universes or referential frameworks inferred or – likely to be inferred – mainly from the definitions of values. Places such as streets, squares and urban neighbourhoods; theatres, cinemas, cabarets, ballrooms, inns, hotels, restaurants, cafeterias, etc.; cities, towns and villages. Celebrations such as holiday days like Sundays or bank holidays throughout the year (Saint Anthony Abat, Carnival, Easter, the village celebrations, Christmas…). This literature usually explores the symbolic value of the time and place references (Cronotypes and Topotypes). Daily rituals such as courting, going to work, taking the tram or bus, meals or family retreats, etc. It deals with elements such as certain vehicles, certain buildings, certain clothing, certain food… full of culturally relevant symbolic meanings and certain senses. In this category, we could include linguistic resources such as the followings: vocabulary full of a typicity value or patrimonial ethno linguistics: colloquialisms, castillianisms, set expressions, sayings, typical idioms and rhetoric registers already widely used. Allusions to current characters and facts at the time of writing and spreading the narrative.

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5. Cultural expressions in the Catalan literature from the end of the Nineteenth Century to the present times 5.1 The Catalan “cuplet” The Catalan cuplet is the recreation of a popular and urban, working and artisan class universe from Barcelona. Thus, it is common to find some of its typical neighbourhoods and popular streets as well as entertaining centres, inns, restaurants, etc. Thanks to the hegemony that Noucentisme exerted to the bourgeois Catalan culture in the first three decades of the twentieth century, Noucentisme establishes the Eixample Barcelona neighbourhood into the imagery of Catalanity. The popular and plebeian literature from the ten to the thirties of the twentieth century does so to the so-called neighbourhood Raval and the highly popular streets nearby (Sant Pau and Sant Antoni avenues, Paral·lel street, the Ramblas…). Likewise, beyond mainly recreating and typifying Barcelona popular places, the cuplet establishes and typifies the recreation of a popular and profane festive universe by means of mentioning profane parties or rather by usually evoking the secular aspects of traditional festivities such as the village celebrations, Sant Antoni Abat, Saint John’s Eve, Easter… We should keep in mind that these references reveal a deep will of profanism (that is some certain sacred regard coming from the secular and plebeian tradition). Although the Catalan cuplets are modern in register and themes (see the repertoire of R. Llurba and M. Poal Aregall, El cuplet català and El llibre del cuplet català) some issues in relation to the Catalan cuplet will have to be stated. Firstly, its register, together with the similar songs in French and Spanish, is widely influenced by the traditional, popular and oral songs with festive, dirty and humorous themes. Secondly, regarding its symbolic framework or its referential imaginary, the songs usually recreate some references and principles inherited from the eighteenth century and urban society and, especially, from the Barcelona one in the second half of this century.21 And finally, despite the 21

As regarding these issues, see: Joaquim Molas, “Notes sobre la cançó popular moderna: el cuplet…”, pp. 325–348.

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wide range of themes, those about customs and morals (love and loveless affairs, breaks and parties, modern news, etc.) prevail, which causes that love, moral and custom songs, in general, take place in Catalonia between the tens and thirties of the twentieth century. This is an important turning point in relation to the songs with similar themes that were only produced in a popular level. We have already mentioned that, in Catalonia and Barcelona, in the tens, twenties and thirties of the twentieth century, the composers of the cuplet lyrics in Catalan, Rossend Llurba, Joan Misterio, Amichatis, Faust Casas, Miquel Poal-Aregall, Josep Santpere, Alfons Roure, etc. stand out. Among the cuplet singers it is worth mentioning Càndida Pérez, Mercè Alonso, Rosa Hernáez, Josep Santpere, etc. At that same time, cuplets in Catalan are being recorded and some discs will be later brought out.22 Next, we will analyse three significant cuplets among the Catalan ones that were composed between the late tens and the Civil War. The first one to be analysed is La Marieta de l’ull viu,23 whose lyrics were written by Faust Casals. This music piece recreates the well-known popular song Baixant per la Font del Gat. At that same time, Amichati uses the theme of La Marieta de l’ull viu in a completely modern commercial way, as well as its underlying nineteenth century legend from Barcelona. Thus, he makes out of it two theatre plays and a film24. On 22

23

24

See, as an example, the significative cuplet recordings in 1931 and 1932 performed by the comic actor Josep Santpere. (See the YouTube entrance Recordem Mary Santpere!). Faust Casals, “La Marieta de l’ull viu”, El llibre del cuplet català. Col.lecció selecta de les populars cançonetes que han creat nostres coblejadores, Miquel Poal, ed. (Barcelona: Llibreria Bonavia, 1919), pp. 16–17. Amichatis writes and has its premiere of la Font del Gat o la Marieta de l’ull viu in 1922. Two years later, together with Gastó A, Mántua, has the premiere of ‘La campana de Gràcia o el fill de la Marieta de l’ull viu, which is another tragicomedy in which he develops, out of his own imagination, the legend of Marieta de l’ull viu, as he had done with the previous one. Thus, from these two pieces, we can know that Pauet is the soldier who courted Marieta, why he abandoned her and her newborn, and under which circumstances they meet each other many years later. We can also know that Cimentó is Marieta and Pauet’s son, who has strong commitment to liberal convictions (in the nineteenth century sense of the term), and we can know his eventful life aimed to find his mother, Marieta,a long time after. In La Campana de Gràcia, we can find the significative type so typical in the dramatic universe of

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the other hand, the tune Baixant per la Font del Gat will be recreated a few years later by Casals who composed the cuplet for Enric Morera i Antoni Vives, who both converted it into a sardana25.

25

Amichatis, which is a precise and a very central example of deep Typism – and ethnotypism – in these plays: the immoral bourgeoise type who wants to buy the dignity of poor girls represented by El senyor Ramon (the same character in the so popular song whose chorus says: El senyor Ramon empaita les criades…). In 1927 Amichatis directs the film Baixant de la font del gat (scripted by Gastó Màntua), which involved theatre actors such as Josep Santpere, Jaume Devesa, Marina Torres, Alexandre Nolla, etc. (Amichatis and Gastó Màntua: La Campana de Gràcia o el fill de la Marieta…. Amichatis and Gastó Màntua: Baixant per la Font del Gat o la Marieta de l’ull viu…). Otherwise, the cuplet by Casals, the Catalan dance (sardana) Baixant per la Font del Gat, shows a very different variety of customs, as the lyrics of la sardana usually do at that time. This variety of customs is of a graceful, pastoral kind with certain naive ideals. Thus, the sardana, which shared traits with a popularist noucentisme, mentions the new Montjuïc park, which is the symbol of the noucentist Barcelona: Al cor de Monjuic / on el jovent alegrement hi riu... / i fins el músic n’ha fet una sardana cantant: / La marieta de l’ull viu. / La Font del Gat, de molts és estimada / i les noies hi van amb l’aimador / i s’hi trobem a grat, / tot fent brenades / recordant els amors de la cançó.Paisatge bonic, és el Parc de Montjuic, / una fontana bella es veu al ig, / que amb molta gran il·lusió / va inspirar una cançó molt feliç… / De bon matinet al sortir el sol/la Marieta, amb el cantiret/se’n va a la font tota soleta, un cop es allà / un soldadet li fa l’aleta / i baixen tots dos contents contents bo i fent-se l’amor. / De paraules gentils ells, se’n diuen a mils / com si fossin ocells van piulant com ells, / i la Marieta no, es deixa fer un petó. / La Marieta encisera és una flor / que al venir la primavera dóna olor, / és tan riallera i té un mirar tan clar / que en les estrelles em fa pensar feliç. / Baixant de la Font del Gat / una noia, una noia, / baixant de la Font del Gat / una noia i un soldat. / Pregunteu-li com se diu: / Marieta, Marieta, / pregunteu-li com se diu: / Marieta de l’ull viu. / La Marieta encisera és un tresor / que molts comprarien a preu d’or / i a ulls clucs. / Té sentiment i agraïment de cor, / amb el donzell, que li fa l’amor de temps. / I la festa acabarà amb tota certesa / quan sigui portada a l’altar. At the heart of Montjuic / where youth merrily laugh.. / and even the musician has composed a sardana by singing: / La Marieta, the one with a cheeky look. / the‘Cat fountain’, which is widely loved / and girls go there with their lovers / and they feel well there / while eating a snack / while remembering the lovers in the songs. Beautiful landscape, that’s the Montjuic Park / a beautiful fountain can be found in its centre / which with great illusion / became the source of a very happy song… / Very early in the morning at sunrise / Marieta with it’s bucket / goes to the fountain on her own, once there/ a young soldier courts her / and they both happily go down while courting. / Thousand of nice words tell each other/ as they were birds / but Marieta doesn’t allow herself being kissed. / Marieta is like a flower/ that spreads

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It is worth mentioning that those recreations by Casals, Morera and Vives, although them referring to the same theme, show some different narrative registers in addition to some differences in mentality and ideology. These both are, though small, very significative reflections of two contradictory visions and traditions of Catalanism, which acquire a new definition at the moment: a remarkable popular and plebeian Catalanism, and on the other hand, Noucentisme.26

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Marieta, the one with a cheeky look

Jo sóc aquella noia que havien bescantat, els joves que avui tenen el cap tot platejat. Jo sóc la Marieta que anava amb el soldat, i li cantaven cobles les dones del veïnat. La més mortificanta cançó que em varen fer, va sé la que a tot hora sentíeu pel carrer.

I’m that girl that had cursed the young boys that today have silvery heads. I’m Marieta who went out with the soldier and he was sung cuplet songs by the neighbourhood women. The most tormenting song I was sung to was the one that could be heard all the time in the street.

scent when spring arrives, / she is so smily and she has such a clear way of looking / that makes me think happily when looking at the stars. / Going down the ‘Cat fountian’ / a girl, a girl / going down the ‘Cat fountain’ / a girl and a soldier. / Ask her what her name is: / Marieta, Marieta / ask her what her name is / Marieta, the one with a cheeky look. / Marieta is a treasure / lots of people would buy at high price / and blindly. / She’s got truly feelings and gratitude / with the young, who has long courted her. / And the party will certainly end / when she will be taken to the altar. “Catalan couplets”, like the one by Faust Casals about ‘Marieta de l’ull viu’ or theatre plays and films whose theme is of the kind that Amichatis compose, are examples of the plebeian cultural catalanism which is recreated at the end of the tens of the twentieth century. On the other hand, the version of ‘La Marieta de l’ull viu’ by Vives is of a more populist kind, and yet, not plebeian at all. This is due to it belonging to a conservative populist Noucentisme (for decades, this type of Noucentisme becomes very usual in the sardanes). We must take into account that, in the twenties of the twentieth century, Noucentisme, along with the beginning of the crisis of its more precise and bourgeois conception, starts a period of democratization, or rather, a period of reformulation of its references and ideological principles in a less elitist way (or more popular) in accordance with the popular type demands of the moment.

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Baixant per la Font del Gat una noia, una noia; baixant per la Font del Gat una noia amb un soldat. Pregunteu-li com se diu Marieta de l’ull viu. (Tornada)

Going down the ‘Cat fountain’ a girl, a girl; going down the ‘Cat fountain’ a girl with a soldier. Ask her what her name is Marieta, the one with a cheeky look. (chorus)

Jo sóc la criticada Marieta, que retreu aquest cant amb picardia, i amb el mateix soldat, si no hi hagués anat, jo encara hi tornaria a la Font del Gat.

I’m the criticized Marieta, who sings this mischievous song, and with the same soldier, if I didn’t go, I would go again to the “Cat fountain”.

Solia sê a les festes el meu divertiment anar a beure aigua fresca com feia molta gent. La Font del Gat, doncs, era un lloc d’esbargiment, on el soldat jo veia si era o no valent. Perquè un dia em van veure que ens fèiem un petó, alguna mala llengua va treure’ns la cançó: (Tornada)

I used to be in the partying My fun Going to drink fresh water As a lot of people did. La Font del Gat was A recreation place Where I saw if the soldier Was or not brave. Because one day someone saw That we kissed, A poisonous tongue Brings out the song: (Chorus)

Després va tenir l’amor nostre d’allí, un nou incentiu; i el fillet guarnia de cants l’alegre niu. Com que d’aquestes dones la gent sempre se’n riu, de mi se’n reien sempre… la noia de l’ull viu. Aquell qui no comprengui el que és estimació, que rigui tant com vulgui i canti la cançó.

Then our love from there, a new incentive; and the little son embellishes with songs the happy nest. Because of these women everybody makes fun, they make fun of me… the “ull viu” girl. Who don’t understand what the love is they can laugh as much as they want and sing the song.

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Table 1. Very basic definitions of the (world) reality. Human Types.

Final apology (like a moralization) for the love prevalence over the social conventions The girl called “de l’ull viu” ( the cheerful girl) The vicious girl, considered by the established society: in an inverse and complementary way in accordance with the duality used to represent this kind of girls and their lovers in the popularist literature of the tens and thirties of the TwentiethCentury (the Catalan one and the literature from other places).27

Possible Narratives. Plausible stories about the social reality.

The girl who woos cheerfully the soldier ( this is a criptonarrative evident in the chorus) The cheerfully and determined girl, rejected by the neighbours, even by the boys and especially by the women – because she is in love with the soldier, she gets pregnant and she has a baby.

Definitions of social value.

The mother who, despite the criticism due to the engagement and the pregnancy out of the social rules, demand the supreme love value. The claim of the women’s cunning quality and their sincerity in love. Gossips and cursing reproach to the love that, over the social conventions, have reduced the present love.

Life worlds. Universes of experience.

Places and festivites formulated in terms of Typicity. Topotypes and Cronotypes.

27

The claim of the sincere love supremacy over the cursing and the social conventions. The uninhibited love world, cheerful and sincere The censor gossips in the societies with a strong social The sincere love world, from the very beginning. Places: “La Font del Gat” (Montjuïc) (Barcelona) Dates: The festivity

The motif of a meek loose girl, rejected by the established society because her illicit affair, is very frequent in the social popularist literature of these years, where the perversion considered by most the society was condemned.

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Group rituals and habits full of typicity

“La Font del Gat” (a source). The usual Sunday spare time in Montjuïc mountain, next to Barcelona. The festive breaks round the source, called “La Font del Gat”. The wooing with a soldier. 28 The satirical songs – the sharp ones – in a popular traditional style. The satirical songs directed to the frivolous girl.

Elements of the group material culture full of typicity. It’s language. Linguistic resources formulated in terms of typicity. Logotypes.

Typical idioms: “Marieta” “Ull viu”29 Theoretical registers consacrated. Loanwords or paraphrasing expressions of the institutional literature (or promoting literature): A partial and evident resource in the literary costumism that is an heritage from the Renaixença costumes and manners literature Després de l’amor nostre /d’allí, un nou infantiu; / i el meu fillet guarnia /de cants l’alegre niu. (Before comes our love / From there, a new incentive; /And the little son embellishes / With songs the happy nest).

Typical references to the present.

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29

This is a kind of wooing that has a noteworthy literary tradition from the Renaixença. Look at Les carbasses d’en Montroig (1890), by Pitarra – and, in general, in the popular imaginary. A part its resource is a sign of a typical feature of the cuplet and the modern ethnotypist in general: the typist overcorrection from the use of reasons of the recent past, viewed with greater force typicality. “Encarna: I va ser llesta. El cas és aprofitar el moment de que un home de calé caigui a la ratera. Lo demés son cabòries. Es te de fer l’ull viu […]”. Amichatis, Amàlia o la novel.la d’una cambrera de café. Tragi-comèdia barcelonina de la vida de la gent del vici, dividida en tres actes i quatre quadres (Barcelona: Salvador Bonavia), p. 17.

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5.2 Populist theatre in Catalan in the twenties and thirties. Popular theatre with social topics Other basic expressions in the modern ethnotypist literature in Catalan can be mostly found in the popular theatre in Catalan produced between the second half of the tens and the thirties of the twentieth-century. In this theatre, we can find a fairly well-defined trend, which not only is aimed at fitting into popular tastes and interests and making business, but it also pursues a certain social provocation within the symbolic and ideological fields. It is a plebeian theatre that is mainly formed in terms of a melodramatic realism though it is being sprinkled with some comical situations, too. It is about a modern imaginary, which, in turn, is clearly rooted in references and visions from the nineteenthcentury. Its authors use two main symbolic frameworks when recreating it. On the one hand, it is a secular – we might even say profane – and popular catalanity in accordance with the sense (derived from the old regime tradition) around a profane and urban sphere, besides its consequent pre-nationalist catalanism. On the other hand, a regenerating republicanism which claims the regeneration and redemption of the society (and above all of its weakest characters: humble girls and working-class people) by claiming urps del vici and being against the hypocrisy of the bourgeois conventionalism. The play Amàlia o la novel.la d’una cambrera de café 30 by Amichatis is very significant of this type of theatre. The play setting is the author’s Barcelona, the city in the twenties of the twentieth-century and although the proximity of its plot, actors and motifs to this Barcelona, he makes use of some aspects inherited from the nineteenth-century in relation to the imaginaries previously mentioned. It is especially with regard to these imaginaries – the popular catalanity and the fact of being from Barcelona – that his will of ethnotypism is clearly shown: that is, setting some idiosyncratic values in these spheres. Let’s see it briefly. This tragicomedy of Barcelona vicious people shows loads of places of the Catalan capital, and also some secular, popular and traditional parties (and festive issues) from Barcelona and other towns from Cata30

Amichatis, Amàlia o la novel.la d’una cambrera de café…

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lonia. These references show an ethnotypic will. Regarding these sites, we must highlight those streets and premises form the Raval neighbourhood and its adjacent and nearby places. It is, therefore, the quintessential urban geography of the popular Barcelona working class31. We can find, therefore, references to ‘the fifth District’ in ‘the Drassanes neighbourhood’ and the Sant Pau avenue32, essential references to Montjuïc, where the third act of the place takes place, and some specific places of this Barcelona mountain like Can Tunis, l’Hort del Valencià and the merendero33, as well as allusions to Paral·lel and Poble Sec, the new neighbourhood that grows in the southern side of this new and emblematic artery of the plebeian Barcelona and the Ramblas34. And as for celebrations and festive expressions, we can find references and circumstaces in relation to the human towers35, barbecues36, Valencian paella37, rondes38, ritual gatherings (in groups or by nicking) of fruits from the orchards39 especially at Saint John’s eve – this one frames the whole third act of the tragicomedy40 – and specific festive elements of this celebration such as the porrons, spirits and sweet drinks (cassalla, mouscat, champaign…)41 and Saint John’s special cake42.

31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

40 41 42

See about this question: Just Arévalo, La cultura de masses a la Barcelona del noucents (Barcelona: Curial Edicions-Enciclopedia Catalana, 2002). Just Arévalo, La cultura de masses a la Barcelona…, pp. 5, 37, 44, 46 and 57. Just Arévalo, La cultura de masses a la Barcelona…, pp. 8, 21, 23, 28 and 42. Just Arévalo, La cultura de masses a la Barcelona…, pp. 15, 47, 51 and 52. Just Arévalo, La cultura de masses a la Barcelona…, p. 5. Just Arévalo, La cultura de masses a la Barcelona…, p. 5. Just Arévalo, La cultura de masses a la Barcelona…, p. 5. Just Arévalo, La cultura de masses a la Barcelona…, p. 31. It is about the theft of a watermelon in an orchard and the consequent meal with this fruit presented as a trophy. Just Arévalo, La cultura de masses a la Barcelona…, pp. 28–29 and 31. Just Arévalo, La cultura de masses a la Barcelona…, pp. 8, 17, 23–24 and 27. Just Arévalo, La cultura de masses a la Barcelona…, pp. 23, 24–25, 26, 28, 30 and 36. Just Arévalo, La cultura de masses a la Barcelona…, pp. 25, 26, 28, 30, 32, 34, 36, 41 and 42.

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5.3 Social Realistic Poetry 5.3.1 A rural-themed modern realistic poetry Another literary area in which a deep ethnotypism can be identified in the sense we have developed in this chapter is the quite eclectic tradition of a modern realistic poetry. In this poetry, one can see that its authors, based on essential prism and commitment, strive to define, fix and project references and principles of ethnic value: either in terms of popular types and customs…, and moral and ethic principles (with sociopolitical implications in some cases). Examples of the social poetry and politics of the sixties and seventies of the twentieth-century such as Francesc Vallverdú, Joan Colomines or Josep Espunyes would belong to this tradition whose poems had certain affinity with the early years of La Nova Cancó. Another tradition would also merge into this one with an independent value: a rural-themed modern realistic poetry. There has not been much research on this tradition, which is extended and widely varied, and its leading representatives are local poets (some of whom excelled, such as Antoni Bonastre and Magí Escribà from Tàrrega) and some others, with clear rural qualities, have stood out within the general literary sphere, such as the above mentioned Josep Espunyes. It is, above all, in this realistic poetry with cognitive and formal motifs and influences rurally-based that a dense ethnotypism is revealed. Their poems are usually composed of typical romance forms. It is worth mentioning, on the other hand, that this poetry has some affinity with some forms and registers of the oral poetry and with the tradition of oral poetry of contemporary fracture. Within this modern rural realistic poetry, there is a genre that especially works with a strong typification of motifs. We refer the romancelike long compositions that mention the vices and grievances of the group of villages or towns in a full and exhaustive way. This is a satirical poetry43. This genre, like the modern realistic poetry with rural 43

The oral poetry at the moment also offers compositions like these ones, according to this narrative genre. See, indicatively, the potpourri collected in Solivella, which starts with Ell n’és un enredon de primera [Joaquim Capdevila, Modernització i crisi comunitària. Estudis d’etnohistòria rural (Lleida: Universitat de Lleida, 2012), pp. 169–170 and 204–205].

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topics(or substratum), cannot be understood without the new perspectives, and with no-modern perspectives, of the rural area. These perspectives come from the awareness of much broader frames of reference than the rural community – those frames related to the city and the modern society, to politics and the modern state, etc. – which cause holistic and critical perspectives of the reality of the local community itself, or rather on the most immediate human reality conceived under a community sense of rural tradition. Next, we will see two of these romance-like poems that deal with the whole of local life. First, it’s Cinema targarí by Magí Escribà44, who does a thorough and global, and really panoptical portrait of the town of Tàrrega in the early twenties of the twentieth-century. It reviews, therefore, all types of vices, customs and rituals of the young city. The years when the films were written and gathered in the book are years of important economical growth in Tàrrega, in which there are more than 168 new businesses between 1920 and 1925.45 This urban growth, the reflection caused by this fact and by the general transformation of the society at the moment aren’t, undoubtedly, alien aspects at all at the prism and reflection on his own town that Magi Escribà – one of the most sensitive spirits in Tàrrega at the time – provides in this Cinema targarí, which consists of forty-eight films or romance-like narratives.46 Next, we will see one poem.

44 45 46

Tipus de Festa Major: La raspa barcelonina

Types of village celebrations: The Barcelona Raspa

Ja que l’ocasió s’ho porta fóra bo una exposició de quadrets i tipus clàssics propis de la Festa Major.

Since it is the occasion it would be good an exhibition of small pictures and classical types Typical from the Village Celebration.

Joaquim Capdevila, Tàrrega (1898–1923): societat, política i imaginari (Barcelona: Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat, 2008), pp. 578–579. Joaquim Capdevila, Tàrrega (1898–1923): societat, política…, chapter 1. These romance-like narration firstly appears in the weekly newspaper from Tàrrega Vida Nova (1922–1923). They are published in eleven times in 1923. Escribà signs them with the pseudonym Pastetes. Escribà Roca, secretary, is editor of this newspaper that supports the new nationalist political party Acció Catalana. These compositions, more than forty years later, are collected in the book: M. Escribà Roca, Cinema targarí.

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Menequildes, cirabotes, còmics, músics, rifadors, parents de lluny que l’esperen per a fer-se un tip d’arròs. Els típics fadrins de poble que no perden ocasió de lluir gorra verda i esmicolar més d’un cor.

Menequildes, cirabotes, comics, musicians, raffle relatives from far away who wait to eat up big amounts of rice. The typical single boys of the village who don’t miss the chanc of wearing a green cap and break down more than one heart.

Però d’aquests personatges que honren la Festa Major la raspa barcelonina és el més castís de tots.

But among these characters who honour the Village Celebration the Barcelona raspa Is the most authentic one

La vigília de la festa té un moment d’expectació: l’arribada del liquero converteix nostra estació en un bullit de gentada en la major confusió. N’hi ha que esperen la xica, altres el padrí de fonts, o la cunyada, o la tia amb dos o tres xavarrons.

On the Village Festival eve there’s a while of expectancy: the arrival of the ‘light train’ turns our station into a crowd in the greatest confusion. There are some who wait for their girls others the fountain godfather, or the sister-in-law, or the aunt with two or three little babies.

Quan para el tren, quin desfici de crits i d’exclamacions! […] La Trudis és una raspa que té bon cartel al Born Està al carrer d’an Palayu i té els novius a trompons: un soldat, un pastelero, i un nyèbit molt rebufó, que de tots és el més sèrio i li fa versos d’amor. Els diumenges a la tarda són la seva diversió la Bulemia Mudarnista, un cine de carreró i una societat molt fina del carrer d’an Rubadó. Balla el tango argentino el fox-trot i el pericon

When the train stops, what shouts And exclamations of anxiety! […] Trudis is a raspa who is well-known in the Born neighbourhood. She is in the Palayu street and she has many suitors: a soldier, a patissier, and a very good-looking ‘nyèbit’ who among them is the most serious one and writes love poems. Sunday afternoons are your fun the Bulemia Mudarnista, a cinema in a narrow street and a very fine society in the Rubadó street. She dances the Argentinian tango the fox-trot and the pericon47

South-American dance mainly danced in Argentina, Brasil and Paraguay.

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amb picada de tomata de punta i de retaló que el currutaco assegura que no hi ha al món res tan mistó. A la nit lluirà els mèrits a la “Dàlia” i a la “Unió”. Sabates i mitges blanques, un vestit de viu color, lleugeret per veure els dintres i amb dos dits massa d’escot; un dije50 amb retrat incògnit tot voltat de culs de got i un rellotge de polsera que no roda ni amb carbó; polvos rosa, essència fula, coloret a discreció que empastifa la cara quan arriba la suor. A redós d’aquests encisos la mare troba ocasió de fer-se un tip de melindros, xocolata i coca d’ous, que un curridu dels de fora els paga fent el rumbós. No cal donar-li voltes: segons la nostra opinió, la raspa barcelonina llueix la Festa Major.

48 49 50

with a chopped tomato on the tiptoes and that the currutaco48 assures that there’s nothing in the world such a mistó.49 At night she will show her merits in the ‘Dàlia’ and in the ‘Unió’. Shoes and white tights, a vivid colour dress, loose to be able to see the inner parts and with a too low-cut neck; a dije with an unknown portrait all surrounded by thick-glass bottoms and a watch that not works at all; pink make-up, cheap essence, loads of blush that dirties one’s face when sweat turns up. Protected by these charms her mother finds the chance of eating up a big amount of cakes, hot chocolate and egg cake, that a foreigner experienced boy pay them all by showing off. It’s not worth thinking over it: according to our opinion, the Barcelona raspa show off the Village Celebration.

Castellianism. This is a jewel that – generally women – wear hanging from a chain or bracelet. Word from the gypsies language or ‘caló’. The words means ‘well’ or ‘good’. Castellianism in the process of being substituted. The sense of a very affected person – or victim – of fashion.

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Table 2. Very basic definitions of the (world) reality. Human Types.

Possible Narratives. Plausible stories about the social reality.

Typical universe of characters who attend a Catalan Village Celebration in the twenties of the 20th c. Group of human types that meet at Tàrrega Village Celebration the very early years of the twenties: – Menequildes ( female servants) – Cirabotes (shoes and boots cleaners) – Comedians. – Musicians. – Men who raffle. – Relatives who live out of town. – The family who lives in the village and hosts the out-of-town relatives. – Young single men from the neighbourhoods who go to the Village Celebration. – Young boys ready to court. – The experienced man in courting (the ‘curridu’). And mainly: ‘the raspa from Barcelona’ (the young daughter from Tàrrega who lives in Barcelona). And her mother. Reception at the train station of the out-of-town relatives who come to the village celebration. Warm reception at the railway station in Tàrrega to the out-of-town relatives who come to celebrate the village festival by the family who lives in town. Reception of the young ‘raspa Barcelona’ by her mother at the railway station in Tàrrega. Festive leisure (balls, cinema, courting) of the young ‘Barcelona raspa. Behaviour of the young ‘raspa’ at the balls in the village festival. The mother’s behaviour in this framework.

Definitions of social value. Life worlds. Universes of experience.

World of the Village Celebration. World of the town celebration in the twenties, which introduces elements of modernity and, at the same time, essentially keeps a rural tradition background. Tàrrega’s celebration.

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Places and festivites formulated in terms of Typicity. Topotypes and Cronotypes.

Group rituals and habits full of typicity.

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Places: Places from Barcelona. The Born (Barcelona. Historical neighbourhood in La Ribera), Pelai street in Barcelona (already in the new Eixample on the border with El Raval), the cinema ‘The Modernist Bohemian (in Floridablanca street, in the new Eixample near the V District.), Robadors street, at the heart of El Raval. Places from Tàrrega: railway station. Casino La Unió. Casino La Dàlia. Festivities: The town celebration. Tàrrega festivity. The Village Festival. Its meals. Group reception at the railway station to the native people from a village or town, who come back for the Village Festival. Return to Tàrrega of its native people, on the occasion of the Village Festival in September. Family meeting in the Village Festival framework. Pattern of festive leisure in Barcelona of a young girl from Tàrrega who lives in the Catalan capital (a Barcelona ‘raspa’). Early courtship of the young ‘raspa’. Behaviour at the Village Festival ball of this Tàrreganative young lady from Barcelona – dresses, make-up and balls. Courtship of the single boys from the nearby villages of Tàrrega, who attend the annual Town Festival. Attempt of courtship by a foreigner ‘curridu’ in the Village Festival ball. Small enjoyments of the young lady’s mother in the Village Festival ball framework.

Elements of the group material culture full of typicity.

The train. The ‘liquero’ train that runs from Barcelona to Lleida. The cinema (from the city). The casino. The casino and the ball room. From Barcelona to Tàrrega. The dress, the make-up and other cosmetic ornaments of the Tàrrega-native young lady from Barcelona.

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It’s language. Linguistic resources formulated in terms of typicity. Logotypes.

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Vocabulary full of typicity or Catalan ethnolinguistic heritage. “menequildes”, “cirabotes”, “fadrins”, “xica”, “Mila”, “Trudis”, “Pepa”, “Sila”, “Tecla”, “Rosa”, “oncle Ton”, “rebufó”, “rumbós” Castillianisms: “cartel”, “Consuelo”, “sandunguera”, “curridu”, “pastelero”, “Palayu”, “novius”, “tango argentino”, “pericón”, “currutaco”, “melindros”, “polvos”, “dije” Loanwords from “Caló”51: “mistó” Anglicisms: “fox-trot” Colloquialisms: “raspa barcelonina”, “liquero” (tren ligero), “xavarrons”, [according to the phonetic writing with the aim of representing the language in xava Barcelona. “Bulemia Mudarnista”, “carrer d’an Rubadó” Set expressions or with a remarkable intention of social reputation: “fer-se un bon tip d’arròs”, “honren la Festa Major”, “trencar el cor”, “per ara tots estem bons”, “que no hi ha res tan mistó”, “no roda ni amb carbó”, “empastifa la cara”, “fer-se un tip de melindros, xocolata i coca d’ous”, “fent el rumbós” Typical idioms: “curta fins als genolls”, “desfeta en un mar de plors”, “amb picada de tomata de punta i retaló”

Typical references to the present.

5.4 La Nova Cançó 5.4.1 La Nova Cançó. The satirical song of customs In the sixties and seventies of the twentieth-century, it appears some relevant literature and show expressions in Catalan which are very related to the tradition of modern and customist literature and shows in Catalan before the War. These productions arise in the framework of a resumption of the Catalan culture that takes place after two decades of the extremely hostile Franco regime to Catalanism. 51

Romany.

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We can find a very paradigmatic example of this literature and shows in the first judges of the Cançó. Theirs songs, as has been noted by several researchers, take large influence form the chanson française and, above all, from George Brassens, maître of the chanson, whose big amount of songs are both translated and adapted, as well as several recordings are also dedicated to him, as the early an emblematic Espinàs canta Brassens (1962). We must notice that these first singers of the Cançó – their decisive civic commitment in favour of the country and, especially, their culture – and their lyrics show a clear background of the ‘noucentista’ tradition. On these basis and previous traditions, the first judges – Espinàs, Porter, Abella, Elies, Pi de la Serra, etc. – characteristically develop a satirical song of modern customs. This song seeks, on the immediate grounds, to cause a collective catharsis, in a community sense, around some ambiguous or problematic customs, or social practices, of the reference society of both the authors and the audience. According to this vocation, this song draws a certain collective idiosyncrasy in terms of ethics and moral: the value principles and ways of behaviour typical of the society. Thus, this song produces and spreads an evident ethnotypism – a certain collective ethnicity – expressed primarily in ethical terms. There, ethnicity is expressed in terms of ethics. See as an illustrative example the following song by Xavier Elies about the difficulties to buy a house. El piset

The Small flat

Mira Xavier que em vull casar i no tenim pis!

Look, Xavier, I want to marry And we don’t have any flat!

Com un boig jo vaig posar-me a buscar el pis somiat. Mare meva, quin escàndol! Quins preus! M’han deixat glaçat. Sort que hi han nobles empreses filantròpiques, socials, benemèrites, lloables que ens curen de tots els mals.

Like a crazy man I started to look for the dreamed flat. Good heavens!, what a scandal! What such high prices! I got stunned. Luckily, there are noble companies, philantropic, social, estimable, praiseworthy that heal all our illnessess.

Pagues mig milió d’entrada –o un milió, això tant se val– i la resta, mica en mica, si es que encara et queda un ral.

You pay half a million as a deposit – or one million, it doesn’t matter – and the rest, little by llitle, if you happen to have some money left.

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Els pisos són fets a mida per als senyors de mols diners. Allí tenen les amigues que no saben les mullers.

The flats are suitable made for the men who have a lot of money. There, they have their ‘friends’ who their wives don’t know.

El de renda limitada, com a limitats ho són. Protegit és qui s’hi fica, cal saber d’anar pel món.

Those with low income, very limited they are. Protected are those who get engage, You need to know how to deal with it.

El problema és que demanen setze recomanacions i has d’anar a omplir trenta impresos de catorze institucions.

The problem is that you are asked for sixteen recommendations and you must go to fill in thirty forms from forty institutions.

Hi han els pisos de les Caixes que t’engeguen al moment si no ets un “imponente” o no hi tens compte corrent.

There are the flats from the Banks, Who immediately kick you aout If you are not powerful Or you haven’t got a bank account.

Però un pis protegit te’l donen –això de donar és un dir– si portes un bon “enchufe” o si tens un bon padrí.

But a subsidized flat you are given – given, so to speak – If you have some connections Or if you have a guarantor.

Finalment un piset apte m’ha sortir fora ciutat. Adéu viatge a Mallorca, no podrem passar del Prat.

Finally an appropriate flat I have found in the outskirts. Goodbye travel to Mallorca, We won’t be able to go beyond El Prat.

És justet i baix de sostre, no ens podrem ni posar drets, sortirem per les finestres quan arribin els marrecs.

It is low-roofed and narrow We won’t be able stand up, We won’t fit in When babies come.

Corre Xavier cap a l’església que tenim pis!

Run, Xavier, towards the church, as we already have a flat!

Table 3. Very basic definitions of the (world) reality. Human Types.

The engaged couple. They look for a flat to get married. The girl pushes her boyfriend to look for a flat to be able to marry. he bourgeois man. The lover (the bourgeois man)

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Possible Narratives. Plausible stories about the social reality.

Definitions of social value.

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Vicissitudes to find a flat for an engaged couple who wants to marry and, as usual, they look for it as the previous step to the wedding. The policies promoting access to housing by the institutions created on that purpose by the Franco regime and the saving Banks. Ironic evaluation of the (policies) of the housing institutions of the Franco regime, which questions the real conditions to have access to housing, the conditions when providing money for that and the size of the flats that is very small. Ironic evaluation of the credit facilities for buying a flat given by the saving Banks, which, at the same time, constrain their credits to the rich people and those who have a bank account. Ironic evaluation of the circumstances under which they, the main character, who talks in the first person, and her fiancée, have had to buy a very small flat, which also means that they have had to forgo their honeymoon. Ironic evaluation of the great difficulties of the young and popular groups of citizens to have access to housing. Ironic allusions to these interrelated principles: the engaged couple reach the point of having to get married, and for doing so, they first must have a flat; and the fiancées are the most interested in relation to these principles.

Life worlds. Universes of experience.

Ironic references to the fact that big flats are for the bourgeois, who, there, have the relationships with their lovers. The world of severe difficulties in finding a flat for the working-class youth. The world of the Franco regime institutions promoting working-class housing and the world of the saving Banks policies in relation to it. World of class differences when looking for housing.

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Places and festivites formulated in terms of Typicity. Topotypes and Cronotypes. Group rituals and habits full of typicity.

Elements of the group material culture full of typicity. Its language. Linguistic resources formulated in terms of typicity. Logotypes.

Typical references to the present.

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The wedding. The search for a flat to be able to marry. The honeymoon. The small flat. Saving Banks. The ‘housing promotion’ institutions in the Franco regime. Vocabulary full of typicity or Catalan ethnolinguistic heritage: “padrí”, “piset”, “amigues” (amants) Heritage Vocabulary: “mullers” Castillianisms: “enchufe”, “imponente”. Typical idioms: “Com un boig”, “Mare meva”, “quin escàndol!”, “Quins preus!”, “mica en mica” “senyors de mols diners” Set expressions with a remarkable intention of social reputation: “M’han deixat glaçat”, “vaig posar-me a buscar el pis”, “ens curen de tots els mals” “(els pisos) són fets a mida” “cal saber d’anar pel món”, “demanen setze recomanacions” “has d’anar a omplir trenta impresos”, ”t’engeguen al moment” / “si […] no hi tens compte corrent”, “si tens un bon enchufe”, “si [no] tens un bon padrí”, “un piset m’ha sortit (fora ciutat), “és justet i baix de sostre”, “no ens podrem ni posar drets”, “sortirem per les finestres”, “quan arribin els marrecs”, “Corre […] cap a l’església”, “tenim pis” Theoretical registers consacrated. Loanwords or paraphrasing expressions of the institutional literature (or promoting literature): “Sort que hi han nobles empreses / filantròpiques, socials, / benemèrites, lloables / que ens curen de tots els mals.”

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5.4.2 The Nova Cançó. The festive cançó and the cuplet As we have noted, the first Setze Jutges develop a song of social satire, a satire of the social customs, a type of song in search of the collective catharsis and denunciation about the current affairs. Several years later, in the same framework of the Cançó, another type of song of customs arises, which is also modern and satirical and produced and similarly performed from a conception of community of the host society. Unlike, however, the satirical song by the firsts of the Nova Cançó, in this one, the satire is aimed, first of all, at humour and obscenity, and the social customs it deals with correspond to the world of festivities, fashion, current politics and, above all, erotic relationships. The main expressions of this modern song, satirical and at the same time humorous and festive, are the recoveries and recreations that Núria Feliu and Guillermina Mota (mainly) do of the Catalan cuplets from the previous decades of war and, above all, the songs by La Trinca. This song, beyond specific recovery of the cuplet or popular song tradition, updates (here its major contribution and the reason why it is so successful) the cuplet tradition itself, its social meaning and its narrative register.52 It is in this way that, besides a ‘moral’ ethnotypism developed in the Nova Cançó, it is also developed a ‘festive’ ethnotypism. If the former comes from a song which talks, denounces some social customs or some institutional actions which might be ambiguous, problematic, immoral and even insane, with a collective – community – commitment; the latter comes from another type of satirical song that establishes, with a similar community commitment, some types and ethical principles related to eroticism, festivity, games, etc. Next, see a song by ‘La Trinca’ that gives an accurate, illustrative example of this festive ethnotypism.

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In this type of song, we won’t include the ‘folk’ song that within the Cançó (in its broadest sense) some singers and musical bands who came out of the Folk Group (1969) play or, later, as the “UC” band from Eivissa or ‘Els Payesos’ from Valencia. While it is true that this type of song has a repertoire of a festive, obscene and yet satirical song, and although its recoveries usually go together with implicit updates of (above all) its feelings, it’s also true that there remains a type of pre-modern typism( for its motifs, for its cognitive and narrative fracture).

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Botifarra de pagès

A farmer Sausage53

Catorze anys de passar gana, catorze anys d’anar fent figa, potser si que eren molt anys catorze anys sense una lliga.

Fourteen years starving, Fourteen years being in regression maybe it was too many years, Fourteen years without a league.

Un, dos, tres, botifarra de pagès!

One, two, three, a farmer sausage!

Quan la cosa no funciona no ens ve pas de cent milions,

When it doesn’t work We don’t care whether it costs hundred million, And as there is money We have brought to Barcelona The best thighs in the world. If now everything is better than before, We should not be frightened of spending money, We, Catalan people, already say By paying, everything gets better With the permission of priests.

i com que la bossa sona hem portat a Barcelona les millors cuixes del món. Si tot va millor que abans, gastar duros no ens espanta, ja ho diem els catalans que pagant Sant Pere canta, amb permís dels capellans.

La senyera ja voleia amb gran eufòria, The Catalan flag waves with euphoria, la tenora llença al vent son cant joiós, The “tenora”54 utters out to the wind a wonderful song recordant un gran moment de nostra While remembering a great moment of història, our history, celebrant un cinc a zero gloriós! Celebrating the glorious 5-0! Sonaren cinc campanades allà a la Porta del Sol, quatre ens les han tornades, però encara guanyem d’un gol. Com veieu, qui no es conforma

53 54

és ben bé perquè no vol …

Bells will ring five times There in Porta del Sol, Four they have given back to us, But we still win by one goal. As you can see, those who don’t feel satisfied It’s because they don’t want to.

Un, dos, tres, botifarra de pagès!

One, two, three, a farmer sausage!

I ara els culés de veritat ens volem gastar els bitllets, comprant discos, ninotets i cançons de qualitat, pòsters, pintures i calçotets.

And now the true Barça supporters Want to spend our money By buyin recordings, dolls And high-quality songs, Posters, paintings and underpants.

This is a metaphorical title that implies some mockery. Lyrics and music: La Trinca. This is a catalan traditional music instrument.

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Mentre ragi la mamella ens voldran per fer titella

While there is money They will want us to be puppets.

I arribaran a inventar-se desodorant per l’aixella que porti els colors de barça.

And they will even invent Some armpit odorant with Barça colours.

I ara cantaires, ve lo principal, Au, prepareu-vos pel cor final.

And now singers, the main thing comes, Come on, get ready for the final choir.

Cruyff, Cruyff, Cruyff…

Cruyff, Cruyff, Cruyff…

Qual vulgar cor de granotes “ensalcem” les teves potes, jugador sensacional.

What such a frogs choir We ‘praise’ your legs, Sensational players.

Ja ningú no se’n pot riure. Visca Catalunya! Visca el Barça i en Montalt!

Nobody, now, can’t laugh at us. Visca Catalunya! Visca Barça and Montalt!

Catalanistes, ajunteu-vos que ara es pot, gracies al futbol, cridar ben fort fins escanyar-se som i serem … socis del Barça tant si es vol, com si no es vol! tant si es vol, com si no es vol!

Catalanists,get together Now you can, thank you to football, Shout so loud until you drown yourself We are and we will be…. Barça supporters Whatever they want to! Whatever they want to!

Table 4. Very basic definitions of the (world) reality. Human Types. Possible Narratives. Plausible stories about the social reality.

The ‘culés’ (F. C. Barcelona supporters). The catalanists. After fourteen long years without having won a league, the Barça club, as it has money and it doesn’t mind spending it when necessary, has signed the best football players in the world. Barça gets and epic victory in February 1974 in the Real Madrid field, in which Barça beats Real Madrid (an official symbol of Franco regime) by 0-5.

Definitions of social value.

Barça has already set up a modern and incisive system of selling products with Barça motifs. The Barça F. C. is the best team. Barça is better than R. Madrid.

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Cruyff is the best player. It is necessary for ‘culés’ to praise him. Now (1974), thanks to Barça, Catalonia is respected. The Catalans need to feel proud of it and vindicate it. F. C. supporters or culés (and the Catalans by extension) are splendid, very generous (economically speaking) and yet pragmatic and effective, respectively. The culés (and the Catalans) have finance potential.

Life worlds. Universes of experience.

Places and festivites formulated in terms of Typicity. Topotypes and Cronotypes.

Group rituals and habits full of typicity.

Barça likes winning Money (they like getting Money from their supporters) The world of Barça and its stars. The world of football. The world of the football clubs of the Spanish league. The world of Catalanism [Implicitly] 17th of February 1974, when Barça beats Real Madrid by 5-0. [Implicitly] The football field of Real Madrid, Santiago Bernabeu, where Barça’s victory takes place. Football Epic war confrontation. Choirs and its phenomena. Modern marketing of products with Barça motifs started by Barça F.C.

Elements of the group material culture full of typicity. It’s language. Linguistic resources formulated in terms of typicity. Logotypes.

Vocabulary full of typicity or Catalan ethnolinguistic heritage “potes” (cames), “ninotets”, “bitllets”, “calçotets”, “aixella”, “granotes” Colloquialisms: “ensalcem” Set expressions or with a remarkable intention of social reputation: “Quan la cosa no funciona”, “no ens ve pas de cent milions”, “la bossa sona”, “hem portat a Barcelona”, Si tot va millor que abans, “gastar duros”

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Typical references to the present times.

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”ja ho diem els catalans”, “passar gana”, “fent figa”, “fer gastar els bitllets”, “comprant discos…”, “mentre ragi la mamella”, “fer el titella”, “i arribaran a inventar-se”, “que porti els colors del Barça”, “prepareu-vos per al cor final” Sayings: “pagant Sant Pere canta”, “Barcelona és bona si la bossa sona…” Typical idioms: “butifarra de pagès”, “les millors cuixes”, “amb permís dels capellans”, “catorze anys sense una lliga”, “culés de veritat”, “jugador sensacional”. Classic theoretical registers: Loanword (parody) from the patriotic epic literature register, the medieval one and the recreations done in the context of the Renaissance. Register in the evocation of medieval Catalan war successes, typically composed in the romantic literature of the Renaissance: “La senyera ja voleia amb gran eufòria, /la tenora llença al vent son cant joiós,/recordant un gran moment de nostra història,/ celebrant un cinc a zero gloriós!// Sonaren cinc campanades /allà a la Porta del Sol,/ quatre ens les han tornades,/ però encara guanyem d’un gol.” Loanword (parody) from the register of the choirs songs: “Qual vulgar cor de granotes/ ”ensalcem” les teves potes,/jugador sensacional.” Loanword (parody) from the poem – and choir song – by Joan Maragall, Som i Serem: “Catalanistes, ajunteu-vos/ que ara es pot, gracies al futbol,/ cridar ben fort fins escanyarse/ som i serem … socis del Barça / tant si es vol, com si no es vol!/ tant si es vol, com si no es vol! F.C. Barcelona Real Madrid C. F. Spanish Football League. 1973–1974 league, whose winner is Barça F.C. Johan Cruyff, star of the Barça F. C. Agustí Montal, president of the Barça F. C.

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5.5 Customist satire and humour. Capri’s monologues Beyond the abovementioned expressions of La Nova Cançó, this period of the Catalan culture offers us a new important sample of the ethnotypist literature. We refer to Caprí55’s monologues. His monologues, with some antecedents in the period before the Civil War in Catalonia, clearly show a modern ethnotypism: thus, the references to the human types, customs, and definitions of value that are usual at the contemporary society to Capri can be widely found in his monologues. This kind of typism should be understood bearing in mind the most basic experience of the modern customs literature and shows in Catalan that we are studying in this text: therefore, the perspective and vocation of a community sense that the author experiences with his own society, or the community commitment that the artist feels towards the society that receives his works. This type of experience and commitment is already in crisis at the moment of Capris’s monologues. A we have mentioned, the genesis of this form of experience and commitment can be found in the looks and thoughts caused by far-reaching social changes. These transformations question one’s own identity, the nature of the society itself while questioning some arcaic emotions in relation to one’s land and its people. In concordance with this typist tradition, Capri’s monologues deal with women (the traditional female types in the family: wife, motherin-law and aunt), sick people, traditional middle-class people, wealthy men and women, new weekend tourism, television, banks and a long etc. However, although all this typism with a very intense symbolism – it combines some categorized stories, universes of experience, definitions of values, etc. – Capri’s monologues are also a clear product of the author’s idiosyncratic perspective. The personalization of a typist look is not strange during Capri’s monologues period, as we can also find this kind of personalization in the abovementioned satiric songs of La Nova Cançó and it is also evident in a lot of Brassens’ songs. As a sample of Capri’s monologues and its modern ethnotypism and as a way to illustrate the personalization of this typism, you can read the monologue called La Guerra del 600: 55

Capri is an actor and a humorist from Barcelona (Joan Camprubí, Barcelona 1917– 2000).

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“La guerra del 600” Primerament haig d’aclarir que no em refereixo a la guerra de l’any 600 perquè jo encara no havia nascut o i ni tan sols sé si va haver-hi guerra en aquells temps. Em refereixo a la guerra que em va donar el tenir un 600, un cotxe 600 a casa, que aquesta sí que l’he passat, per desgràcia, dins de casa meva precisament. I ja us diré com va anar. Ja feia temps que a casa meva a l’hora de dinar no hi havia mai tranquil·litat. (Agafa aire) La meva mamà política, (rient) perquè jo tinc la sort de viure amb la meva mamà política, deia de tant en tant, “sabeu qui he vist amb cotxe? El senyor Rossell.” I jo quiet. Un altre dia, “que no sabeu pas qui he vist a passar també amb un cotxe? El senyor Julià.” I jo tranquil. Un altre dia, “sabeu, sabeu, es veu que li han donat un cotxe. Mai diríeu qui he vist a passar amb cotxe. Doncs el senyor Puiggròs.” I jo mut . Un altre dia ja s’hi va ajuntar la meva dona, això vol dir la filla de la meva mamà política, que va dir: “Quasi bé tots els nostres amics en tenen, de cotxe.” I el meu nen, el meu fill, que té setze anys, si encara fa primer de batxillerat, que és un gamarús, encara va afegir: “Oh! I al col·legi tots els nens, tots els nens i tots els nois, els vénen a buscar amb cotxe mens nosaltres.” I jo aleshores ja vaig perdre la paciència i vaig dir: “Això s’està posant pitjor que lo de Cuba.”I aleshores jo vaig donar un cop de puny sobre la taula i l’endemà me’n vaig anar a veure una casa d’aquestes que venen cotxes per veure si solucionava el problema. Entro i dic: Déu lo56 guard, voldria un cotxe.” “Oh, l’ha de sol·licitar”, em va dir. “Oh, carai, doncs, què estic fent jo aquí.” Diu: “No, home, no es posi nerviós, home, l’ha de sol·licitar per escrit, no es preocupi, no demanem grans coses.” Vaig veure els patracols, vaig veure que no tenia gran importància, em van demanar un certificat de bona conducta de l’alcalde de barri, un certificat de revacunació, un certificat de l’Escola Municipal de Música conforme ja sé tocar la bocina57, en fi, poques coses. Jo li vaig dir també si volia el Certificat de Penals. Em va dir que no, que no, que això ara només ho exigien als porters de fútbol. Bé, me’n vaig anar al cap de pocs dies i em van donar el cotxe, ja el tenim, escolteu, gràcies a Déu, ja hi ha pau i tranquil·litat. El tenim al carrer, escolteu, ens ho va aconsellar un amic nostre, diu: “Ah, l’has de tenir al carrer, és quan surt més barato58.” Però, nois, tots fèiem una cara, molt, molt, molt mala cara, perquè, és clar, el tenir el cotxe al carrer vol dir vigilar-lo tota la nit i nosaltr[u]s ja fèiem torns per vigilar-lo, oi? I és clar, (a)nàvem perdent la salut, fins que a l’última hora em vaig decidir a avisar el vigilant i posar-me d’acord perquè me’l vigilés ell . I l’home ara, donant-li una propineta, doncs, s’hi perd totes les nits, perquè els que piquen de mans no els hi fa cap cas, però el cotxe no el deixa de petja, escolteu. L’altre dia (rient), encara em feia gràcia, perquè jo ja m’estava ficant al llit i sentia un que deia: “No, no, aquí, no, fora d’aquí, fora d’aquí!” Es veu que hi havia un gosset que s’hi acostava i volia fer alguna cosa d’aquestes seves, oi? No, no, el cuida molt, molt, el vigilant, el cuida molt. Escolteu, és una gran cosa el tenir cotxe, ara els diumenges, perquè ja se sap que els diumenges els que tenen cotxe no dinen mai a casa, doncs, de tant en tant, ens en anem fora i ho passem molt bé. Buen[u], jo 56 57 58

[u] With Catalan phonetics. [u]

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ho dic que ho passem molt bé, la veritat és que ho passem bastant malament, però jo a casa dic que ho passem molt bé, però de menjar bé no hem menjat mai bé. L’altre dia, que vam sortir un diumenge, que vam tenir la sort de tenir un pi que encara no estava ocupat, va59m fer un arròs amb formigues, perquè només va60m menjar que formigues, que deixi’n-lo anar, eh? I dic “deixi’n-lo anar” perquè caminava sol, aquell arròs. Mare de Déu, quin desastre és tenir cotxe, eh? Bé, com he dit abans, els dies de la de (vacil·lació) feina, jo no agafo mai, el cotxe, perquè hi ha massa trànsit pels carrers, és horrorós, jo no m’agrada fer mal a la gent, no m’agrada atropellar ningú, perquè, ja dic és horrorós, aquestes velles, sobretot aquestes dones d’edat que van a munt i avall, no saben mai quan atravessari se’t queden plantades al davant expressament perquè les matis i, escolteu, jo sóc una persona que no vull fer mal i ademés hi ha un còdi[k] de circulació, senyors, que és que si les mates, per molt velles que siguin, te les fan pagar per noves. I a mi no això, veu. (Agafa aire) La meva dona se’m posa al costat i la tinc més esverada que ningú. Quan veu una vella d’aquestes, “Aleeerta! Una vella” i un pessic. Un altre moment, “Aleeerta, aquest noi!” i un altre pessic. Una altra, “Aleeerta; un gos!” Hasta els gossos, ves que m’espanta per tot. Una altra frenada, escolteu, jo, jo, jo no puc, vaja, pateixo massa dels nervis. No pot ser de cap de les maneres, perquè, ademés, de tants pessics ja tinc el braç que sembla un braç de gitano. (Riu) L’altre dia va61m fer l’osadia, vam tenir l’osadia d’anar-se’n amb cotxe a Palafrugell, més ben dit, aquesta era la intenció, però ens vam quedar a fer nit a Montgat, perquè era l’estiu i ja sabeu com està la carretera de la costa. Això sí, no vam gastar quasi bé ni cinc de gasolina. Ara ja sé el truc[u], és qüestió de posar-se a la fila, posar el punt mort i el de darrera ja et va donant copets i endavant, escolteu, ni cinc cèntims de gasolina. (Agafa aire) Això de tenir cotxe és una gran ventatja, la prova és que us amics nostr[u]s, (riu per sota del nas) per cert són aquests nous ric, ja en tenen cinc, un per cada fill, i ara n’han demanat un per la dona que va a fer feines, oi? Que els ha exigit 50 pessetes per hora i un 600. Escolteu, avui es posa aixís el món, estan exigents d’aquesta manera, aquestes dones. Bé, doncs, aquesta gent, que per cert son (rient) nous rics, ja et dic, em deia aquest (riu) dia la dona de que es (ha)vien construït una torre amb tres piscines. Diu (veu estrafeta): “miri, una per l’aigua freda, l’altra per l’aigua calenta i una no hi posem aigua pels que no saben nadar.” Bé, nois, hi ha gent per tot. Bé, doncs, aquesta gent en tenen cinc, i, és clar, cinc fills que, per cert el marit no té gaire salut, oi?, és clar amb cinc fills no en té ningú, de salut, oi? Doncs, els diu que el cotxe és una solució (veu de murri) aixís viuen tranquils. Bé, senyors, aquesta gent, eh, ells són els primers que diuen que, a pesar de tot, que no hi ha com tenir cotxe i són una gent molt atents,perquè també me’n recordo d’un altre cas que, aquest dia que vaig anar-los a saludar, oi?, i a l’entrada del rebedor la dona, que és d’aquestes complimentosa, i “fagi el favor, cobreixis.” D’aquestes frases que diuen per costum, oi? “Cobreixis, fagi el favor.” I jo no deia res, oi? “Fagi el favor, home, cobreixis, cobreixis.” I jo al final li vaig dir: “si no li fa res, m’hauria de deixar el barret del seu 59 60 61

[e] [e] [e]

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marit, perquè jo he vingut sense, (riu) saaap? És clar, a la dona no li va fer cap gràcia, però jo m’hi vaig veure obligat. Bé, senyors, si vostès tenen cotxe, ja saben el que són tots aquells inconvenients i tots aquells obstacles. Ai, Déu meu, els nostres avantpassats deien: “Al pas que (a)nem, no sé on (a)nirem a parar. Nosaltres aviat direm: “Al pas que (a)nem, senyors, no sé on (a)nirem a aparcar.” “The 600 war” First at all I should explain that I don’t refer to a war that happened in 600 because at that time I haven’t been born yet and I didn’t even know if it has been a war at that moment. I refer to the problems that give to me having a 600, having a car at home, this is a war that, unfortunately, I have just lived in my own home. I’ll explain how it happened. From some time ago, at lunchtime, it isn’t a calm situation at my home. My mother in law, because I am such a lucky man that I live with my mummy in law, she says quite often: “do you know who I have seen driving a car? Mr Rossell”. And I kept still. Some days later “do you know who I have seen going by car, too? Mr Julià. And I kept calm. Another day “Do you know? A car has been given to him. You will never guess who I have seen going by car. Well, Mr Puiggròs”. And I kept mute. Another day my wife was enrolled, that means my mummy’s in law daughter, who said: “Nearly all of our friends have a car”. And my son, my guy, who is sixteen years old, who is in the Secondary School, who is a dummy, he even added: “Oh! At school all the boys, all of them and all the young boys, are picked up by car, except us. And then I lost patience and I said: This is going worst than Cuba’s. And I thumped the table with my fist and next day I went to see this kind of houses where cars are sold, to try to solve the problem. I go in and I say: “Hello, I would like a car.” “Oh you must apply for it” he said. Oh, bloody hell, what Am I doing here?” He says: “No, don’t be nervous, guy, you must apply for it in writing, don’t worry, we don’t ask for many things” I saw a great book, I saw that it was no important, he asked for a certificate of good behavior from the mayor, a revaccination certificate, a certification from the Municipal Music School to prove I can horn, well, few things. I also asked him if he wanted the Criminal Record Certificate. He says, no, only the goalkeepers are asked for it. Well, I leaved and few days later, we just have it, oh, listen, thank goodness, there’s peace and quiet. We have it outdoors, listen, a friend has suggested it to us, he says: “Ah, you must let it outdoors, it will be cheaper. “ But, guys, we didn’t look well, not very very well, because, having the car has outdoors means keeping an eye on it all the night. And obviously we were on duty to watch it, weren’t you? And of course we were losing more and more our health; finally I decided to call a night watchman and reaching the agreement that he watched it. And, guy, now giving him a small tip, he stops off all the nights, because he doesn’t pay attention to people who claps but, listen, of course he is on the alert for the car. Last day, I’m still laughing, because I was going to bed and I heard him saying: “No, not here, go away, go away! You can imagine, there was a small dog that was coming and it wanted to do some of its things. No, it takes care of it a lot, the night watchman takes care of it a lot. It’s very important having a car, now on Sunday,

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because, you know, on Sunday people who have a car never have lunch at home, well, sometimes we go out and we enjoy ourselves quite a lot. Well, I say that we enjoy a lot but really we don’t have a good time, but at home I say that we enjoy ourselves a lot, but we have never eaten as badly. One day, a Sunday we went out, a day we were so lucky that we have a pine that was not occupied, we have a “paella” with ants, because he have only had ants. “Let it!” And I said: “let it” because it was walking, that rice. My God! What a disaster having a car. Well, as I have already said the working days I don’t drive because it’s so busy, it’s horrible, and I don’t like hurting people, knocking people down, because it’s horrible, these old women, especially these old women that are going to one place to another and they never know when they can cross and they remains expressly standing up to be killed and, listen, I’m a man who doesn’t like hurting people and there is also a Highway Code, guys, if you kill them, even they are old, you must pay for them like they were new. And this, not, look. My wife is sitting next to me and she is more exciting than the other. When she sees one of these old women: “be careful, abroad! And she pitches me. Later, “Be careful, this boy!” and she pitches me again. Another one, “Be careful, a dog!”. Even the dogs, she frightens me for everything. I slammed on my brackets, listen, I can’t much more, I’m so nervous… It’s not possible, because I’ve been pitched so much that my arm seems a jelly roll. The other day we dare, we dare to drive to Palafrugell, this was the intention but we stop in Montgat, because you know how the coast road is in summer. But of course we didn’t spend a coin on petrol. I have already know the secret, you must join the queue, let the car neutral, and the car behind you beats yours and go ahead, listen, you don’t spend money on petrol. Having a car is a big advantage, it’s easy to be proved, a friend of us, by the way, they are new wealthy people, they have five cars, one for each children, and they have already asked one for the maid. She has asked for 500 pessetes per hour and a 600. Listen, that’s life, these women are so demanding. Well, this people, who, in fact, they are new rich people, you know, the woman told me last day that they had a mansion with three swimming-pools built. She says: “Look, one with cold water, another with hot water and one without water for people who cannot swim.” Well, guys, there are different kinds of people. Well, these people have got five, five children and the husband is not very healthy. Obviously, nobody is healthy with five children. So, she says that the car is a good solution to live calm. Well, ladies and gentlemen, these people, they say that in spite the inconvenient, the best thing is having a car. And they are very attentive people, too. I remind another situation, the day I went to greet them. In the hall, the woman, who is too much kind, said: “Please, put on your hat.” This kind of sentences that people have the habit of saying. “Please, put on your hat.” And I didn’t say anything. “Please, sir, put on your hat. Put on your hat.” And I finally said: “If you don’t mind you must let me your husband hat because I have come without it, you know?” Of course, the woman didn’t find it funny, but I had to say that. Well, ladies and gentlemen, if you have a car, you have already known the troubles and the inconvenient. My God! Our ancestor said: “At this rate I don’t know what will become of us./ But we are going to say very soon: “At this rate I don’t know”.

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Table 5. Very basic definitions of the (world) reality. Human Types

Misogyny The mother-in-law (being pretentious) The old women who move with pain The women (wife). The hysteric women (wife) The bourgeois woman, untruthfully kind. The maid The father (long-suffering) The pretensious bourgeois. The new wealthy men and women. The thrifty and mean catalan man The dummy guy – The policemen

Possible Narratives. Plausible stories about the social reality.

The clapping people (people who sing and dance flamenco) Plausible parodic stories: The main character was very anxious because of the ownership of a car (600) The wife, the mother-in-law and the son ask the man for bying a car, explaining him that everybody has one. The man can bear the family complaints. Applying for a car is very hard. When they get the new car, they have new problems. They should keep an eye on it all the night. The father decide to pay a watchman to watch the automobile. The narrator and his family, as usually people do, start to go on a journey out of the city. He doesn’t drive the working days because it’s very busy. The old women can’t cross easily the streets and the drivers are on trouble.

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The wife become very nervous because his husband driving. The new wealthy friends have bought five car for their children and the have had a mansion built. The maid is asking for a salary per hour and some important labor privileges. The new wealthy man has bought five cars for each song and daughter and he has had a masion built. Because the new wealthy man has five children his health is going worst. Definitions of social value.

The new wealthy wife is extremely kind. Buying and having a car is a big problem. The father should be patient with his pretentious family. Living with the mother-in-law is a bad luck. Apply for a car is extremely difficult because of the bureaucracy. Going on journey on Sunday, even it’s very fashionable are considered very hard by the father. Everybody, even the maids, wants to earn a lot of money and living in a very comfortable way

Life worlds. Universes of experience.

The car as an status sign. The emblematic car, Seat 600 The powerful sociosymbolic dimension of this car model, a pioneering symbol of the new consumerism in the Spanish society in the sixties of the Twentieth-Century. The anxiety that involves to have and drive a car. The family discussions The mother-in-law and the daugther living together. The family such a pain in the neck asking for unnecessary goods.

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The car concessionary as a commercial and cultural innovation The popular classes being complety devoted for a new car. The popular tourism out of the city on Sunday. The new overcrowded tourism. The women’s hysteria because the driving. The troubles because the driving in the city. The old people hesitation because of the traffic. The coast road during the summers. The savings and meanness of the Catalan bourgeois and burgess. The new wealthy man and women ostentation in the consumer society. The mansion (burgeois house). The present democratic wishes of social welfare. The maid’s present aspirations. The father wear to feed his children. The hypocritical overeducation in the bourgeois family Places and festivites formulated in terms of Typicity. Topotypes and Cronotypes.

Group rituals and habits full of typicity.

Topotypes: Barcelona (an elliptical reference but very obvious) Palafrugell, an emblematic place for the new overcrowded tourism Cronotypes: Sundays and working days Family lunch Football (goalkeepers) The urban middle class family journeys to the country. Working days vs holidays

Elements of the group material culture full of typicity.

Putting on the hat when people go out the house The 600 (car) The car concessionary A jelly roll

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It’s language. Linguistic resources formulated in terms of typicity. Logotypes.

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Vocabulary full of typicity or Catalan ethnolinguistic heritage: “velles” (“aquestes velles”, amb referències a les dones grans), “gamarús”. Heritage Vocabulary: “mullers” Castillianisms: “osadia” Colloquialisms: “còdik (de circulació)”, “amics nostrus”, “ventatja” Typical idioms: “Com un boig”, “Mare meva”, “quin escàndol!”, “Quins preus!”, “mica en mica” “senyors de mols diners” Set expressions or with a remarkable intention of social reputation: “si les mates, per molt velles que siguin, te les fan pagar per noves”, “donar guerra” (“a la guerra que em va donar”, “jo mut” “Això s’està posant pitjor que lo de Cuba”, “Déu lo guard”, “gràcies a Déu, ja hi ha pau i tranquil·litat”, “és quan surt més barato”, “el món es posa aixís”, “hi ha gent per tot”, “Al pas que (a)nem, no sé on (a)nirem a parar.” Modismes típics: “la guerra de l’any 600”, “mamà política”, “aquestes dones d’edat” (les dones velles).

Typical references to the present times.

Epilogue: customism versus folk song and ‘popular culture’ in the ethical recreation of some sense of catalanity The deep social transformations occurred since the end of the fifties of the twentieth-century involve the complete substitution of the customism we have already studied in the first pages of this text: a customism that opts for current and urban periods and settings; a customism we have described as “modern” and that emerges in the literature and shows in Catalan from the tens of the twentieth-century onwards. On the other hand the changes produced in the first decades of the 20th century led to the definitive disappearance of the historicist or traditionalist rural customism, which had provided the most basic registers in La Renaixença.

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Why does the last substitution of the narrative genres and traditions understood as customism take place from the sixties onwards? Why does the final substitution of some community traditions and narrative genres take place in these years? Why do these years are the end of some narrative traditions which deal with the community life in terms of either criticism or censurship or in terms of game and humour? For the fact that the social changes that occur at the moment are not only the definite end of the premodern rural community recreations, but they also bring about the gradual substitution of the recreations of modern urban community senses. We must bear in mind that these last recreations mainly related to Barcelona are the ones we gheve analysed. Throughout this article, we have tried to study the modern customism in the literature and shows in Catalan in the twentieth-century, and we have also tried to establish the most important feature of this customism: the typism. Once here, we can wonder: have the substitutions of the expressions and traditions of customism and, especially, its modern expressions led to the end of customism in the artistic creation in the last decades between the twentieth and twenty-first century? Has there been a substitution of customism in the theatre, songs, humour, etc.? If we have to understand customism as the paraliterary and paratheatrical genres aimed at the typification (usually parodic) of the human behaviour, this customism has remained increasingly successful in the mass media during the last decades. However, this customism involves some features that prevent us from referring to it in the classical or traditional sense of the word. What are these features? Firstly, the laxity in both the scope and the commitment of community sense that has been the most important factor in the genesis and production of the customism in its traditional sense. Or, in other words, what has been intensified with this community laxity is the pre-eminence of the personalized looks when describing the typification of social behaviours and a certain dramatic hypertrophy in the evocations of these typifications. This can be easily contrasted in the monologues, sketches, gags, some kind of songs from the eighties of the twentieth-century onwards. However, during this period some different cultural productions have been opened with evident common aspects with the registers and traditions of customism in the most precise sense. Some examples can

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be mentioned: TV series like Doctor Caparrós, medicina general (1979– 1980) by Joan Capri, Els Grau o Teresina S.A. (1992) by La Cubana, some shows played by Lloll Bertran, some songs sung by Els Pets, Quimi Portet or JM Cantimplora, the masked character of Francesc Ribera (Titot). We have just mentioned the substitution of customism in the literature and shows in Catalan. Does this substitution involve the end of some forms of the ethnic typism in the Catalan literature and culture? It does not mean the end. Some cultural forms that codify new forms of ethnic typism – folk music and “popular culture” – emerge just in the last period of this substitution of customism during the sixties and seventies of the twentieth-century. Thus, folk music and ‘popular culture’ take the baton from the customism largely developed in the 19th century and 20th century in order to create some senses of catalanity or community value. However, it has been done according to some sociocritical experiences, some principles and ethnical codifying registers and some quite different senses of catalanity. We will see it briefly. A group of expressions that have in common the recreation of referents and senses from the secular popular tradition emerge in Catalonia – with echoes in all the Catalan countries – between the last sixties and the early eighties of the twentieth-century. These are the years of the folk dawn and some eclectic styles that incorporates folk in the music and songs.62 It is an especially fertile moment for alternative and experimental theatre groups (puppets and cirque): theatre in the street, the festive one, with puppets, etc.63 It is the moment when new popular festivals with the vindication of the streets and the popular character as principal features emerge.64 These are also the years when the label 62

63 64

Folk groups, Uc, Om, Ara va de Bo, Els Tres Tambors, Coses, la Companyia Elèctrica Dharma, Esquirols, La Murga, etc. are the emblematic groups of this phenomenon. And Pau Riba, Jaume Sisa, Jordi Batiste, Jordi Sabartés, Oriol Tramvia, Toti Soler, Ton Rulló, Jordi Fàbregas, Jaume Arnella, Xesco Boix, Miquel A. Tena, etc. are the singers. Some very well-known examples are Els Joglars, Comediants, La Fura dels Baus, Putxinel.lis Claca, L’Estaquirot, Titelles Naip, Marduix, Circ Cric, etc, etc. The street theatre fair of Tàrrega (1981), The Witches’ Sabbat of Cervera (1878) or the Spring Festivals celebrated in the Corb valley during the early eighties are very indicative samples of this new model of popular festivals that recreate some aspects of the popular tradition in accordance with some very typical emergent principles during this period.

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“popular culture” becomes successful to refer to these and other expressions65 and, in fact, to allude to a new cultural category that is characterized by some typical elements from the rural tradition recreated according to some ethic and ideological principles (characteristic from postmodernity), which are born from the transformations that happened in the sixties and seventies of the twentieth-century; we refer to a feeling of being the centre of attention, hedonism, in formalism, playfulness…; environmentalism, pacifism, ethic and moral progressivism). Thus, in the popular culture or folk it coexists some identities with a very local sense and some others with a universal one. That is why we can also make reference to glocal expressions. The abovementioned expressions have parallelisms in the western and Latin American world and in relation to some of them such as the most advanced folk or folk-rock, have a great influence from the music from the USA. This type of music is remarkably different from the Setze Jutges songs and, especially, from its first singers, who have the influence of the chanson, mainly Brassens. We have already mentioned that the folk or the “popular culture” that appeared in the Catalan culture from the end of the sixties of the twentieth-century are essentially different from the customism developed in this culture from the Renaissance so far. What are their differences? Firstly, while customism expresses some senses of pre-national catalanity (some definitions of Catalonia that are under a national conception), folk or “popular culture” usually express some senses of postnational catalanity that go beyond the modern conception of the nation. Secondly, while customism involves some conceptions of pre-modern catalanism – or rather not strictly modern –, the folk expressions – or the “popular culture” ones – are closer to a postmodern catalanism. Finally, the most basic difference is the following: although all these expressions have community senses of catalanity, they have remarkable differences. While customism recalls some social conceptions inspired in the rural or protourban community tradition and it shows these conceptions as contemporary and close, in folk or popular culture this sense of communitas is mainly intuited, which does not necessarily 65

The 50 Hours Catalan Art Festival (about poetry, music and art), celebrated in Balaguer from the 29th to 31 March in 1975 – some months before the end of the Dictatorship – is very indicative (and original) of this new conception of popular culture.

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concern near surroundings and it is recalled from the recreation of emblematic elements of the rural tradition.66 Although we are studying the Catalan culture; we cannot forget that these are some phenomena that appear in a lot of societies. Thus, we should wonder what experiences stimulate the dawn and the successful of the folk and popular culture between the sixties and seventies of the twentieth-century? What are the developed experiences that have appeared until now? Or rather, what are the differences between the previous customism? Of course, the most basic critical experiences that have stimulated the folk and the popular culture since they appeared until now have been some perceptions and feelings of a deep crisis regarding the communitas, and especially, regarding the own communitas; some feelings of an extreme crisis about the possibility of the survival of the communitas. We must bear in mind that the concept of communitas now correspond to the representations of original rural surroundings, which are more intuited than conceptual with will of historical present as it used to happened in customism. What are the factors that stimulate this kind of perceptions situated in the cognitive and social basis of the folk and the popular culture? The deep economical, social, semiotic, existential, media … transformations, started in the second half of the twentieth-century especially in the western society. They are a group of changes that makes societies more complex and they involve some collective perceptions with regard to complexity, transnational globalization in the symbolical and cultural order, a panoramic sense in the social reality perception, some sensitive excitement… And this kind of perceptions and assessments finally lead to an increasing disappointment experience towards the world to an increasing crisis of the reflexive and moral reason, in intensification of anomic experiences and finally to the crisis of the modern nation (or the State-Nation) as an essential structures of collective identity. 66

The same names of the emblematic groups of Catalan folk of the seventies, like Uc from Ibiza or Esquirols from Osona are illustrative of this whish of being original in the identification: thus, while the name of the first group comes from a typical archaic cry of Ibiza, used not only in some festive moments but also in some protests, the second one is the place name of the group’s members village and refers us to very characteristic element, Collsacabra, the region and the mountain where the village – Esquirol – is situated.

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The feelings of sharp crisis in relation to the communitas experienced from the sixties in the 20th century lead to new exercises (songs, literary works, shows, etc…) of reelaboration and redefinition of the rural tradition with community senses. In these recreations, those highlighted referents are usually shown as authentic or original of the popular tradition. On the other hand, these recreations tend to oscillate between two poles of meaning: the local and the universal referents. They usually express glocal visions. Therefore, from some emphasis on the local referent – in some local traditions –, these recreations lead to universal senses. The presence of national senses in these evocations might be very different. The radicalization of the aforementioned macrosocial conditions, from the nineties of the 20th century until now, have radicalized the perceptions of crisis related to communitas. If we do not take into consideration this phenomenon, we cannot understand the intense extension of folk or the so-called popular culture happened at this time. This invigoration has gone with two basic phenomena in relation to their specific expressions. On the one hand, increases in the idiosyncratic will of the tradition specified in some emblematic referents. On the other hand, an increasing localization of the geographic reference frames.

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Questions of artistic and personal identity in the interwar poetry of J.V. Foix1 Montserrat ROSER University of Kent

J. V. Foix is one of those writers who defy conventional classification, not only due to the varied nature of his work but also because the writer plays with the identitary question, often changing his character.2 As Gabriel Ferrater once said, ‘For an author to be diverse is particularly irritating to the critic, because he scatters his playing cards’,3 and in the case of Foix critics have occupied themselves trying to rationalize him either by placing him within a tendency such as modernism or by contrasting him to the artists and other writers of his time. However, these attempts do not appear to have fully established what kind of identity his poems represent: that of J.V.Foix the citizen of Sarrià,4 that of Foix the avant garde writer, that of Foix editor and political commentator,5 that of Foix the poet, or that of a fictional character who did not personally get involved in any of the actions he described. In 1929, in ‘Algunes reflexions sobre la pròpia literatura’, Foix himself provided certain explanations which, instead of clarifying his approach, I believe obfuscated the question even more. He told us:

1

2 3 4 5

This study was elaborated in the framework of the Aula Màrius Torres Research Group from the Universitat de Lleida, recognized by the Generalitat de Catalunya (2009 SGR 423), and of the project HUM2007-64739/FILO of the Ministry of Science and Innovation. My analysis addresses the questions of artistic and personal identity in the interwar poetic works of J.V. Foix’, focusing especially on Gertrudis, KRTU and Sol, i de dol. Gabriel Ferrater, “prefaci”, Josep Vicenç Foix, Els lloms transparents (Barcelona: Edicions 62, 1969), pp. 7–17, especially, p. 8. See the biography of: Manuel Guerrero, J. V. Foix investigador en poesia (Barcelona: Empúries, 1996). See the article by Gómez Inglada and his evaluation of the position of Foix toward fascism and catalanism pp. 35–36, pp. 39–40 and pp. 42–48.

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Si m’acuso de la meva immoderació […] és perquè, en reflexionar sobre l’origen de la meva posició espiritual davant l’objectivació literària dels meus estats psíquics, de la meva indolència a evitar-la, del meu impudor a abandonar-la a ple carrer com una sabata inservible, una llauna de peix infecte o uns llegums rebutjats mal embolicats en un paper de diari, em cal partir de les hores de vida més intenses de la meva adolescència, en la qual jo m’havia promès que la meva mà no signaria mai el meu nom, que seria inexorable en la realització de la meva personalitat, la qual aspirava a projectar, desmaterialitzada, com una ombra breu que llisqués damunt la mar, perceptible tot just un moment pels peixos, o damunt el cel llis de tardor albirada un instant per un vol d’ocells. 6 If I accuse myself of immoderation […] it is because, when reflecting on the origin of my spiritual position toward the literary objectification of my mental states, of my indolence in avoiding it, of my shamelessness to abandoning it in the middle of the street like a useless shoe, a tin of rotten fish or some discarded legumes shoddily wrapped in newspaper, I need to start out from the most intense hours of my adolescence, when I promised myself that my hand would never sign my name, that I would be inexorable in the implementation of my personality, which I aspired to project, dematerialized, like a brief shadow that slides over the sea, perceptible for a brief moment by the fish, or spotted an instant by a flight of birds in a clear autumn sky.

Firstly, this desire for anonymity, which is easy to associate with iconoclastic avant-garde tendencies, will rapidly disappear (Foix talks of how, when he got older, he “betrayed this aspiration”), giving way to a literary production peculiar for being intimate yet, at the same time, objectified and representing: …un clam de vençut, un fenomen de dissociació espiritual similar al que els homes de ciència assenyalen com a conseqüència de la mort d’un organisme, amb els seus desdoblaments, dispersió total i àdhuc, destrucció.7 …a cry of defeat, a phenomenon of spiritual dissociation similar to what men of science indicate as a consequence of the death of an organism, with its unravelling, total dispersion and even, destruction.

Hence, when Foix published his first two collections of prose poems, Gertrudis (1927) and KRTU (1932), his work was not received with much acclaim,8 but was interpreted as a product of the time and as a 6 7 8

Josep Vicenç Foix, Obra poètica en vers i prosa i obra poètica dispersa (Barcelona: Edicions 62 – Diputació de Barcelona, 2000), p. 40. Josep Vicenç Foix, Obra poètica en vers i prosa…, p. 40. Carme Arnau, “J. V. Foix”, Antologia poètica, Pere Gimferrer, ed. (Barcelona: MOLC, 1980), p. 6.

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representative of a particular version of modernism. This perspective has lasted for many years, with critics like Josep Miquel Sobrer documenting notable “imagistic similarities” between Foix and Dalí9 at both the visual artistic level (emphasizing the similarities of the images of Gertrudis with those of Un chien andalous, and the Onirism of KRTU, which he related to the “conical anamorphosis” of Gala and the Àngelus de Millet),10 as well as the aesthetic level, as, according to him ‘Both creators are aware of the artistic tradition behind them and of the transcendence that referring to it – which in critical argot is called intertextuality – has for their art and for modern art in general’.11 In fact, these two collections were considered examples of immature poetry from the point of view of the projection of the author’s identity and his poetic voice.12 And the later publication of Sol, i de dol complicated things even more, as related by Ferrater: Després de Gertrudis i de KRTU, Foix tenia l’obligació de continuar fent surrealisme: per molt boirós que allò es veiés, en tot cas ja sabíem si fa no fa el color d’aquella boira. Però quan va publicar Sol, i de dol! Quina insolència: un llibre de sonets, i encara de sonets que no es podien qualificar sinó de pre-petrarquistes, un llibre tan “culturalista” que no porta mas menys de quinze epígrafs, d’autors el més modern dels quals és Roiç de Corella. I després vam anar de mal a pitjor: […] cada llibre nou ha encès noves possibilitats de varietat.13 After Gertrudis and KRTU, Foix was obliged to continue doing surrealism: however foggy it looked, in any event we more or less already knew the colour of that fog. But when he published Sol, i de dol! What insolence: a book of sonnets, and what’s more of sonnets that could only be qualified as pre-Petrarchist, such a “culturalist” book which contains no fewer than fifteen epigraphs, of authors the most modern of whom is Roiç de Corella. And then we went from bad to worse: […] each new book had ignited new possibilities of variety.

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10 11 12

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Josep Miquel Sobrer, “J. V. Foix, Salvador Dalí y la modernidad”, El aeroplano y la estrella: El movimiento de vanguardia en los Países Catalanes (1904–1936), Joan Ramon Resina, ed. (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1997), pp. 131–150, especially, p. 135. Josep Miquel Sobrer, “J. V. Foix, Salvador Dalí…”, pp. 136–137. Josep Miquel Sobrer, “J. V. Foix, Salvador Dalí…”, pp. 142–143. Sobrer explained that ‘Although for both of them, albeit in very different ways, vanguardism ends up as youthful peccadillo, we cannot deny that both Dalí and Foix attain artistic maturity after the acid test of endless theoretic-dogmatic manifestations’: Josep Miquel Sobrer, “J. V. Foix, Salvador Dalí…”, p. 146. Gabriel Ferrater, “Prefaci…”, pp. 8–9.

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The initial reception, however, gradually changed, even though Sobrer interpreted the third book as part of the same modernism, defining it as ‘An invitation, among other things, to re-read a metric discredited at that time; in the same way as much of Dali’s painting is an invitation to “re-read” discredited pictorial techniques, such as those of Jean Louis Ernest Meisonnier (1815–1891) or Modest Urgell (1839–1919).’14 Terry was the one who noted that the combination of the old and the new might not represent such a grave internal contradiction as was originally imagined: On the surface, it’s likely that his respect for the earliest poetry in Catalan and Provençal served to balance his interest in avant-garde writing. However, the more we read his poetry, the more we’re made to realize the unexpected links which join the two ends of the spectrum. More than once he’s described his prose poems as semblances; fantasies which nevertheless are ‘real’ to the extent that they reflect, however tangentially, the personality of the writer. There’s no question here of autobiographical writing: he talks of the need, not to confess, but to express himself, to ‘realize his personality’.15

And it is this reflection of personality, this materialization of the writer, which has allowed us to re-analyze Foix’s artistic and poetic identity and to update it. Hence, as Claire Zimmermann explains, especially in the prose poems, ‘the speaker is presented as a writer – not necessarily as Foix, but as someone who essentially dedicates himself to the practice of the word’.16 If we take for example the prose poem ‘Plaça CatalunyaPedralbes’, from Gertrudis,17 we can follow the protagonist’s tram journey, written in the first person in an intimate, ironic and graphic tone, which describes the intense feeling of impotence of the individual in front of the changing and unlikely circumstances surrounding him: 14 15

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Josep Miquel Sobrer, “J. V. Foix, Salvador Dalí…”, p. 143. Arthur Terry, “The Poetry of J. V. Foix”, Readings of J. V. Foix, Arthur Terry, ed. (Barcelona: Anglo-Catalan Society Occasional Publications, 1998), pp. 57–79, especially, p. 59. Marie-Claire Zimmermann, “¡The speaker in the language of J. V. Foix: Construction and function of the poetic voice (Sol, i de dol)!”, Readings of J. V. Foix…, pp. 97– 117, especially, p. 193. And not only of the word, but also, as Keown explains (121), of humour. Josep Vicenç Foix, Obra poètica en vers i prosa…, pp. 20 –22.

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Acabava de llençar el meu bitllet, quan l’inspector, bufat, em refusà l’excusa: calia abonar de nou el trajecte. Contra el costum, fou ell mateix qui em lliurà rebut: un manyoc de bitllets multicolor em floria de sobte entre mans mentre l’inspector em befava amb cadència perquè distingís el meu. El seu esguard, voraç, em xuclava les rels del cabell i em sentia per moments esdevenir calb. Hauria alçat el braç, amenaçador, si la fúnebre sensació de tenir-lo amputat sota l’aixella no m’hagués aturat la voluntat i enterbolit el seny, el qual s’obstinava a engrandir una llàntia groga que l’inspector lluïa arran mateix d’un botó amb imatgeria d’ex-vot. […] Arribats al peu d’una alzina, l’inspector va reprendre aquell mirar que impossibilitava un refús i m’obligà a cenyir, damunt la carn viva un cilici. Vaig creure en el meu pròxim traspàs. Enmig del turment vaig endevinar que les pues, cares als penitents, havien estat substituïdes hàbilment per lletres d’acer reblat del caràcter de les que en els catàlegs de fundició tipogràfica hom anomena titulars grotesques, i llegia, closos els ulls, però a través de ferides sagnants, un poema de Ramon Rucabado.18 I had just thrown my ticket away when the inspector, furious, rejected my excuse: I had to for the journey again. Against the custom, he himself gave me the receipt: a bunch of multi-coloured notes suddenly flowered in my hands while the inspector scornfully urged me to identify which was mine. His gaze, voracious, sucked at the roots of my hair and made me feel per moments turning bald. I would have raised my arm, threateningly, if a funereal sensation of it having been amputated under the armpit had not blocked my will and clouded my wisdom, which persisted in enlarging a yellow stain that the inspector had right next to a button decorated with votive imagery. […] Reaching the foot of an evergreen oak, the inspector resumed that expression that made a refusal impossible and forced me to place a cilice directly on my flesh. I believed in my approaching death. In the midst of the torment, I noted that the spikes, facing inwards to the penitents, had been skilfully replaced with by steel letters with characters that the typeset catalogues call Headline Grotesque, and I read, with narrowed eyes, but through bloody wounds, a poem by Ramon Rucabado.

As we can see in this excerpt, the real elements of the poetic text are contrasted by the fantastic elements which progressively reinforce the intensity of the protagonist’s feelings of increasing terror, until they reach the limit where the weapons that torture him turn out not only to be the words and the poetic elements themselves but also the disfigured presence of the poets of the time (such as Ramon Rucabado, Josep Maria López-Picó or Joaquim Folguera). Hence the position of the protagonist within his poetic context is defined through the horror, the anguish and the suffering caused to him by the sudden appearances of his counter-models.

18

Josep Vicenç Foix, Obra poètica en vers…, pp. 20–21.

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Moreover, in ‘On aniré tot sol’, from KRTU,19 we see how the protagonist narrates in retrospective the experience of becoming a house painter, which becomes another of those anguishing situations in which words, or rather letters, physically take on a disproportionately violent and even traumatic force, while also becoming weapons of defence. Vaig aconseguir que em deixessin ésser pintor de parets. Dret, dalt d’un tauló sostingut per dues escales, pinto rètols a totes les cases: COTILLAIRE, COTILLAIRE, COTILLAIRE, COTILLAIRE.20 I managed to make them allow me to be a house painter. Standing on a plank over two ladders, I paint signs on all the houses: CORSETIÈRE, CORSETIÈRE, CORSETIÈRE, CORSETIÈRE.

Thereby we see that the character of the narration is no longer identifiable with the poet’s person, but rather we are presented with a situation which not only questions the identification of the individual with his own vocation but also the identity and the role of the poet in society, his need for freedom of expression; the frustration produced by the lack of recognition and professionalization of the writer and the subversive potential of the use of superficially harmless words when written in an inappropriate context. He concludes that: Amb un carbó que tinc dibuixaré una ratlla a la paret de totes les cases, començant per la barraca dels burots i acabant per la rectoria. A la torre del portal nou de la carretera pintaré un rètol que dirà COTILLAIRE i, tot posant-me el barret ben de cantó i amb un pot de vernís a cada mà, m’amagaré darrere l’atzavarar de cal Canet per a escoltar al fons de mi mateix les cançons que em sangloten a la gorja i moren a flor de boca.21 With a charcoal I have, I will draw a line on the wall of all the houses, beginning with the hut of the guardians and finishing with the rectory. On the tower of the new gateway on the road I will paint a sign that will say CORSETIÈRE and, with my hat tilted at a jaunty angle and with a tin of varnish in each hand, I will hide behind the agave of the Canets’ house to listen deep inside myself the songs that sobbed in my throat and die on my lips.

Indeed, this justification of the right to express the musical lyrics that well up from within the character is an attitude which is subtly contin19 20 21

Josep Vicenç Foix, Obra poètica en vers…, pp. 51–52. Josep Vicenç Foix, Obra poètica en vers…, p. 51. Josep Vicenç Foix, Obra poètica en vers…, p. 52.

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ued in Sol, i de dol22 where J.V. Foix confirms his modernity using, precisely, classic references and themes which show an aspiration to posterity through poetry. Once more, it is through the “unsaid”, by contrast, or rather by a subtle intellectual exercise which requires the reader to identify the shortcomings produced by the patent anguish in the voice of the poet, that the author’s identity unfolds before our eyes: Oh! Si prudent i amb paraula lleugera Sabés fixar l’imperi de la ment, I amb hàbils mots, la passió naixent, Del meu estil pogués fer presonera; Si, fugitiu de la faisó estrangera, Arromancés en dura nit, dolent, L’amor del Tot i el Res, sense esment Del fosc i el rar, i a l’aspriva manera Dels qui en vulgar parlaren sobirà, –Oh Llull! Oh March!–, i am claredat de signes, Rústec però sever, pogués rimar Pels qui vindran; si, ponderats i dignes, Els meus dictats guanyessin el demà, Sense miralls ni atzurs, arpes ni cignes! O! If prudently and with light speech I could fix the empire of the mind, And with skilful words could make budding passion The prisoner of my style; If, fleeing foreign fashions, I could put into Romance, in harsh night, suffering, The love of All and Nothing, not to mention The dark and the rare, and in the abrupt manner Of those who spoke supremely in the vulgar tongue – O Llull! O March! – and with clarity of signs, Rustic but severe, I could rhyme For those who will come; if, pondered and worthy, My statements could reach to tomorrow, Without mirrors or azures, harps or swans!

Hence, the writer’s role is questioned once more, not now from a perspective of confusion but rather from one of stimulation to analyze the 22

Josep Vicenç Foix, Obra poètica en vers…, pp. 72–73.

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creative act, which to an extent justifies the formal choice and content of the poem when he declares that: Entre sospirs, el seny interrogava Si veia just: ¿Les imatges funestes Eren en mi o en la natura brava? I m’ho pregunt encara en mil requestes: Les ficcions –i jo en visc!–, ¿ fan esclava La ment, o són els seus camins celestes? Between sighs, the sanity questioned If you just saw: The dire images Were they in me or in the wild nature? And I ask myself in a thousand requests: The fictions – and I live in it! –, enslave The mind, or are his ways heavenly?

Moreover, as observed by Jordi Malé in his commentary on the sonnet ‘Si en cru matí naveguen en mar corsa’, from the first section of Sol i de dol, the literary associations established by Foix in his creations could easily be a mirroring of the writer’s ideological positions at a personal level: Res no impedeix de creure […] que en concebre els mariners del seu sonet, Foix volgués fer una amalgama de trets provinents d’algunes d’aquestes fonts [dels poetes clàssics i dels del Renaixement entre altres] per confegir un model ideal de l’heroi, amb el qual expressaria, literàriament, el seu vitalisme i el seu gust per l’aventura en tots els ordres de la vida.23 Nothing impedes the belief […] that in conceiving the sailors of his sonnet, Foix intended to amalgamate traits from some of these sources [from the Classic and Renaissance poets among others] in order to conjure an ideal hero model with which to express, literarily, his vitality and his liking for adventure in all spheres of life.

Or, what is more, again with specific reference to this sonnet, these ties could go as far as to reflect the poet’s political projection, as: no resulta gens inversemblant de relacionar-lo directament amb les idees polítiques de Foix, i més concretament, sobre la necessitat d’instaurar una educació militar amb vista a la formació d’un exèrcit (baldament això últim no fos factible a 23

Jordi Malé, “Per una educació militar, lectura política d’un sonet de J. V. Foix”, Miscelània Joaquim Molas 5, Estudis de Llengua i Literatura catalanes LX (Barcelona: Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat, 2010), pp. 153–164, especially, p. 158.

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Catalunya). Li serveix de model el gloriós passat català per la Mediterrània medieval, a l’esperit del qual reclama fidelitat –una fidelitat que ell mateix va expressar tant en articles [a Monitor, especialment] com en sonets de Sol i de dol, bo i pensant en la reconstrucció del país, incloent-hi la seva i la seva llengua. 24 it is not at all incongruous to relate it directly to Foix’s political ideas, and more specifically to the need to establish a military education with a view to forming an army (although the latter was not feasible in Catalonia). The glorious Catalan past of the Medieval Mediterranean serves as his model, and he demands loyalty to its spirit – loyalty that he himself expressed in articles [especially in Monitor] as well as in sonnets of Sol i de dol, with the reconstruction of the country in mind, including its language.

Because this has often been the attitude of poets, to mirror the concerns and aspirations of the society surrounding them and to react personally and literarily to circumstances in a more or less disguised form. This is how the poet’s voice emerges and how, in the sonnets of Sol, i de dol: The structure is an increasingly intense conglomeration of antithetical groups, of places, times and experiences, which because of their plurality allow one to construct the unity of the | speaker.25

This is precisely the understanding that leads Joan Teixidor to the conclusion that ‘Foix’s work is a compact block [in which the] themes, obsessions, images, names and all, will forever repeat themselves’26, so that ‘it will be an illumination rather than an evolution’.27 Therefore, although it is true that Foix’s modernism is clear in some collections, I do not agree with Teixidor when he says that: L’avantguardisme, i més concretament el surrealisme o un cert surrealisme, seria un dels perns de la personalitat poètica de Foix i tantes altres màscares successives amb què s’embolcalla el seu estre no podrien desvirtuar-ho.28 Avant-garde movement, and more specifically surrealism, or a certain kind of surrealism, would be one of the hinges of Foix’s poetic personality and something that none of the many successive masks he uses to wrap his being could undermine.

24 25 26 27 28

Jordi Malé, “Per una educació militar…”, p. 164. Marie-Claire Zimmermann, “The speaker in the language of J. V. Foix…”, p. 105. Joan Teixidor, “Quatre notes sobre la poesia de J. V. Foix”, Els Marges, 7 (1976), pp. 7–12. Joan Teixidor, “Quatre notes sobre la poesía…”, pp. 7–12. Joan Teixidor, “Quatre notes sobre la poesia…”, p. 9.

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Neither do I believe that Foix’s medievalism originates from the concept of ‘poetry as a method of knowledge’,29 but rather I am more inclined to share Ferrater’s view: Escrivint, Foix no “se cerca ell mateix”, com diuen: al contrari, parteix d’ell mateix com d’un donat real, d’allò que ell és ja quan es posa a escriure, i cerca de crear un organisme expressiu rotund, amb un màxim de precisió i de suggestivitat.30 When writing Foix is not “searching for himself ”, as they say: on the contrary, he starts from himself as a real base, from what he already is when he starts writing, and seeks to create an outright expressive organism, with maximum precision and suggestiveness.

I do not see our poet, like Ausiàs March, interrogating himself ‘about himself, with a painful desire to overcome his own contradictions,’31 or that Foix’s conscious intention is to ‘express himself in the manner of poets seeking their own identity through personal confessions.’32 But I do agree with Teixidor when he says that there is ‘an area where the poet always presents himself to us without hesitations and with exemplary arrogance’ which ‘is the moment when the ground beneath him and its fateful vicissitudes demand his personal intervention’ in which ‘the poet feels […] responsible and is aware of a collective’.33 This way, as we are reminded by Malé, Foix writes his poems ‘out of servitude to the language and the community’.34 At the individual level we can see that when adopting certain avantgarde methods Foix, ‘against the romantic flowering of the feeling’, […] ‘imposes arbitrariness; […] which explicitly presents a poetic self, distancing itself from the beating of his heart, so that a vision of nature arbitrated by man’s hand and by the artist can prevail’35. This produces ‘intellectualized and independent poetry’36, which ends up representing a broader 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

Joan Teixidor, “Quatre notes sobre la poesia…”, p. 10. Gabriel Ferrater, “Prefaci…”, p. 9. Joan Teixidor, “Quatre notes sobre la poesia…”, p. 10. Arthur Terry, “La idea de l’ordre en la poesia de J. V. Foix”, Serra d’Or, (1973), pp. 41–43. Joan Teixidor, “Quatre notes sobre la poesia…”, p. 11. Josep Vicenç Foix, Lletra a Clara Subirós, quoted by: Jordi Malé, “Per una educació militar, lectura política…”, p. 164. Jordi Marrugat, “Joaquim Folguera i J. V. Foix. Dos poetes al servei d’un projecte literari i polític (1915–1931)”, Estudis Romànics, 31 (2009), pp. 219–260, especially, 223. Jordi Marrugat, “Joaquim Folguera i J. V. Foix…”, p. 228.

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identity, shared with many other people. In fact, the reading of interwar Foixian poetry often shows that, as Terry states, even when the poet speaks of his “personality”, ‘he seems to refer, no to a set of more or less recognizable human traits, but rather to something that should only be revealed in the act of writing’.37 But it has been argued that ‘this subjectification of the object entails another result: the disintegration of the self, or, more specifically, the feeling that the self is no more than an illusion, a more or less arbitrary set of intuitions, thoughts and desires ‘[…] that wants to destroy the idea of the self as a defence against the outside world.38 Hence, paradoxically, negation of the self ends up representing ‘a release, an approximation toward a truly collective reality’.39 Unlike other critics I do not believe that this is an unsolved personality crisis40, instead it seems to me that reading the poems confirms Ferrater’s vision, according to which the essential argument of Foix’s work would be ‘the description of a personality crisis, or more precisely of a crisis of the idea of personality.41 As Foix himself said: Ara distingim els individus dins de cada grup, les evolucions de cada individu en un temps determinat; endevinem les influències immediates d’una lectura o d’un corrent espiritual damunt aquest individu. Més tard veurem només la tendència del grup i, al cap d’una època literària, es veurà una nebulosa que integraran una suma de tendències. És possible, en canvi, que d’ací a 500 anys o d’ací a un miler, el clàssic més admirat, el mestre, l’immortal sigui reemplaçat per un cal·ligramista faceciós.42 Now we distinguish the individuals in each group, the evolutions of each individual over a specific time; we perceive the immediate influences of a reading or spiritual current on this individual. Later we will only see the tendency of the group and, after a literary epoch, a nebula made up of a sum of tendencies will be seen. It is possible, in contrast, that in five hundred or a thousand years time, the most admired classic, the master, the immortal will be replaced by a facetious calligram writer.

The poetic work of the first Foixian era had little impact upon inception; later it was discarded as contradictory; rediscovered, first as part of an avant-garde movement that we can appreciate today, and then as a uni37 38 39 40 41 42

Arthur Terry, “La idea de l’ordre en la poesia…”, p. 42. Arthur Terry, “La idea de l’ordre en la poesia…”, p. 42. Arthur Terry, “La idea de l’ordre en la poesia…”, p. 42. Manuel Guerrero, J. V. Foix investigador en poesía…, pp. 53–54. Gabriel Ferrater, “Prefaci…”, p. 9. Josep Vicenç Foix, Obres completes 4. Sobre literatura i art (Barcelona: Edicions 62, 1990), p. 27.

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tary and coherent work representative of a collective identity and at the same time capable of combining a complex and stimulating identitary discourse. It would seem that with time we have gained a new perspective that has converted Foix into a communal voice and a master. Who knows what fortune awaits him in years to come…

Annexe Bibliography Carme Arnau, “J. V. Foix”, Antologia poètica, Pere Gimferrer, ed. (Barcelona: MOLC, 1980), pp. 5–9. Enric Bou, Papers privats: Assaig sobre les formes literàries autobiogràfiques (Barcelona: Edicions 62, 1993). Gabriel Ferrater, “Pròleg”, J. V. Foix, Els lloms transparents (Barcelona: Edicions 62, 1969), pp. 7–17. Josep Vicenç Foix, Obres completes 4. Sobre literatura i art (Barcelona: Edicions 62, 1990). Josep Vicenç Foix, Obra poètica en vers i prosa i obra poètica dispersa (Barcelona: Edicions 62 – Diputació de Barcelona, 2000). Manuel Guerrero, J. V. Foix investigador en poesia (Barcelona: Empúries, 1996). Pere Gómez, “El foixista Feix?: Etiquetes que amaguen la realitat”, Journal of Catalan Studies, 32–48 (2008). Dominic Keown, “The ironic vision of J. V. Foix”, Readings of J. V. Foix (Barcelona: ACSOP, 1998), pp. 119–132. Jordi Malé, “Per una educació militar, lectura política d’un sonet de J. V. Foix”, Miscelània Joaquim Molas 5, Estudis de Llengua i Literatura catalanes LX (Barcelona: Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat, 2010), pp. 153–164. Jordi Marrugat, “Joaquim Folguera i J. V. Foix. Dos poetes al servei d’un projecte literari i polític (1915–1931)”, Estudis Romànics, 31 (2009), pp. 219–260. Josep Miquel Sobrer, “J. V. Foix, Salvador Dalí y la modernidad”, El aeroplano y la estrella: El movimiento de vanguardia en los Países Catalanes (1904–1936), Joan Ramon Resina, ed. (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1997), pp. 131–150. Joan Teixidor, “Quatre notes sobre la poesia de J. V. Foix”, Els Marges, 7 (1976), pp. 7–12. Arthur Terry, “La idea de l’ordre en la poesia de J. V. Foix”, Serra d’Or (1976), pp. 41–43. Arthur Terry, “The Poetry of J. V. Foix”, Readings of J. V. Foix (Barcelona: ACSOP, 1998), pp. 57–79. Marie-Claire Zimmermann, “The speaker in the language of J. V. Foix: Construction and function of the poetic voice (Sol, i de dol)”, Readings of J. V. Foix (Barcelona: ACSOP, 1998), pp. 97–117.

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Exile in Mexico and Catalan identity. Catalonia in the imaginarium of first generation exiles in Mexico (1939–2005) Josep M. FIGUERES Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Introduction An analysis of the perception of Catalonia among the world of political exile. The selected setting is a broad spectrum of the initial group and the first generation of Catalans in exile in Mexico, which took in a significant contingent in 1939. Using a dual method – in-depth interviews and closed questionnaires – relationships were established with around a hundred exiles in Veracruz, Guadalajara and Mexico City in 2005. All of them were interviewed as a means of obtaining personal impressions, real-life testimonies and perceptions of opinions and feelings. The interviews formed the basis of the radio programme, Veus de l’exili (Voices from Exile), divided into 35 chapters. Recordings of the exiles themselves were used as a testimonial documentary representation of exile alongside the historical account. In 2006 complete transcriptions of the accounts of some twenty interviewees were gathered in the book of the same name. Using both of these resources – original interviews and publication in a registered source – life experiences and perceptions were evaluated in order to situate and fix the identity of Catalan origin in a remote setting. It gives a diverse and complex image, which has undergone a process of fixation and evolution up until the time of the interview, seventy years later. Visc absent De l’hora que passa. Com tu, record; Com tu, Esperança.

“I live absent From the hour that passes Like you, memory; Like you, Hope”. Agustí Cabruja (1951)

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1. Aim Our aim is to provide some references of a biographical nature which can help to configure the notion of Catalan identity, where language, history and culture conform the essential traits in accordance with the memory of a nation that was independent until the loss of its national rights in 1714. This, while bearing in mind the relationship of the preceding two centuries, whereby a pact of ties with the Spanish Crown enabled Catalonia to preserve legislation, currency, etc. in a relationship that was not exempt from occasional bellicose conflicts.

2. Origin of emigration to Mexico Lázaro Cárdenas, the popular president of contemporary Mexico, established a juridically clear, diplomatically active and socially generous policy for taking in the losers of the Spanish Civil War. Narciso Bassols, of Catalan origin, Gilberto Bosques, and a long list of Mexican diplomats in the United Nations and, above all, in France, established the conditions of departure and helped to carry them out. Although refugees arrived in many countries, in small numbers as passengers on transoceanic voyages or occupying whole ships, like the famous Winnipeg of Chile, Mexico’s case is different, as often the voyages were loaded with hundreds of passengers each time and such voyages were frequent occurrences in the period 1939–1940. Thus Veracruz saw the arrival of at least two dozen vessels full of Spanish refugees. The ships of mythical names – Nyassa, Serpa Pinto, Ipanema, Laredo, Sinaia, Mexique… – are evoked by the thousands of protagonists in such a unique life experience as is represented by exile; much harder than emigration – where there is the possibility of return – and which often concerns the individual, while exile is a one-way ticket for all of the family.

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3. L’Orfeó Català (Catalan Choral Society) In Mexico there was a notable Catalan entity, the Orfeó Català (1906), which was extraordinarily revitalized with a series of activities, a bulletin, choir, social club, etc. and which became a meeting point. Some Catalans, who had been economic emigrants, had amassed grand fortunes, such as Artur Mundet, and had found their place in society. The newcomers and their predecessors helped each other and established ties, and in some cases their descendents became ministers or occupied important positions, such as Jaume Torres Bodet or Narcís Bassols, who adopted the names of Jaime and Narciso respectively, according to the use of the country that had taken them in. The presence of the Republican government and that of the Generalitat, with ministers and senior posts such as the president of Parliament and others gave rise to the election of the presidency of the Generalitat taking place in Mexico in 1954. When the refugees arrived in Mexico they found the warmth of Catalan solidarity or brotherhood. Hence, at the Orfeó, the restaurant offered them food and they were given a temporary free membership card, which enabled them to enjoy the same rights as any other member. Due to the large number of exiles the sections were imbued with new vigour, especially the choir and the theatre, and others were created, such as culture and relations.1

4. The contingent of refugees The Diccionari dels Catalans d’Amèrica talks of a total figure of six thousand Catalans2 taken in by Mexico. More precisely, despite the difficulty of gathering accurate data, Dolores Pla states that the most numerous contingent of Spanish people was of Catalan origin, and af1 2

Miquel Martí i Soler, L’Orfeó Català de Mèxic (1906 –1986) (Barcelona: Curial, 1989). Diccionari dels Catalans d’Amèrica (Barcelona: Generalitat de Catalunya, 1992), vol. 4, p. 107.

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ter her work studying the 5,434 records of the CTARE –Technical Committee of Aid to Spanish Republicans – she noted that 954 of these corresponded to Catalans, in other words 17.55 %. This is the highest percentage from the Spanish territories. These 954 correspond to 1,384 people who arrived accompanied by others, with only 319 arriving unaccompanied. This is a very important data. Being alone often meant marrying a Mexican, while being married and with one or two children constituted a family. Looking at the records, says Pla,3 is looking at an intellectual exile – teachers, journalists, writers, etc.– which would be an exile of knowledge. Absolute figures talk of 24,000 exiles in Mexico, some 15 % of the French total. Rubio states that Catalans constituted 36 %, or 8,400. From Pla’s percentage, and with some reservations, we could deduce that there were some 4,700 Catalans. Therefore we are working within a range of between four or five and eight or nine thousand Catalans. Hence a round figure of six thousand is often employed.

5. Fact-finding In the year 2004 we came into contact with the world of exile in Mexico. The following year a joint initiative by the Generalitat de Catalunya, Catalunya Ràdio and the Memorial Democràtic made it possible for us to travel around the central part of the country. This initiative also counted with the collaboration of the Direcció General de Cooperació, from the Catalan government, with the regional ministers Joan Saura and Joan Carretero. In the background was the Orfeó Català (Manuel Gaya and its president Torroja), with the constant liaison of the director of El Colegio de México, José M. Murià, son of the exiled Catalan Josep M. Murià, and who at that time was at the College of Jalisco. From the coast of Veracruz to the lands of Morelia, we focused our attention on the central part, Jalisco with Guadalajara and the capital or Federal District of Mexico, as the centre from where we could carry out in-depth interviews with 3

Dolores Pla, María Magdalena Ordóñez, “El exilio catalán en México: Algunos números y un perfil”, El exilio catalán en México. Notas para su estudio (Mexico: El Colegio de Jalisco, 1997), pp. 13– 41.

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more than 50 exiles. The result was a book with some twenty4 interviews and a radio programme of some importance.5 Previously there were three works that had been based on series of interviews. The first was a notable work by Joaquin Mortíz,6 and the second was a compilation of those elaborated by Dolores Pla, who edited a selection of the different interviews she carried out, and which is also of great social interest.7 Both compilations are characterised by the use of in-depth interviews, presented in the format of uninterrupted speech and narrating whole life trajectories, the first one of Spanish women and the second gathering testimonies from any gender. The eleven, published as a volume by Dolores Pla, are a selection from the notable Archivo de la Palabra, compiled by the Mexican INAH under her direction. Here we include two from Pla’s volume and the remainder are our own unpublished interviews. Concepció Baixeras (Barcelona, 1925) states: Tu te sientes al principio que tienes dos patrias. Primero, aquella a la que piensas siempre volver, y después, a medida que va pasando el tiempo, aquella en que vives. Después es una la que adoptas, por gusto; en este caso, México, para mi. Para sentirme más mexicana fueron importantes los viajes que hice a España. Cuando fuí la primera vez ¡me sentí tan extraña! Y llegue a la conclusión de una cosa: que ni soy de aquí ni soy de allá, como dice la canción, eso es lo peor de todo. La distancia hace idealizar mucho aquello, y entonces, ves que es bueno, pero no es lo que tu pensabas. Vas dándote cuenta de que lo que tu vives, lo que tú sientes, pues están aquí. No como ir a otro sitio, no lo tuyo ya, lo tuyo es esto. Definitivamente mi vida está aquí. At first you feel that you have two mother countries. First, that which you always think of returning to, and then, as time passes, that in which you live. Then it is the one that you adopt, of your own free will; in this case, Mexico, for me. The journeys I made to Spain were important for me to feel more Mexican. When I went the first time I felt so strange! And I arrived at a conclusion about one thing: that I’m neither from here nor from there, as the song goes, and that’s the worst thing about it all. 4

5 6 7

Josep M. Figueres, Veus de l’exili. 20 testimonis de la diàspora catalana (Valls: Cossetània, 2004), Mexican translation titled: Voces del exilio. 20 testimonios de la diáspora (Mexico: Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, 2009). Broadcast by Catalunya Cultura in the winter of 2005 and in the spring by Catalunya Ràdio with the 35 hour-long chapters uploaded to the radio channel’s website. Joaquin Mortiz, Nuevas raíces. Testimonios de mujeres españolas en el exilio (Mexico: Planeta, 1993). Dolores Pla, El aroma del recuerdo (México: INAH, 2003).

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Distance makes all that seem idyllic, and then you see that it is good, but it’s not what you thought it was. You start to realize that what you live, what you feel, are really here. Not like going to another place, no longer yours, yours is this. Without a doubt my life is here.

Pasqual Casanova Rius (El Vendrell, 1909): Pero yo sabía que no iba a regresar en definitiva nunca más, porque había razones de carácter práctico y sentimental, y, claro, económicas también. Después de veinte años, ¿cómo iba a regresar allá?, ¿qué iba a hacer allá? ¿ejercer la profesión? Imposible. Habían transcurrido veinte años, había ortos abogados que vinieron después de mí. Y por otra parte, aquí en México yo estaba arraigado, me había casado, tenía hijos, de manera que para mí ya Cataluña y España se habían acabado, ya mi vida estaba transplantada y arraigada completamente aquí. […] Los catalanes somos catalanes en todas partes y por toda la vida, puedo sintetizar este pensamiento con unos pequeños pe versos de una canción popular catalana que dice así: “Dolça Catalunya, patria del meu cor, qui de tu s’allunya, d’enyorança es mor.” But I knew that I was never going to return definitively, because there were practical and sentimental reasons, and, of course, economic ones too. How could I go back there after twenty years? What would I do there? Exercise my profession? Impossible. Twenty years had passed, there were other lawyers who came after me. And what’s more, I had settled down here in Mexico, I had got married, had children, so that for me Catalonia and Spain had already finished, my life was already completely transplanted and rooted here. […] We Catalans are Catalans everywhere and forever, I can synthesize this thought with some little verses from a popular Catalan song which goes: “Dolça Catalunya, patria del meu cor, qui de tu s’allunya, d’enyorança es mor”. (Sweet Catalonia, home of my heart, whoever from you strays, from yearning dies).

Rosa Maria Durán (Barcelona, 1927): La qüestió és que tots els exiliats pensàvem al principi que allò era transitori i que tornaríem aviat. Quan va acabar la guerra, tots crien que Franco se n’aniria, però no va ser així. Els meus pares crec que tenien una sensació d’estar encara a Barcelona. Mèxic era per a ells un país idealitzat, no real. Vivien en una mena de Barcelona inventada, però va arribar un moment en què el somni es va acabar i van trobar la realitat. […] Només a l’Orfeó català se sentia una unitat i encara molt relativa, perquè cadascú va haver de lluitar per la seva banda i arribava un moment que l’exili era un refugi per conservar la identitat. Però la necessitat de viure ens feia deixar de pensar com a exiliats i integrar-nos, perquè no podíem viure dintre d’una bombolla. […] Sigui com sigui, Mèxic ha estat el país que ens ha obert les portes, que ens ha acollit, on hem crescut els que vam arribar-hi jovenets, el que ens ha permès tenir un a vida normal i defensar-nos, i fer el que haguéssim fet potser a Catalunya, és a dir, tenir una llar i tenir fills i un refugi permanent. Ha estat el país que ens ha donat totes les possibilitats i ens va acollir amb calor i admiració.

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The thing is that at first all we exiles thought that it was temporary and that we would soon return. When the war ended everyone thought that Franco would go, but it didn’t happen like that. I think my parents still felt as if they were in Barcelona. For them Mexico was an idealized country, not a real one. They were living in a kind of invented Barcelona, the time came when the dream was over and they came face to face with reality. […] The only sense of unity was at the Orfeó Català and even that was very relative, because everyone had to struggle for himself, and the time came when exile was a refuge for preserving one’s identity. But the demands of life made us stop thinking like exiles and integrate, because we couldn’t live inside a bubble. […] Either way, Mexico was the country that opened the doors to us, which took us in, where those that arrived as youngsters grew up, which enabled us to lead a normal life and to defend ourselves, and to do what we might have done in Catalonia, in other words to have a home and have children and have a permanent refuge. It was the country that had given us every possibility and it took us in with warmth and admiration.

Josep Ribera (Terrassa,1932): Hi ha una frase que afirma que els exilis que duren més de deu anys són inexistents. Un exili té sentit durant uns pocs anys, potser fins a deu anys. El nostre exili va tenir unes condicions que no és un exili d’unes quantes persones, és gairebé un poble expulsat d’una manera massiva, jo crec que se surt d’aquí i que dura el que dura. L’exili acaba amb la fi de la República i la Generalitat a l’exili. Ací a l’entrada de casa tinc una placa que recorda l’exili republicà català. […] Hi ha coses per les que lluitar la gent i que no s’han resolt. Resulta que se’ns va canviar la vida com una mitja i hi ha aspectes que no han canviat, que no han tingut lloc, aleshores en el pla potser només teòric, l’exili perviu i continua en el sentit d’algunes coses –República catalana per exemple- i que hi ha coses per les quals cal seguir la lluita. There is a phrase that states that exiles that last for more than ten years do not exist. An exile makes sense for a few years, maybe for up to ten years. Our exile had conditions, it isn’t an exile of a few people, it is almost a whole people expelled en masse. I believe that that’s the starting point and it lasts while it lasts. The exile ends with the end of the Republic and the Generalitat in exile. That’s why in my hall I have a plaque commemorating the exile of the Catalan Republic. […] There are things for which people fight and which have not been resolved. Our lives were changed like a sock and there are things that haven’t changed, which haven’t occurred, so that maybe only theoretically speaking the exile lives on and continues in the meaning of some things – the Catalan Republic for example – and there are things which we must continue fighting for”.

Maria Antònia Freixes (Barcelona, 1915): Treballava dia i nit, totes les hores que podia. Dormia quatre o cinc hores al dia i treballava dissabte si diumenges. Aquesta va ser la meva manera de viure l’exili, totalment desvinculada, per exemple de l’Orfeó Català de Mèxic. De totes maneres, em sento catalana i mexicana. Mexicana perquè és el país on vaig poder treballar i

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ser lliure, coses que eren difícils d’obtenir. I, per sobre de tot, quan em pregunten d’on sóc, dic: “catalana de Mèxic, és a dir, abans que res sóc catalana, però d’on? De Mèxic. Així de clar. He fet pràcticament tota la meva vida aquí, estimo molt el país i he criat els meus fills, que són mexicans perquè han nascut aquí, però mai no he oblidat Catalunya”. I was working day and night, all the hours that I could. I slept four or five hours a day and I worked Saturdays and Sundays. That was my way of living in exile, completely unattached, for example from the Orfeó Català of Mexico. Even so, I feel Catalan and Mexican. Mexican because it is the country where I could work and be free, things which were difficult to achieve. And, above all, when they ask me where I’m from, I say: “A Catalan from Mexico, in other words, above all I’m Catalan, but from where? From Mexico. As simple as that. I have lived virtually my whole life here, I love the country very much and I have brought up my children, who are Mexican because they were born here, but I have never forgotten Catalonia”.

Pilar Fournier and Marina Fournier (Dominican Republic, 1946) (Guatemala, 1949): —«Visc aquí, a Mèxic, i m’estimo aquest país i m’agrada, però no m’hi trobo. Jo em sento catalana.» —«Jo si que em sento mexicana. Espanya l’estimo, no sé si a la imaginària, a la que ja conec, a la que és ara o a la que era abans. M’encanta Europa i m’encantaria viure a Barcelona, però a Mèxic hi tinc les meves filles, els meus coneguts, la meva família, i això no ho deixaria. A més a més, m’agrada molt la cultura indígena. M’agrada viure aquí, tot i que és evident que també m’agradaria tenir dos o tres mesos cada any per anar a Barcelona. A més a més, sento que formo part d’un gruix molt important d’exiliats; nosaltres també ho som, perquè no tenim les arrels on vivim.» – “I live here, in Mexico, and I love this country, but I don’t really feel at home. I feel Catalan.” – “I do feel Mexican. I love Spain, I don’t know whether the imaginary one, the one that I know, the one it is now or the one it was before. I love Europe and I would love to live in Barcelona, but in Mexico I have my daughters, my acquaintances, my family, and I wouldn’t leave all that. Besides, I really like the indigenous culture. I like living here, although it’s obvious that I would also like to have two or three months every year to go to Barcelona. What’s more, I feel that I form part of an important group of exiles; we are exiles too, because we don’t have roots where we live.”

The last is Ramon Xirau (Barcelona, 1924): Després de seixanta anys a Mèxic, –ara ja setanta–, l’exili no s’oblida mai, però es veu amb certa clama i certa distància. La vida ha passat i l’exili esdevé no present, sinó una cosa més històrica.

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After sixty years in Mexico – now seventy already – the exile is never forgotten, but it is looked on with a certain calm and distance. Life has passed and exile has become something not of the present, but rather something more historical.

The sample lays out for us the central lines of consideration of identity in the first generation: belonging activated by memory and the relationship with other members of the group, and gratitude to the host country.

6. Culture, in other words identity We are more familiar with cultural and social acts. Art exhibitions, different cultural activities like the Jocs Florals (flower games) – a noteworthy festival – as well as the publication of materials such as magazines and books, and conferences, debates and talks. Intellectual activities which, albeit without a large audience, a few thousand people, could be multiplied by the intellectual component. All were assiduous readers of others’ writings and they were times of uncertainty and curiosity until 1947, which marked a turning point. The war had finished and the United States took a stance towards Franco’s authoritarian regime. Thus comes an exile which will have to deal not only with material subsistence but also with how to overcome earthly difficulties. The mother country, that idealized Catalonia, will elevate it. We are faced with a professional and human condition of the whole group of exiled Catalans with significant intellectual formation. Creative activities would flower, above all literary ones and those based on the word – writing – rather than on material complexities – sculpture, architecture, etc. Hence journalism excels for its multiple value: short texts in comparison to more sophisticated ones of novels, ease of access to the platform or medium (a magazine compared to the theatre for example), and the immediacy and interest of the readers. Many journalists went on to Mexican headlines. Homesickness remained in private life. Pau Casals responded to a journalist’s question if he missed Catalonia, answering that he thought about it every minute, constantly.8 8

Josep M. Figueres, Pau Casals: Pau, pau i sempre pau. Escrits i discursos (Barcelona: Angle, 2010).

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This Catalan culture would not be expressed in schools, as Catalans would collaborate with general Spanish schools, and despite the abundance of Catalan school teachers and University professors no Catalan centre would be formed. What’s more, Catalans actively participated in the constitution of the Spanish schools. We do not know if the lack of funding of the Catalan government contributed to this, or whether it was a conscious decision adopted for practical reasons related to identity, in order to facilitate access for their children to their new country, in the belief that the Catalan language would be learnt at home. Here to guide the analysis of Catalan behaviour we take a look at the most relevant cultural productions: magazines and books. Table 1. Catalan magazines in Mexico9. 1939 1940 1940 1940 1940 1940 1940 1941 1941 1941 1941 1941 1942 1943 1942 1942 1942 1942 1942 1942 1943

9

Revista dels Catalans d’Amèrica Butlletí d’Informació Interior Catalunya Butlletí de la Comissió Catalana del Partit Comunista Mexicà Butlletí d’Estat Català Informacions de Catalunya Juliol El Poble Català Recobrament Boletín de Información de España Popular y Cataluña Butlletí de l’Agrupació d’Amics de Catalunya Full Català But. d’Inf. del Moviment Social d’Emancipació Catalana Butlletí d’Informació de la UGT a Catalunya Butlletí del Partit Socialista Català Solidaridad Obrera La Humanitat Full Català Lligam Estat Català La Nación Catalana

Based on the work of: Robert Surroca, Premsa catalana de l’exili i de l’emigració (1861–1976) (Barcelona: Generalitat de Catalunya, 2004). Extension of Robert Surroca, Prensa catalana en México (1906–1982) (Guadalajara: El Colegio de Jalisco, 2000). Revised with: Joan Crexell, “Premsa d’exili a Mèxic durant el franquisme (1939–1976)”, Orfeó Català, 27 (1994), pp. 29–32.

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1943 1943 1943 1943 1943 1943 1943 1943 1944 1944 1944 1944 1944? 1944 1944 1944 1944 1945 1945 1945 1945 1945 1945 1945 1945 1946 1946 1946 1946 1947 1947 1947 1947 1948 1948 1950 1953 1952 1952? 1953 1953 1953 1954 1955 1955

Unió General de Treballadors de Catalunya Orfeó La vaca cega Revista de Catalunya Quaderns de l’Exili El Be Negre Cartes Obertes Esforç Enllà Democràcia Catalònia Nova Era Catalunya d’avui Lletres Nueva Etapa Treball Senyera Vida Catalana La Rambla Joventut Catalana Democràcia Servei de Premsa del CNC Catalunya d’avui Gaseta Literària Catalana Butlletí del Casal Català The Catalan Comunity of Mexico La Nostra Revista Las Españas Endavant Butlletí Interior Butlletí de la Unió de Periodistes de Catalunya Butlletí pel Manteniment del PSUC Butlletí Interior del Partit Socialista Català Cròniques La Rambla Española Sembra Butlletí d’ERC Pont Blau Butlletí Converses de Taula Rodona? Butlletí del Consell Nacional Català Consell Nacional Català Butlletí (ERC) Mural La Nova Revista Solidaridad Obrera

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1955 1955 1955 1956 1956 1957 1957 1957 1957 1958 1958 1958 1958 1958 1959 1959 1960 1960 1960 1960 1961 1961 1962 1962 1964 1964 1976

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Casal Català Difusora del Libro Consell Nacional Català Butlletí d’informació. II Conferència Nacional Catalana Gaseta de Lletres Boletín de Informaciones Quincenales Meridià Unió dels Socialistes Catalans Butlletí de la UGT Servei d’Informació Veu Catalana Carta Setmanal (Unió dels Socialistes catalans) Servei per a la Premsa Catalana Fascicles literaris Butlletí d’Estat Català Juventut de l’Orfeó Català Comissió Nacional de Planejament Estudis i Documents Horitzons Front Nacional de Catalunya Esquerra Butlletí del Centre Català de Guadalajara Nous Horitzons Orfeó Català Butlletí d’Informació dels Països Catalans Xaloc Butlletí de l’Orfeó Català

A wide range of publications, fundamentally literary and political, and for the most part associative, in Catalan, with a touch of humour, and with the backing of the unusual Tísner. Journalists and editors as a whole provided opinions for the major parties and unions – ERC, PSUC, CNT and UGT – and with the driving force of numerous devotees like Josep M. Murià, who managed to edit a monthly bulletin for 15 years.

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7. Publishing houses founded by Catalans or with their participation The editorial world had two major areas: the publication of works in any guise – self-publishing, new publishers, etc. – and the creation of editorials or collections. Avel·lí Artís, father of the popular Tísner and an exile too, was a noteworthy editor. Not surprisingly some names resounded more than others when comparing, for example, the publisher of a single title in Catalan and that of more than 50 titles, in what was a unique adventure for a collective which in no case exceeded ten thousand members. Table 2. Catalan publishers editing books in Catalan. Martí Rouret Miquel Ferrer i altres M. A. Marín i altres Bartomeu Costa Amic Avel·lí Artís Balaguer Fidel Miró Joan Grijalbo Agustí Bartra Joan Grijalbo Antoni López Llausàs Ramon Fabregat Ramon Fabregat Claudi Fournier

1954 1939 1940 1942 1944 1944 1946 1946 1949 1950 1952 1955 1958?

Edicions Costa Brava Ed. Atlante i Club del Llibre Català Edicions i impremta Minerva Ed. Costa-Amic Edicions Catalònia Editories Mexicanos Unidos Ed. Grijalbo Col·lecció Lletres Ed. Atlanta Ed. Hermes Edicions Catalanes de Mèxic Ed. Xaloc Editorial Fournier

In her publication study catalogue Teresa Férriz10 counts 43 publishers, although 29 of these had just one title and the sum total of another 7 was just 19.

10

In addition to the works of Albert Manent and Teresa Férriz of interest is Literatures de l’exili Barcelona, IRL i CCCB, Diputació de Barcelona, 2005 and, especially: Julià Guillamon, El dia revolt. Literatura catalana de l’exili (Barcelona: Empúries, 2000).

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The publishers with most publications are: Xaloc Lletres Ed. Catalanes de Mèxic Catalònia Costa Amic Biblioteca Catalana Club del Llibre Català

9 9 7 19 11 37 16

Therefore there are 43 publishers for a total of 156 titles, which shows the dispersal, breadth and collective will to publish. From 1948 publishing plummeted and did not exceed five titles per year, when previously the total was considerable, with 26 titles in 1946 and 18 in 1947.

8. Editorial motivation for publishing in Catalan in Mexico When Bartomeu Costa Amic found out that Franco’s followers burnt almost twenty thousand books in front of the Barcelona church Santa Maria del Mar he asked the Washington Library of Congress for microfilms and re-edited works from these classics in a new collection. The anecdote is relevant in that it shows us the reason for motivation: survival of the collective vein. This would be the first feature of Catalan identity in exile, the will to be despite personal desires, as for example a non-reader or someone with financial difficulties. Priority is given to the act of being able to develop support for culture through every person’s position, as an author, editor, reader or distributor, and all such elements exist in the Catalan collective in Mexico.

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9. Production and consumption Mexico is the place in the world where Catalans best organized themselves and where there was the greatest production and consumption of periodical publications, books and activities, such as the Jocs Florals. This flowering resounds with quality. There are writers who direct literary publications, like Agustí Bartra, Vicenç Riera Llorca, Jaume Miravitlles, Pere Calders, Josep M. Poblet, and Josep M. Murià. And journalists, many journalists: Josep M. Francès, Pere Matalonga, Lluís Aymamí, Avel·lí Artís Gener, Manuel Valldeperes, Joan Sales, Francesc Aguirre, Àngel Estivill, Agustí Cabruja, Pere Foix, etc., plus a long list of cultured people who could be classified as erudite, researchers or experts in their subject, such as J. M. Miquel i Vergés or Lluís Nicolau d’Olwer. There are names of international renown such as Pere Bosch Gimpera, a prestigious professor as well as newspaper columnist, or Joaquim Xirau Palau, illustrious professor and notable thinker. However, we cannot separate them so clearly, seeing that those who do not write verses and political editorials write novels and stories or opinion articles. Names such as Anna Murià, journalist, the first to edit a newspaper in Catalan and a quality narrator, would be a good example. Other names stand out, such as Sales with Quaderns de l’Exili, with thousands of copies sent free of charge to anyone who requested it, or father and son Artís, editing La Nova Revista; Manuel Valldeperes edited the newspaper La Nación but also collaborated with La Humanitat; Pere Foix, author of the biographies of Cárdenas and Juárez, and the essay Catalunya símbol de llibertat (1942); and Avel·lí Artís Gener, journalist and writer, author of 556 brigada mixta (1945), and a notable force behind the renovation of Mexican television. There is a very rich bibliography, and some debate whether it is Catalan literature about exile or Catalan literature from exile. Whatever, works such as El retorn (1942) by Josep M. Poblet, Xabola (1943) by Agustí Bartra, Els supervivents (1950) by Pere Pagès “Víctor Alba”, Les òlibes (1954) by Agustí Cabruja, Tres (1962) by Rafael Tasis, etc. demonstrate the good moment that Catalan writing was experimenting in the 1930’s, and which the military uprising decapitated. We could also write the same about other fields such as memoirs, with names like Amadeu Hurtado, Artur Bladé i

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Desumvila, Domènec Guansé, etc., and poetry with Bartra and Carner, to works on a broad subject matter as narrated in detail by Albert Manent.11 Here we cite only the Història de Catalunya (1940) by two exceptional names, Ferran Soldevila i Pere Bosch Gimpera. All of these books edited in Mexico, among many others, show an extraordinary vitality. When the Catalans arrived they found warmth and a welcome and the most motivated, not knowing what else to do, worked in culture, as writers, editors, professors or journalists. Many of them integrated completely into Mexican society because they knew the language and access to the superior cultural position was easier for the Spanish. in a “superior” position to that of the indigenous people and the native Mexicans. Whoever could patronize acts did so, for example Costa-Amic subsidized the special edition of the Revista de Catalunya. Others edited their books, hence the self-publishing author, and many participated selflessly in cultural activities. This helped them to feel fulfilled. A grocery store was enough to maintain the chief editor of a monthly magazine, who was the Minister of Finance. Moreover, the governor of the Bank of Spain, Nicolau d’Olwer, worked as a proof reader before occupying a senior position in the local bank. Both of them, and many others, participated as editors and writers as well as consumers. They consumed not for pleasure but for militancy. What had to be done was done. The exile carries his country in his suitcase and it needs defending; in Spain persecution was attempting to erase Catalonia from the world, and in order to defend it language, literature and culture had to be protected.

10. Chronology of the exile We would classify the exiles’ attitudes in three stages: 1939–1945; 1946– 1974; and after the death of Franco. The first could be called transitory, awaiting the end of the dictatorship. In the second stage decisions were made, some returning and others taking part in the new reality (work, marriage or children’s schooling or work, etc.). In the third stage the 11

Albert Manent, La literatura catalana a l’exili (Barcelona: Curial, 1976).

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feeling of political struggle disappeared and only the personal experiences remained. The first stage goes from arrival, generally in 1939–1940 until the end of the Second World War. It is a period of wait-and-see in the hope that the dictator would be ousted by the democratic forces overrunning Europe against the Nazi totalitarian. The second stage is made up of a series of parentheses represented by the exile who does not even empty out his suitcases for the sake of not wasting any time. This is akin to a provisional attitude towards the home and other things, manifest in the expression “It’s hardly worth it, for the time we’re going to be here”. The disillusion coming in the 1950’s meant it was time to make a decision and this feeling would be synthesized in 1962 when the magazine Orfeó Català made its appearance. The publication is more than just a bulletin for cohesion, rather it aspires to be a platform for Catalonia in Mexico. The opening editorial says: Volem que el nostre portaveu arribi allà on hi hagi un català lluny de la pàtria, per tal que, al tenir a les seves mans Orfeó Català, sentí renéixer dintre seu, –i si és que el tenia adormit o ofegat pel temps o la distància– el ressò afalagador de la veu de la sang, del clam de la llengua i del crit de la terra, exponents primordials de la personalitat catalana. We want our spokesman to reach wherever there is a Catalan far from his mother country, so that, with the Orfeó Català in his hands, he would feel inside himself, – if it was asleep or doused by time or distance – the stirring echo from the voice of our blood, the call of the language and the cry of the land, prime exponents of the Catalan character.

In other words, an aspiration that together Catalans make up the essence of being Catalan. However, businesses make their demands, children have to study, activities are shared openly with Mexicans, and only in the fairly uncommon case of marriages between Catalans does the language continue, and with it traditions, gastronomy, special festivities and customs. The social base gets smaller, singles get married to Mexicans, children attend schools, although many have gone to Spanish schools but none to Catalan ones. This detail, especially bearing in mind the large number of Catalan teachers, is symptomatic of a desire for integration into Mexico, and to avoid an enclosure like the Chinese or other ethnic groups who enclose themselves geographically, socially, and in terms of family and work. In general the Catalan is individualistic, dynamic and

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hardworking, constant and extraordinarily responsible and conscientious. A great asset for any employer. It is not surprising that with such a background they are successful when professionally prepared. The price to pay is integration in a new society and absolute loyalty to the new nation. The Catalan never renounces his own but ties grow weaker generation after generation as Mexican blood enters the family. During the 1940’s and 1950’s the acts were to a full house, but in 1971 the entity had to move its central office due to the avalanche of new members. Specific festivities were celebrated: 14th April, 11th September, and the anniversaries of the deaths of Macià and Companys. Other festive occasions were Sant Jordi, Mare de Deu de Montserrat, Christmas and Epiphany. Other get-togethers could be added at random, perhaps to dance sardanes, a chestnut and panellets evening on the other side of the ocean or maybe just for a football match or other activities such as theatre evenings (in 1951 three new theatrical productions!), concerts and choir singing, conferences, etc.; all demonstrating a significant momentum. The diversity of members and the collective initiative encouraged airs of renovation in the activities, which could be a sardanabased festivity or a recital of Raimon with the edition of a commemorative record. After Franco’s death democracy in Catalonia was added to the picture, bringing with it the weakening of the feeling of struggle and the return of the most determined, although others, such as Tísner and Calders, continued to vie for the Catalan-ness of the offspring that were becoming Mexicanized. The weak demographic base, without new blood, made it impossible for the Catalan collective to be imbued with new life. Catalan culture would be damped and weakened. The failure of the chair in Catalan culture (1984) between the UAB of Barcelona and the UNAM of Mexico would be the swan song of a glorious entity at a low ebb due to the lack of a demographic base and a project suited to the new circumstances.12 Nevertheless, a very versatile centre and the continuity of the new generations with the choir, with young Mexicans singing in Catalan, Catalan classes for those interested in learning the language for different reasons, and the support given to different initiatives, pave the way for adaptation, however complex, to the modern day. 12

When we presented the programme Veus de l’exili the youngest member of the public was about 50 years old and the total public consisted of about 30 people. The common phrase was: “Time does not forgive”.

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In other words when Catalans arrived in Mexico they did not disperse at random, but were rather taken in by an existing community, organized through their own centre and with a will to continue. Many took up residence near the centre, in a way that conferred the neighbourhood with a certain Catalan air, and even today there is still the odd establishment going by the name of “La Catalana” or similar.

11. Identity and exile Identity could be defined as the traits that conform a differentiated and specific personality. In some cases it will be religion and certain customs, in others certain clothes and traditions, and in others a way of behaving and interpreting life. In the Catalan case the traits that conform identity are easily defined: language, culture and mentality. Hence the feeling of no return, not due to the impossibility of entering Catalonia but rather of going back to the Catalonia that once was – free and Catalan. Franco converted the country into provinces that were subjected to absolute state control and deprived them of Catalan attributes. The exiles responded by refusing to return, and if they did so in isolated cases it was to keep their children Catalan or to die in Catalonia, or for subsistence or other reasons.

12. Feeling of struggle and rebellion, which we detect in many of the interviews They aspire to “preserve their identity” through actions of a cultural nature, organizing prominent activities such as the Jocs Florals, or even just a play where a teacher lends the furniture for props, and a novelist is the director of a motley group of actors. In addition to the desire to be there is also a feeling of rage, which in extreme cases can lead to suicide. Dolores Pla found three suicides among the families of the forty

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testimonies she interviewed, a very high index, and in some cases we find serious mental illnesses or, more commonly, depressions or sorrow. One lady told us, after sixty five years of exile: ‘Every day when I get up I look at the picture of Arbeca that hangs on my wall and I cry like a baby.’ This is surely not just for the landscape, the food, the way of being, the absence of family and friends, but also for the idealization of the world left behind. A second characteristic to add to the rage for the difficult situation of family members in Catalonia and for the social, cultural and political panorama of the land left behind would be the nostalgia that would never be appeased. According to a poet and newspaper editor, Josep M. Murià: la nostalgia, la amargura de estar lejos de la tierra propia es muy grande, y más para aquellos que vinimos al continente americano que para los que se quedaron en Francia, porque desde allá se respira una cercanía, un contacto muy próximo; la comunicación es más rápida, la gente va y viene, el teléfono, la correspondencia… Uno desde Francia no siente tanto la distancia, esta distancia tan enorme que hay de continente a continente. Nuestro dolor de la separación es mayor. the nostalgia, the bitterness of being far from the mother country is enormous, and even more so for those of us who came to the Americas than for those who stayed in France, because from there one breathes a certain proximity, a close contact; communication is faster, people come and go, the telephone, correspondence… From France one does not feel the distance so much, this enormous distance that there is between continents. Our pain of separation is greater.13

Nostalgia, the first characteristic of the new situation, was combated with work, especially after 1945 when the geopolitical circumstances made the exiles realize that returning would be neither easy nor immediate. At that time Mexico offered a future and good living conditions, couples could have a maid, something reserved for the elite in Catalonia, and with their work they could afford a house in an urban setting. Therefore, those who settled in quickly lived very well. Integration is a fact. Ferran de Pol dedramatizes the situation:14

13 14

Dolores Pla, “Interview with Josep Maria Murià”, Els catalans exiliats a Mèxic (Catarroja – Barcelona: Afers, 2000), p. 284. Ferran de Pol, “L’enyorança”, Quaderns de l’exili (1944), p. 6 and following.

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Estimat amic: Et compadeixo ben cordialment; viure al costat d’una persona que s’enyora, que s’enyora fins a morir, com dius tu, deu ser el més cru dels suplicis. Et recomano, de totes manera, que no et prenguis massa al peu de la lletra el “fins a morir”. De tots els sentiments que s’exageren –i s’exageren gairebé tots–, l’enyorament és el més fàcil d’inflar. […] La moralitat de què et parlava seria aquesta: si els polítics, escriptors, camperols, obrers, professors, etc., etc. si els nostres homes enyoressin menys els seus càrrecs personals, les seves obrers personals, les seves dites personals, les seves vanitats personals, i, enyoradissos de tot el que van deixar de ser, de fer, de dir, en benefici de la seva pàtria, es prometin en el fons del seu cor de ser-ho, de fer-ho, de dir-ho, l’exili hauria estat una escola d’acció nova i de pensament novell. ¡¿No et sembla, amic, que si els nostres homes fan fonedissa per a sempre la nostàlgia del passat i posen tota la seva capacitat de fe i d’amor en un futur noble, digne i obert al sacrifici, seran uns homes honrats? Si això fos així, beneït el dolor d’ignorar i beneïda per a sempre l’enyorança. Centlapatl, 23 de juliol 1944. Dear friend: My sincere sympathies go out to you; living with a person who is homesick, who is homesick to the point of dying, as you say, must be the harshest of ordeals. I recommend, however, that you do not take “to the point of dying” too literally. Of all the feelings that are exaggerated – and almost all are exaggerated –, yearning is the easiest to inflate. […] The morality that I mentioned would be as follows: if politicians, writers, peasants, workers, teachers, etc., if our men yearned less after their personal positions, their own works, their own utterances, their personal vanities, and, when yearning after everything they used to be, to do, to say, in benefit of their mother country, they promise deep down in their hearts to be it, to do it, to say it, exile would have been a school of new action and novel thought. Do you not agree, friend, that if our men buried their nostalgia for the past forever and applied all of their capacity for faith and love towards a noble future, dignified and open to sacrifice, they would be honourable men? If so, blessed is the pain of ignorance, and forever blessed is yearning. Centlapatl, 23rd July 1944.

Dolores Pla meditates about the book Diccionario de los catalanes en México (1996) when it remarks on the data of 647 Catalans of the approximately 4,800 that it considers arrived in Mexico. She reports that such data refer to what could be called the elite. Albeit noteworthy, this elite kept itself on a rather discreet plane, with the crux of social mobility deriving from popular mass, or what Pla calls the common exile. In effect, we encounter qualified workers who arrive in a country with a very low cultural and educational level, which leads to all the manual workers finding a good job, better than what they had before. Exiles get access to ownership of the workplace, to good housing and schooling for their children and as a result they identify with the new place. Memo-

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ries are already Mexican. Maintaining identity was the most relevant activity, seeing that it was carried out as a social complement, people met up with their friends and companions in exile and participated in recreational activities. Hence the existence and revitalization of the Orfeó Català with a dynamic choir, a faithful following and a selection of activities of all kinds, from the sections of hiking, sardanes or the library. Language, of which we have seen some manifestations in books and magazines, becomes the supreme trait of identity.15 When it disappears identity disappears with it, although some traces remain, often only in a food or detail or gastronomic rarity, or in names, such as Montserrat or Jorge, but the Catalan entity has faded. Writers alone cannot maintain the language without popular support, and this would be forthcoming. At the Orfeó Català the festive occasions were packed full with public, and magazines, books and acts were not only commercial products which had to be paid for, but also products with a seal of identity, which consequently were preserved, acquired, supported, or otherwise aided and conserved. Language forms part of identity, foreign historians like Pierre Vilar, anthropologists like Claudi Esteve, in an intuitive way, every Catalan knows that one is Catalan because one speaks Catalan. Identity is the language. Without language it does not exist. Some publications reached a hundred issues – Xaloc, Pont Blau… – while others, such as Quaderns de l’Exili, were sent to thousands of exiles free of charge. So we are not talking about minority and symbolically representative phenomena, but rather ties among a collective which, expelled from their land, must settle down in a new land and setting, and while earning a living must also relocate outwards socially and inwards emotionally. Hence this community of language; in exile the Catalans move outside the orbit of exceptional situations16 and show gratitude towards Mexico for its hospitality and in particular to Càrdenas, with homage 15

16

Claudi Esteva, La identidad catalana contemporánea (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2004), considers that of the traits that could configure a Catalan identity language is the principal one, and the second is history –as the expresión of a collective will. A Catalan community in the forest like that narrated by Jordi Soler is not normal: Jordi Soler, Los rojos de ultramar (Madrid: Santillana, 2004).

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and constant reminders of his attitude. The Catalans participate in the sphere of work and not, initially, in that of Mexican politics. They would take action against Spain for its repression of Catalan identity and strive to preserve Catalan culture by disseminating it among Mexicans with initiatives in Spanish as reported by Prócoro Hernández,17 in order to divulge their own identity.

13. Integration in Mexico Work and/or marriage for the parents and studies and friendships for the children mean that, immediately for some and more gradually for their descendents, there is a diversity of processes sharing common traits, and that these are slow, difficult and complex. A different mentality will make it hard for the majority to make friends, unlike marriages which are abundant, although professional, academic and cultural relationships start developing. The Catalans gradually integrate into Mexico, but never into the groups of the Spanish in Mexico. Ties with their land will be through earlier Catalan friends or through cultural contact with products – books and magazines – or with activities. The children of exiles feel Mexican and have only heard talk of Catalonia, and the literary, political, theatrical, musical or social activities would feel remote to them and so they would become progressively detached. They would love Catalonia, but from a distance, while Mexico is close. On marriage, with Mexicans, the process of substitution of identity is fulfilled thanks to work. Sometimes the process takes place in the course of a single lifetime. We know the expert historian Dolores Pla who left for Mexico in the 1960’s, not out of political exile, and who now writes to a Catalan in Spanish, with which she expresses herself more naturally than in Catalan. The surroundings, a mixed marriage and work configure a very clear process of absorption. The open attitude of Mexico along with the Mexican bonhomie greatly facilitated this integration. 17

Prócoro Hernández, Veus de l’exiki a Mèxic. Una catalanitat a prova (Barcelona: Pòrtic, 2000).

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In 1965 Josep Ribera i Salvans, an industrial engineer, edited the book of poems Sense paraules. He would also be a dynamic promoter, president even, of the l’Orfeó Català, and on our second journey to Mexico in 2005 he wrote us the following dedication: To our friend Josep M. Figueres this old edition which is a purposeful demonstration of the persistence of our culture while in full exile in Mexico. With affection.

In other words, the Catalan turns into a promoter and editor as an author. He is the priest or vestal who preserves the flame. In the preface Pere Calders says of this work: “a reflexive attitude that is very much ours, very Catalan”. We repeat that Catalan identity goes with the culture. This book of poetry is not a book where melancholy, sadness or yearning reside: there is a global feeling of country. We will not find an imaginary dimension of the distant country. Reality is accepted, its ideal is protected while living and working in the new one. Life will go on. Ribera, married to a historian, Margarida Carbó, also daughter of Catalans, continues using Catalan with naturalness and will transmit it to his children. This is different behaviour compared to a mixed marriage where language and identity is lost in the second generation. The process of integration is not the same for those who marry a Catalan as for those who do not, or for those who arrive with their family, even grandparents, as in the case of José M. Murià, compared to those who marry a Mexican. Overall it is a source of strength for the first three decades and then a weakness thereafter. Identity, the awareness of belonging to a specific group, will mark the Catalans in Mexico in a mutant process of adaptation. In general it will be maintained whole in the first generation and will become diluted in the second. It will evolve to absolute identification with the new receptor identity and towards a simple recall of origins in the third generation. We have lengthy introductions to the subject and we will not protract them further.18

18

In particular: Artur Bladé, De l’exili a Mèxic (Barcelona: Curial, 1993); Vicenç Riera, Els exiliats catalans a Mèxic (Barcelona: Curial, 1994).

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Malika Mokeddem or the Recreation of a New Mestization Maria Carme FIGUEROLA Universitat de Lleida

With all its pros and cons, the XX century constitutes a decisive moment for women because many of their struggles and secular demands ended successfully. In the field of literature, they also succeeded in achieving a solid position in most literary genres: despite the latent conceptual undertones in the expression “women’s literature”, female authors have harvested the fruits of their predecessors’ efforts and attained greater autonomy, allowing them to focus on a personal and intimate universe where identity plays a determinant role. Malika Mokeddem’s example synthesizes and confirms this evolution: born in the western part of the Algerian desert, the oldest of ten siblings she witnessed her family’s transition from being nomads to settling down. She studied primary and secondary school twenty kilometers away from her village. Afterwards she worked as a Teaching Assistant in various schools while studying Medicine in Oran and then concluded her studies in Paris. After a few years as a nephrologist she decides to quit her medical practice and dedicate herself to literature fulltime. Since 1989 she combines both of these activities working from her home in Montpellier. The synthesis of her life experience, inevitably limited by our circumstances, offers a very constrained image – aseptic almost – of the particular battle she has engaged in to ascertain not only her personal development but also her identity. We will not take the time to review the definition of the fundamental concept identity which has occupied thinkers since Socrates established the foundation of his ethics in nosce te ipsum. Our goal is to try to show how literary writing gives Modekkem the opportunity to recreate a personality that can only find its place from the perspective of mestization. Writing is her means of escape from a world that represses

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her and, paradoxically, gives her the opportunity to recover her roots, wherein the silent struggle that has enveloped her from her birth is already foreseeable. Her birth was accompanied by her family’s disappointment because she wasn’t a boy. So much so, that even her closest relatives hesitated to give her a name – that basic element upon which to build an identity. When the midwife asked about it, the mumbling that followed was a sign of puzzlement: […] [ma mère et grand-mère] ont fait un youyou sans voix et ma grand-mère a fini par lui dire, on va l’appeler: ‘Aïcha, ou je ne sais pas quoi – ou Malika’. Bon, la sage-femme a dit: ‘C’est très bien Malika, ça va changer des Aïcha et des Zohra’.1

An ironic choice for someone who will have a life full of controversy, because Malika, in Arabic, means queen… In the nine titles that constitute the body of her work over the past twenty years, Mokeddem’s writings constantly address the concept of identity, defined by characteristics of multiple natures. Her determination, far from being exclusive, is part of a greater phenomenon that coincides with the practices of many of her contemporaries in different geographical contexts. As an example, let us recall the Antillean novelists analyzed by Nathalie Laval-Bourgade, who defines their work in terms that could easily be applied to the author we are discussing here: Redessiner les contours d’une identité incomprise et mal forgée par l’histoire, passer l’examen identitaire, telle est une tâche primordiale que s’attribue l’écrivain en quête d’un lui-même évanescent, perdu dans les méandres d’une société plurielle discriminante et sujette à mutation.2

In the novels as well as in her autobiografical stories, the protagonists are commited to rebuilding their personalities, which have been damaged for a variety reasons. This is why memory plays a defining role in Mokeddem’s writting: already in her first work Les Hommes qui marchent, especially towards the end, the heroin delves into the distant past to bring her family’s history back to life. However –in content as well as form– 1 2

Najib Redouane, Yvette Bénayuoun-Szmidt, Robert Elbaz, Entretien avec Malika Mokeddem (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2003), p. 276. Nathalie Laval-Bourgade, “Les identités interstitielles: du Brésil aux Antilles francophones, mythe ou réalité?”, Penser l’entre-deux, Cécile Bertin-Elisabeth, ed. (Paris: Éditions Le Manuscrit, 2005), p. 287.

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she focuses on this particular aspect in Le Siècle des sauterelles (1992), where Mahmoud’s wife’s violent death triggers the flow of memories, L’interdite (1993) in which Sultana, torn between her native country and the one where she lives, engages in reconstructing her past in order to straighten out her future. And N’Zid (2001) where memory has a privileged place for the protagonist who has amnesia and is trying, by all means, to rebuild her personality by recuperating her childhood as the driving force of her very existence. On the other hand, her latest autobiographical texts also pay great attention to this issue: in La Transe des Insoumis (2003) the author retraces her own steps to inquire about the origin of her rebelliousness; she dwells on her love of reading as a precursor to her writing. Then comes Mes Hommes (2005), a story in which, as the title suggests, Mokeddem recalls the men who contributed to forging some of the aspects of her personality. And finally, Je dois tout à ton oubli (2008) where memory becomes relevant once again, because, upon the unexpected death of a patient, the protagonist becomes aware of something that happened in her childhood which became a determining factor in her relationship with her mother. Over all, the links the heroines knit between the past and the present become the basic and fundamental principle for achieving self-acceptance: Zohra (Les Hommes Qui Marchent), the grandmother, head of the family, is viewed by her granddaughter as the link between the nomadic past and the sedentary present. The grandmother can thus be a spiritual guide to the young woman as she engages in building her own idiosyncrasy. Sultana (L’Interdite) expresses her need to reconstruct the loss of her mother in order to reach inner peace. This is a vital need for everyone, because it can become a physical ailment like Nora’s amnesia (N’Zid) or like Malika herself, who confronts the same challenge, as she confesses in her latest work. This is why she turns to medical language to diagnose the void she’s lived with since she was a child: Au parallèle qu’elle avait établi entre l’accident vasculaire cérébral des gens d’un certain âge, qui en gardent, parfois, de graves séquelles, une paralysie et la formule qu’elle avait inventée pour désigner l’amnésie de l’enfance: ‘Un accident vital de mémoire.’ […] La hantise des souvenirs n’est-elle pas ce qu’elle a voulu fuir, dès l’enfance?.3

3

Malika Mokkedem, Je dois tout à ton oubli (Paris: Grasset, 2008), p. 153.

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The variety of examples and the frequency with which they are repeated helps us understand that in Mokeddem’s works events and the constant flow of time lead to a fragmentation of the individual that can only be relieved by reconstructing memories. However, the voyage to past times transcends temporal coordinates, because the author represents identity as a combination of cultural, ethnic, sexual, spatial and political elements. Sultana’s redefinition of the word memory must be interpreted from this perspective, as described in her terminological exchanges with Dalila as follows: [Dalila] – La mémoire, c’est quand tu apprends bien à l’école. C’est de l’espace la mémoire? [Sultana] – Évidemment, et ce n’est pas seulement ce que tu peux apprendre à l’école. C’est… le film du temps et de ses événements. […] La mémoire, c’est tout ce que tu retiens du monde et de ta propre vie dans ce monde, passé et présent.4

The spatial coordinate subtly evoked by the writer introduces another guiding principle of her thought: the coming and going of memories brings to the discourse a parallelism with the theme of returning, and along with it, of exile. Mentioning both elements seems indispensable since they are the determinants of the cultural mestization that Mokeddem claims. The idea of identity as a single origin, fixed and unchanging, is far removed because, as we suggested before, its various components are subject to changes and transformations. The concept of identity is not determined by geography: upon her arrival in Montpellier, Kenza (Des rêves et des assassins) is very far from feeling French in spite of having been born there. In any case, belonging reaches such broad latitudes that it can’t be constrained by a State,5 nor be exclusively circumscribed to a people, understood as a utopist possibility, judging from the heroine’s convictions in L’interdite: “– Je pense qu’il n’y a de vrai que le mélange. Tout le reste n’est qu’hypocrisie ou ignorance”.6 The concept of identity gains importance in that novel because

4 5

6

Malika Mokkedem, L’interdite (Paris: Grasset, 2007), p. 141. Let’s remember Kenza’s statement, as an example, who defines herself as a Mediterranean when asked about her identity: Malika Mokkedem, Des rêves et des assassins (Paris: Grasset, 1995), p. 88. Malika Mokkedem, L’interdite…, p. 94.

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it is embodied in Vincent – the other protagonist – as well. After benefiting from a kidney transplant, donated by an Algerian woman, he decides to leave in search of this Other to whom he knows he’s linked: Alors je me surprends, comme toujours à mon réveil, à caresser mon greffon avec la nostalgie, dans l’âme et dans les doigts, de ce corps à jamais inconnu, de cette étrangère de même identité, de ma jumelle algérienne […] j’enlace son absence, j’étreins le vide de sa présence. Un rein, presque rien, un défaut, une faute à rien, nous unit par-delà la vie et la mort. Nous sommes un homme et une femme, un Français et une Algérienne, une survie et une mort siamoises.7

As is to be expected, this hybrid aspect accompanies Vincent until the end of the plot. However, it acquires certain immanence because it remains a part of Sultana’s spiritual constitution. Shortly before deciding to go back to Montpellier she looks at herself in the mirror and exclaims: Je me regarde, deux dans les yeux. Je reconnais mon insoumise, dans cet éclat-là. Je la darde, je la bombarde de questions: Ma métamorphose, ce matin, est donc ton œuvre? En tout cas, le signe de ton retour. J’aurais dû m’en douter! Qu’est-ce qui t’a fait changer d’avis? […] serais-tu seulement l’Occidentale en moi? Non, je ne crois pas. Tu es la dualité même et ne te préoccupes jamais de la provenance de ce qui t’assouvit dans l’instant.8

A character’s self-observation, as if from outside him/herself, as a means of recomposing identity is not new in literature. Camus used it in an original way in L’Étranger when Mersault, in the middle of his trial, stared at himself just the way he had stared at his world before he was taken to jail. With this device, the narrator highlights the difference between real facts and their interpretation by the Other. Like him, Sultana is incapable of accepting herself and facing the future until she learns to clearly distinguish the two components of her being. Furthermore, rejecting or denying either one of them is presented by the narrator as a sign of personal and social impoverishment, due either to a reductionist ideology, or to the natural immaturity of the individual. Such is the case of Slim la Glisse (Des rêves et des assasins) who favors

7 8

Malika Mokkedem, L’interdite…, p. 31. Malika Mokkedem, L’interdite…, p. 160.

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her French nationality over the other origins that are visible in the ArabFrench hybrid that is her name: – Oh, les deux autres moitiés, c’est juste pour pas me renier et surtout pour ma mère qui tient aux origines. Moi, l’algérienne et la malienne, je me les traîne comme des casseroles. Du grabuge et du vent. Et les soupirs de ma mère. Rien que ça.9

The antithesis between her behavior and the protagonist’s choice, whose adventure in French territory helped her vindicate herself as a convergence of “affections for both North and South”, expresses the need to legitimize that new mestization whose components are of a very different nature. As paradoxical as it may seem, Mokeddem does not consider personality to be a set of adjoining pieces but rather as a heterogeneous whole where every component is indispensible. In this sense her thesis coincides with that of Amin Maalouf10 who openly rejects the idea of patchwork to define identity. On the contrary, he prefers to compare it to drawing on a skin so tightly stretched that it reacts all over even when just barely stroked at the edge. This justifies the fact that far from identifying the multiplicity of one’s being with the risk of disintegration, Mokeddem interprets it as a gateway to freedom,11 because of the enrichment it implies. The image of Sultana as an enigma12 that others observe corresponds to a reductionist approach attributed to the fundamentalism against which she clashes upon her return to Algeria. Despite everything, the controversial fragmentation of the sense of identity, the affirmation of a plural personality not only responds to temporal matters but is rooted in motives of a much more complex nature. One of them derives from the sociological phenomenon triggered by colonization: as Laval-Bourgade13 demonstrates, postcolonial francophone literature has often tried to highlight its differences with respect to the conqueror’s cultural constructs in such a way that divergence from that image might have a potentially liberating effect. The desire to analyze her latent nomad origins in Les hommes qui marchent – 9 10 11 12 13

Malika Mokkedem, Des rêves et des assassins…, p. 121. Amin Maalouf, Les identités meurtrières (Paris: Livre de poche, 1998), p. 34. Malika Mokkedem, L’interdite…, p. 104. Malika Mokkedem, L’interdite…, pp. 13–14. Nathalie Laval-Bourgade, “Les identités interstititelles…”, p. 291.

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the work which introduced Mokeddem into the world of Literature– can be understood from this perspective. The trip to her Tuareg past is tinged with mysticism: Zohra, the grandmother who is a link to that paradise lost after the clan settled down, fascinates the reader by her ability to enthrall her grandchildren and transport them to the glorious past with her stories, which are moreover the only means to safeguard the memory of her people. However, the reconstruction of those ancient times is not enough for Leïla, the rebel protagonist, to take charge of her future. After considering on several occasions the waves of “blue men” as a possible liberation from the surrounding patriarchal universe, the young woman finally defeats her tribe by practicing medicine and seeking exile in the Western world. In this respect the character embarks on a path similar to the one chosen by the author herself, and opens the way to a new component of her personality through mestization. Immanuel Wallerstein warns about this term’s14 latent negative connotations when referring to an uncertain or undefined identity. It’s precisely from this imprecision that the concept derives its richness, because the idea mentioned, the in-between – as some have agreed to call it – implies an intersection of influences that can be experienced as an obstacle, as an opportunity for self-improvement, or as both at the same time. The writer herself is a product of this intersection of influences: granddaughter of a Bedouin, she carries in her blood the heritage of a black African ancestor, to which is added the Western cultural influence obtained through her education and her reading and is expressed in her writing. Just like her, some of her fictitious characters carry that same brand of idiosyncrasy: let’s take Yasmine as an example (Le Siècle des Sauterelles) who carries in her body the white inheritance from her father and the black one from her mother, and dresses as a man even though she’s a woman; Leïla (Les Hommes qui Marchent) is also characterized by a hybrid nature, she carries in her blood and her body the union between nomads, on her father’s side, and blacks, on her mother’s side. Sultana (L’Interdite) constitutes a similar amalgam; at the end of her enquiry she becomes aware that “Ta mère était […] des Doui-miniî,

14

Etienne Balibar, Immanuel Wallerstein, Race, nation, classe, les identités ambiguës (Paris: La Découverte, Poche, 1998), p. 99.

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des esclaves affranchis, enlevés au coeur de l’Afrique”.15 In N’Zid Nora Carson is the result of a union between North and South: she is Irish on her father’s side and Algerian on her mother’s, and furthermore, she has integrated herself into French society. Even her name can be interpreted in both ways: the Western (“C’était le prénom de la femme de James Joyce”)16 and the Arab (“In Arabic, Nora means “light”).17 From this point of view it might seem logical to assume there are no signs of racism in that world and, nevertheless, in her first work, the author confirms the existence of xenophobia even in times of peace. Far from giving in to manichaeistic simplifications, Mokeddem denies that such a feeling is exclusive to a specific people. On the contrary, she turns it into a concept inherent to individuals and their values. Old Zohra with all her authority severely sanctions her daughter-in-law in the following terms: “Si tu n’aimes pas le noir, tu n’as qu’à l’enlever de tes yeux!”.18 It is true that historic adversities accentuate this behavior and transfer it to the public sphere as shown in this novel through antiSemitism; it’s not less evident that Yamina shares with Gisele Fernandez’s mother the rejection of the other, of difference: while the first character expresses her pretended superiority over the black African population and her reticence to Jews, the second feels the same resentment towards Arabs. Likewise, the adjective “Kahloucha”, “noiraude” from Yamina’s lips becomes an insult to Leïla. In contrast it lacks any disdain when said by Emna Ben Yatto, who is Jewish. Furthermore, hybridization gains importance in the controversial feelings the author expresses about maternity. Throughout her career, Mokeddem reveals an exacerbated rejection of the maternal figure and, also, of procreation. Only grandmothers are free from such censorship, so much so that they even exercise their authority over men. However, they may become asexual, because when they acquire their status, they might be mistaken for males, as Khadidja’s son points out in Le Siècle des Sauterelles.19 They embody the legendary weight of tradition, the universe before colonization, oral culture and other factors that deter15 16 17 18 19

Malika Mokeddem, L’Interdite…, p. 176. Malika Mokeddem, N’Zid (Paris: Seuil Éditions, 2001), p. 111. Malika Mokeddem, N’Zid…, p. 111. Malika Mokkedem, Les Hommes qui marchent…, p. 206. Malika Mokkedem, Le Siècle des Sauterelles (Paris: Ramsay, 1992), p. 241.

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mine their prestige, an aspect often highlighted by Maghreb novelists.20 Mothers, on the contrary, seem to be left with a dichotomist debate that cancels out their own initiative and forces them to choose between perpetuating the inherited social and moral structure and forgiving their female descendants who struggle against the clan’s impositions. It wasn’t one of her latest books, Je dois tout à ton oubli, that the writer reached an understanding with the maternal figure. Despite everything, the spiritual reconciliation process is not without its setbacks: in this autobiographical text, the maternal figure constantly feeds the narrator’s struggle for her freedom. Thus we can interpret the quasiostentation with which the protagonist exhibits her partner upon returning to Algeria for the second time. His presence helps the adult woman reaffirm her choice for independence. Because of this, their relationship becomes an attack on local moral guidelines and reveals itself as compensation for the infanticide committed by the mother long ago. The mother-child antagonism as the author acknowledged in an interview,21 makes Mokeddem’s heroines demand an alternative affiliation, resulting from their own choices: the biological mother is characterized by her ambivalence. Although present in her youngsters’ origins, she seems to be absent from their growing up. Even though may she have good reasons for it, a mother often neglects or even abandons her offspring – although sometimes involuntarily as in the case of death. So, she is replaced by another woman who doesn’t share blood ties with them, but whom the young spiritually “adopt”. In Le Siècle des Sauterelles Yasmine, the orphan, invents her mother according to her own expectations. However, it seems relevant that for that purpose, she draws inspiration from Isabelle Eberhardt, that “roumia” who years before had walked along these same paths wearing men’s clothes as she engaged in writing about her life experience. But even when the protagonists are not separated from their birth mother, there is a growing distance between them, that can even turn into an absolute denial, as stated in Mokeddem’s latest novel that reads: “S’il lui fallait trouver 20 21

We refer to: Marta Segarra, Leur pesant de poudre: romancières francophones du Maghreb (Paris: l’Harmattan, 1997), pp. 191–199. Je pense que la mère… elle est absente. Elle n’existe pas. […] Donc je ne peux que l’inventer. Najib Redouane, Yvette Bénayoun-Szmidt, Robert Elbaz, Entretien avec Malika Mokeddem…, p. 280.

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un mot, un seul, qui puisse définir la mère, ce serait: jamais”.22 That presence-absence explains her demand for a new brand of maternity: in Je dois tout à ton oubli, after the infanticide and totally isolated from her mother, Selma replaces her at an emotional level with Emma, the Jewish singer from the mellah (Jewish neighborhood), who is the only one capable of softening her rough responses, of “domesticating” her, almost. Emma disappears as a consequence of war – the historic background is added to the challenges the heroines must face– and most likely evokes the venerated figure that the author has already honored in Les Hommes qui Marchent as Emna Ben Yato. Therefore, given their refusal to perpetuate the power of the clan, or to continue to vacillate between the clan’s demands and their longing for freedom, the heroines do not cede their bodies to maternity. From her very first story, the writer has conveyed this message – it suffices to remember Leïla’s reproach to her mother: “Tes grossesses sont des pustules à mes yeux”.23 There is almost the same violence in Yasmine’s being inevitably condemned (Le siècle des sauterelles) to let her womb be inhabited, and on and on to the latest book where this is a central theme. In Je dois tout à ton oubli intrigue turns the bond between two women, who have chosen completely different and opposing lifestyles, into the object of analysis. With the opening quotation from Euripides, the work is placed under the aegis of sacrifice, taken to its last consequences by evoking the innocent flesh of the offspring. From that moment on maternity becomes a burden difficult to bear, because from several perspectives it approximates death. Starting with the physical: Elle dit sa répugnance trouble, son ambivalence face aux sempiternelles grossesses de la mère. A peine avait-elle accouché que son ventre se remettait à enfler. Après la naissance des jumeaux, Selma se surprenait à surveiller son tour de taille, de plus en plus énorme, avec un effarement muet.[…] N’allait-elle pas éclater à force de se distendre?[…] Combien de fois Selma avait-elle tremblé à cette expression: «morte en couches» en fixant le gros ventre de la mère?.24

In fact, the writer suggests that procreation leaves a mark deeper than the physical signs of pregnancy, devaluating women’s bodies (in fact, in 22 23 24

Malika Mokkedem, Je dois tout à ton oubli…, p. 107. Malika Mokkedem, Les Hommes qui marchent…, p. 141. Malika Mokkedem, Je dois tout à ton oubli…, pp. 99–100.

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prior works she linked it to animality). For this reason, among the crowd in the airport, the outline of her body continues to be the distinctive feature of the mother whom the daughter recognizes because of her appearance, as if all other aspects of her identity had shrunken and disappeared. Appearance becomes a revealing factor of her personality, which, as Christiane Chaulet-Achour claims,25 is usual in Mokeddem’s heroines. In the case we’re discussing now, a radical difference separates the mother’s physical appearance from Zohra’s tattooed body, the grandmother she created in her first novel, with those arabesque designs engrave on her skin that go beyond being simple ornaments, and denote her belonging to a specific social system. In spite of the distance, there’s a common principle that guides the construction: in its physical appearance, the body evokes a specific way of life, a bit of identity after all. Mokeddem agrees on this with other francophone writers for whom motherhood and marriage exemplify structures that oppress women, who can only reconcile themselves with the first phenomenon après un retour d’exil, sous-entendant que la réappropriation de la maternité par le féminin doit se faire dans une structure qui honore les femmes.26 Just as in the case of the mother figure, the heroines prefer to choose their children by virtue of freely doing what they’re persecuted for: in La Nuit de la lézarde, Nour lets her maternal instinct flow for little Alilou; thus she claims once more the right to decide which puts the heroines in opposition to their mothers. The latter gain social recognition from their ability to give birth, which nevertheless makes them vulnerable as individuals, judging by what is said about Yamina in Les hommes qui marchent, who s’était mise à exister grâce à son ventre. C’est grâce à lui qu’elle avait parfois droit au chapitre de la protestation. Parfois seulement. Encore que nul n’était contraint d’en tenir compte.27 The presence of that in-between, as the author calls it in her characters’ words,28 creates an interesting pendular movement between oppo25

26 27 28

Ainsi les héroïnes de Malika Mokeddem sont d’abord à lire dans leur corps, dans ce qu’elles offrent aux regards: Christiane Chaulet, “Le corps, la voix et le regard: la venue à l’écriture dans l’œuvre de Malika Mokeddem”, Malika Mokeddem: envers et contre tout, Yolande Aline Helm, dir. (Paris: l’Harmattan, 2000), p. 204. Florence Ramond, Voix / es libres: maternité et identité dans la littérature antillaise (USA: Summa Publications, 2006), p. 11. Malika Mokkedem, Les Hommes qui marchent…, p. 116. Malika Mokeddem, L’Interdite…, p. 17.

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site poles. Geographic on one hand: the North – present in Algeria, but also applicable to France – embodies modernity, western culture, economic development. The South, with its scarcity of means and dry life, represents the essence, the origin, tradition, childhood. If detaching one’s self from these is painful anywhere in the world, in Arab countries westernization accentuates its tragic nature because – we resort here to Amin Maalouf’s thesis – it entails a feeling of losing one’s self,29 one’s core essence. That’s why Mokeddem’s heroines, situated in Europe – usually France – find themselves in the middle of a constant coming and going: they travel over land and sea to reconcile both extremes. Mokeddem herself has suffered this dichotomy in her own being, and decisively so since it compelled her to become a writer. Telling her personal story is an initiative originated by the fact that ‘[elle] demeure bouleversée par de terribles événements passés là-bas, au niveau familial et social, et qu’elle garde à jamais au fond d’elle-même’ – an expression we owe to Najib Redouane.30 Besides, the author integrates this constant going back and forth into the style of her works. We would highlight, in particular, the existance of a here and a there, poles with opposite spatial and temporal references which explicitly bridge the gap between the fostering France and Algeria the force driving rebelion. In other cases, this binomial is reproduced more subtly as a structural axis for the discourse. Let’s take L’Interdite as an axample: circumstances oblige the heroine to integrate two worlds, the western world where she has carried on her medial career and lived in freedom as a woman, and the Algerian world, a universe full of sad memories, the site of an ended love relationship, which exhales an essence of death because of the political escenario. At the same time, she struggles between her love for Vincent, the European, and Salha, the easterner, both of whom love her with equal pasion. Furthernore she must behave as a woman in a men’s world. While the content evokes antagonistic fluctuation, the form also transmits rupture: the novel is organized in chapters with epigrafes that alternate between “Vincent” and “Sultana”. Both identities have a revealing intersection, the mestization described previously. The author’s mesage draws once more, from the in-betweeness within which her charatcers are set. 29 30

Amin Maalouf, Les identités meurtrières…, p. 106. Najib Redouane, Yvette Bénayoun-Szmidt, Robert Elbaz, Entretien avec Malika Mokeddem…, p. 34.

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La transe des insoumis has the same orientation. Written in autobiographical style she doesn’t hesitate to use people’s real names, as she recuperates the theme of personal memory and reconstructs episodes from her past. From this point of departure, Mokeddem sets out to look for the truth and, furthermore, to describe her initial rebellion, and exile and writing as remedies for it. This spiritual itinerary is divided into four stages, each one generates a part of the story and is subdivided into alternating chapters with the epigraphs of Ici and Là-bas in order to reveal the dual nature which constitutes the novelist’s essence. There is another aspect of this in-betweenness in the use of language: Mokeddem establishes a new dialog between two different cultures by inserting Arabic words into her stories, written mostly in French. The most evident example of this practice is her using it in a book’s title, as in her sixth novel: N’Zid, which refers to the protagonist’s wandering in search of the elements of her identity. Finally, the female characters, and also several of the male ones, seem to be designated by names, most of them Arabic in origin, that have a clear meaning closely linked to their personalities. We won’t analyze this here since Rabia Redouane has already done so.31 However, this practice is worth mentioning, because it illustrates Mokeddem’s desire to claim the double influence of the cultures that have forged her, and bear witnesses to her plural identity. Definitely, Malika Mokeddem’s testimony – personal as well as literary – provides a clear example of cultural mestization where North and South, past and present, converge in an interesting process that responds to a far reaching phenomenon, according to Julia Kristeva’s theses, which I now quote: En France, en cette fin de XX e siècle, chacun est destiné à rester le même et l’autre: sans oublier sa culture de départ, mais en la relativisant au point de la faire non seulement voisiner, mais aussi alterner avec celle des autres. Une nouvelle homogénéité est peu probable, peut-être peu souhaitable.32

31 32

Rabia Redouane, “Intertextualité linguistique: lexique arabe chez Malika Mokeddem”, Entretien avec Malika Mokeddem…, pp. 185–200. Julia Kristeva, Étrangers à nous-mêmes (Paris: Gallimard, 2001), p. 288.

“In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong” by Amin Maalouf; a reflection on the notion of identity Pere SOLÀ Universitat de Lleida

According to the jury that awarded the 2010 Prince of Asturias Award for Letters, Amin Maalouf was the author of a work that […] has lucidly addressed the complexity of the human condition […] from the viewpoint of historical fiction, providing a theoretical reflection. Using intense and suggestive language, Maalouf places us in the midst of the great Mediterranean mosaic of languages, cultures and religions, constructing a symbolic space for encounters and understanding. Against such feelings as hopelessness, resignation and victimisation, his work marks out its own path towards tolerance and reconciliation, providing a bridge that is built upon the common roots of different peoples and cultures.1

In his book Origins: a Memoir, which was published in 2004,2 the author claims that he belongs to: A clan that has been nomadic from time immemorial in a desert as wide as the world. Our countries are oases that we leave when the spring goes dry; our houses are tents clad in stone, our nationalities a matter of dates and ships. The only thing connecting us to one another, beyond the generations, the seas, and the Babel of Languages, is the soft sound of a name. Is a family name a homeland? Yes, that’s the way it is. And instead of religious faith, an old-fashioned faithfulness. I’ve never had a true religious affiliation. If anything, I’ve had several incompatible ones. Nor have I ever felt an overriding loyalty to one nation. It is true; I don’t have just one country. On the other hand, I willingly identify with the history of my large 1 2

2010 Prince of Asturias Award for Letters (official act presented by the jury). . Amin Maalouf, Origins, trans. Catherine Temerson (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008); Amin Maalouf, Origines (Paris: Éditions Grasset & Fasquelle, 2004).

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family – with its history and its legends. Like the ancient Greeks, I ground my identity in a mythology; I know it is fictitious, but I revere it as though it reveals truth”.3

This is a beautiful declaration by a writer who proclaims the diversity of his origins and the impossibility of belonging to a single identity because “Identity isn’t given once and for all: it is built up and changes throughout a person’s lifetime”.4 However, every human adventure has a beginning and that of Amin Maalouf began in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, in 1949. He was the son of a family of Christian descent, with his mother coming from a traditionally Catholic and French-speaking family and his father from the English-speaking Melkite community. After studying sociology and political economy, he worked as a journalist for the newspaper AnNahar until the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975. The confrontations and massacres between the different religious communities in Lebanon left a deep mark on the writer, as he explains in his book In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong, which is quite a hard-sounding title: I have lived in a country at war, in a neighbourhood being shelled from a nearby part of the same city. I have spent a night or two in a basement being used as an air-raid shelter, together with my young wife, who was pregnant, and my little son. From outside came the noise of explosions; inside, people exchanged rumours of imminent attack and stories about whole families being put to the sword. So I know very well that fear might make anyone take to crime. If, instead of mere rumours, there had been a real massacre in the neighbourhood where I lived, would I have remained calm and collected? If, instead of spending just a couple of days in that shelter, I had had to stay there for a month, would I have refused to take a gun if it had been put in my hand? I prefer not to ask myself such question too often. I had the good luck not to be put to the test; to emerge from the ordeal with my family unharmed, with my hands clean and with a clear conscience. But I speak of “good luck” because things could have turned out very differently if I’d been 16 instead of 26 when the war began in Lebanon. Or if I’d lost someone I loved. Or if I’d belonged to a different social class, or a different community.5 3 4

5

Amin Maalouf, Origins…, p. 4. Amin Maalouf, In the Name of Identity, Violence and the Need to Belong, trans. Barbara Bray (New York: Penguin Books, 2003), p. 23. First published as Les identités meurtrières (Paris: Éditions Grasset & Fasquelle, 1998). Amin Maalouf, In the Name of Identity, Violence…, pp. 27–28.

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In these lines, Amin Maalouf recognises that he had been on the edge of the abyss, where – all too often – a “murderous madness” descends and becomes collective, suddenly eradicating centuries of effort to dignify human conduct, respect others and seek harmony between different peoples. No one emerges from a civil war without bearing its scars and Amin Maalouf is no exception. In 1976, the writer left Lebanon and took his family to France. There, he worked as a journalist for an economic publication, before publishing his first essay: The Crusades through Arab Eyes, in 1983, which the Catalan public was able to read in its own language from 2000 onwards, under the title Les croades vistes pels àrabs. This book is based on the testimonies of Arab chroniclers from that period. In it, the reader can grasp all of the cruelty that the Europeans, known as Franks, unleashed against the Muslim population. This book also contains a rigorous analysis of the reasons for the scientific, political and cultural backwardness of the Arabs, which Amin Maalouf referred to as “diseases” that the aggression and presence of the Franks “exposed, perhaps aggravated; but by no means created”.6 For Maalouf: a) The people of the Prophet had already lost control of their destiny before the Crusades: for by the eleventh century, the majority of its governors and warriors were not Arabs but Turks. b) Islam showed itself to be incapable of creating stable institutions: each transfer of power provoked a civil war and there was nothing to limit the arbitrary power if the prince. c) During the Crusades, the Arabs refused to open to Western languages and ideas (while the reverse was not a problem). d) Besieged and caught in the pincers of a double attack, from the Crusaders and the Mongol hoards, the Muslim world closed in on itself and became intolerant, “sterile – attitudes that grew steadily worse as world-wide evolution, a process from which the Muslim world felt excluded”.7

6

7

Amin Maalouf, The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, trans. Jon Rothschild (London: Al Saqi Books, 1984), p. 261. First published as Les croisades vues par les Arabes (Paris: Editions J.-C. Lattès, 1983). Amin Maalouf, The Crusades Through Arab…, p. 264.

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In this analysis, which can be found in the epilogue to his book, Amin Maalouf contemplates the Arab world, lamenting that progress is now only to be found in the West and he poses the following questions: Should cultural and religious identity be affirmed by rejecting this modernism, which the West symbolized? Or, on the contrary, should the road of modernization be embarked upon with resolution, thus risking loss of identity? Neither Iran, nor Turkey, nor the Arab world has ever succeeded in resolving this dilemma. Even today we can observe a lurching alteration between phases of forced Westernization and phases of extremist, strongly xenophobic traditionalism.8

This essay made western readers more aware of some of the original reasons for the hostility of the Arab, and by extension the Muslim, world to the West which they have always seen, and continue to see, as a natural enemy and a permanent aggressor, throughout the centuries, from the Crusades through to the latest invasion of Iraq. The Muslim world thinks that the West has a culture that seeks to undermine its own religious identity. A person who has been honoured for “lucidly examining the complexity of the human condition” and who has sought his own path to self-knowledge, tolerance and reconciliation could not do anything other than conceive literature as an action, as the ideal form of communication, and as a human dialogue in which the narrator constructs a universe that arouses the interest of others because it complements human experience and enriches as well as meeting the formal requirements that all readers look for in a literary work. In all of the novels by Amin Maalouf, beyond the basic plot, the reader also perceives the author’s intention to reveal a different world, with other beliefs and customs: a world which exists on the other side of the Mediterranean and which immigration has brought to our cities. The novel Leo Africanus, which was published in 1986, three years after the appearance of The Crusades through Arab Eyes, was a great success and led Amin Maalouf to dedicate his work exclusively to literature from then on. According to the cover of the Catalan edition of Leo the African, this imaginary autobiography of Hasan al-Wassan has been considered one of the best historical novels of all time. In this story, which is written in the form of a series of diary entries, the author 8

Amin Maalouf, The Crusades Through Arab…, pp. 264–265.

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takes us back to the fall of Granada, in the year 897 of the Hegira, or Muslim calendar, which corresponds to 1492 in our calendar. The terms used to refer to the same event: the occupation of Granada by the Castilian troops, which the Arabs refer to as “the fall” and which the history books written by the victors call “the conquest”, clearly reflects a deep divide, not only at the semantic level, but also with reference to the military, cultural and religious dimensions. In the collective imagination of the Arab world, the fall of Granada, and the consequent loss of Al-Ándalus, was the most painful event in history. Through this diary entries, Hasan al-Wassan describes to us a turbulent and cruel period which was very creative but in which “tous azimuts” wars (on all sides) were present throughout the Mediterranean basin, with the Christians fighting against the Muslims, but also amongst themselves and the Muslims doing the same, with the troops of Charles V sacking Rome and the Ottoman Turks occupying Cairo. The anonymous protagonists of the novel coexist with the Reyes Católicos (King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabel I of Castile), Boabdil, Popes Leo X and Clement VII, Martin Luther, the painters Raphael and Michelangelo, and the explorer Christopher Columbus, amongst others. It was therefore a violent period, with numerous wars over territory and religion, with persecutions and with expulsions of whole populations, but also with important scientific and cultural exchanges. It was a turbulent period of history for a world in constant change which Hasan experienced firsthand. In his life, he knew exile, and experienced the different cultures of the Mediterranean basin and their religions. Being himself an adept of two of them, he was a truly unique character, because as a learned and tolerant man he was impregnated with plurality. His original identity, as a Muslim a citizen of Granada, was what initially characterised him in contrast to the Christian, Castilian identity of the aggressors, but this was subsequently profoundly modified through living together with these other people. This coexistence with others effectively transformed him into a different citizen who could no longer identify with one specific motherland having incorporated some of the values, traditions and beliefs of all the cultures and religions with which he had lived and having lost his original element of cohesion: being exclusively a Muslim from Granada.

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And when the long journey of Hasan finally came to an end, having fulfilled the requirements of Kavafis that it should be “full of adventures and full of knowledge”, he who chose exile rather than submission, wrote on the first page of his diary: I, Hasan the son of Muhammad the weigh-master, I, Jean-Leon de Medici, circumcised at the hand of a barber and baptized at the hand of a pope, I am now called the African, but I am not from Africa, nor from Europe, nor from Arabia. I am also called the Granadan, the Fassi, the Zayyati, but I come from no country, from no city, no tribe. I am the son of the road, my country is the caravan, my life the most unexpected of voyages. […] From my mouth you will hear Arabic, Turkish, Castilian, Berber, Hebrew, Latin and vulgar Italian, because all tongues and all prayers belong to me. But I belong to none of them. I belong only to God and the earth, and it is to them that I will one day soon return. […] what shall I say to the supreme Creator? He has granted my forty years of life, which I have spent where my travels have taken me: my wisdom has flourished in Rome, my passion in Cairo, my anguish in Fez, and my innocence still flourishes in Granada”.9

And Hasan, son of the road, “made wise by so much experience”, steeped in the understanding of human nature, gave to his son the following last advice: Wherever you are, some will want to ask questions about your skin or your prayers. Beware of gratifying their instincts, my son, beware of bending before the multitude! Muslim, Jew or Christian, they must take you as you are, lose you. When men’s minds seem narrow to you, tell yourself that the land of God is broad; broad His hands and broad His heart. Never hesitate to go far away, beyond all seas, all frontiers, all countries, all beliefs.10

In these last words from the book, do we perceive a shadow of the life journey of Amin Maalouf himself? The initial biographical sketch that we have been given would tend to lead us to this conclusion. In contrast to the sectarian man of narrow spirit, there is the one who is open and tolerant. We find this dual facet of the human being in 9

10

Amin Maalouf, Leo the African, trans. Peter Sluglett (London: Abacus, 2010), p. 1. First published originally in French, Léon l’Africain (Paris: Editions Jean-Claude Lattès, 1986). Amin Maalouf, Leo the African…, p. 360.

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his following novel, Samarkand, which was published in 1988. The writer sets the plot in two different moments in Persian history: in the eleventh century and at the beginning of the twentieth century. The link between the two is a book: the Rubaiyat. The first part of the book deals with two real-life characters: Omar Khayyam and Hasan-i Sabbah, the leader of the Assassins sect which was also known as the “Old Man of the Mountains”. Hasan-i Sabbah, who was said to have resorted to a strategy of political murder, led a puritanical life and killed his own two sons; one for having caused a death and the other for having drunk too much. Through this character, Amin Maalouf describes the religious conflicts caused with Islam by the Ismaili sect. But, at the same time, he shows us the existence of free thought within Islam, in the figure of Omar Khayyam, a Persian poet, philosopher and astronomer. Like all free thinks, Omar feared fundamentalism and, in a conversation with the man who would later become the leader of the Assassins, was informed by Hasan-i- Sabbah himself that the following verses had been attributed to him: You have broken my jug of wine, Lord. You have barred me from the path of pleasure, Lord. You have spilt my ruby wine on the ground. God forgive me, but perchance You are drunk, Lord.11

The poet knew full well that the fact that such verses were associated with him was tantamount to a call for his assassination. Even so, he did not deny having written this rubaiyat: They know nothing, neither do they desire to know. Men with no knowledge who rule the world! If you are not of them, they call you infidel Ignore them, Khayyam, go your own way.12

And he was immediately attacked by the followers of Hasan-i- Sabbah who could not stand to hear a man declare his freedom so publicly. This

11

12

Amin Maalouf, Samarkand, trans. Russell Harris (London: Abacus, 2010), p. 7. First published originally in French, Samarcande (Paris: Editions Jean-Claude Lattès, 1988). Amin Maalouf, Samarkand…, p. 7.

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is something that is further corroborated in the following verses, in which he reaffirms his delight in the pleasures of life:13 In synagogue and cloister, mosque and school, Hell’s terrors and heaven’s lures men’s bosoms rule, But they who master Allah’s mysteries, Sow not this empty chad their hearts to fool. Men say the Koran holds all heavenly lore, But on its pages seldom care to pore; The lucid lines engraven on the bowl – That is the text they dwell on evermore My law it is in pleasure’s paths to stray, My creed to shun the theologic fray; I wedded Luck, and offered her a dower, She said, “I want none, so thy heart be gay.” Though Muslims for my sins condemn and chide me, Like heathens to my idol I confide me; Yea, when I perish of a drunken bout, I’ll call on wine, whatever doom betide me.14

These quartets from an irreverent man of free spirit, who was the author of an unashamedly hedonistic poetry, show a thought far away from religious dogmatism. Amin Maalouf uses the figure of the Grand Judge of Samarkand, Abu-Taher, who wants to protect Omar from the anger of those who feel offended by his verses. The judge suggests to Omar that he should abandon his rubaiyats and write the definitive book on medicine, astrology, mathematics, physics and metaphysics, all areas in which he excels. Omar replies that he believes that there will never be a definitive book for any of these disciplines and that he is only happy reading and learning and not writing anything. The judge demands that he explain himself and this is the reply: Let us consider the Ancients – the Greeks, the Indians and the Muslims who have come before me. They wrote abundantly in all those disciplines. If I repeat what they

13 14

Omar Khayyam, Rubaiat, ed. Pau Sarradell; trans. Ramon Vives (Sant Jordi de Ses Salines: Res Publica, 2001). E. H. Whinfield, trans., The Rubaiyat, .

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have said, then my work is redundant; if I contradict them, as I am constantly tempted, others will come after me and contradict me. What will there remain tomorrow of the writings of the intellectuals? Only the bad that they have said about those who came before them. People will remember what they have destroyed of others’ theories, but the theories they construct themselves will inevitably be destroyed and even ridiculed by those who come after. That is the law of science. Poetry does not have any similar law. It never negates what has come before it and is never negated by what follows. Poetry lives in complete calm through the centuries. That is why I wrote my Rubaiyat. Do you know what fascinates me about science? It is that I have found the supreme poetry: the intoxicating giddiness of numbers in mathematics and the mysterious murmur of the universe in astronomy. But, by your leave, please do not speak to me of Truth.15

This dialectic vision of thought and of the world of Omar according to Amin Maalouf concludes with the impossibility of speaking of Truth. Here is a rejection of any theory or belief generated by the human mind that tries to appropriate Truth and which often leads to dogmatism. Here, also, is the need for tolerance in a changing world in which nothing is permanent. While Omar sought to imbue his listeners with a feeling of freedom, Hasan-i Sabbah cultivated hatred, religious intolerance and an aggressive identity based on sectarian dogmatism. The first two novels, Leo the African and Samarkand, gave a first sight of what would be constant and essential themes in his later novels: the lives of people during historical times of great upheaval who sought common ground between different peoples and in different facets of human creation. Being a member of an ethnic group, a people, a language community, culture, religion, or – in other words – a specific identity, could be perceived as an exclusive trait. These could also be considered traits that cannot be renounced, that cannot be passed on, or that can be viewed, in their historical development, as modifiable and integrative realities. In this last case, it is possible for different ethnic, linguistic, cultural, ideological or religious identities to peacefully coexist. Voltaire said that one religion means oppression, two means war and three means freedom. Everyone knows many examples associated with each of the first two cases and relating to the long histories of both the West and of the East. The third case, which calls for tolerance, is more difficult to find and even more so if we are looking for a lasting example.

15

Amin Maalouf, Samarkand…, p. 29.

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Amin Maalouf imbued his next work, The Gardens of Light, published in 1991, with oriental culture, narrating the novelised biography of the prophet Mani, who lived in third century Persia. The writer presents Manichaeism as a syncretic religion (a mixture of Zoroastrianism, Buddhism and Christianity) and as a tolerant ideology that accepts difference and integrates it. When asked about his religion, Mani replied: I draw my inspiration from all religions and from none. Men have been taught that they had to belong to a creed as one belongs to a race and a tribe. And I say that they have been lied to. In every creed, in every idea, seek to find the luminous substance and throw away the outer shell. The one who follows my way will be able to call on Ahura Mazda and Mithras, the Christ and the Buddha. In the temples which I shall erect, each will come with his own prayers. I respect all creeds, and that is in fact my crime in everyone’s eyes. The Christians do not listen to the good which I speak of the Nazarene, but reproach me for not speaking ill of the Jews and of Zoroaster. The magi do not listen to me when I praise their prophet, but want to hear me curse the Christ and the Buddha. For, when they assemble the flock of the faithful, it is not around love but around hatred; it is only in confrontation with others that they show their solidarity. They recognize themselves as brothers only by prohibitions and anathemas. And I, Mani, far from being the friend of all, shall soon find myself the enemy of all. My crime is wishing to reconcile. I shall pay for it.16

And Mani did, in fact, die as a martyr. The First Century after Beatrice, The Rock of Tanios, (Goncourt Prize 1993), Ports of Call and Balthazar’s Odyssey are other novels by the author. With the exception of The First Century after Beatrice, which is an advance on a novel that presents a disturbing vision of the future of humanity, all the other works are directly, or indirectly, associated with the Middle East, and especially with the Lebanon. And, at one time or another, all the main characters speak of their identities, and of the identities of others, of points of encounter and of the obstacles that make this difficult to achieve. Almost all of them end in failure. This is precisely what happens in The Rock of Tanios. Taking Sarajevo as his reference, Amin Maalouf speaks of his main character, Tanios, saying that he “is a bastard, as are all societies in which cultures mix.” Like these societies, Tanios suffers 16

Amin Maalouf, The Gardens of Light, trans. Dorothy S. Blair (London: Abacus, 2010), pp. 143–144. Originally published in French, Les Jardins de lumière (Paris: Editions Jean-Claude Lattès, 1991).

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punishment as a punishment for this mixture. There are societies that for over twenty years have suffered punishment for having made coexistence possible. It is as if there were a form of pressure or dominant ideology that says: “Have no doubt that what you are doing is not possible; it is a problem if you live together; it is better if you all live separately”17 Amin Maalouf the novelist even dares to take on history, in Ports of Call he gives life to two lovers who meet during the Nazi occupation of France; it is a time of resistance, of war, and of love, and there is nothing to say that a couple who are in love cannot share the future together. He, Ossian, is a Muslim and she, Clara, is a Jew. But Amin Maalouf knows that this is highly unlikely. And that is that, there will be no shared future. However, the novelist has organised a perfect plot to make the reunion of two lovers possible after many years of separation. Amin chooses Paris and the Pont-au Change as a meeting place and he adds the following description: Now they are pressed against one another. They shake their heads in the same way, in unison, as if to shame the fate that has kept them apart. They hold each other fiercely. I think they haven’t said more than a few words o one another; I think they’re both crying. My own lips are trembling. Then they pull apart without letting go of each other. Their four hands are still linked, but they’re no longer smiling. Clara seems to have begun a long explanation. Ossyane is listening, leaning forward, his mouth half open. What is she saying? Maybe she’s telling him what those past years were like without him. Maybe she’s talking to him about the future, their future together. But maybe she’s explaining, as tactfully as she can, why their love still isn’t possible. Will they depart hand in hand, or go each their own way? I’m tempted to wait, I want to know. But no, enough, I must be gone.18

Amin leaves all the possibilities open, either they will go hand-in-hand or each will go their own way. Will their hostile identities, cultures and religions prevail over their feelings? There is no reply because neither the reader, nor the author who created the two characters, knew the 17 18

. Amin Maalouf, Ports of Call, trans. Alberto Manguel (London: The Harvill Press, 2001), p. 197. First published as Les Échelles du Levant (Paris: Éditions Grasset & Fasquelle, 1996).

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intensity of the roots of their beliefs, aspirations, prejudices and grudges. They are also unaware of their different feelings of belonging and not belonging and therefore unable to either forget them or limit their scope. It is in In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong that Amin Maalouf seeks to provide a solution that facilitates the encounter with other people, in this changing world where no-one should feel excluded from the common civilisation that is being created. It would be necessary that “everyone may be able to find the language of his own identity and some symbols of his own culture; and in which everyone can identify to some degree with what he sees emerging in the world about him, instead of seeking refuge in an idealised past”.19 At the same time, Amin Maalouf insists that everyone must be included, in what could be considered their own identity, which is a new component which must assume ever greater importance as the new millennium advances: the sense of also forming part of the human adventure. At no time have we mentioned the terms assimilation and integration; we have spoken of blending and mixing, in other words, of crossbreeding, but of a crossbreeding that must reconcile ethnic, cultural and ideological identities. This is a difficult objective. And despite the sectarian excesses of some supporters of fundamentalist identity, as Maalouf says, we have no right to despair.

Annexe Bibliography Amin Maalouf, The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, trans. Jon Rothschild (London: Al Saqi Books 1984). First published as Les croisades vues par les Arabes (Paris: Éditions Grasset & Fasquelle, 1983). Amin Maalouf, Leo the African, trans. Peter Sluglett (London: Abacus, 2010). First published originally in French (Paris: Editions Jean-Claude Lattès, 1986). Amin Maalouf, Samarkand, trans. Russell Harris (London: Abacus, 2010). First published originally in French (Paris: Editions Jean-Claude Lattès, 1988).

19

Amin Maalouf, In the Name of Identity, Violence…, p. 163.

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Amin Maalouf, The Gardens of Light, trans. Dorothy S. Blair (London: Abacus, 2010). Originally published in French under the title Les Jardins de lumière (Paris: Editions Jean-Claude Lattès, 1991). Amin Maalouf, Ports of Call, trans. Alberto Manguel (London: The Harvill Press, 2001). First published as Les Échelles du Levant (Paris: Éditions Grasset & Fasquelle, 1996). Amin Maalouf, In the Name of Identity, Violence and the Need to Belong, trans. Barbara Bray (New York: Penguin Books, 2003). First published as Les identités meurtrières, (Paris: Éditions Grasset & Fasquelle, 1998). Amin Maalouf, Origins, trans. Catherine Temerson (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008). Originally published in French under the title Origines (Paris: Éditions Grasset & Fasquelle, 2004). Omar Khayyam, Rubaiat, ed. Pau Sarradell; trans. Ramón Vives (Sant Jordi de Ses Salines: Res Publica, 2001).

Web references . . .

Will Major Languages Ruin Minor Languages? English and Chinese vs. Catalan and Occitan Joan JULIÀ-MUNÉ Universitat de Lleida

Introduction1 A major issue within the field of sociolinguistics is the growing influence of major languages in the present global period. We can approach the subject by dealing with the unprecedented expansion of Modern Standard Chinese (Mandarin) as a result of China’s growth in the past few decades and its increasing influence around the globe. The subsequent Chinese globalization may challenge even the supremacy of the English language worldwide someday. Therefore, both Chinese and English may exert such a pressure on speaking minorities all over the world that their very existence could be endangered. This might be the case of Catalan and Occitan speakers in Catalonia and southern France in the future. These last two languages are undoubtedly strongly influenced by Spanish in Spain, and by French in France, for the time being. The present work suggests that major languages, such as English and Mandarin, could be learned as dominant second languages (L2), side by side with Spanish and French in their respective speaking areas, threatening the standardization processes – and even the survival – of both Catalan and the Occitan variety known as Aranese in Spain, as well as that of the lingering, but still resistant, Catalan and Occitanspeaking communities in France.

1

This article is the result of research work financed by AGAUR (Generalitat de Catalunya 2009 SGR 408).

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1. Languages in contact, languages in combat Englishes2, rather than English, stand out in the world as the main “languages” in use independently of its consideration as L1, L2… In the meantime, the growing Chinese population (1 % annualy) and economy (10 %) run the risk of overflowing in the near future and, therefore, it faces a few challenges: more food, commodities and raw materials, as well as a huge improvement in social welfare will be needed in China. Meanwhile, Chinese emigration will not stop (see Figure 1) and it may even rise alongside the increasing number of young Chinese studying abroad. Taken all together, these factors will favour the expansion of China’s official language, Modern Standard Chinese, known as Mandarin in the West.3 Will Mandarin then take over as the most spoken language on Earth? We must wait and see. For the time being, English and Chinese are two languages in contact, to the point that, among Englishes, as Alistair Pennycook has called them, Chinese English is becoming increasingly well-established. So, the permanency and spread of Chinese English should not be considered lightly; it will undoubtedly be a linguistic power to be reckoned with in the future.4 What about the two minor languages mentioned above? On the one hand, within Catalonia the Catalan language constitutes a central pillar of national identity, whereas beyond the borders of the Catalan speaking area, Catalan is perceived, simply, as the minority language of autonomous regions of disproportionate economic importance in the Spanish state. On the other hand, Occitan is the language of a volatile, historic nation in France and as the language of ‘a castle in the mud’ in Catalonia. And perhaps even as ‘a castle in the air’ in Spain! Therefore, 2

3

4

Alastair Pennycook, “The future of Englishes: one, many or none?”, The Routledge Handbook of World Englishes, Andy Kirkpatrick, ed. (London: Routledge, 2010), pp. 673– 687. More information can be found on Chinese language status and varieties in: Joaquín Beltrán, “La inmigración china en Cataluña”, Visions de la Xina: cultura multimil·lenària, Julià-Muné, ed. (Lleida: Institut d’Estudis Ilerdencs, 2009), pp. 125– 150; Sara Rovira-Esteva, Lengua y escritura chinas. Mitos y realidades (Barcelona: Edicions Bellaterra, 2010). Xu Zhichang, “Chinese English: a future power?”, The Routledge Handbook…, pp. 282–298.

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the question is wether, under global pressures, the minor languages of stateless nations are doomed to extinction.

2. The English(es) There may be about 400 million speakers whose first language or mother tongue (L1) is one of the Englishes, whereas there is thought to be more than 1,200 million speakers of one of the Englishes as L1 and L2 or as a foreign language (FL). In fact, the worldwide use of English is not always an advantage, as Andy Kirkpatrick puts it: The monolingual speaker of English is likely to be at a considerable disadvantage in today’s multilingual world, especially when so many of the multilinguals have English as one of their languages.5

Throughout the first decade of the 21st century, the Englishes have seen a huge expansion in their everyday usage. All L1, L2 and FL speakers, together with students of English worldwide, may reach 2,000 million active speakers. However, it seems that there are strong reasons to question the very notion of English, or any language, as separate entities that are describable in terms of basic structures and variation. It has been seen in that way: On the one hand […] there are the changing realities of urban life, with enhanced mobility, shifting populations, social upheaval, health and climate crises, and increased access to diverse media, particularly forms of popular culture. On the other hand, there is the growing concern that we need to rethink the ways in which language has been conceptualized.6

Is there, then, a unique English language with its traditional geolectal variation at the start of the present century? The book The Routledge Handbook of World Englishes, edited by Andy Kirkpatrick, cited above attempts to answer the question in detail. 5 6

Andy Kirkpatrick, “Introduction”, The Routledge Handbook…, p. 1. Alastair Pennycook, “The future of Englishes: one, many or none?”, The Routledge Handbook…, p. 682.

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3. Where is English spoken? Map 1 shows where the English language is or the so-called Englishes are spoken during the first decade of the present century.

Map 1. English worldwide, with some unmarked important cities such as Gibraltar in the south of the Iberian Peninsula and Hong Kong in south-eastern China. (dark: spoken exclusively as a first language; light grey: spoken as L1 and L2).

4. Where does English / do Englishes stand? Englishes rather than English, have been clearly evident across the planet since World War II.7 English as a FL has reached the highest number of learners all over the world. In fact, it is the most studied and spoken language worldwide, as we can see in the ever-increasing enrolment data for English Studies at universities on all continents. Indeed, if you don’t know English at all, you may even be taken as a ‘non-person’. It has taken over French in our schools and public relations in general. It is 7

Guo Sujian, Guo Baogang, eds., Greater China in an Era of Globalization (New York: Lexington Books, 2010).

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readily recalled that French used to be the preferred language of European royalty, the language of diplomacy, and the language of tour operators and travel agencies back in the 1960s and 1970s in southern Europe.

(Mandarin) Chinese Nearly one billion (109) people speak Mandarin8 as L1 in China.

Map 2. Chinese administrative divisions: the provinces according to the People’s Republic of China.

8

It is the official language of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and also of the Republic of China (ROC/Taiwan) as well as one of the four official languages of the independent city-state of Singapore and one of the six official languages of the United Nations, known simply as “Chinese”.

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In Chinese linguistics,9 Mandarin (guanhua, literally meaning “speech of officials” or more appropriately putonghua “standard or common language”10 or even “Beijing dialect”, on which Mandarin is mainly based) is a term that refers to a group of related Chinese dialects spoken originally across the north-eastern quarter of China. They are also known as the northern geolect or geolects, whose variation in pronunciation may be compared with the geographical variations of English with its various regional accents (British, American, Australian…). However, the variation within Mandarin may not compare with the much greater differences found among other “varieties” of Chinese spoken in the south-eastern quarter of China (Shanghai, Canton and Hong Kong…), which could be labelled, in fact, as “other” Chinese spoken languages, but mutually unintelligible – including for Mandarin speakers. So, when the Mandarin geolects are taken as one language, as is often done in academic environments, it has almost a billion native speakers, more than any other language worldwide. L1, L2 and FL speakers together with students of Mandarin may surpass two billion active speakers. Map 3 shows the distribution of the languages spoken in China. Clear grey shows the Chinese family of languages or “dialects”, which covers the Han ethnic area and coincides precisely with the most populated part of China: the eastern half. Besides the near-billion speakers of Mandarin as L1, there are over three hundred million people who speak a Chinese linguistic variety other than Mandarin or a language unrelated to Chinese which may be linked to the fifty-five ethnic minorities.11 9

10

11

Chinese characters are not used in this article. Words in Mandarin are given in pinyin transcription which is the modern PRC’s romanization system applied to Mandarin. Tonal marks are not transcribed. The way Chinese speakers on the mainland or PRC refer to the modern standard language, known as Guoyu in Taiwan or Huayu in Singapore. Therefore, the term “Sichuan dialect” for instance would be the variety of modern standard Chinese or Mandarin Chinese as spoken only in that Chinese province. After Robert S. Ramsey, The Languages of China (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987); Jerry Norman, Chinese (Cambridge. UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Sara Rovira-Esteva, Lengua y escritura chinas…. You may find more details on Chinese ethnic and linguistic diversity in: Joaquín Beltrán, “La diversidad étnica en China y Taiwán”, Visions de la Xina: cultura multimil·lenària…, pp. 37–57.

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Map 3. The Chinese Language: Basic North-South Division12.

12

Robert S. Ramsey, The Languages of China (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987).

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Map 4: Chinese population registered by districts of Catalonia. 2005.

Over 20% 4,6–6,05% 1–2% 0,5–0,9% 0,2–0,49% Less 0,19% None

Chinese population registered in the Barcelonès district and municipalities. 2000–2008. Barcelonès

Barcelona

Santa Coloma de Gramanet

Badalona

L’Hospitalet Llobregat

Sant Adrià del Besòs

22.126

12.409

4.708

3.273

1.545

191

2007

19.000

10.870

3.575

3.166

1.242

147

2006

20.857

11.135

3.962

4.452

1.173

135

2005

17.644

9.280

3.362

3.840

1.030

132

2004

12.713

6.693

2.602

2.718

622

78

2003

9.995

5.339

2.029

2.099

479

49

2002

5.893

3.299

1.183

1.066

319

26

2001

4.062

2.403

742

657

244

16

2000

2.532

1.538

445

372

157

20

2008

Source: IDESCAT and the Generalitat de Catalunya. Provisional data from 01/01/2008.

Figure 1. Chinese immigrants in Catalonia, 2005/813.

Figure 1 illustrates how Chinese immigrants – the majority from the province of Zhejiang and, therefore, non-native speakers of Mandarin – are distributed in Catalonia. 13

Joaquín Beltrán, “La inmigración china en Cataluña”, Visions de la Xina: cultura multimil·lenària…, p. 133.

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5. A greater China and the chiglobalization The emergence of a greater14 China and its subsequent “chiglobalization” should be also considered. A few recent questions should be taken into account: Can there be a Sino-centric globalization? Will China lead the next wave of globalization? Will that attempt collide with the American dominated globalization process?15

Chiglobalization, as defined by Jia Wenshan, is the increasing global relevance, global presence, global influence, and global leadership of China in generating a fresh global vision for humanity, in creating a new model for economic development, in forging an alternative model of global and domestic governance, in creating a new model for science and technology development, and in creating a truly cosmopolitan culture characterized by multiculturalism, interculturalism and pagmatism.16

Chiglobalization is the result of the Silk Road influence, the first wave of globalization originating from China, over a few centuries ago up to the present-day emigration, with the resulting, engulfing commercial powerful grip (see Figure 2). Chinese English is linked to chiglobalization. In fact, it is the creative fusion of Chinese culture and the American (Western) culture, or Chinese culture capability of localizing foreign cultures which has made China the top contender for the status of the next superpower in the twenty-first century: the triumph of the emerging Confucian model of global leadership.17 14

15 16 17

This term refers to the geographical territories of mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao as well as the independent ethnic Chinese community of Singapore over which China has no territorial claim. Mainland Chinese leaders do have a claim on Taiwan, but the former colonies of Hong Kong and Macao reunited with China after the handover of the sovereignty by the British and the Portugese governments in 1997 and 1999 respectively. Guo Sujian, Guo Baogang, “Introduction”, Greater China in an Era of Globalization…, p. 9. Jia Wenshan, “Chiglobalization? A Cultural Argument”, Greater China in an Era of Globalization…, p. 19. Jia Wenshan, “Chiglobalization? A Cultural…”, p. 24.

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Figure 2. Chinese commercial expansion in the southernmost Catalan-speaking area (July 2010).

6. Where does Chinese stand? As we have seen, Standard Modern Chinese, known as Mandarin in the West, is the language with the highest number of L1 speakers. China is the 2nd economy in the world and growing fast to become number 1 sometime in the near future: most analysts claim that China will reach this position by 2020. China is also trying hard to place their universities within the top one hundred. That is the main purpose of the Shanghai university ranking system. The first great step is made by sending abroad – and getting back – its best and wealthiest students. Therefore, the increasing population of China and its hugely growing economy may go on expanding

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beyond its national boundaries,18 keeping pace with the expansion of its language, as European colonizing states had done in the past.

7. Will Mandarin then take the lead? As we have also mentioned, Chinese English is not to be taken lightly.19 Its variety of English, together with Mandarin, is already competing at international conferences. Some decades ago, English was considered the only way of transferring Chinese science and knowledge worldwide. China is funding Confucian Institutes20 by copying the British Institutes to spread Chinese language and culture everywhere. Moreover, hundreds of universities all over the world are setting up Chinese studies. Our universities are just getting ready! That is simply chiglobalization.21

8. Catalan Currently, his Romance language has 7 million speakers as a first language (L1) and 3 more million speakers as L2 and as a foreign language. Catalan is spoken in eastern Spain (the eastern strip of the Aragonese region, Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Islands), in southern France (eastern Pyrenees), in the city of Alguer (Alghero) on the Italian island of Sardinia – and in Andorra, where it is the official language. It is also an official language, together with Spanish, in Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Islands. However, Catalan as a minor 18

19 20 21

For example, the Chinese are the new colonizers of Africa, replacing France, Portugal, Great Britain and the United States, as well as of most Latin American countries, replacing in this instance Spain, and again Portugal and the United States. Xu Zhichang, “Chinese English: a future power?”, The Routledge Handbook… For example, in Madrid, Valencia and Barcelona. Jia Wenshan “Chiglobalization? A Cultural…”.

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stateless language has become subordinated to the major languages: Spanish, French and Italian. Therefore, in theory Catalan speakers are bilingual, since they use the major official language of the state they live in.22 Map 4 shows the Catalan speaking area. It also indicates where Occitan (occità) is spoken: mainly in the southern third of France, as we shall see in the next section.

French FrancoProvençal

Basque Occitan

AsturLeonese

German

Rhaeto-Romance

Aragonese Italian

Catalan

Spanish or Castilian

Sard

Berber

Arab Map 5. Central area: Catalan, Eastern Spain, southern France (north-eastern Pyrenees), Andorra and western Mediterranean (Alguer/Alghero in Sardinia). Northern area: Occitan, North-western Catalonia (Aranese spoken in Era Val d’Aran), southern France and a strip in north-western Italy.

22

Andorra may be considered trilingual in French, Spanish and Catalan.

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9. Where does Catalan stand? Catalan is a very well codified language (grammar, dictionaries…) but it is still fighting the battle for a standard usage. Twenty years ago it was sentenced to death over a period of about fifty years: Nosaltres hem denunciat el procés que estem seguint, amb la voluntat d’invertir-lo, i el perill imminent a què ens aboca. Som gent que vivim i lluitem in spe, contra spem –en l’esperança, contra l’esperança–. No volem renunciar a la lucidesa que ens fa adonar que vivim i lluitem contra spem, perquè no volem ser il·lusos. Tampoc no volem renunciar a la voluntat de transformar el món que ens permet de mantenirnos in spe, perquè creiem que hi pot haver un futur. Amb la condició que no ens deixem enganyar i tinguem clar que ens la juguem a tot o res. We have denounced the process we follow in order to reverse it as well as the imminent danger we shall face. We are people who live and fight in spe, contra spem – in hope, against hope. We do not want to give up our lucidity and awareness of living and fighting contra spem, because we do not want to be deluded. We do not want to give up our willingness to change the world either. That would let us stand for in spe, because we believe that there may be a future, as long as we prevent us from being deceived and we are aware that we must make a crucial bet”.23

Sociolinguists differ about this idea: either by backing it24 or by opposing it arguing that the death sentence was quite a premature one.25 In Catalonia usage has recently fallen below 50 %. Nevertheless, it is increasingly expanding abroad: it may be learnt in around 180 foreign universities.26 Però de les aules avui surten semianalfabets culturals, amb eines tecnològiques per trobar una dada a la xarxa o per calcular el preu just d’un producte abans de posarlo a mans del màrqueting, però incapaços de reconstruir críticament el passat cultural del país, és a dir, ignorants de la tradició, i poc disposats a tastar-la i enriquir-la. However, cultural half-illiterates leave our classrooms nowadays, equipped with technological tools to find information in the websites or to work out the just price of a new product before marketing it; but they are unable to rebuild the cultural past of the country in a critical way, that is, they do not know tradition and they are not even ready to taste it and improve it.27 23 24 25 26 27

Modest Prats, August Rafanell, Albert Rossich, El futur de la llengua catalana (Barcelona: Empúries, 1990), p. 83. Patricia Gabancho, El preu de ser catalans (Barcelona: Meteora, 2007). Miquel Pueyo, El fantasma de la mort del català (Barcelona: Proa, 2007). Institut Ramon Llull, 2008. Updated 2010. Patricia Gabancho, El preu de ser…, p. 235.

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No seria més sensat i útil foragitar els fantasmes i plantejar-nos seriosament –com ho hem fet, fins i tot en moments històrics molt més difícils que els actuals, contra adversaris molt més poderosos, i trobant-nos orfes de recursos i de llibertats– el repte de confiar una mica més en el país i en els seus ciutadans? Wouldn’t it be more sensible and useful to get rid of ghosts and seriously do our best to rely a bit more on our country and its people, as we had done in the past, when we were able to overcome more critical challenges than those we may be facing at present, against more powerful opponents and lacking both economic resources and freedom?.28

Joan Solà (1940 –2010) has proudly stood for home rule and the subsequent proper usage of Catalan, still unsustainably subordinated to Spanish. Here follows a sample of his writings: firstly he adresses his criticism to the Catalan Autonomous Government, and secondly to the Constitutional Court – favourable to Spanish nationalism – and to MPs in the Catalan Parliament: La nostra societat està profundament desorientada perquè tots els nostres governs autonòmics han tractat aquest assumpte [decret de l’hora complementària d’espanyol] amb una perillosa i ben perceptible actitud de subordinació del nostre poble i de la nostra llengua a una altra entitat política i a una altra llengua. […] Ha de ser el nostre Govern que planti cara d’una vegada. Han de ser les nostres entitats cíviques, acadèmiques i culturals de tota mena que reaccionin amb contundència. Our society has fallen into disarray because all our Autonomous Governments have approach this affair [decree of a supplementary weekly hour of Spanish language teaching] with a dangerous and quite tangible attitude of submission of our people and our language to a strange political body and to a strange language. […] It is our Government’s job to face up to that situation once and for all. It is up to our social, academic and cultural institutions of any sort to react straightforwardly and bluntly.29 Amb la vostra actitud obstinada reflectiu la pitjor misèria moral, política, econòmica i lingüística de l’integrisme espanyol. Durant segles heu imposat, amb la llei i l’exèrcit, el que vosaltres heu anomenat “la pàtria comuna” dels espanyols i que no és altra cosa que un muntatge arranat estrictament a la vostra mentalitat obtusa, al vostre totalitarisme quixotesc; i, en definitiva, còmode només per a una part dels qui vivim

28 29

Miquel Pueyo, El fantasma de la mort…, pp. 118–119. Joan Solà, Plantem cara. Defensa de la llengua, defensa de la terra (Barcelona: La Magrana, 2009), p. 277. First published in the Catalan newspaper Avui (28 Dec. 2006).

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en aquest espai, al preu de ser odiós i insuportable per als altres. […] I ahir suplicàveu (!) no sé quina reforma del Tribunal Constitucional: una reforma d’un organisme que durant quatre anys ens ha escarnit amb prepotència infinita fins a límits que sembla que fins vosaltres qualifiqueu de literalment intolerables i que molts catalans –no us vulgueu ni ens vulgueu enganyar– desitgem, ara sí, que remoguin les entranyes dels qui no tolerarem de ser esborrats dels pobles lliures. No és ara l’hora de donar un exemple inequívoc al vostre poble: ho havíeu de fer, si tant hi crèieu, al moment just que el TC va començar a grapejar l’Estatut. Your stubborn attitude stands for the worst moral, political, economic and linguistic misery of Spanish integrism. For centuries you have been imposing the so-called Spanish “common fatherland” with the help of the law and the army. This concept is just an arrangement to fit strictly your obtuse mind, your quixotic totalitarism, which is after all rather comfortable for some living in the place but quite hideous and unbearable for others. […] And yesterday you begged (!) a sort of Constitutional Court reform: a reform of a body which has scorned us for four years by endlessly overriding us up to intolerable limits, even by your own standards, that a great number of Catalans – do not deceive yourselves and do not try to deceive us – do wish they spur strenuously those who will not tolerate our being erased as a free nation. Now is not the right time to set an inequivocal example to your people. You should have done it, if you believed so, at the very moment when the Constitutional Court began pawing about our Estatut [Catalan new constitution within Spain].30

The Catalan language has been identified as the central pillar of a nation within Catalonia by most of their native speakers, but the degree of self-government rule, known as “autonomia” has almost become folklorical within Spain. Those Catalans contending for decentralization or political devolution – or even independence from Spain – still have a long way to go. So, they may go on asking themselves: Is Catalan, a stateless minor language, doomed? And they may get an answer: As long as it is allowed to be an unnecessary language by its own native speakers… it may be. It might after all follow the steps of a great mediaeval Romance language scarcely used at present: Occitan, in spite of its recent timid revival.

30

Joan Solà, L’última lliçó. Parlaments polítics i acadèmics (Barcelona: Empúries, 2011), pp. 145–146. First published in the Catalan newspaper Avui (8 July 2010).

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10. (Aranese) Occitan The Occitan-speaking minority in Catalonia is concentrated in its northwestern corner: Era Val d’Aran (see Maps 4–7). Occitany or Occitania31 is the name of the countries where the Occitan language is spoken: France, Italy and Spain. In all these countries except Catalonia in Spain where the local variety of Occitan, Aranese, is protected by law,32 the Occitan language is minorised: there is no compulsory teaching of the language at primary and secondary levels and it is often taught by nongovernmental organisations. Aranese is a standardized form of the Pyrenean Gascon variety of the Occitan geolect that is spoken in Era Val d’Aran (The Aran Valley) in north-western Catalonia, on the border between Spain and France. It is one of the three official languages: Aranese, Catalan, and Spanish. A quarter of a century ago, Occitan started to be taught alongside Catalan and Spanish in schools up to the point that, today, it enjoys co-official status with Catalan and Spanish within the Valley (see note 17). About 90 % of the inhabitants of Aran can understand the language, and about 50 % can speak it fluently.33 There may be about half a million native speakers of Occitan and 3,000 speakers of Aranese, almost half the population of the Valley. Maps 4 and 5 show the Occitan speaking area. 31

32

33

It includes thirty-two départements of Southern France, the Aran Valley in Catalonia, Piemont alpine valleys and the Calabrian city of Guardia Piemontese in Italy. Occitan had been known as the ‘roman language’ in the Middle Ages and produced the richest mediaeval literature in Europe. It was also known as the ‘language of oc’ – a favoured name by Dante Alighieri –, so Occitan and Occitania originate from the word oc (‘yes’, or ‘oui’ in standard French). The word oc is also used to name the French province, Languedoc, where the langue d’oc is spoken. The Parliament of Catalonia passed the Occitan Bill (Llei de l’occità, aranès a l’Aran) on 22 September 2010. The Spanish Government objected that it was unconstitutional in late Spring 2011. At present, the law is being revised by the Spanish Constitutional Court. Spain, a former empire, like Russia and China, feels uneasy about its minorities’ claims and is especially sensitive in all matters concernong linguistic identity. Càtedra d’Estudis Occitans (Universitat de Lleida, 2010). Moreover, the official spellings of place names in the Valley are Aranese; for instance, the Aranese spellings Vielha / (Era) Val d’Aran are used on maps and road signs instead of the Catalan and Spanish Viella /Vall d’Aran or Valle de Arán.

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Administrative Occitania

A- Occitània Grana (belonging to France), per departaments 03 Alièr (partially occitan) 04 Aups de Nauta Provença 05 Nauti Aups 06 Aups Maritims 07 Ardecha (small part that is not occitania) 09 Arièja 11 Aude 12 Avairon 13 Boques de Ròse 15 Cantal 16 Charanta (partially occitan) 19 Corresa 23 Cruesa 24 Dordonha 26 Droma (small part that is not occitania) 30 Gard 31 Nauta Garona 32 Gers 33 Gironda (part that is not occitania) 34 Erau 38 Isèra (part that is not occitania)

40 Lanes 42 Léger (small part that is not occitania) 43 Naut Léger 46 Òlt 47 Òlt e Garona 48 Losèra 63 Puel Domat 64 Pirenèus Atlantics (part that is not occitania) 65 Nauti Pirenèus 66 Pirenèus Orientaus (small part that is not occitania) 81 Tarn 82 Tarn e Garona 83 Var 84 Vauclusa 87 Nauta Vinhana B- Val d’Aran (belonging to Spain) C- Valades Occitanes (belonging to Italy) C1 Coni C2 Turin

Map 6. Occitan speaking area with its county divisions. The southern most one (B) is the Catalonia’s county Val d’Aran, which is administered by Spain34. 34

Aitor Carrera, Gramatica aranesa (Lleida: Pagès Editors, 2007), p. 28.

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Like Catalan, the Occitan language is a minorised Romance language. As a result of their sociolinguistic situation, these languages suffer from a great dialectal fragmentation. Maps 6 and 7 show the Occitan and Aranese dialectal division respectively.

A

Gascon

B

Lengadocian

C

Provençal

D

Lemosin

E

Auvernhàs

F

Provençal aupenc

Map 7. Occitan: the language and its main dialects35.

35

Aitor Carrera, Gramatica aranesa…, p. 29.

Will Major Languages Ruin Minor Languages?

Terçons A

Pujòlo

B

Arties e Garòs

C

Castièro

D

Marcatosa

E

Lairissa

F

Es Quate Lòcs

Map 8. Administrative division of Aranese Occitan36.

36

Aitor Carrera, Gramatica aranesa…, p. 27.

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11. Where does Occitan stand? Occitan is a quite well codified language (grammar, dictionaries…) but it has lost the battle for standard usage. In Catalonia, active usage has fallen below 0.05 % and it is hardly expanding outside the Aran Valley.37 Occitan is almost non-existent in the mass media and it has been replaced for many years now by French and Italian at schools outside Catalonia. Once more we are going to ask the question: Is this stateless and minorised language doomed? Seemingly it is utterly unnecessary in France and Italy, but its Aranese dialect in Catalonia is masterminded by politics to redeem and rescue the remnants of a glorious language. Latin is still well considered… Why should not Occitan be so in the future? Latin is dead, but Aranese – and therefore Occitan – is weak but well supported to go on preserving the identity of the Valley and Occitania.

Conclusion As the Chinese proverb goes, no matter how long a journey is, you must make it by taking the first step. Speaking minorities face the challenge of learning major languages such as English and Mandarin, in addition to the official language, which is Spanish and Catalan in Catalonia. They also face linguistic substitution.38 Nevertheless, those minorities need to protect and promote their native languages as a priority so that they are preserved as their main cultural heritage and identity sign. Back in the early fourteenth century, Dante Alighieri had already denounced the use of a foreign language, in order to replace one’s own in the long term, as utterly ignominious. After learning their first language, early speakers of Catalan and Aranese have to learn necessarily two or three more languages, respec37 38

Compare usage at the University of Toulouse, the University of Lleida, and the “Universitat Catalana d’Estiu”. For example, in the major cities of the Valencia region, usage of Spanish is gaining ground.

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tively. Catalans should learn Spanish and English or French – the great majority study English at school – and the Aranese-speaking minority, apart from learning a foreign language – most of them study English too, although French is extremely useful to them –, must know Catalan and Spanish. No doubt English exerts an increasing influence on both communities as a L3 or L4, although it is not as strong as that exerted by Spanish. Mandarin learners are still in the cradle, but, in the not-sodistant future, Mandarin might be added to Spanish and English and might exert even more pressure on two stateless communities in southeastern Europe whose respective L1s (L1 and L2 for the Aranese Occitan speakers) may be doomed, especially Occitan, a language that is hardly surviving in both Catalonia and the old Occitania/Occitany in southern France. English and Mandarin as L3 or L4 will not ruin them, but both of them, and above all Spanish – and French in France –, may help to bury Catalan and Occitan by overriding their everyday usage, unless their political status improves dramatically.

Figure 3. Catalan, if forever stateless, is doomed. Occitan, forever stateless, is hardly surviving. Chinese and English will not ruin them, but may help to bury them.

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Annexe

Bibliography Bec, Pierre, La langue occitane (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1963). Bec, Pierre, La llengua occitana (Barcelona: Edicions 62, 1977). Bec, Pierre, Manuel pratique d’occitan moderne (Paris: Picard, 1983). Beltrán, Joaquín, “La diversidad étnica en China y Taiwán”, Visions de la Xina: cultura multimil·lenària, Joan Julià-Muné, ed. (Lleida: Institut d’Estudis Ilerdencs, 2009), pp. 37–57. Beltrán, Joaquín, “La inmigración china en Cataluña”, Visions de la Xina: cultura multimil·lenària, Joan Julià-Muné, ed. (Lleida: Institut d’Estudis Ilerdencs, 2009), pp. 125–150. Carrera, Aitor, Gramatica aranesa (Lleida: Pagès Editors, 2007). Gabancho, Patrícia, El preu de ser catalans (Barcelona: Meteora, 2007). Guo Sujian; Guo Baogang, eds., Greater China in an Era of Globalization (New York: Lexington Books, 2010). Guo Sujian; Guo Baogang, “Introduction”, Greater China in an Era of Globalization, Guo Sujian; Guo Baogang, eds. (New York: Lexington Books, 2010), pp. 1–16. Jia Wenshan, “Chiglobalization? A Cultural Argument”, Greater China in an Era of Globalization, Guo Sujian; Guo Baogang, eds. (New York: Lexington Books, 2010), pp. 17–25. Julià-Muné, Joan, ed., Visions de la Xina: cultura multimil·lenària (Lleida: Institut d’Estudis Ilerdencs, 2009). Julià-Muné, Joan, “Les llengües de la Xina. El contrast fonètic i l’adaptació al català de l’onomàstica xinesa”, Visions de la Xina: cultura multimil·lenària, Joan Julià-Muné, ed. (Lleida: Institut d’Estudis Ilerdencs, 2009), pp. 59–80. Kirkpatrick, Andy, ed., The Routledge Handbook of World Englishes (London: Routledge, 2010). Norman, Jerry, Chinese (Cambridge Mass.: Cambridge University Press, 1988). Pennycook, Alastair, “The future of Englishes: one, many or none?”, The Routledge Handbook of World Englishes, Andy Kirkpatrick, ed. (London: Routledge, 2010), pp. 673–687. Prats, Modest; Rafanell, August; Rossich, Albert, El futur de la llengua catalana (Barcelona: Empúries, 1990). Pueyo, Miquel, El fantasma de la mort del català (Barcelona: Proa, 2007). Ramsey, Robert S., The Languages of China (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1987). Rovira-Esteva, Sara, Lengua y escritura chinas. Mitos y realidades (Barcelona: Edicions Bellaterra, 2010). Solà, Joan, Plantem cara. Defensa de la llengua, defensa de la terra (Barcelona: La Magrana, 2009).

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Solà, Joan, L’última lliçó. Parlaments polítics i acadèmics (Barcelona: Empúries, 2011). Tang Xiaoyang, “Empire, Nation, State, and Marketplace; China’s Complex Identity and Its Implications for Geopolitical Relationship in Asia”, Greater China in an Era of Globalization, Guo Sujian; Guo Baogang, eds. (New York: Lexington Books, 2010), pp. 51–74. Xu Zhichang, “Chinese English: a future power?”, The Routledge Handbook of World Englishes, Andy Kirkpatrick, ed. (London: Routledge, 2010), pp. 282–298. Yin Binyong; Felley, Mary, Chinese romanization: Pronunciation & orthography (Beijing: Sinolingua, 1990).

Web References . . . . . .

Languages, links and identities in a society on the move M. Carme JUNYENT Universitat de Barcelona

The XX century represents the culmination of linguistic homogenization, a process that has accelerated and multiplied in the last centuries and which has taken us to where we are today, with almost 95 per cent of the languages of the world at risk of disappearing. Different elements have intervened in this process, among which linguistic imperialism stands out. So long as linguistic imperialism is a static mechanism that imposes but doesn’t create, it will lead us to a paradox; the more chance we have of changing – today’s communication facilities are unprecedented in human history –, the less chance we have of creating, subjected as we are to homogenizing pressure. So, we end up creating false or volatile links and a growing incapability to collaborate creatively. This dynamic takes place in various fields, from Medicine, where Western Medicine has been established as the “good” and, thus, legitimate Medicine; to Literature, where the use of dominant metropolitan languages by acculturated writers has meant, on one hand, that they have entered a collapsed market where they are ignored or seen as exotic individuals, but hardly ever as members of the corpus of Universal Literature; and on the other, that they have hindered authors who write in autochthonous languages, on the understanding that we have already had enough of whatever those languages could bring about, thanks to their post-colonial friends. In fact, the imposition of a unique model is clearly visible in societies on the move, where those who come from the South are immigrants and those who come from the North are “aid workers”. In the field of language, this collapse has provoked a counter-reaction by the many communities that struggle today to preserve their language. This counter reaction exists within a great number of migratory flows, or societies on the move, where local pressure to abandon native languages, added to the fact

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that speakers are disseminated, have largely lowered the number of speakers. The link to the territory may be lost, however, languages can still offer the possibility of creating a new communal space to allow identification and facilitate exchange. So long as languages are tools to adapt to the surrounding environment, it would be worthwhile to change the perception of communication codes as obstacles and, thus, keep them from being abolished. It would also be useful, to take advantage of the fact that, because they are transferable and accumulative, languages offer the possibility to add to and enrich our identities. In societies on the move, languages become a sign of a permeable and versatile identity that shows where we come from and lets us go where we want. In the history of languages, the end of the millennium has meant the inclusion of a field of research that had concerned linguists very little: the processes of linguistic substitution or the death of languages. If this phenomena has become an important subject of study, it must be because, as we said at the beginning, at the end of the XX century we reach a culminating point in the linguistic homogenization process at a world level, which for some represents a point of no return, and for others the time to expand the fight to turn the process around and revitalize threatened languages. We can broadly describe the situation of the linguistic patrimony of humanity with this data: more than 10 per cent of all languages have just a few speakers left, 40 per cent are no longer transferred from generation to generation, 40 per cent show symptoms of substitution and the rest, 5 to 10 per cent, are the languages that can make it to the XXII century without problems. This scenario corresponds to Sasse’s1 theory on the death of languages presented in 1992, in which he describes three phases in the process: the primary phase, where different phenomenon that lead to societies becoming bilingual take place; decadence, during which a language stops being used and transferred from one generation to the next; and finally, the death of the language, a period during which there are only a few speakers left, and the language disappears as they die. We should keep in mind that, today, the number of existing languages has greatly decreased; and that, 1

Hans-Jürgen Sasse, “Theory of Language Death”, Language Death. Factual and Theoretical Explorations with Special Reference to East Africa, Matthias Brenzinger, ed. (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1992), pp. 7–30.

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in the last fifty five years it has been cut in half; so, the proliferation of substitution processes is the result of a tendency caused by today’s ease of communication and movement that radically modifies the relationships among groups of peoples and with the territory. The fact is that the end of linguistic patrimony coincides in time – and this is not a random occurrence – with the development of “societies on the move”. If we stick to the dynamics of both processes – linguistic homogeneity and societies on the move –, we can confirm that the collision confronts two radically opposing movements. On one hand, the processes of linguistic substitution are the result of the verticalization of communication. On the other, societies on the move favor horizontal communication more than ever; this means, exchange and reciprocity. When we talk about the verticality of communication, we are referring to a process that culminates with globalization and which developed its most salient features with the creation of nation states. The idea of linguistic uniformity proposed by the States has denied alternative ways of communication, other than the official language. In fact, with globalization the idea is to achieve the dream of evolutionists: a single cultural model to which we will all have to comply. But globalization has also reactivated identities and the global network is, more and more, a multi-lingual medium where everybody can be any way they want to be (if he or she is able to, of course). In this context, it’s evident that the relation between languages and societies has changed; and the question is whether this change will propitiate the linguistic homogenization of humanity or the revitalization of diversity. Languages change all the time, so, as long as homogenization is unattainable, and above all undesirable, and since, diversity is indispensable for the survival of the species, it seems evident that we need to re-think linguistic planning, beyond the proposals that start out from the idea of homogenous societies with one single model to follow. In the case of Catalonia, a society that saw in bilingualism a guaranty for the “normalization” of Catalan, along with Spanish; the situation is peculiar because in a few years the linguistic patrimony of Catalans has grown to 300 languages. This unprecedented situation demands, no doubt, the development of an alternative model that, at the same time, pays more attention to the dynamics of the languages and less to conventional linguistic planning.

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The first ten years of the XXI century have meant a radical change in Catalonia’s demo-linguistic composition. It’s known that migrations are a constant element of the history of our country, but what’s special about the last one is that it consists of people from all over the world who speak different languages. If, in the history of the country, the percentages of speakers of languages other than Catalan and Spanish have always been low, now 11.65 per cent of Catalans consider neither of these two as their primary language.2 We must keep in mind that more than a million people have arrived in Catalonia during this period of time, according to Idestat, (this is 16 per cent of the current population) and the two dominant nationalities are Moroccan (19.52 per cent of the foreign population) and Romanian (8.23 per cent). The third group is Ecuadorans (6.57 per cent), many of whom speak Quechua, the fourth is Bolivians (4.63 per cent) which include many speakers of indigenous American languages such as Quechua or Aymara, and the fifth is Italians (4.10 per cent), some of whom are Argentinean with Italian ancestors. This change has generally been interpreted (and it stills is) as a threat to Catalan. This interpretation of the phenomenon is closely linked to a traditional approach to socio-linguistics, but given the fact that it’s a society on the move clearly identified with its language – Catalonia can’t be conceived without the Catalan language – should allow for the development of a model where coexistence is possible without relinquishing diversity. When we speak about the traditional approach, we’re referring to a series of phenomena closely tied to representations and which largely distort the perception of reality. Surely, the most important thing is how immigration is perceived as a homogeneous phenomenon – monolithic, almost, in terms of language – and in consequence, the newly arrived are integrated in Spanish, even for those who have made Catalan their every-day language.3 Another is the idea that immigration is an urban phenomenon; along with the perception of rural or non urban areas as “Catalan speaking” without any middle ground. For all this, when it comes to the threat on language, it’s always the non metropolitan Cata2 3

Pere Comellas, Immigració i diversitat lingüística: un nou i mal conegut context per al català (forthcoming). Mònica Barrieras et alii, Canvi de representacions lingüístiques de parlants al.loglots per contacte amb la situació lingüística catalana (forthcoming). Secretary of Immigration .

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lonia that comes to mind as an argument against the so called “pessimists”. In fact, immigration is an urban as much as a rural phenomenon which has reached every corner of the country. If we refer to the Genesis of our society on the move, the foundational myth says in 1974 a man from Gambia was going to France but the border was closed. While he waited he found work in Roses and settled down. Later all his relatives, friends and neighbors started to arrive. Nowadays, Gerona is the second place after Gambia with the most Gambians in the world. In 2002, when the immigrant population in Catalonia reached 5 per cent, in the province of Gerona it reached 9 per cent. Today, the percentage in this region is six points above the average in Catalonia. Besides the province of Gerona, there are other regions in the provinces of Barcelona (Osona, Maresme and Baix Penedes), Lleida (Segarra and Urgell) and Tarragona (Montsia) that in the nineties already had percentages above average. Another figure that shows this is not an exclusively urban trend (or not exclusive to Barcelona) is that Moroccans, the largest community (which account for 19.52 per cent of the total number of immigrants in Catalonia, as we’ve said), are only 4.86 per cent of the immigrants in the city of Barcelona. And, as for the Gambians, even though they have grown in number, they have moved from being the fifth largest among immigrant communities in 2002, to number nineteen nowadays. So, as I’ve said, under these pressures the dimension of the phenomenon quickly sparked a debate about the future of the Catalan language. The general feeling was – and still is – that Catalan couldn’t withstand a second wave of migration and that such an avalanche would be a definitive blow to the survival of Catalan. If the substitution process was believed to be, once more, an urban phenomenon, in popular belief there were always these vestiges – Girona, Vic, … – which were part of the deep Catalonia and which were going to save the language. Maybe immigration has modified the representations, but the truth is that before this process started, Catalan already showed some symptoms, however not troublesome ones. Map 1 shows the percentages of the use of Catalan in the year 1996. None of the regions on the coast, except Montsià were above 90 per cent. As shown on Map 2, a corridor was opening up between Barcelona and Lleida (Segrià) which could end up fragmenting the area where Catalan was still mostly spoken.

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less of 70 % between 70,1 and 80,0 % between 80,1 and 85 % between 85,1 % and 90,0 % more of 90 %

Figures 1 and 2: People over 2 years old who knows to speak Catalan (1996).

The Audiencies Foundation for Communication and Culture and the Institute of Catalan Studies published the Barometer of Communication and Culture at the beginning of 2011, which shows that this fragmentation has already taken place and that the trends that were identified 15 years earlier (see map 2) were consolidated more and more. Even if the variables are not the same (the barometer refers to “primary language” and maps 2 and 3 are based on what people stated in the Consensus), what’s true is that the three regions with the highest per-

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centage of people who claim Catalan as their primary language have a slightly higher percentage of immigrants than Baix Llobregat (11.96 per cent), which is the region with the lowest percentage of Catalan speakers. That is, the new immigration waves don’t seem to have had much of an impact on the use of Catalan since they arrived. This is another fact that strengthens the idea that the use of Catalan is not really related to new immigration waves.

Figure 3: Website of “El Baròmetre de la Comunicació i la Cultura”, where it is explained the average of Catalan Social Use.

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As we have said, in societies on the move, languages can act as the territory so long as there are tangible signs of identity and, as such, they can identify and bring the members of a community together. Evidently, a question any receiving society should ask – and not just the Catalan one – is what role should this patrimony play in our society. The answer would have to keep two anthropological observations in mind: first of all, people with clear links to their societies of origin should be integrated; and second, it’s easier to add identities than to subtract any of them. In fact, there are a few examples of the effects of subtracting identities in contemporary Europe. All of that implies, one way or another, the preservation of the linguistic patrimony, as long as the preservation of language in the place of destination also influences the preservation of the language in the place of origin (Garifuna)4 and plays a fundamental role in the construction of identities. The challenge this situation poses in cases such as Catalonia, cannot be separated from the paradox of identity: being equal and different at the same time, or identifying one’s self with the group and yet differentiating one’s self apart from the rest. That is, how can a society on the move not just dilute identities, but rather strengthen them? The research that has been developed in the last few years indicates that the “anomalous” situation regarding the usual representations of the homogeneity of the State (“this is Spain” would be the favorite slogan of this idea) can have a positive effect on the relation between languages and, often, on intra-linguistic diversity itself. In the case of Spanish, for example, the multiple varieties of this language that American immigrants have brought, have encountered a different language model taught at school, and some specialists point to this fact as the reason why young Latin-Americans drop out of school.5 Another remarkable case, especially because it affects a large number of people, is that of the Berber language which, in very few years, has gone from being an ignored language to being recognized by the Parliament of Catalonia. During the first few years, institutions had established a system to translate into Arab for the Moroccan population, but there were many cases in which 4

5

Garifunas are a good example of what the members of the community can do in this sense, especially those who have settled in the USA and especially in New York; they’re the ones that have done the most to save their language. Luisa Martín, Laura Mijares, “‘Sólo en español’ a reflection on the monolingual rule and the multi-lingual reality of education centers”, Education, 341 (2007), pp. 93–112.

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the translator (Arab) and the person receiving the service (Berber) couldn’t understand each other. Now things are radically different: BTV was a pioneer in broadcasting a news program in Berber and, currently, Berber is used in the translation of official documents in Education, Health, etc. It is used in audio notices on the beaches, and there’s an Institution – The Linguamon Observatory of the Berber Language (OLLA) – which is very active in the promotion of the Berber language and culture in Catalonia. If American Spanish and Berber have had a number of speakers that have made them visible, also, the speakers of other languages that are clearly threatened in their countries of origin have started to appear in our society, moved by a feeling of self recognition in the other, which, in many cases, has generated movements of reciprocity. A brief review of the inventory of languages in Catalonia6 shows that languages that are hidden in other research papers under labels such as “African languages” or other similar ones, are here claimed by the people who speak them. Thus, we know there are Catalans who speak Ayta (Philipines), Buriat (Mongolia), Crow (USA), Guambian (Colombia), Hindko (Pakistan), Inuit (Canada), Makaa (Camerun), Mwani (Mozambique), Rapanui (Easter Island), Selk’nam (Argentina), Shuar (Equador), Sikkimes (India), Tamang (Nepal), Tzeltzal (Mexico), among others, and users of more than ten sign languages. And among them all, speakers of Tartar, Ful or Wolof who have contributed with statements such as this one:7 I think I was interested in my language, in studying it –I was interested in studying, but this interest got stronger after I finished the intermediate level of Catalan. […] The more Catalan I speak the more Tartar I am. That’s what I feel. Now I have to study Tartar. That’s the effect it has on the heart, and because I’m so far from there to fight for that, then I thought that Catalan has the same problem we have, so I advocate for Catalan, right? It’s as if I were doing it for my own language. [the fact of living here] has strengthened the idea I had about languages, that we shouldn’t lose them, because we’d lose a whole cultural construction.

And the effect of this self-recognition also reaches American Spanish speakers who have become aware of the linguistic situation of their 6 7

The updated language inventory is available on the website . Mònica Barrieras et alii, Canvi de representacions lingüístiques de parlants al.loglots…

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countries of origin, as is the cases of a Peruvian and a Chilean, respectively: When I arrived one of the things that surprised me the most was how present language was. In Peru I never noticed it so much, but here, language is all over, and other Peruvians I know also feel the same. In a way what’s happening here helps us see what’s happening there and if it weren’t for the contact with Catalan, we would have probably never thought of it. All this awakening interest for language has to do with my arrival in Catalonia. It was when I was already living here that I started to understand how important it is to preserve a language such as Catalan given the difficulties that come from the interaction with Spanish and all, and behind this there’s not just a language, but a way of behaving, of expressing and feeling, a way of thinking. I started valuing much more what I had experienced in Chile in relation to the Mapuche culture.

Thus, movement has made it possible to exchange and strengthen identities and to create links with the fostering community as well as the one of origin. It is worthwhile it to keep in mind that, even though there’s a myth that says the most homogeneous regions cope better with linguistic unification processes, this is so only when we talk about major languages (Arab versus Turkish, Persian versus Arab, etc.) But, when it comes to secondary languages, the study of the extinction of languages shows that languages spoken in multi-lingual communities can resist better. No doubt this fact is due to the linguistic habits of the members of these communities, where multiple languages are used without hierarchy (Chiapas), the adaptation of the code to the code of the interlocutor (Papua New Guiney) or the non-fragmentation of the linguistic continuum (different regions of Africa). All these models will be useful to create links in societies on the move, where respect for all identities must be central in the preservation of linguistic diversity.

Annexe Websites . .

Changing rural identity. Discourses on rurality in catalan schools Teresa SALA, Lluís SAMPER and Xavier BURRIAL Universitat de Lleida

Introduction Everything rural seems to be fashionable in today’s societies; even so, population continues to be mainly concentrated in our cities. Coming from a village seems to be perceived as something positive, but we need to ask ourselves the reasons for this supposed or real revaluation of what is rural. Is this the natural consequence of lacking urban roots or just another identity mirage? How should we define rural identity today? To what extent is this fashion part of a much wider process of trying to return to values associated with the community?1 One of the advantages of working with qualitative methodologies (ethnography, discussion groups, life histories…) is that these operations can lead us to discover things that we were not originally looking for serendipity. In our case, in a piece of research into the perceptions and evaluations of the mothers and fathers of schoolchildren and of teachers of rural schooling in modern day Catalonia2 we observed that a key element in the essentially positive evaluation of formal education was a discourse strongly in favour of that which is rural. Hover, this pride in the community was not completely exempt from ambivalence and even contradictions. To put this in the words of one respondent: “this is a double-edged sword”.

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Zygmunt Bauman, Comunidad. En busca de seguridad en un mundo hostil (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 2003), p. 9. Xavier Burrial et alii, “L’école rurale en Catalogne, présent et avenir”. Paper presented at Colloque International Éducation et Territoires, Digne les Bains, novembre 2007 (Dignes les Bains: Université de Provence, 2007), publication in CD-rom.

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On the other hand, in other studies relating to the provision of social services in the comarca (low district) of La Segarra3, the conclusion drawn from the qualitative studies based on eight discussion groups was that immigration was redefining identity processes and making them more complex. In other words, there was a perception that otherness originating from outside the community had a tendency to displace the symbolic frontiers that delimit the social structure: social class-status, sex-gender, age-cohort… The social construction of “Us” therefore needed a contrasting “Them” that could reach beyond the traditional sociolinguistic differentiation between “Catalans” and “Castilians”. However, what was new and unexpected was the appearance of what is rural as a relevant symbolic space. The current study seeks to reflect on this supposed or real redefinition of the rural world and on the corresponding rural identity based on research into the perceptions and evaluations of the rural world in modern day Catalonia. We shall start by addressing the difficult subject of delimitation and the complementarity of the differentiation between urban and rural territory. Secondly, we shall present the methodological foundations for our study, which was based on four discussion groups comprised of parents of students attending rural schools in Lleida province. Thirdly, we shall analyse the results of our exploratory research and compare our findings with those from other areas of Catalonia that were obtained from a questionnaire about the image of the rural world4. Finally, we shall make a brief synthesis containing the most relevant conclusions drawn from this study and their possible implications.

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Luís Samper, Jordi Garreta, “Identidad e inmigración: discursos sobre identidades y alteridades”, Témpora, 9 (2006), pp. 15–33. AA. DD., “Resultats de l’enquesta d’opinió sobre la imatge del món rural”, Primer Congrés del món Rural a Catalunya (Barcelona: Fundació Món Rural-Departament d’Agricultura, Ramaderia i Pesca, Generalitat de Catalunya, 2006), pp. 479–490.

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1. Moving beyond the rural-urban dichotomy Contrary to popularly held belief, globalisation is not synonymous with the promotion of cultural uniformity because parallel to such global processes as flows of finance, technology and media… we see the emergence of new localised processes involving, the reconstruction of identities, feelings of belonging, and the exacerbation of everything that is ethnic or religious5. This has led to the ever-more frequent use of the neologism “glocalisation”. This “glocalisation”, together with its concomitant phenomena of “deagrarianising” and increasing mobility, is effectively redefining the concept of the rural-urban continuum.6 It was frequent, since at least the 15th century and especially since the Enlightenment, to define the rural world by defect, or rather, on the basis of what it lacked. If the city was the place of progress and new developments, the country was perceived as backward and as a place that hung onto useless and worthless customs that effectively deprived people of freedom7. Rural, therefore became synonymous with lacking, backward, stubborn and isolated… The social sciences (sociologists like F. Tönnies or M. Weber and anthropologist like com R. Redfield) tend to underline the contrast between rural and urban society based on a number of bipolar variables: population size and density, economic activity, employment, values… In fact, by the middle of the twentieth century, functionalist theories about modernisation defended a gradual and progressive convergence of different human societies and their development towards an urbanindustrial model. Modernity and industrial (industrialisation, economic growth, salaried employment…), political (secularisation, democratisa-

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Jean-François Bayart, L’Illusion identitaire (Paris: Fayard, 1996); Manuel Castells, La era de la información, II. El poder de la identidad (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1998); Zygmunt Bauman, Globalització. Les consequències humanes (Barcelona: Pòrtic-Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, 2001). Rosario Sampedro, “Cómo ser moderna y de pueblo a la vez: los dicursos del arraigo y del desarraigo en las jóvenes rurales”, Revista de Estudios de Juventud, 83 (2008), p. 183. Col·lectiu CCCB, “Forum Seminari Món rural, Món Urbà”, Primer Congrés del món Rural…, p. 449.

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tion, bureaucratisation…) and cultural (alphabetisation, scientific development…) development were seen as the two sides of the same coin. As a consequence, the rural world effectively became pre-modern; it was associated with everything that was economically backward, authoritarian or despotic… It should, however, also be admitted that this stereotypical vision of the country did also include some positive elements: bucolic idealisation (beauty and simplicity), harmonious communities (order and peace and quiet) and the exaltation of origins and authenticity. But by the mid-1960s, this dichotomous vision – and even the very concepts of rural and urban society – were called into question when they were unable to explain the social changes that were taking place within developed societies8. Indeed, the rural space now no longer performed purely agricultural functions, but instead began to diversify into industrial activities and services and also began to provide responses to new demands for leisure from the urban population. As the urbanisation process advanced and the number of people living in country areas declined, the rural world emerged as a support for a wide range of uses, amongst which agriculture was no longer the only, nor necessarily the main, economic activity. The rural and urban spaces complemented each other and, at the same time, their differences became increasingly less important. The creation of infrastructure, the effective shortening of distances, new computer-based technologies and developments in communications resulted in a new territorial organisation which changed from one characterised by contrast to a graduation of space. Evidently, however, the situation was very different in less developed countries.9 In approximately the 1990s and coinciding with the re-ruralisation or interdependence between the two processes of urbanisation and neoruralism, there was talk in Europe of the “Rural Renaissance”10 or the

8 9

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Howard Newby, Eduardo Sevilla-Guzman, Introducción a la sociología rural (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1983), p. 44. Maria Dolors García, Antoni Tulla, Núria Valdovinos, Geografía rural (Madrid: Síntesis, 1995), p. 31; Ignasi Aldomà, Amb el permís de Barcelona (Lleida: Pagès Editors, 1999), p. 9. Maria Dolors García, Antoni Tulla, Núria Valdovinos, Geografía rural…, p. 22.

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“Rural Idyll”11. In contrast to the negative vision of the country, we see how in these late modern societies, the country or to put it in a more prosaic way, “the village resident”, became synonymous with quality of life, nature, identity and authenticity… All that was rural was seen as a reflex reaction against urban problems, offering a host of positive experiences: from living peacefully in tune with the cyclical rhythm of nature to reviving some really human relationships. Living in a village ceased to be seen as a punishment to become a privilege. In the specific case of Catalonia, this tendency to idealise everything rural was enshrined in political and ideological roots. During the nineteenth century, the advent of Romanticism and the emergence of political Catalanism helped to engender an ideological movement that postulated that the essence of Catalan identity had to be sought in rural society. Against the turbulences of the urban world, which was often associated with moral degradation and social revolution, this movement exalted the strength and authenticity of the rural world. This has tended to be perceived as a stable, pacific social structure, in other words, as a harmonic universe which offered a social counter model to the city and its differences. According to Jaume Vicens Vives12, Pairalisme13 was the ideological expression of these currents of thought in the nineteenth century, during the Renaissance and also in the twentieth century. It seems clear that these amiable stereotypes of rural life, in other words, this mythified vision of the rural world as some form of unpolluted Arcadia, had little in common with the image of the Catalan countryside that the media offered at the beginning of the twenty-first century: forest fires, polluted aquifers, social problems associated with migrant labourers… Even so, if we perhaps focus our attention on an analysis of the symbolic content of the publicity, school materials, and 11

12 13

Jo Little, “Employment marginality and women’s self-identity”, Contested countryside cultures: otherness, marginalisation and rurality, Paul Cloke, Jo Little, eds. (London: Routledge, 1997) quoted in: Rosario Sampedro, “Cómo ser moderna y de pueblo a la vez…”, p. 186. Jo Little, “Employment marginality and women’s…”. Pairalisme is a reference to the pairal family, the Catalan model of the stem family based on the “house” as a company and place of residence, the “heir” and patriarchal lineage and values. The anthropologist Llorenç Prats, El mite de la tradició popular (Barcelona: Edicions 62, 1988), p. 75, defined this as “rural family values with idyllic organisation and an inherently Catalan soul”.

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even some of the political speeches, we can find indications of a certain recovery of the “back to our roots” ideology14. But, before we delve into the tempestuous territory of imaginary collectives, let us look at some data on social change in the rural world in Catalonia over the last twenty to thirty years. We can analyse levels of rurality based on objective criteria such as the percentage of the population engaged in agriculture, the sizes and densities of population centres, the GDP generated by the primary sector, etc. The results obtained, although requiring some qualification, confirm the demographic and economic decline of the rural territory. For example, if the active population engaged in agriculture in 1981 was 8.7 % of the total workforce of Catalonia, twenty years later, it accounted for only 2.46 %. In 2001, the GDP of the primary sector was only 1.7 % of the national total (for Catalonia) despite the fact that in comarques like La Terra Alta or L’Urgell it represented 20 % of the local GDP. Similarly, demography shows a pronounced tendency towards an ageing population, due to the combined effect of a low birth rate and a high male population. In contrast, the number of Catalan municipalities with fewer than 2000 inhabitants (the census threshold for defining rurality) has only undergone minor changes: with there being a few more than 700 such settlements in 1970 as opposed to 630 in 2004.15 In contrast, the levels of education (percentage of medium and higher level qualifications) are equal, and in some cases higher than in urban areas. Furthermore, contrasting a rural Catalonia with an urban Catalonia does not seem to be justified in terms of family income, the structure of the labour market, or the degree of economic specialisation. Hence, the comarques (low districts) with the highest levels of income (according to statistics for 2001) were: La Vall d’Aran, El Gironès, La Garrotxa, El Ripollès and La Cerdanya. At the same time, those with most tertiary sector employment were: La Vall d’Aran, El Barcelonès, El Tarragonès, El Gironès and L’Alt Empordà. Similarly, 14

15

Helena Estalella, Silvia Carrasco, “La Catalunya Rural Contemporània”, La societat catalana, S. Giner, dir. (Barcelona: Inst. d’Estadística de Catalunya, 1998), p. 374 and following. Antoni Tulla, “El món rural i la diversitat de les persones. Canvis demogràfics i integració social al món rural”, Primer Congrés del món Rural…, p. 317 and following.

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the observed differences were not so marked for quality of life16, although in some eminently rural comarques the cost of living (food and housing) was cheaper, salaries were lower… even so, the average amount of money deposited in many bank branches located in villages tended to be notably greater than in many urban areas. In other words, the rural world and the urban world are macroeconomically and demographically differentiated realities, but with internal diversities and complexities that effectively dilute their respective borders.17 Finally, if we move from the structural perspective to look at this from the point of view of the social actors, for example, centring our focus on the day-to-day lives of the people involved, this separation between the two worlds becomes even less clear. As Rosario Sampedro observed:18 El medio rural asiste a un verdaderotrasiego de gente que viene y va, para trabajar, para descansar o divertirse, para estudiar, para veranear o invernar, durante la semana o el fin de semana, o en vacaciones ... Pueblos que se llenan o vacíansiguiendo el ritmo de la vida social. Trabajarfuera y volver al final de la jornada. Vivir en la ciudad y echar la jornada en el campo. Estudiar en la ciudad y volver el fin de semana, o a las fiestas, o en el verano. Trabajar en la ciudad y volver al cabo de los añosporque tu chica o tu chico es del pueblo –o del pueblo de al lado– y surge la posibilidad de construir un proyecto laboral y de pareja ‘con base’ en el pueblo o en la cabecera de comarca. The rural environment experiences a real coming and going of people for work, to relax and enjoy themselves, to study, to pass the summer or the winter, for the week 16

17

18

However, this is a rather controversial question and one which we cannot examine in depth here. Even so, there seems to be consensus regarding the different opportunities that exist with respect to access to basic services such as health, education, culture… According to David Harvey’s theory of territorial distributive justice, rural space tends to be characterised by educed access to basic services. Although there has been much progress in Catalonia in this area over the past twenty years, it equally seems evident that there still remains quite a lot of work to be done. Maria Dolors García, Antoni Tulla, Núria Valdovinos, Geografía rural…, p. 38; Col·lectiu CCCB “Forum Seminari Món rural, Món Urbà…”, pp. 456–457. Raimon Bonal, “Del món rural al món urbà”, La societat catalana, Salvador Giner, dir. (Barcelona: Institut d’Estadística de Catalunya, 1998), p. 351; Antoni Tulla, “El món rural i la diversitat de les persones…”, p. 457; Col·lectiu CCCB “Forum Seminari Món rural, Món Urbà…”, pp. 450 –451; Anna Alabart, Gemma Vilà, “Territori i estructura social”, La societat catalana, Teresa Montagut, coord. (Barcelona: Associació Catalana de Sociologia, 2007), p. 199. Rosario Sampedro, “Cómo ser moderna y de pueblo a la vez…”, p. 181.

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or the weekend, or during the holidays... Villages that fill up and empty following the rhythm of the social life. Working away and returning after the day out. Living in the city and working in the country. Studying in the city and going back for weekends, or for the local festivities or in summer. Working in the city and going back after years because your girl or boy is from the village – or the neighbouring one – and the possibility arises of a plan to work or to live together as a couple with ‘the base’ in the village or the district capital.

This mobility, which we could call “sedentary nomadism”19 is characteristic of hypermodern societies, where the social agents are constantly on the move between a multitude of places (home, work, shopping, holidays, second residences, extended family…) as if these were multiple micro living spaces. This involves physical journeys (on foot, by car, by plane…), but also being electronically mobile and using mobile telecommunications: landlines and mobile phones, e-mails, media… In this new mobile society, with its liquid modernity20, processes of reruralisation and, above all, the unprecedented increase in social mobility (geographical, occupational, telecommunications…) of the social actors21 leaves such essentialist concepts as what is rural and what is urban definitively obsolete. From this new perspective, what is rural is no longer a separate world, though neither is it an illusionary world that no longer exists, but rather a socially constructed category.22 19 20 21

22

Eduardo Bericat, Sociología de la movilidad espacial (Madrid: Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas, 1994). Zygmunt Bauman, Globalització. Les consequències humanes… Evidently, some collectives are excluded by these mobility processes. In the study that we have cited about social services in La Segarra (Luís Samper and Jordi Garreta, 2006), both the groups of elderly autochthonous people, born before 1940 (and particularly those from farming families who lived in small and isolated villages) and of immigrants from outside the European Union with low levels of education and training characteristically presented essentialist and/or reclaiming discourses. In the first case, we observe a mythified past (hard, austere but happy, peaceful and supportive times) and a fear of the future which combine in an essentialist vision and a longing for traditional institutions. In the second case, there is an identity model based on resistance, which reacts against the dominant values and norms, but also an idealisation of rurality and a fear of modernity. In both cases, the identity systems are constructed based on “definitions with respect to others”: identification with groups based on kinship, geographic origin, ethnicity, similar occupations … [Claude Dubar, La crise des identités (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2001)]. Cecilia Díaz, “Aproximaciones al arraigo y al desarraigo femenino en el medio rural”, Papers, 75 (2005), p. 64.

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In short, we could ask ourselves: how is this rurality constructed? What are the images, perceptions and even the values of these notions of rurality? How do the subjects identify themselves with the social representations of the rural world? How do they feel with respect to these changing realities? Why, or why not, do they identify with living in a village? What conflicts do they have to encounter? Against what parameters do they compare their past experiences and their future projects? How do they justify their attachment or indifference to the rural lifestyle? What does it mean to life in a village today? Below, we shall try to revisit these questions and, to the best of our possibilities, answer some of these questions.

2. Methodological questions Our aim was to study the discourses23 that the inhabitants of rural Catalonia construct with respect to rurality. In operational terms, this means that we have considered the following objectives: 1.

2. 3.

23

Analyse the social representations (images, perceptions and evaluations) of this rurality by the subjects who form part of the rural world. Compare these social representations with the images of the rural world shared by the whole of the population of Catalonia. Reflect, based on the data available, on the alleged or real existence of subjects with a redefined rurality. As we know, Michel Foucault has largely been credited with introducing discourse analysis into contemporary social sciences. However, given the polysemy and complexity of his legacy, we have opted to follow the approach outlined by: Teun A. van Dijk, Ideología y discurso (Barcelona: Ariel, 2003). Along these lines, we have sought to interrelate the following three components of discourse: a. The meaning: issues, identification, common places, synonyms and other semantic aspects. b. The form: discussion of the proposals, causality, justification, temporal orientation and other socio-cognitive aspects. c. The social dimension: belonging to a group (coordinates of social position) and interaction (verbal and non-verbal communication) during the respective sessions.

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Given the exploratory nature of the study, and also our emphasis on it having a significant size (interpreting the meaning that the subjects give to their own social realities), we decided to adopt a qualitative methodology. In contrast to the “impersonal”, “precise” and “objective” nature of quantitative methodologies (statistical analysis of census data, precoded surveys and questionnaires, attitude scales) qualitative approaches (ethnography, interviews, group discussions and/or life histories) place the emphasis on “flexibility”, “holistic” focuses and considerations that are more linguistic and iconic. If the former offer a snapshot of reality, the latter try to capture the opinions of different social actors. In our case, the use of the focus group approach further emphasised the objective of recording even the more idiosyncratic and subjective views on rural life. Indeed, this practice offers a series of methodological characteristics – such as the spontaneity and flexibility of the discourses, the synergic effect of interaction, the making explicit of subconscious attitudes, emotional implication, the evocation of personal experiences personals and the negotiation of meaning between participants – that make it particularly appropriate for treating the subject that interests us here24. In light of the situation of re-ruralisation mentioned in the previous section, when designing our focus groups, we considered two main points: a. b.

24

The socio-structural axis: criteria for social identification (social class, gender, ethnicity and cultural capital) The socio-spatial axis: the rural-urban continuum in terms of population size and density and the percentage of the active population engaged in agriculture. In the appendix (tables I and II) we provide Jesús Ibañez, Más allá de la sociología. El grupo de discusión: teoría y técnica (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 1979); Alfonso Ortí, “La apertura y el enfoque cualitativo o estructural: la entrevista abierta y la discusión de grupo”, El análisis de la realidad social, Manuel García, Jesús Ibañez, Francisco Alvira, coords. (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1986); Enrique Martin, “El grupo de discusión como situación social”, Revista Española de Investigaciones Sociológicas, 79 (1997); Javier Callejo, El grupo de discusión (Barcelona: Ariel, 2001); David L. Morgan, “Focus Groups”, The Social Science Encyclopedia, 3 vols., Adam Kuper, Jessica Kuper, dirs. (New York: Routledge, 2003), vol. 1.

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details of the characteristics of each focus group. With respect to the specific composition of each group, we followed the logic of inclusive heterogeneity (homogeneity with respect to the collective, but heterogeneity with respect to personal characteristics). Our aim was not to obtain a statistical representation (from a heterogeneous and representative sample) but rather one that was comprehensively representative, or rather, discursive and semantic.25

3. Some images, evaluations and identities associated with “new” rurality La fonction de l’imaginaire est indissociable de l’ordre de la matérialité […] Corollairement, on ne peut envisager une matérialité que dans son rapport à l’imaginaire… Enfin, dans une société donnée, l’imaginaire ne représente pas une totalité cohérente, puisqu’il englobe une galaxie de figures hétérogènes en fuite perpétuelle. Les produits imaginaires ne sont donc nécessairement isomorphes. En outre, elles sont par définition, en tant que productions symboliques, polysémiques et ambivalentes.26 The function of the imagination is inseparable from the material order […] As a corollary, we cannot consider materiality that in its rapport with the imaginary… That is to say, in a given society, the imagination is not a coherent whole, it encompasses a galaxy of heterogeneous figures in perpetual flight. The products of the imaginary are not necessarily isomorphic. In addition, they are, by definition, symbolic, ambivalent and polysemous productions.

It is certain that relations between social representations (perceptions and evaluations) and even collective identities and “objective” social reality, in other words, those based on social, economic and demographic structures, etc. …Are always complex, and often contradictory. In the case of a society that is as urbanised as Catalonia, we should underline the importance of the symbolic recognition of rurality. Thus, for H. Estalella and S. Carrasco27, as a consequence of the important transformations 25 26 27

Jesús Ibañez, Más allá de la sociología…, pp. 264–265. Jean-François Bayart, L’ Illusion identitaire…, p. 231. Helena Estalella, Silvia Carrasco, “La Catalunya Rural Contemporània…”, pp. 373 and following.

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that we have already referred to in the second section, there two very different ideas of reality that tend to predominate and to be strongly recreated: a. b.

Bonds related to the sense of taste and a gastronomy associated with “local produce”; an original and non-industrial land. An emotional and visual perception of rurality based on constructed ideals that Catalans project back into the past, but which they would like to identify with the present.

Focusing on this latter aspect and, very freely, following the hypothesis that these two authors proposed, we have classified and interpreted the verbal production of our informants on the basis of a three-level analysis: 1.

2.

3.

Rurality as natural spaces; here “natural” is equivalent to wild, unpolluted or ecological. Its most powerful ideological correlation would be with “green”, or rather, with the defence and protection of environmental values and, in general, of everything that is related to ecosystems: forests, rivers, plants and animals…28 Rurality as “preindustrial” lifestyles; here, too, we treat rural and “natural” as effective equivalents, but in this case we make reference to the semantic field of what is traditional, … In this case, getting back to our roots. At the third level of analysis, rurality refers us to socio-emotional aspects, both in strictly dyadic relations29 and in relations at the level of primary groups, or ones genuinely relating to communities gemeinshaft. Here, the correspondence between rural and “natural” would have connotations of genuine human communication and of the authentic, sincere, primordial social relations… That spring from nature.

Below, we present materials that, as we shall see, illustrate and specify this scheme, albeit with some important nuances and corrections:

28

29

As a very illustrative anecdote of this new ecological sensitivity, we could cite the amount of attention in the news, which has gone as far as offering advice, that TV3 (the official TV station of the Catalan autonomy) has recently given to the boletaire (mushroom picker). Helena Estalella, Silvia Carrasco, “La Catalunya Rural Contemporània…”, p. 375.

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Rurality as ecological nature. At home, I’m woken by the sound of the birds singing. I’m really a town person and it was very difficult going to live in a village, but we have a big house there…. (Corbins)

2.

Rurality as preindustrial nature. I’m happy there. I have my vegetable garden, I grow our plants … I live in the country … It’s what I need. (Alpicat) I also keep a little vegetable garden… with three or four hens. (Alpicat)

3.

Rurality as a natural community.

Speaking of looking after the children: “She, for example, has left her son with the people who we sit with in the square …”. (La Granja) Speaking about children’s friends: “Even here, you can keep track of the friends that he makes in the street. If you don’t know the family, you always know someone who knows them […] in a large town or city that’s much more complicated”… (Alpicat) The children are under more control, not just at school, but out of school too”. They’re in small villages and if they go out and do something naughty, [sic] you know about it straight away, whereas in the city…. (Sort) The village is like a big family. They (the children) meet at school and they all know each other […]. (La Granja)

In summary, the advantages of living in a village are related to enjoying an attractive and unpolluted environment, enjoying a more relaxed lifestyle (the old longing for “the house and vegetable garden”) and the perception of the community as a type of extended family. Taken as a whole, these positive images coincide with the results from the survey30: the majority of Catalans (55.6 %) think that life is better in rural than urban areas (30.2 % think the opposite). According 30

Here we refer to the refer to a questionnaire about the image of the rural world that involved 2.400 interviews with people providing a cross-section of the population resident in Catalonia who were over 18 years of age. The study was carried out between the months of December 2005 and January 2006, coinciding with the First Congress about the Rural World in Catalonia (AA. DD., “Resultats de l’enquesta d’opinió sobre la imatge del món rural…”).

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to the same study31 being in contact with nature and the peace and quiet are the main attractions of the rural world. At a second level of evaluation, we find aspects such as the scenery, fresh air and the possibility of going for walks; in other words, a bucolic vision that is in line with what we recorded in our focus groups. But we also heard our subjects refer to what we might call “the darker side of rural life”. For example, the solidarity of the community also tends to carry with it an excessive degree of social control, and not only for children: This is a double-edges sword… if they pick on [sic] your son…, referring not only to school but also in the street or country, ‘…There are fewer alternatives than in a town or larger settlement.’ (Sort)

This group pressure (school bullying) can also be counterproductive for adults: Up here, what becomes invisible is the idea that it has more advantages. (Sort)

In the case of women, it is the gossiping that is criticised. At times, this is the price that must be paid in exchange for recognition and solidarity: “You don’t find the indifference of the city”. (Corbins)

Amongst women, and especially those with more cultural capital, we tend to find a more balanced discourse, although one that is rather ambivalent when it compares the village and the city and their respective advantages and inconveniences: I see a lot of positive aspects […] and it was a bit difficult for me at the beginning […] because of the services […] although I have adapted quite quickly […] But we like it here and it’s good for the children because they all know each other and see each other at the swimming pool and in the park, and for me, that’s perfect …. (Alpicat) I think that the communications have transformed everything, the village is not what it used to be, being from a village is not the same now as it was before and the communications have changed everything. (Corbins)

31

AA. DD., “Resultats de l’enquesta d’opinió sobre la imatge del món rural…”, pp. 479 and following.

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These findings are quite similar to those from other studies carried out in rural areas of Asturias and Castile – with focus groups in which all the participants were women –32 which presented an example of a new perception of rurality: one that is less essentialist, more pragmatic, less determinist (for example, like a stage in the cycle of family life), in short, more modern. This should help to break the secular prejudice that associates rurality with tradition, at least at the level of discourse, although the situation would probably still remain very contradictory at the practical level. According to this argument, this new rurality is a type of instrumental root that tries to take the best of both worlds33; we could perhaps express this in the words of our informants as “Being modern and being from a village, at the same time”. It seems to us that there is no shortage of criticism, at least amongst our subjects, of this rural-urban neo-nomadism and this refers us back to the question of identity. Let’s look at a few examples: It is different the terraced houses […] There is no conflict, but sometimes they want to impose their way of living on the people of the village… and that causes friction. The people from the village react quite aggressively to this […] they are very different ways of life… (Corbins) Do you know what? The people who come to live in the village from outside do not integrate. They form new neighbourhoods that are like separate microcosms. They are not in the old part of the village […]. They tend to live in separate, new neighbourhoods, in “the new houses”; listen to them, they call them ‘the new houses’. It isn’t possible to build in the middle of the village; they’re the houses that are there, the people who are there…. (Corbins)

In this case, the symbolic barriers that define rurality, in other words, the difference between “Us” and “Them”, do not correspond, as in other cases, to the separation between the autochthonous population and immigrants, but rather to that between “genuinely” rural people and “pseudourbanites”. The latter try to “’get the best of both worlds”, but without ever really identifying themselves as being “from the village”. In contrast, there are people who are still considered “from the village” even though they have been to university or have gone, mainly for work32 33

Cecilia Díaz, “Aproximaciones al arraigo…”; Rosario Sampedro, “Cómo ser moderna y de pueblo a la vez…”. Rosario Sampedro, “Cómo ser moderna y de pueblo a la vez…”, p. 188.

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related reasons, to live in a different place to where they were born; these people are still “housified”, or associated with a house in the village. They are rooted through their family – whether through kinship or affinity –, and at least one, and often two, family lines, or “houses”, identify them in such different aspects as economic status or school reputation: That boy is from a good house, and he thinks that he is from a good house. (he wants to assert this idea). (Corbins)

In contrast, this rural identity does not cease to be an assigned and cultural identity34 and it takes on a certain tone of protest, and of resistance, before the hegemonic culture; as, for example, before the alleged deficit of linguistic legitimacy of spoken dialect: You don’t speak like they speak down there. There’s the accent and then the words that only we use. (Sort)

In conclusion, this rural identity, like many other forms of group identification, responds more to a need for symbolic differentiation with respect to the collectives with which we interact than to a configuration of specific structural or cultural rules. It is not necessary to be a village farmer or to permanently live in the village to feel different or perhaps secretly superior to the urbanites.

Final reflections In contrast to the sweetened, schematic, pick-and-mix visions of rural life that we are presented with through “third person” discourses – in the media, TV commercials, publicity, and even in many school textbooks – our subjects expressed highly complex and diverse range of views that was not exempt from contradictions… But which was no doubt the result of their own, personal, experiences. We also observed a notable coincidence in the three dimensions of “classical” rurality: the treasuring and defence of the natural environment, 34

Claude Dubar, La crise des identités…, pp. 54–55.

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the love for all that is traditional and the perception of villages as the archetypal representation of the community35 These clearly positive images are not, therefore, exempt from a certain ambivalence and are even open to question: living in a village and being from a village is, or could be, a privilege, but it also implies a number of inconveniences. Far from the bucolic image of rural life (of publicity, novels and television…), these accounts shy away from the temptation to portray a rural paradise (especially when explained by those with a higher cultural level). It should also be noted that there seems to be sufficient evidence to point to a new model of rural life: on that is instrumental, mobile, strategic, not in the least essentialist and perhaps even opportunist. This can, for example, be associated with a stage in the family cycle. We must remember that the majority of the members of our focus groups were female and that, more specifically, they were mainly mothers with school-age children. Finally, for some of the other subjects of our study, rurality is associated with a personal identification with a specific “house” (in the ethnographic sense of the term). In other words, regardless of their professions or places of residence, some people take pride in their roots and coming from a particular lineage and area, and forming part of a “we” that is purely communitary and even almost genealogical. Here, rurality assumes cultural, axiological, and perhaps even moral, connotations. We must add that this identification with what is rural but somewhat imaginary36 is an ambivalent and dynamic concept in which “pairalist” traditions coexist with the new symbolic elements, especially in the ecological discourse and in contradictory sentiments: pride in being from a village, but resentment in the face of real or perceived discrimination from the urban world. In other words, it is an ever-changing social construction that is based on a series of social practices of affinity, but also of opposition. Despite the limited and rather provisional nature of these first results (it is evident that it will be necessary to interview other collectives: 35

36

Zygmunt Bauman, Comunidad. En busca de seguridad…, pp. 22–23) rightly pointed out, this longing for a sense of community is related to the need for safety, which is something that the world in which we live is increasingly less able to provide. In this sense, identity is a substitute for this much sought after “natural home” that community seems to offer. Jean-François Bayart, L’Illusion identitaire…

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young and old people, groups providing a better balance in terms of gender), it is perhaps not wrong to point out that, parallel to the absolute power of a new global reality, that which is local continues to be an important source of symbolic references. In an increasingly insecure world that seems to lack meaning, that which is rural offers an image of “community” and “nature”, a promise of a return to paradise lost or, even better, a synthesis of the best of premodern traditions and the advances of hypermodernity. In the specific case of Catalonia, and leaving aside controversies about our different images of identity, this re-evaluation of rural identity is probably not unrelated to the evident territorial imbalances and a significant increase in social exclusion.

Annex: Characteristics of the focus groups Table I: Composition of the groups Location

Total population / by age groups in % (2009) G1: La Granja d’Escarp Total: 984 people Distance from Lleida: 47 km. From 0 to 14 yrs: 9.1 From 15 to 64 yrs: 65 Over 65 yrs: 25.8 G2: Sort Total: 2382 people Distance from Lleida: 130 km. From 0 to 14 yrs: 15.7 Reference centre: From 15 to 64 yrs: 68.3 Tremp Over 65 yrs: 16 Distance from Tremp: 40 km. G3: Alpicat Total: 6058 people. Distance from Lleida: 10 km. From 0 to 14 yrs: 18.7 From 15 to 64 yrs: 68.5 Over 65 yrs: 11.8 G4: Corbins Total: 1356 hab. Distance from Lleida: 12 km. From 0 to 14 yrs: 14.2 From 15 to 64 yrs: 67.1 Over 65 yrs:18.7 Font: Idescat.

Participants Socio-cultural characteristics 6 women: Lower middle class 3 Spaniards Low cultural capital 3 immigrants 4 women 2 men

Middle class Various levels of cultural capital

6 women 2 men

Middle/ uppermiddle class Good cultural capital

6 women

School teachers The majority were also mothers

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Table II: Social profile of the population centres Location

% of the population engaged in different activities (2001) La Granja d’Escarp Agriculture: 34.4 Industry: 9.9 Construction: 11.5 Services: 44.1 Sort

Agriculture: 6.1 Industry: 7 Construction: 16.2 Services: 70.6

Alpicat

Agriculture: 11.6 Industry: 14.6 Construction: 8.9 Services: 64.9

Corbins

Agriculture: 31.8 Industry: 14.5 Construction: 9.9 Services: 43.9

Level of education in % (2001)

Place of birth (2009)

No qualifications: 9.9 Catalonia: 738 Primary: 25 Same comarca: 691 Secondary: 56.8 Another comarca: 47 University: 8.2 Rest of Spain: 144 Abroad: 102 No qualifications: 6.2 Catalonia: 1667 Primary: 31.5 Same comarca: 782 Secondary: 47.3 Another comarca: 885 University: 15.1 Rest of Spain: 219 Abroad: 496 No qualifications: 8.6 Catalonia: 4755 Primary: 19.6 Same comarca: 3938 Secondary: 53.2 Another comarca: 817 University: 18.6 Rest of Spain: 833 Abroad: 470 No qualifications: 5.5 Catalonia: 1127 Primary: 35.5 Same comarca: 983 Secondary: 48.1 Another comarca: 144 University: 10.8 Rest of Spain: 105 Abroad: 124

Source: Idescat, (consult: September 2009).

Webgraphy Idescat: (consult: September 2009).

Aging as Continuity and Change: Age as Personal and Social Transformation Roberta MAIERHOFER University of Graz

Since the 1980s, scholars in the field of cultural gerontology have turned to cultural manifestations to investigate ideas about the meaning of identity within the life course, and discuss models of aging presented in literature, art, and film. Within the interplay between the fields of sciences and humanities, textual representations are important sources that contribute towards understanding “identity in movement,” the matrix of time and experience within the many contexts in which a person moves over the duration of a life. Examining reactions to personal crises and turning points as expressed in cultural representations provides researchers with unique insights into the way individuals construct their lives. Sociologists have suggested that narratives or stories play a central part in the construction of lives, as what is meaningful about ourselves is expressed through the telling of stories. Whereas on the public level these stories communicate the significance of particular lives and communities for society as a whole, on the individual level the telling of stories is a medium for the integration of lives, for explaining discontinuities as well as continuities. The fluidity of identity opens up possibilities to move beyond the defined position of self and makes it not only possible but necessary to view family structure and relationships in new ways. If identity is defined by both continuity and change over a life course, the importance is to not only narrate one’s life, but also interpret these narrations in an ongoing process of dialogue not only between cultural representation and the interpretations of these and between generations to establish an intergenerational discourse, but also between the various disciplines to charter an interdisciplinary approach to time and experience. Growing old will then be seen in the larger context of fundamental human rights for both young and old, women and men.

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When I started my research of literary and cultural aging at the beginning of the 1990s this was a very lonely field, in Europe it hardly existed, and in the US, with the exception of a few researchers, literature was reduced to a mere sociological study of aging. To express this general lack of understanding, Andrew Blaikie in his book Ageing and Popular Culture (1999) uses a quote from Sixty Years On: Women Talk About Old Age (1987) by Ford and Sinclair as the title of the introductory chapter, “The trouble is that old age is not interesting until one gets there, a foreign country with an unknown language.”1 In the meantime, a vibrant community of literary and cultural scholars has been established that work from an interdisciplinary approach. At the beginning of the 1990s, I coined the term “anocriticism” as an approach in Aging Studies based on Elaine Showalter‘s definition of “gynocriticism”,2 in order to generate an understanding of what it means to be “aged by culture” – as Margaret Morganroth Gullette puts it.3 In a true feminist tradition, it also refers to the fact that biology is not destiny. Germaine Greer has used the term “anophobia”,4 to speak about the fear of old women. I use the term “anocriticism” to express an interpretational approach that validates individual experience of age and aging in resistance of normative assumptions. In my research, I call for recognition of the importance of literary and cultural critical interpretations as a basis of establishing the implicit meaning of aging. By linking theories of gender and age, I propose a search for a specific culture of aging and understanding of age as a culturally defined category. A distinction needs to be made between chronological age – time lived – and the cultural stereotypes associated with age. By determining in what way “youth” and “age” come to have certain meanings at a particular place and time, and stressing the neces1

2

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4

Andrew Blaikie, Ageing and Popular Culture (Cambridge. UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999). Quoted from: J. Ford, R. Sinclair, Sixty Years On: Women Talk About Old Age (London: Women’s Press, 1987), p. 51. Elaine Showalter, “Feminist Criticism in the Wilderness”, The New Feminist Criticism. Essays on Women, Literature, and Theory, Elaine Showalter, ed. (New York: Pantheon, 1985), pp. 243–270. Margaret Morganroth, Declining to Decline. Cultural Combat and the Politics of the Middle (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1997), pp. 6–7; Margaret Morganroth, Aged by Culture (Chicago: University Press of Chicago, 2004). Germaine Greer, The Change. Women, Aging and the Menopause (New York: Knopf, 1992), p. 4.

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sary interrelatedness of these meanings, an understanding can be reached of what is considered typically “young” in a given society depends in part on being different from what is “old” and what is “old” on “not being young.” This understanding can lead to the conclusion that what is considered age-neutral, in example “universal” is implicitly often male and young, and exclusive of the female and old. As Kathleen Woodward and others have argued, Western society distinguishes a single binary – young and old, which is hierarchically organized, youth being the valued term, the point of reference for defining who is old. Cultural representations of age remain locked in primarily negative stereotypes, whereas youth, subjectively speaking, remains a remarkably fluid and seemingly almost infinitely expandable category, it is a moveable marker.5 Contrary to popular conceptions of old age, which tend to define it as a distinct period in life, old people themselves emphasize the continuity of the ageless self amid changes across the life span. But daily life presents us with contempt and disdain for something we all want to do – grow old, contempt that is hardly openly expressed anymore for other identity categories, such as race, class, or gender. Looking at lists of publishing companies there is obviously a focus on books on aging from various different aspects, from sociological, psychological, and medical studies to oral history projects and autobiographical texts. The topic of aging has caught up with the bookstores that offer special sections devoted to aging; movies, radio and TV talk shows dedicate much of their time to this theme. Popular culture portrays not only old people, but increasingly so protagonists with Alzheimer’s disease populate shows, science-fiction bestsellers, detective and crime stories, as well as popular romance novels. The topic is everywhere, but cultural and literary scholarship has been slow to turn to this topic. The humanities (such as Modern Languages, literature and cultural studies) have been slow to pick up the topic of aging and incorporate it into teaching and research. At the Modern Languages Conference (MLA) that took place in Chicago in December 2007, for the first time a strong voice for the inclusion of “aging studies” as a special-interest group was raised, which led to a heated discussion of demarcation lines towards childhood studies, on the one hand, and disability studies, on the other. Only recently has the 5

Kathleen Woodward, Aging and Its Discontents. Freud and Other Fiction (Indiana: Bloomington University Press, 1991), p. 22.

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field, which goes often by different names such as “aging studies,” “age studies,” humanistic, narrative or cultural gerontology” gained recognition as a serious approach to cultural and literary research, and found acceptance as an interdisciplinary method of feeding and supporting other disciplines dealing with age and aging. In terms of the different names for the field, it might not be a matter of a “rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Rather these different terms denote different emphasis and interpretations of the research area as well as method and approach. The terms used differently depending on the respective disciplinary basis, however, have not necessarily helped the visibility of this special approach to literature and culture. Literary and cultural studies has seen a proliferation of identity-based studies, but in contrast to other categories both authors and readers can cross boundaries of this identity marker, and can read and interpret a work as both a young as well as an old person, age is the one marker, which we all have in common. In a lengthy report on the first panel on aging at the aforementioned MLA convention 2007 in Chicago, Scott Jaschik appropriately titled his contribution in the online journal Inside HigherEd, “The Identity Studies for Everyone”,6 thus documenting the fact that a vibrant community of literary and cultural scholars has established itself embracing an interdisciplinary approach. Similar to feminist criticism, where scholars set out to examine the ideology and culture of texts from a woman-centered perspective, literary critics in the field of age studies have introduced the notion of a reevaluation of the concepts, history, and politics of literary studies in terms of age in order to create a new literary landscape, basically what I have coined as “anocriticism.” My own research in aging was inspired by a publication at the beginning of the 1990, when Our Bodies, Ourselves came out with a new extended volume with the title Our Bodies, Ourselves Growing Older. The original Our Bodies, Ourselves was compiled out of necessity by a women’s health seminar during the second wave of feminism in 1969 in Boston, where women wanted to make sense of the medical muddle then surrounding women’s health, as not a single text existed at the time about women’s health and sexuality.7 When I saw this new volume concentrating on Growing Older, I real6 7

: Scott Jaschik. Inside Higher Ed (December 28, 2007). < http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/1820> (14 October, 2008).

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ized at the time that this was a new field of research that needed to be addressed not only on a medical, sociological, or psychological basis, but from a cultural perspective. The US reviews of this book spoke about the fact that it “demystifies aging” as much as the original Our Bodies, Ourselves demystified reproduction.8 Others spoke in this context of the “magic of power”: “The power is derived from advocacy – advocacy for oneself and for others”.9 I wish I could put this into the hands of every woman growing older. I wish I could persuade younger women to read it too. Come to think of it, men should read it as well. It is an antidote to the myths, the negative stereotypes, the downright ignorance our society harbors about women growing older.10

The aspects of race, class and gender that were incorporated into the discussion of literary and cultural theory should be extended to the aspect of age. As feminist theory distinguishes between sex and gender, so should a distinction be made between chronological age and the cultural stereotypes associated with old people, which would help escape the confining binary oppositions of young and old. Starting with the premise that age – similar to race, class, and gender – does not flow naturally or inevitably from the individual’s anatomical body, scholarship could analyze the way age identity is constructed in literature and in society, for both young and old. By placing literature and other cultural representations in a social, cultural, and political context, existing disciplines and traditional paradigms can be reconstructed. Also, the methods used to deconstruct traditional ideologies can be helpful in the field of age studies and the study of aging.11 8

9

10 11

“Through its sensitive, informed and detailed treatment of the health needs of women over forty and older, the book demystifies aging much as Our Bodies, Ourselves did for reproduction” Marilyn Vowels, The Gray Panther Network. Carolyn Reuben, “There is magic in these pages, and it is the magic of power. The power is derived from advocacy – advocacy for oneself and for others. It is what makes this thick volume shine among the self-care books available today.” L. A. Weekly. Datha Clapper Brack, New Directions for Women. The distinction between “age studies” (understanding how differences are produced by discursive formations, social practices, and material conditions) and “aging studies” (understanding old and middle age as a continuum of a discourse on age itself that includes all stages of life) is often blurred.

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As early as 1975, Susan Sontag spoke of the “Double Standard of Aging”12 as applied to men and women and distinguishes between old age and growing older. She has defined old age as “a genuine ordeal, one that men and women undergo in a similar way”,13 and growing older as an ordeal of the imagination – a moral disease, a pathology – intrinsic to which is the fact that it afflicts women much more than men.14 Thus, men reach old age, women grow old or more precisely they grow “older”, question of course “older than whom?”. Sontag identified aging as a social judgment of women rather than a biological eventuality, ordained by the way society limits how women feel free to imagine themselves.15 To be a woman other than young in Western culture is to be twice over “the other” – to borrow Simone de Beauvoir’s concept –, for aging women suffer the double discrimination of being both women and aging at the same time. It is therefore the narrow social boundaries that limit women, not the fact of aging as such. As youth is seen as a metaphor for energy, restless mobility, and the general state of wanting, all attributes that have traditionally been linked with “masculinity” and age has been associated with incompetence, helplessness, passivity, non-competitiveness, and being nice, qualities that have stereotypically been defined as “feminine”,16 ageism re-inscribes women in cultural definitions on the assumption that appearance creates identity. But not only does society tend to simplify the process of aging, scholars interested in aging have tended to view old age simply in terms of loss and decline. Much of adult-development theory conceives of the life course as trajectory, as the anthropologist Sharon Kaufman has shown in her critique of these theories. A person “rises” and develops by gaining knowledge, skills, roles, power, and self-esteem, and then “declines” by losing some or all of these attributes. The aging individual is often viewed as attempting or even struggling to hold onto or maintain his or her re-

12

13 14 15 16

Susan Sontag, “The Double Standard of Aging”, No Longer Young: The Older Woman in America. Proceedings of the 26th Annual Conference on Aging (University of Michigan, 1975), pp. 31–39. Susan Sontag, “The Double Standard…”, p. 31. Susan Sontag, “The Double Standard…”, p. 31. Susan Sontag, “The Double Standard…”, p. 36. Susan Sontag, “The Double Standard…”, p. 32.

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sources or morale in the face of the inevitable fall.17 This trajectory life course theory (as life as an up- and down-hill battle) however, neglects individual experience of age and aging and its expression in texts. Young and old may frame the continuum of the life course, but people often label “old” only those who are older than they are. The American writer Meridel LeSueur uses the term “ripening” when talking about aging thus replacing a linear, quantitative function of the dimension time by a qualitative, which finally offers the chance to regain full identity as a person. The anthropologist Kaufman supports the notion, when she talks about the fact that old people do not perceive meaning in aging itself; so much as they perceive meaning in being themselves in old age. Kaufman therefore focuses on how old people maintain a sense of continuity and meaning that helps them cope with change. Identity is not frozen in a static moment in the past and is not defined by the short period of youth. Kaufman uses the term of the “ageless self” to denote the ongoing definition of self that is continuous and creative.18 A reviewer of the aforementioned book, Our Bodies, Ourselves, Growing Older, talked about the empowering aspect of knowing about age and aging and linking this to a quality of advocacy: “Advocacy for oneself and for others,” as Carolyn Reuben put it. Within the second wave feminist movement, establishing a powerful “we” of a community by knowing one’s possibilities but also limits was seen as a political act: Our Bodies, Ourselves. With a rapidly growing older population, a similar shift in cultural values is called for in order to allow for a social policy that understands the interdependence of generations. This approach takes a life course perspective to help explain the seeming paradox of autonomy and interdependence of individuals and age groups as they move through life. This suggests that in an interdependent and aging society, all generations have a common stake in family efforts and public policies or intergenerational transfers that respond to the needs of people of all ages.19 When talking about family structure and cultural change, the question of life course, personal development 17 18 19

Sharon R. Kaufman, The Ageless Self. Sources of Meaning in Late Life (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1986), p. 5. Sharon R. Kaufman, The Ageless Self. Sources of Meaning…, pp. 13–14. Eric Kingson, John Cornman, Barbara Hirschorn, “Ties That Bind”, Aging. Concepts and Controversies, Harry R. Moody, ed. (London: Pine Forge, 1994), p. 216.

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and aging are of central concern. The aging individual and the conflicts, passions, and joys, exemplify more than any other stage in life the interplay between the private and the public, the individual and the communal, and stress the importance of relationships and connections. Toni Cade Bambara’s short story My Man Bovanne20 from her first collection of tales Gorilla, My Love (1972) repudiates cultural negative, trivializing stereotypes associated with age by presenting a female character who is independent and self-confident and thus countersets the invisability of old women in our society. The narrator, Hazel, introduces the theme “visability” at the beginning of the story, ‘Blind people got a hummin’ jones if you notice’.21 By observing the habit of blind people to hum, she sees that the blind man Bovanne goes unnoticed and is ignored. Visability is recognized as a form of authority and power, which Hazel realizes Bovanne lacks. “[…] and notice what no eyes will force you into to see people”22 Whereas Bovanne is invisible due to his disability; Hazel is invisible as a woman in a society that values youth and appearance. Therefore, the younger generation stands for public opinion and is characterized through language and political speech, whereas the older generation represents the private by dancing and humming. Thus Hazel and Bovanne communicate with each other on the dance floor through body language and sensuality: And I press up close to dance with Bovanne who blind and I’m hummin and he hummin, chest to chest like talkin. […] Touch talkin like the heel of the hand on the tambourine or on a drum.23

Observing Bovanne in a wider social context, Hazel comes to see herself through the eyes of others, at first through the critical eyes of her children representing the social majority, who no longer perceive her as an individual due to her age, and through the vision of the minority in Bovanne’s appreciation of her as a sexually attractive and beautiful person. Hazel is presented in the double vision of her own perception 20

21 22 23

Toni Cade Bambara, “My Man Bovanne”, The Heath Anthology of American Literature, Paul Lauter et alii (Cambridge. Mass.: D. C. Heath, 1998), vol. 2, pp. 2704– 2708. Toni Cade Bambara, “My Man Bovanne…”, p. 2704. Toni Cade Bambara, “My Man Bovanne…”, p. 2704. Toni Cade Bambara, “My Man Bovanne…”, pp. 2704 –2705.

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as a sensual being, which is supported by Bovanne, and through her children’s mainstream perception of her being a-sexual and old. Her children try to reduce her to a preconceived notion of morality and decorum, in order to make politics in a white society. Both Bovanne and Hazel have been invited to the party to serve a purpose: to cast a certain vote and to represent the “grass movement” of the community. The children, who through their narrow definition of the black power movement demand a certain kind of black identity, are frustrated and angry with their mother, as she does not fit their notion of how a woman of her age should behave. Hazel is reprimanded for not being black enough and her daughter accuses her of being apolitical making her invisible. Accepting the assumption that the private is political, Hazel performs a political act by asking Bovanne, who is being ignored, to dance. When her children take her to task for dancing with Bovanne, she realizes that there is more at stake than simply the misperception of a blind man. She understands that her children no longer “see” her as an individual, and that they have given up on her as old and without needs of her own. Her children expect Hazel to behave in a way that is appropriate for her age, namely to support their political activities in form of a “council of the elders” and exercise influence in the community in favor of her children. This council should merely generate goodwill in the community, without having the leadership position, authority and power associated with such an institution. Her children treat both her and Bovanne with condescending arrogance. In the conviction that they can persuade their mother of their views, the children use phrases such as “you were makin’ a spectacle of yourself ”, “like a bitch in heat”, “sex-starved ladies gettin’ on in years and not too discriminating”. Not only do they protest their mother’s sexuality and sensuality, but also they perceive her dancing partner as inferior, not only because of his blindness and because of his social status, but also because he is sensitive of the needs of others and volunteers his help when it is needed. They call him contemptuously “that tom” insinuating his subordination to others. In this encounter between Hazel and her children, Bambara demonstrates the restriction of political measures that merely allow for the binary distinction between “black” and “white”, and “young” and “old”. Hazel who speaks of the disagreement with her children as a generation gap, is reprimanded with the rhetoric of the black power

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movement “That’s a white concept for a white phenomenon. There’s no generation gap among Black people”. “The point is Mama … well it’s pride. You embarrass yourself and us too dancin’ like that”.24 By criticizing her for her behavior, the clothes she wears, and her proudly presented sensuality, her children reduce her merely to her appearance. In their response to her, they use degrading and insulting language and are more concerned about other people’s opinion than their mother’s. (‘And people’ll say, “Ain’t that the horny bitch that was grindin’ with the blind dude?’”).25 Hazel equates her children’s condescending arrogance to the behavior of the police as representing the power of a majority towards a minority, which assumes that more crimes are committed in the black community and therefore justifies discrimination based on appearance, on the color of one’s skin. In this case, however, the issue is not race, but age. “Pullin’ me out of the party and hustlin’ me into some stranger’s kitchen in the back of a bar just like the damn police. And ain’t like I’m old old”.26 When Hazel realizes that her children treat her the same way as Bovanne is treated by the community, she takes the empty rhetoric of her children “old folks is the nation” seriously and ironically uses the political jargon to explain why she leaves the party with Bovanne. The ironic title “My Man Bovanne” as an abridgement for the phrase “that’s my man, Bovanne” as an expression of condescending praise and seeming acceptance becomes in the course of the story the expression of the relationship between Hazel and Bovanne. Bovanne as everybody’s man becomes Hazel’s man. At first, Hazel dances with Bovanne out of compassion, and as a way of protesting against his treatment as unimportant due to his disability and social status. But in the course of the story Hazel herself learns to “see”, when she begins to respect Bovanne. By finally inviting him to move in with her, Hazel makes the every person’s man Bovanne her own. Taking care of Bovanne means taking care of herself, and thus dissolves the dichotomy of self and other. Her proud assertment of her sensuality, sexuality, and beauty in acceptance of her age, leads to a reconciliation of the two levels of self and other. Bovanne being blind can “see” Hazel independent of social norms and opinions, and ac24 25 26

Toni Cade Bambara, “My Man Bovanne…”, p. 2706. Toni Cade Bambara, “My Man Bovanne…”, p. 2706. Toni Cade Bambara. “My Man Bovanne…”, p. 2706.

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knowledge her beauty, countersetting the invisibility of women of a certain age. It is his “blindness” to social conventions and the stereotypical behavior towards older women that allows for this perception. It does, however, require Hazel’s initiative to open his eyes. Paule Marshall’s short story “To Da-duh, in Memoriam”,27 where she recalls an encounter with her deceased grandmother, is not only a revocation of her dead grandmother, but a positioning of her own adult self in which she can envision both her past as a little girl, her present as an adult, and her future as an old woman. The story, which Marshall calls the “most autobiographical”28 of the stories in the collection is a reminiscence of a visit she paid to Barbados, her grandmother’s home, when she was a nine-year-old from New York City. According to Marshall, Da-duh is “an ancestor figure, symbolic for me of the long lives of black women and men – African and New World – who made my being possible and whose spirit I believe continues to animate my life and work”.29 This figure, however, not only stands for her past in an abstract sense, but represents the young girl as an old woman. The rivalry that exists between granddaughter and grandmother is the strife of the younger and older self to incorporate the many facets of identity and reach an acceptance of age as a defining aspect of one’s identity. Ours was a complex relationship – close, affectionate yet rivalrous. During the year I spent with her a subtle kind of power struggle went on between us. It was as if we both knew, at a level beyond words, that I had come into the world not only to love her and to continue her line but to take her very life in order that I might live.30

When Marshall speaks in her introduction to the short story of the figure of the old woman, her grandmother, as an ancestor figure, who made her being possible and whose spirit continues to animate her life and work, she is positioning this figure as an envisioned older self, as she is on the one hand going back in time, on the other, projecting a future, looking forward. When Marshall describes her grandmother as incorporating

27 28 29 30

Paule Marshall, “To Da-duh, in Memoriam, 1967”, Reena and Other Stories (Old Westbury: Feminist Press, 1983), pp. 93–106. Paule Marshall, “To Da-duh, in Memoriam…”, p. 95. Paule Marshall, “To Da-duh, in Memoriam…”, p. 95. Paule Marshall, “To Da-duh, in Memoriam…”, p. 95.

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both sides of the dichotomy light and dark, dead and alive, the binaries merge: […] she was caught between the sunlight at her end of the building and the darkness inside – and for a moment she appeared to contain them both: the light in the long severe old-fashioned white dress she wore which brought the sense of a past that was still alive into our bustling present and in the snatch of white at her eye; the darkness in her black high-top shoes and in her face which was visible now that she was closer.31

Her grandmother is both young and old, both child and woman: It was as stark and fleshless as a death mask, that face. […] But her eyes were alive, unnervingly so for one so old, with a sharp light that flicked out of the dim clouded depths like a lizard’s tongue to snap up all in her view. Those eyes betrayed a child’s curiosity about the world, and I wondered vaguely seeing them […], whether she might not be some kind of child at the same time that she was a women […]. Perhaps she was both, both child and woman, darkness and light, past and present, life and death – all the opposites contained and reconciled in her.32

Whereas her sister is declared lucky for taking after father, her grandmother distances herself verbally from her by severing the family ties by asking her mother, “Where did you get this one here with this fierce look?”.33 She, however, is the one the grandmother takes by her hand saying, “Come, soul”.34 On their journey to the grandmother’s house, granddaughter and grandmother both take their turns leading and being lead. In the course of her stay in Barbados, her grandmother takes her on walks through the sugar cane fields, where they discuss and compare Barbados and New York. Through these encounters they enter these very different worlds and thus open themselves for an understanding of the identity of the other. Whereas the grandmother is aware of the ambivalences of these encounters – fearing and dreading what an acceptance of the other can do to the self, she accepts the granddaughter as part of her own identity by addressing her as “soul.” When at the end of her stay, the grandmother finally leads her to a tall palm tree, which stands for herself, the final confrontation between grandmother and granddaughter takes

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Paule Marshall, “To Da-duh, in Memoriam…”, p. 96. Paule Marshall, “To Da-duh, in Memoriam…”, p. 96. Paule Marshall, “To Da-duh, in Memoriam…”, p. 98. Paule Marshall, “To Da-duh, in Memoriam…”, p. 98.

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place. When her grandmother requests that she should tell her whether there is anything as tall as this in New York, the little girl wishes she could say no, as she realizes how important this is to her grandmother. But the girl – at this point in her life – is unable to find a different way of interacting with her grandmother than seeking a definition of otherness and difference. Her answer therefore is, “We’ve got buildings hundreds of times this tall in New York”.35 The grandmother experiences her answer as an erasure of her own identity, expressing this in disbelief, rage, and finally despair and resignation: “the small stubborn light in her eyes (it was the same amber as the flame in the kerosene lamp she lit at dusk) began to fail”.36 After this encounter the grandmother no longer tries to bridge the gap between her world and her granddaughter’s, and appears to her granddaughter as “suddenly indescribably old”.37 At the beginning of her visit, the old woman shows the child the grounds with pride and in the conviction of offering her granddaughter something important, and approaches her granddaughter’s world with interest and curiosity listening to descriptions of snow and the urban landscape of New York, watching her dance and sing. The granddaughter sensing that her world might be lacking in comparison to her grandmother’s world, reacts initially with shame and embarrassment, ‘”No”, I said my head bowed. “We don’t have anything like this in New York.”’38 But she soon finds back to her self-confident assurance that her grandmother at their first meeting qualified as fierceness recognizing it as a strength they both share, and offers resistance by proudly asserting the qualities of her life. Her first firm rejection of her grandmother takes place when her grandmother tries to point to the interrelatedness of their worlds by showing her where the sugar she eats in New York comes from, and the granddaughter answers that she is not allowed to eat much sugar due to cavities she has. When the granddaughter describes the Empire State Building as taller than the highest hill her grandmother knows, the latter withdraws and no longer exhibits her pride and assurance about her way of life. She does, however, remind her granddaughter to send her a picture of the Empire State

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Paule Marshall, “To Da-duh, in Memoriam…”, p. 104. Paule Marshall, “To Da-duh, in Memoriam…”, p. 104. Paule Marshall, “To Da-duh, in Memoriam…”, p. 104. Paule Marshall, “To Da-duh, in Memoriam…”, p. 101.

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Building, thus reaching out in a final gesture of reconciliation. Although her grandmother dies before the postcard reaches her, the text makes the connection between the two generations. The granddaughter’s life is ultimately and finally linked to her grandmother’s: ‘She died and I lived, but always, to this day even, within the shadow of her death.’39 When the granddaughter for a short period goes to live alone and tries to reconcile the world of the old and the young by painting images of Barbados and tropical landscapes in a loft above a noisy factory in New York she refers to this as “doing penance”.40 But the two worlds are not reconciled by the obvious ‘while the thunderous tread of the machines downstairs jarred the floor beneath my easel, mocking my efforts.’.41 The final reconciliation, however, takes place in the writing of the story, where the adult as an mediator between the young child and the old woman can understand the importance of connection. In looking back at the encounter with her grandmother, she defines her identity through connecting her young, middle-age, and old self. Texts in which age is identified as other leads to a re-positioning of the self and an understanding of the fluidity of identity, thus representing age as both self and other and emphasizing the aspect of “we are you grown old.”(Sennett, xii) When a younger protagonist uses an aging character as a point of significant reference, the older character is not seen as static in time, but with a past, present and future, and helps the younger character reach a definition of identity as search and as an ongoing, continuous process. Thus the dichotomy of young and old is replaced by the individual’s attitude towards the norms of the standard culture and the extent to which the individual follows or rebels against societal norms. In addition, parallels are revealed in similar strategies of authentication protagonists might use to position their selves thus consequently replacing a hierarchical order with a democratic model. Age has been described “as a foreign country with an unknown language.” By narrating all aspects of identity, which can be defined as both continuity and change over a life course, both gain and loss can be chartered. Age and aging has often been described by spatial meta-

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Paule Marshall, “To Da-duh, in Memoriam…”, p. 106. Paule Marshall, “To Da-duh, in Memoriam…”, p. 106. Paule Marshall, “To Da-duh, in Memoriam…”, p. 106.

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phors. The historian Thomas R. Cole speaks of “the country of old age,” the sociologist Andrew Blaickie remarks the following: Much of the sociology of later life remains unchartered territory, a Dark Continent like Victorian Africa, understood and diversely interpreted by its indigenous peoples yet still awaiting “discovery” by the “civilised” world. Although one hopes that our explorations will not repeat the conceits of imperialist adventures, there is already evidence that our categorisation of findings is somewhat less than accurate in judging the ontological universe of its subjects. And, as we have seen, images of older people frequently inhabit mythical spaces that bear little resemblance to lived experience.42

For a culture, permeated as it is with images of youth, our own aging is experienced though the mirror of others. The question how age is mediated in our culture is related to a semantics of form. The ‘narrative turn’ has affected the theoretical foundations of both the humanities and the life sciences. History, storytelling and images of aging are linked by narrative genres that are invested with cultural meanings. Focusing on the individual life story the question is how the aging process, memory and the experience of time are incorporated into cultural narratives of aging. If identity is defined by both continuity and change over a life course, the importance is for all of us to become explorers of this foreign country on the one hand and bilingual on the other. By a juxtaposition of young and old, the narrative act will provide us with an instrument not only to chart a map of the unknown territory, but also to read it. Growing old will then be seen in the larger context of fundamental human rights for both young and old, women and men.

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Andrew Blaikie, Ageing and Popular Culture…, p. 169.

Individuals in front of individualities: an identities’ conflict1 Jorge WAGENSBERG Universitat de Barcelona-CosmoCaixa

The simpler an object is, the easier it is for one to create scientific knowledge with it or, in other words, the further one will be able to take one’s objectivity, intelligibility and dialectic with reality. However this does not mean that a physicist is more scientific than a biologist or that the latter is more scientific than a psychologist, an economist or a sociologist. They will all be equally scientific if they exhaust the scientific method. The physicist will not only be able to go much further with the method than the sociologist but he will also be able to better contain the excesses of his particular ideology. Nonetheless, all of the above can be equally scientific because to be so is only a question of wanting to be so, a compromise. There is no doubt that sciences such as sociology and economy introduce an additional complexity which physics, chemistry and biology do not have: their object of knowledge includes the subject of knowledge, the explicit will of a human mind is part of the contents of what we wish to understand. As an object of scientific understanding, economy and society are two concepts which are distant from my usual reflections. However, they are part of the exercise this essay is attempting, so with all due apologies, I will venture to discuss them.

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Adaptation of the proceedings from the Congress “Identities on the Move” (Universitat de Lleida, 24, 25, 26 November 2010) and the book from the author Las razones triviales de lo fundamental (Barcelona: Tusquets editores, 2010).

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1. The notion of progress and economy A barter economy has several drawbacks, some almost insurmountable. However all of these difficulties gather under one large general difficulty: the excessive interdependence among protagonists of goods or service transactions. If subject A has tomatoes and aims to own a rabbit which belongs to subject B, the transaction will be a real event (it will actually happen) as long as certain conditions are met. For example: the owner of the rabbit has to be interested in the tomatoes and vice versa, the owner of the tomatoes has to be interested in the rabbit. If this coincidence does not occur, then the transaction does not happen, it is not real, the operation does not fall from the world of what is simply possible to the world of reality. The economy does not move. Moreover, one must also agree on an eventual balance between what each of the subjects ceases to have and ends up having. If there is no agreement at this point, there is no transaction and the economy does not move. So, among other things, money had to be invented. Money (the first concept of the schema) reduces interdependence between the protagonists of a transaction and for this reason only it was, from the start, an obvious instrument of progress. The best definition I have found of the concept of progress2 can be expressed as follows: The B state of an individuality is more progressive than the A state if, and only if, this individuality is more independent of uncertainty in state B than it is in state A. This notion of progress enabled me to debate the convenience of this concept in biology at a time when evolution intellectuals such as Stephen Jay Gould rejected it.3 However, one of the advantages of a good conceptual schema is precisely this: the meaning of a concept enriched within a discipline (for example, living matter) enriches the homologous concept in other disciplines (for example, cultural matter) and qualifies the meaning of other close concepts (growth, adaptation, development, evolution…). According to this definition of progress, money is a clearly progressive innovation, or at least it was in the be2 3

Jorge Wagensberg, El progreso:¿un concepto acabado o emergente? (Barcelona: Tusquets Editores, 2007). Stephen Jay Gould, La grandeza de la vida (Barcelona: Drakontos-Crítica, 1997).

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ginning. As a mater of fact, by including the word money in the conceptual schema, we can guarantee that the users and protagonists of the economy take an obvious leap forward. This leap is not as trivial as it appears. In the present economy, some millennia after overcoming the barter economy, we find that many economical models have reversed the situation. In such models money is no longer an intermediary which enables one to pass from goods or a service one owns to other goods or a service one needs to survive or simply wishes to own; the goods or services have become the intermediary to go from a quantity of money one owns to another quantity of money (higher, of course) one wishes to own. In the present financial market, a boatload of sugar can change hands various times throughout the day and not because the need to sweeten something during this brief period of time oscillates but because the expectation of gaining more or less money has changed by the end of the day. Here is something which has introduced a hundred and eighty degree turn making it no longer clear that money is a progressive element. Conversely, it seems that money no longer has this role because it no longer generates independence but completely the opposite: it generates increasingly more dependence on uncertainty. In any case, the apparition of money and the end of the barter economy requires the urgent definition of a new word in the conceptual schema of economy: the price of things (where “thing” refers to goods or a service). Price is a fundamental concept comparable to the principle of equivalence between goods that are susceptible of changing hands. A rabbit is equivalent to so many kilos of tomatoes or, what is the same, a tomato is equivalent to so many kilos of rabbit. However the equivalence must be established for every pair of goods to be exchanged in a transaction. Therefore, we must ask ourselves what price is. How do we define it? How do we fix it? How is it agreed? How is it readjusted according to circumstances of time and place? The closest thing I could find to a fundamental law, from the freshness of my virginity in this topic, is the famous law of supply and demand. The frame of this piece of reality is called the market wherein there are two types of actors: the producers who supply goods and services and the consumers who demand them. I realise we are not discussing the economy or markets in the global sense of their possible meanings, but this known law and its area of validity (be it small or

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big) suits us well as an inspiring exercise for the reflection we have started here. The mathematician Antoine Augustin Cournot (1821–1877) was the first to suggest the idea, although it was later formulated and spread by Alfred Marshall (1842–1924) from the school of Cambridge, in his seminal Principles of Economics (1890).4 The theory was finally consecrated by Paul Samuelson in his equally influential Economics (1948).5 The principle of the law of supply and demand requires a well-defined situation. In the suitable conditions of a perfect market – that is: a free and competitive market, a market without monopoly, speculations or distorting manipulations of reality – a fundamental law which sets and regulates the price of things prevails. An increase in supply tends to create leftovers (which do not find a buyer who needs them) because demand is insufficient. In this case, competition among producers will make them more willing to charge less for their goods and services in order to sell their products (better, although irreverently, said, to get rid of them): the price of things decreases with the increase of supply. Symmetrically, an increase in demand tends to cause shortages (there are insufficient things to satisfy consumers’ real needs), so there is insufficient supply. In this case, competition among consumers tends to make them willing to pay more for goods and services in order to get them: the price of things increases with the increase of demand. If the price of a product is set in a free and competitive market as a balance between supply and demand, then transactions (purchase, sale) only take place if there is an agreement between producers and consumers regarding prices. The transaction cost curve and the price is set by the law of supply and demand, and is the only price at which everything the producers offer can be sold and the only price at which all demands are satisfied. Note that, in accordance with the above, the transaction of goods and services is the greatest at the price set by the law of supply and demand. This is all well and good, but should any triviality be annotated at the root of this case? The observation of the reality of single-product markets suggests that in optimum conditions (competition, no glitches or speculators, 4 5

Alfred Marshall, Principles in Economics (London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd., 1920). Paul Samuelson, William D. Nordhaus, Economics: an introductory Analysis (New York: Mc Graw-Hill, 2004).

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etc.), markets tend to absorb the largest possible quantity of useful goods and services from available resources, in such a way that anything which interferes with the law of supply and demand is, almost by definition, in detriment of general well-being. This observation inspires a proposition which defines the concept of a perfect market: “A perfect market is that in which the law of supply and demand is fully met”. And, with this definition, we can assume the following circular proposition: “Any misrepresentation in the observance of the law of supply and demand is an indication of market failure”. As can be seen, the most direct way to build a good circular triviality is to deconstruct a good definition. This definition is based on reality and enriches the conceptual schema, while the associated triviality provides the solid structure of a fundamental and true root from which to part. So we already have a candidate for triviality and a maker of the conceptual schema. The observation of reality suggests that the perfect market mentioned in the trivial proposition does exist, albeit as a limit. In other words, the concept of a “perfect market” is a concept from the conceptual schema supported by (or based on) reality. In this sense, triviality is a circle which looses some of its viciousness (yes, because the circle “passes through reality”) in exchange for a partial loss of guaranteed truth. Therefore, the law of supply and demand can emerge from its trivial roots to become effective, useful and relevant. Despite this, the large triviality is useful to regulate the market because the distance between the real price of things and the price set by the law of supply and demand (supposing that both numbers can be separately evaluated) represents – with the guarantee of every large circular triviality – the degree of distortion of the supposed perfect market, that is, it represents the way and intensity with which speculators, monopolists and remaining forms of abusers and opportunists of the economy affect the welfare of citizens. Any indication that prices are beyond the law of supply and demand immediately becomes a sensor which triggers the alarm that something is wrong in the market and, as a result, is also an indication that threatens general welfare. In the case of a shielded triviality it is well served because, since there is one market, only two things can happen: either one complies with the law of supply and demand (in which case the market is perfect) or the law is not enforced (in which case the market is not per-

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fect). Even though this brief exercise does not cover much of the science of economics, it will be useful to us as an inspiration for another discipline which, although quite different, is equally complex: sociology.

2. The notion of identity and sociology Humans are social animals; maybe any class of animal is also social in a greater or lesser degree. Most animal species reproduce sexually, so, in addition to the unit-individual, we also have the unit-couple. However, if the species of which we are speaking is human, then the collection of possible groups is immediately enriched in number and diversity. Any human individual belongs in a greater or lesser degree to a group (or to more than one) which, also in a greater or lesser degree, has a certain degree of individuality. We are able to make these statements because our conceptual schema has been enlarged to include individuals who are searching for others to make new individualities.6 Now is the time to transpose our previous musings into the sociological field: Do we find in this science anything similar to a law or, at least, a fundamental question? This is the first time this question has surfaced in this essay and we are going to return to it various times before offering an answer. Let us take a look at the highs and lows of the history of mankind in order to find what might be the key issue in the individual-society relationship (or in general terms, in the relationship of an individual with each one of the groups to which he/she might belong). An individual’s tendency to form groups is undoubtedly due to an attempt to survive when uncertainty intensifies and it is quite possible that such a process occurs as a last resort, that is, once the remaining possible alternatives have been exhausted (or have failed). Faced with a crisis of uncertainty one can try to improve some things: mobility, technology, one’s impact on the environment, one’s ability to anticipate… It seems that anything goes in order to survive, but what is surviving? Surviving means to survive as 6

Jorge Wagensgberg, Ambrosio García, Henrique Lins, “Individuals versus Individualities: a Darwinian Approach”, Biological Theory, 5/1, (2010), pp. 85–93.

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an individual. Surviving is to persevere in one’s own identity. Or maybe not! Because before loosing one’s identity, there is still a less traumatic alternative to disappearing. Instead of loosing one’s identity altogether, there is the alternative of changing it. In other words, if uncertainty intensifies and places the presence of my identity in reality in danger, if I am unable to adequately modify my ability to anticipate, my technology, my mobility, and my impact on the environment, then I can still turn to a last resort, perhaps the most painful, which is to change identity, betray myself, cease to be myself, that is, to settle for being another or for partially being another… The most natural, frequent and effective way of achieving this type of metamorphosis is to join a group (a partner, a family, the neighbours in a block of flats, a flock, society, club, city, nation…). Maybe this event and no other is at the base of any association of individuals, independently of whether they later become a society. The upside is you stretch the likelihood of survival, although you now have to survive as part of a new whole. Perhaps the downside is in the coexistence of two identities: the old individual identity and the new group identity. It is possible that sociology basically addresses this issue, an issue of identities: the individual identities which form a new individuality (which is in itself characterised by an identity), and the rest of individual and group identities which live in the surroundings. To move forward on this issue does not seem easy. However, we have a clue and a pre-cooked conceptual schema because the concept of identity is precisely at the centre of the first of eight criteria which make up the concept of individual. I realise that we are gradually moving away from objects and phenomena that are simple enough to be solved with all the strength of the scientific method. Scientific understanding of the economy faces two classes of difficulties: firstly, the inevitable complexity of its reality and, secondly, the inevitable circumstance that intelligence, the subject of knowledge par excellence, is also an object of knowledge included in reality. However, in economy we have been able to use a law (such as that of supply and demand) to analyse its trivial root and presumed importance. The following question now refers to sociology. We ask for the second time: Can we find in sociology some type of objective, in-

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telligible and relevant knowledge which could be considered fundamental? And if this is so, is this fundament supported by a good triviality? The question does not seem evident, however we will proceed by induction based on everything stated till now or, at least, we will proceed atmospherically inspired by the cases with which we have dealt. In general, when we speak of inert matter we consider how different “parts” interact to form a new “all”. Quarks (to avoid starting with superstrings) do not wander freely through the universe, but they form the elementary particles (electrons, neutrons, protons, photons…) which can roam the cosmos or join together to form new stable individualities, like the atoms ordered on Mendeleiev’s table. When we speak of living matter things quickly become complicated. What is an individual? When can we say that individuals from the same or a different species have come together to form a new individuality? How can we become “part” of a “whole” and at the same time a “whole” made up of other “parts”? Another even deeper and fundamental question emerges from this crucial question. So we again ask ourselves: “What do all those individuals who manage to join together to form a new group which should be considered, in turn, a new individuality, have in common?”. And, we should particularly ask ourselves, although still speaking in general, how can we approach this issue when the individual in question is a human being? If to understand means to deal with common aspects among what is different and if to observe is to deal with the differences found between similar things, by observing the history of mankind can we reach something worth being called a fundamental law of sociology? Or should we simply ask: Is there something in human society which resembles a fundamental law that regulates the relationship between individuals and the groups they form? A simple and fresh question by the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman7 fits this situation like a glove: “Am I really anything more than myself ?”. The history of mankind (and especially the history of its calumny) is full of cases worth studying for their biological aspect (inherited with a trade mark) and their cultural aspect (acquired through our relationship with the rest of the world). 7

Zygmunt Bauman, Benedetto Vecchi, Daniel Sarasola, Identidad (Buenos Aires: Losada, 2007).

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Let us start with an example I am no longer sure is a memory or a dream. It is very possible that I have invented it and that I have later forgotten that I invented it. The truth is that, till now, I have not been able to document it. It all started with a newspaper article: the results of years of archaeological excavations suggest that a human group had lived happily and for a long period of time on the banks of a lake. The remains of commonly used objects, such as tools, weapons, fishing gear and ceramics and clothes with graphic representations of scenes from everyday life, made it clear that these people enjoyed a comfortable life of low uncertainty. There were no references to war, violence, supernatural myths or religious rites. However, there was the odd and more than significant indication of their love of children: a child’s cadaver in an urn which included some toys. Let me make an aside. In 2009, during a visit to cave paintings in Piauí state (Brazil), paintings which were probably some twelve thousand years old (although some say they are more than twenty thousand years old, whereas those of Altamira or Lascaux are around fifteen thousand years old), I felt a similar sensation, that of witnessing the daily life of happy people, with sufficient resources to live and without enemies, that is, a human group in conditions of low uncertainty with more feasts than rituals. On that occasion I was especially impressed by a scene in which there was a figure that seemed to be greeting a newcomer with joy. The unwritten inscription would say something like: ‘Hi! How nice to see you in this neck of the woods!’. I close the aside to return to the lake culture. It is not difficult to imagine a pleasurable life on the banks of a lake. Research soon demonstrated that the society found all it needed to survive in the lake. The uncertainty of a lake is much less than that of the sea or an ocean. In a lake one almost always has time to reach safety in a storm. The lake gave lots of food, water and little risk. However everything that starts ends or is transformed and the sites left little room for doubt on the matter. The happy human group suddenly disappeared from the place when the lake, like nearly all lakes, became blocked up by sediments from the river and streams that fed it. The end of the lake drove the humans far from the area in which they had lived throughout many centuries. The archaeologists were able to follow their trail to the sea shore, where they settled some time after-

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wards. Archaeology continued to excavate, observe, understand… Something had changed. In reality, a lot had changed…At sea there is a greater risk of tragedy, the ancient fishing techniques of the lake were not appropriate at sea, they had to travel long distances every day to find food, meteorological uncertainty had ceased to be banal, the probability of attacks from other groups to rob or enslave them had increased…Everybody ends up going to the coast. Their remains and traces on cloths and ceramic utensils accompanied the change in their quality of life. The scenes from daily life now reflected violence, war, gods which could intercede on behalf of their good or bad luck…In few words, during the lake period it was all good news, feasts and celebrations…, any occasion was good to meet up and talk, eat, drink, tell tales… However, once they had settled, they needed good luck and the convergence or intermediation from beyond in the here and now…This might be how the god of rain, that of storms, that of fishing, that of fertility, that of war… appeared. In their representations of daily life that what before seemed to be feasts and celebrations, had turned into rituals and sacrificial ceremonies. Uncertainty had driven some individuals to offload their individual identity for the identity of a collective individuality. Uncertainty is, therefore, the first force that pushes a group of individuals to unite in the interests of a new individuality. The understanding of the leap from an individual to an individuality of individuals, the understanding of the origin and consolidation of a group of individuals as a new individual goes through a question similar to this: Is there anything in common between a hierarchical biological leap and the leap from a human being to a human society? The sensible thing is to think that there will be convergences and divergences, but both things are of interest in principle. We are not trying to use the first as a metaphor of the second. A human group is (at least) an individuality of biological individuals. What happens, though, is that it is more than this because the human individual is capable of what we might call “cultural selection”. Our intention (I apologise for insisting about it for the fifth time) is to explore if there is any creative triviality which can also illuminate the fundamental aspects of society or, better said, of politics. After all, the worst thing that can happen is that we get nowhere. Let us consider the situation in which two consecutive hierarchies coexist: that of the individual and that of the group they form. What can

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be said of one, the other and of their mutual relationship? (Let us keep in mind some examples of different intensity: bacteria versus its aggregate, zebra versus herd, ant versus anthill, cell versus organism and citizen versus society!) The first convergence is about the potential benefits of a collective versus an increase in environmental uncertainty: defend themselves in company to continue living! Here we already sense the slight aroma of triviality or, maybe better, two aromas. A living being is especially characterised by its tendency to continue alive, so such a thing is established for the living individual entity and the living collective entity. The first large triviality is written as follows: “The living individual tends to stay alive as an individual”. This is a shielded triviality because the statement covers all possibilities in the present. If the individual exists (belongs to reality) it is because he has (still) not become extinct, that is, he is an entity adorned with the historical tendency to continue living. In front of him is a semieternity during which he is going to be continuously faced with the trilemma of extinction, transformation or perseverance. Each one of these three concepts marks the limit of the other. “Transformation” marks the limit of the meaning agreed for “perseverance”. This idea enlists the help of another concept in the schema: “identity”. Indeed, we say that an individual is persevering while he retains his identity (while he continues to be himself ). Analogically, the word “extinction” marks the limit of the meaning of the word “transformation”. For example: for the majority of scientists dinosaurs became hopelessly extinct 65 million years ago; however, for others they have not become extinct at all but have transformed into birds. But the triviality in this case can also be considered circular because a living being can be perfectly defined as one that tends to stay alive. A physicist, a less scrupulous kind of scientist in these matters, would simply say: it is the set of individuals who tend to stay alive. However, the concept of individual suits the hierarchal level and the contiguous hierarchical levels, that is, the following and the previous level. In other words, according to the degree of individuality attained by a group, we always have (all) the right to consider that a group of individuals itself meets the definition of human being. Therefore: The living group of human beings tends to keep alive just like the group which establishes itself as a new individuality.

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Let us proceed. These two trivialities do not refer to independent living beings. The second individuality is an individuality formed by other individuals. So the two consecutive individualities are under pressure from the grip of two very similar trivialities. The concept of individuality (of individuals) allows us to rewrite both trivialities in one for any hierarchical level that should be considered with the help of the first of its properties: identity. What is the identity of a living individuality? It is precisely that part of the individuality which tends to persevere. A person does not change his identity by letting his hair grow, although it can change if he suffers a degenerative mental illness. The merger of these two trivialities from successive individualities in one sole generic triviality sounds very convincing: “A living individuality tends to persevere in its identity”. This beautiful triviality explicitly contains one of the properties which evaluate the degree of individuality: identity, although it directly or indirectly affects the rest of the listed properties. However identity is the key concept since it is nothing more than the predicative contained in the subject. Let us focus our attention on it. Let us consider any two hierarchical levels, that is, a group of individuals and the individuality of the group they form. In every individual-individuality transition we have two (two!) identities and the point is that both identities remain for the individuals and the individualities. Schizophrenia is served. A society is by definition a schizophrenic entity. Each individual withstands the pressure of having and maintaining at least two identities: his own as an individual and that he shares with the others from his species, the identity of the group. In this situation a conflict may or may not arise. That is, interaction between both hierarchical levels can be positively or negatively resolved, but it exists! What is more, each individual generally belongs to various groups, so that the harmony to be achieved is between an individual identity and various groups. Let us adopt triviality as the root of a possible sociology. By induction with the method followed in this paper, let us now take a look at the new conceptual schema that will have to make such a proposition transcend. A glance at the reality of this world and its recent history might be enough to rescue these two pieces of evidence:

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First: the groups’ identity needs the cohesion among the individuals’ identities which form it. The easiest, although not the only, way of achieving this cohesion is to seek the maximum homogeneity (the minimum diversity) between the parts that form the whole. Second: the identity of an individual decreases with the intensity of cohesion with other individuals, while the opposite happens with the group identity: it increases with the internal cohesion among its individuals. It may be possible to create something similar to a fundamental law with the statements made above. It is, once more, the method tested in this work: triviality plus conceptual schema equals ?) a fundamental law. How can we ensure the internal cohesion of a group? The history of mankind is full of examples, nearly all of them calumnious. The need for a group identity has often forcibly caused embarrassing individual suffering. But we must not anticipate events. The law of supply and demand which we have just discussed is only one corner of economy, but perhaps it can serve as inspiration here. This law is applied to a suitable market (perfect, free, competitive, and exempt from criminals). That is, only when the market conditions are suitable does supply (whose increase reduces the price) and demand (whose increase makes the price go up) seek some kind of compromise. Only then does one reach a situation free of unsatisfied individuals because producers do not accumulate unsold products and consumers are not left without fulfilled needs. Perhaps we can state a creative triviality with a similar structure (with its respective fundamental law) in sociology. It is an attempt to answer for the first time the question we have posed various times. That what in economy is a free and competitive market, in sociology would be an open and democratic society (definition of a suitable market, definition of a suitable society). That what in economy is the price agreed between producers and consumers, in sociology would be a cohesion agreed between individuals and their respective groups. Social cohesion is a novelty of the conceptual schema whose increase benefits group identity and discourages individual identity, in the same way that price increases initially directly benefit the producer and disadvantage the consumer. In reality we can avoid conflict and contradiction between private and group identity as long as we fulfil the following: (

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In a perfect society, the internal cohesion of a group settles at a point of better coexistence between group and individual identities. It is a law proposal in accordance with the reality of the world. It needs a name. It should be called something live the law of harmony between individual and society, or the law of harmony between successive individualities, but it should suffice to call it “law of supercoexistence”. The word can be easily understood as the superposition of two concepts: survival and coexistence8 that delve into the meaning of the word “coexistence” which appears in the formulation of the law. Survival is a concept that confronts environmental uncertainty and coexistence is a concept that confronts the rest of the individuals of a specific society. The law will be fulfilled by definition in a perfect society, so that its non-compliance is a pathological symptom or, if you will, a measure of the distance between a real society and a perfect society. Too stronger cohesion humiliates the individual whereas too weaker cohesion frays the group and its chances of survival. Let us see how far the parallel holds. Let us first address a number of obvious facts. First obvious fact: the human being is a clear individuality, that is, an individuality of the maximum degree. To think, to really think does not use half a mind, or a mind and a half. The cognitive unit is the brain and the mind (to which the former provides material support). Second obvious fact: a Homo sapiens is aware of himself. He is self-aware. He knows that he is a unique singularity of the reality of this world. This in fact had already happened with our older cousin, Homo neardentalensis, and the irrefutable proof is that he buried his dead. Burials with minimum rites involve a minimum sense of transcendence and a minimum ability to feel compassion for the dying. Third obvious fact: human beings have an identity as individuals. Individual identity is a direct consequence of two things: of being an individual and of being aware of it. Human beings perceive differences and similarities with other individual identities different from their own (which equates, remember, to nothing less than observing and understanding).

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Translator’s note: The original Spanish reads ley de sobreconvivencia where sobre is a direct reference to supervivencia (survival) and convivencia means “coexistence”.

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Fourth obvious fact: humans are social animals. Many animals from the same species join all kinds of groups: zebras live in herds, penguins in colonies and many fish in shoals; although in these cases cohesion between the groups’ individuals (with no direct kinship) could be described as weak interaction. Other groups of animals like lion prides or rigid insect societies are internally cemented by ties of direct kinship. But groups of humans can be distinguished by the large diversity and strong cultural nature of their group identities. In the animal kingdom groups have a genetic base and are usually of one type. That is, a nonhuman animal individual does not usually belong to more than one group identity; at most there is coexistence between a soft group identity and another stronger group identity, such as a family. In contrast, a human individuality with its minimum load of individual identity can coexist with multiple cultural group identities. In other words, part of the human individual identity is nurtured and cooked with a special recipe of acquired group identities. A human individual can simultaneously belong to a nation or to more than one, to a city, a religion, a football team or a specific artistic vanguard. Every one of these groups has its own group identity and one cannot always live this simultaneous collective multiplicity without contradictions. Both human identities – the individual and the group – are doubly condemned to coexist. In fact, both coexist in the individual and also in the group. There is no such thing as a human without his ration of group identity or a group without its particular mosaic of individual identities. Fifth obvious fact: the collective cohesion of a group of individuals has degrees. There are degrees of social cohesion. In an aggregate, colony or herd, the degree of collective cohesion among individuals is less than the degree of cohesion between family members and much lower than that between individuals from an insect society (ants, for example). Such obvious facts observed in reality are vital to the introduction of appropriate concepts in the new conceptual schema. For example, from the previous evidence it is obvious we are going to need two more concepts, one associated with group identity and another with individual identity: their stability. Here we can use a notion of stability to the taste of physicists. Individual stability can be measured by the size of fluctuation (or perturbation) which can be endured without said individuality

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breaking irreversibly. It is like its degree of elasticity. Small fluctuations will be overcome with a happy return to equilibrium when the perturbation stops. The same can be said of the stability of group identity. Let us now consider a group (with its group identity) and its individuals (with their collection of individual identities). The degree of collective cohesion affects the stability of both identities in a very different way. I would like to point out here that we are approaching the sixth evidence. Maybe it is not as strong and explicit as the previous five, although maybe it is comparable. Let us focus our attention on the stability of the individual identity of a member from the group. It seems evident that this stability is compromised with an increase in the degree of internal cohesion: the greater internal cohesion is among individuals, the less independence for individual identity to breath. Symmetrically, the increase in group cohesion benefits group identity stability. The group, that individuality called society, has – can have if we choose to give it – an obvious Darwinian meaning. This is a chance to survive which acquires enormous relevance when individual identity is in crisis due to an increase in the world’s uncertainty. In situations where the stability of individual identity is higher than that of group identity, group cohesion does not reach a sufficient value and the group and the protection it can give its members is at stake. If on the contrary the stability of the group identity exceeds the stability of individual identity, then the individual can suffer until breaking. The law of supply and demand defines perfect market conditions in microeconomics when price balances supply and demand to satisfy both groups (producers and consumers). This way, surplices of goods and services are not accumulated in the producers’ warehouses, and consumers are not left with unmet demands. Moreover, the deviation of stock price which would suitably mark the balance of supply and demand is a measure of the market’s unhealthiness (speculations, monopolies and advertising scams). In the case of coexistence between group and individual identities we can follow a similar reasoning. In a perfect collective (a perfect group, an ideal society, a reference group…), collective cohesion reaches a point where stability of collective identity and that of individual identity reach a compromise where by the stability of both identities is optimised.

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What we have just proposed is a definition. It is the definition of a reference which we can call state of social normality. As a result: any deviation from this ideal state marks a distance, a pathological distance regarding normality. Normality is a typical – critical – value of social cohesion which we can call suitable cohesion. For any value lower than social cohesion the stability of individual identity dominates the stability of collective identity. This means that what is at stake is the group and its collective identity and, through it, maybe even the individual who sought refuge in the group. Group failure can often be severe in the face of environmental uncertainty, and if the collective breaks, then there is a serious risk that the same will happen with the individuals that form it. For example, a broken aggregate of bacteria can be literally “caught” by the superficial tension of the meniscus of the pool surface and the bacteria involved dry out or become scorched by the excessive radiation. In these cases the individual is at risk of becoming detached from his collective due to a lack of social cohesion and is unprotected, exposed to an environment in which he has lost his independence as an individual. This is the case of the lost sheep (or bee). This is the case of an ant that has lost the trail which was meant to take it back to its very strict society. If on the contrary the degree of social cohesion exceeds the suitable value then the value of group stability dominates the stability of individual identity. The suitable situation then falls down the other side of the slope and the risk changes. In this case the individual can suffer until breaking due to a direct crisis of his individual identity. This happens when a collective identity imposes an internal cohesion among its individuals with such intensity that they cannot stand it. There are various human inventions aimed at promoting this kind of distortion by forcing collective cohesion, through tradition (not custom), rites and ceremonies, flags, anthems, uniforms or varied promises of eternal allegiance… In short, a perfect society is that in which the stabilities of individual and collective entities spontaneously adjust to one another. This internal cohesion simultaneously maximises individuality and collectiveness. It is the internal cohesion of a perfect society. This is the idea. So we insist once again: are we faced with a law which deserves to be considered a fundamental law of sociology? The path triviality-conceptual

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schema-fundamental law deserves the following exercise. It is a case of rewriting all that has been written in the chapter of economy about the law of supply and demand, but replacing the concepts of the conceptual schema with new ones. Let us see what it gives us. Where before we said “supply based on price”, we will now say “individual identity based on internal cohesion”, that is, the number of individuals with an individual identity in search of a collective identity based on the intensity of social cohesion. Where before we said “demand based on price”, now we will say “available collective identity”, that is, the number of individuals with individual identity who are loyal to a collective identity. It seems clear that the first magnitude called “individual identity based on internal cohesion” is a decreasing function of social cohesion. As social cohesion grows, there are increasingly fewer individuals prepared to search for a collective identity. Or what is the same, social cohesion is the price an individual has to pay to add a collective identity to his individual identity. Here looms some proof: individual identity is an expression of individual independence and social cohesion is a measure of interdependence between individuals. Symmetrically, the magnitude “available collective identity” is a function which grows with social cohesion; with greater social cohesion, greater stability for collective identity. It is clear that many people find their individual identity in collectiveness. For this reason we must clarify the definition of a collective identity a little more. Firstly we must say that the collective identity of a group belongs to the group (to the new individuality) and that the individual identity belongs to each individual. The collective identity of a group can be well defined by the intersection of all the individual identities which form it. In other words: the collective identity of a group is built with the elements that can be found in all the individual identities. The collective identity of a group of n individuals is the set equal to the mathematical intersection of n sets which represent the individuals. And if understanding is to seek and find what is common among the different, if intelligibility is something like the minimum expression of what is most shared, then we can still offer a third definition of what the collective identity of a group is: nothing more and nothing less than its intelligibility!

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For the same price, this definition determines what the limits of the collective identity of a group are. As a matter of fact, if the intersection of individual identities of a certain number n of individuals is empty (there is not even one common element), then the individuals in question do not share a collective identity. This is a direct consequence of the definition: the minimum collective identity is the empty identity, the non-collective identity. However, to avoid ambiguities, we should define the individual identity of the members of a collective as a (trivially) specific feature of each individual which is (not so trivially) equal to the set of elements of an individual which are not part of the collective identity. Technically this is equivalent to saying that individual identity is the set of elements it contains minus the set of elements which also belong to the intersection. In other words, we impose something as strong as the fact of calling individual that which, other than being in the individual, cannot be found in the collective, that is, that which an individual does not share with the rest of individuals. In particular, a feature not shared with anybody else is something like the sublimation of what is personal. This idea is compatible with the intuition we all have of human identity. The sociologist Zygmunt Bauman cites the following statement by the Swiss writer Max Frish:9 “Identity is the rejection of what everybody else wants you to be…”. Frish’s bold definition is an inspiration for the rescue of the sense of the concept of individual identity proposed by the equation and which gives a meaning, I believe, to the proposed fundamental law of sociology that we have ventured. The double battle between the stability of individual and collective identities would be read with Zygmunt Bauman’s literal words in the following way:10 Reconnaissance, individual and collective wars are fought as a rule on two fronts…On one front, the preferred and selected identity is encouraged in detriment of old abandoned and cumbersome identities, selected or imposed in the past. On the other, they counterattack the pressure of the other identities which are artificial and forced (stereo-

9 10

Zygmunt Bauman, Benedetto Vecchi, Daniel Sarasola, Identidad… Zygmunt Bauman, Benedetto Vecchi, Daniel Sarasola, Identidad…

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types, stigmas, labels), artificial and assumed and promoted by the “enemy forces”, and rejected if the battle is won. From the definition of individual identity we trivially deduce that the greater the collective identity the lesser the individual identity. This will clarify the limits within which individual identity is confined. An individual’s identity is comprised between an empty set (he/she shares everything with the collective) and the essence of him/herself (he/she shares nothing with the collective). The degree of internal cohesion among individuals of a collective individuality is a parameter which measures the interdependence between the members of a collective. This parameter will be very high among platoon soldiers during a session of military training (one, two, one, two…), lower among the students of a secondary school classroom and even lower among people strolling along a beach on a Sunday morning. It seems evident, if not trivial, that the increase in internal cohesion of a collective jeopardises the stability of the individual identity and benefits that of the collective identity. Social cohesion benefits collective identification and harms individual identity. If individual identity dominates collective identity, then the number of individuals who find collective identity is determined by the quantity of available collective identification and social cohesion is less than a critical value. In this situation there are individuals who do not satisfy their social need of having at least a minimum of one collective identity. As a collective the group is fragile and its advantages as such are continuously under scrutiny. If on the contrary the collective identification dominates the individual identity, the number of individuals loyal to a collective identity is tied to a degree of social cohesion greater than a critical value. In this situation there are individuals who suffer from an excessive collective identity. In an ideal society balance occurs when individual identities are installed in the amount of collective identity in which they feel comfortable. Now we can turn the reasoning around and conclude that the distance between ideal social cohesion and real social cohesion is a measure of a collective’s social distortion. Trivially; by definition. The history of the infamy of mankind is written with a myriad of gimmicks that people have managed to invent to alter the value of ideal social cohesion: populism, fraudulent propaganda, threats, traditions, phobias and presumably ancestral ha-

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treds, accusations of treason and heresy, promises of happiness here, profitable advantages in the after life (profitable because a brief finite effort in the short earthly life guarantees a permanent advantage in the eternal life)…However, who could be interested in this perverse idea? Well, let us call them the individual intermediaries and beneficiaries that any collective identity has. In an ideal society, individual and collective identities mutually sniff each other out. In an ideal society there is flexibility and freedom for the individual and collective identities to negotiate a degree of social cohesion in which both – the individual with his/her identity and the collective with its own – live in harmony. This is the way to see the law of “supercoexistence” between individual and collective identities. The rule’s central concept is the cohesion which keeps the individuals of a collective together. It is a concept with two sides: we could say one faces upwards and the other, downwards. The cohesion mentioned in the statement is the internal cohesion of the alleged new individuality, but it is the same as the external cohesion among the individuals within it. Therefore, it is possible that there is a non-conflictive point between what the individual is willing to loose for his individual identity and what the collective is willing to demand for its collective identity. In the same way as in economics purchase and/or sale is viable if producers and consumers agree on a price, in sociology a new individuality is viable if there is an agreement between the individuality and individuals regarding the cohesion to be suffered-enjoyed. When this happens, an individual is happy in his/her group and proud to belong to it; the symbols of collective identity are in harmony with those of individual identity, it could even be said that part of his/her individual identity comes from the collective identity; a young rocker dresses and styles his hair delighted with the “uniform” that identifies rockers; the Olympic champion is thrilled to hear his country’s national anthem while standing on top of the podium, or is full of euphoria when running wrapped in his national flag; the believer fervently participates in a religious ceremony full of rituals. The symbols of collective identity are agreed or freely accepted among individuals. Any other situation is a disgrace. In this case flags, anthems, ceremonies, traditions and common enemies (common friends unfortunately cohere much less) are manufactured and imposed far from the point of balance noted above. In general, the fundamental task of col-

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lective identity intermediaries and professionals is to raise ideologies, allegiances and unavoidable obligations required to more or less seriously violate the rule. This fraud seriously influences the conceptual schema and how the words which have to represent the concepts sound. For example, the words “traitor” or “renegade” have been invented to frighten and humiliate he/she who refuses to accept a collective identification which violates the fundamental social rule, and not so much to embarrass he/she who acts for shameful interest against his/her own convictions… And just as a monopoly or a speculation poisons the market of the law of supply and demand in hand, an authoritarian system or pressure group with suspicious interests infringes and violates human dignity with the fundamental social rule in its hands. The most common and direct method of breaking the extremely delicate balance between individuality and collectiveness is undoubtedly violence. Maybe here is the root of violence. Violence always appears when something or someone endeavours to force a collective identity which is unbalanced with the identity of the individuals within. Just take a look at the history (of ignominy) of mankind to conclude that human beings are individually intelligent (and therefore tolerant and kind) and collectively stupid (and therefore aggressive and perverse); although this trait also appears through insensitiveness to an ancestral collective identity. In the previously mentioned visit (November 2009) to Sierra de la Capivara in Piauí (Brazil), I was able to enjoy a very long conversation with the researcher Niede Guidon.11 She is the soul of the place and she has set up an entire research institute in São Raimundo Nonato (the nearest town to the beautiful place where the aforementioned cave paintings were found, a two-hour light-aircraft flight from Teresina, the capital of the region). I bring up this case again because of a sign at the entrance to the institute and the minuscule but wonderful museum located in the same place. The short text written by Mrs. Guidon about the enormous natural archaeological and anthropological heritage of the region alludes to the behaviour of poachers and plunders of archaeological remains:

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Niède Guidon, G. Delibrias, “Carbon-14 dates point man in the Americas 32000 years ago”, Nature, 321 (1986), pp. 769–771.

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Destruction is synonymous of ignorance, backwardness and brutality. Nature and primitive man made this region one of the most beautiful in the world. Why does modern man want to disfigure and destroy its roots?…Violence is a weapon of idiots, the ignorant and cowards… These words touched me to the core, while baking under a torrid sun in such a remote place on the planet, and I take inspiration from them to advance a possible first corollary of the law of “supercoexistence”: “Any maladjustment between individual and collective identity tends to be resolved with violence”. I believe Mrs. Niede Guidon is right and that the word “spontaneity” in this case includes the concepts of backwardness, ignorance, brutality, cowardice and imbecility. The most abundant source of all these improprieties in the history of mankind is undoubtedly in the lack of negotiability between individuals and collectives to observe the law of “supercoexistence”. The concept of “negotiability” here arises as a main concept of the conceptual schema. In social questions, negotiability is a homologous concept to what stability would be in inert matter, adaptability in living matter or creativity in cultural matter. We will deal with this in greater depth and breadth in the following chapter. Violence is a constant of the history of human behaviour and what we have just suggested is that the root of human violence maybe is not so much engraved in individual human identity but in man’s associations and societies. That is to say, human violence does not so much sink its roots in the masculine genes of the animal individuality which marks a territory or protects a harem, but in a lack of harmony between individual and collective identities, that is, in a fault of the law of “supercoexistence”. According to this, violence will always be more cultural than genetic, and it will always be a thing of idiotic, ignorant, mediocre and cowardice (or any combination thereof) individuals. These individuals are asocial, like those to whom the Piauí museum sign is addressed, or those designated to impose a collective identity by force (such as the followers of Nazism or of any other kind of totalitarianism). The validity of the law of “supercoexistence” introduces, I believe, an ethical dimension to the collective. A nation, a religion or a social club can be a good or bad idea depending on its compatibility with this law. It is calculated that a hundred thousand religions (all true individualities for their members) have existed since the origin of man.

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All have served as an instrument of a group’s social cohesion. Etymology is nearly always pure anecdote, although it is nearly always thoughtprovoking. As regards the Latin etymology of the word “religion”, maybe Cicero is right and it comes from religio, from relegare (to join, to reread), or maybe Saint Augustine is correct and it comes from religere (to take into account); perhaps its origin is in legio (legion, group of armed soldiers), however if Lactantius (third and fourth centuries) is correct, as most linguists believe, and “religion” comes from religare (to strongly bind with), then there is no doubt the bond referred to the religare of some individuals with others much more than the religare of some individuals with the divinity or their own transcendence. However the ethical issue focuses upon other questions: “Is religion good for the individual? Is it good for a group? Can an individual live without religion? Can a group of individuals live without religion? Does religion help to live, to survive, to ‘supercoexist’, to die…?”. An individual can live perfectly without religion. Only one case is needed to prove this and I offer myself as such. However, even though it is also possible, it is a lot more difficult for a human group to survive without religion. The cohesion provided by religion’s religare can be good for the individual and for the group. In principle, there is nothing against this being so. The limit on a religion’s goodness is determined by the law of “supercoexistence”. The limit is marked by a red line drawn at those points where the law is broken, that is, where individuality imposes a group identity onto the individual which goes beyond what that individual identity can stand. The same applies to evaluate the goodness of any other human collective: the group ceases to be good when the balance between individual and collective identity is no longer spontaneously regulated by the fundamental social rule. I guess it goes without saying that the cohesion which holds a collective together has very little to do with what we call solidarity or altruism. There is no reason for solidarity or altruism to be paid for with one’s own identity. Those in charge of maintaining a collective identity at any price let statements slip which become similar sounding. These statements sound like: “A hero is an individual who sacrifices himself in the name of one of his individualities”. Politics overlaps society. All you need is two individuals to coexist for politics to emerge. The reason is biological and also extremely trivial.

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A living being is characterised by a great enthusiasm to eat and not be eaten. Evolution invented the brain so we could leave home (to eat when the in situ food ran out) and the memory to return home (and not be eaten in the open). But in principle what works is a brain, not half a brain or two brains. As regards thinking, an individual thinks, but not two individuals or an individuality of individuals. How can a decision which affects a group be made from decisions that can only be taken by individual individuals? This is politics: any system able to make a decision based on one or more opinions. There are many ways of doing politics, but only those that respect (do not violate or mock) the law of “supercoexistence” may be acceptable. No totalitarian political system allows the individual identity to find harmony with its collective identity or identities. Any system which is compatible with the stated law of “supercoexistence” is democratic in my opinion. It seems that this law must be universally useful. Maybe it will be useful to make our democratic systems mature and, for sure, to democratise all those which have not yet been so. So called western democracy need not necessarily be universal. This is why we cannot impose our own model of democracy on our neighbour (much less, of course, forcibly impose). However, based on the definition of democratic system just given, maybe we could argue that democracy is a universal absolute value. Well, there is still a long way to go, because more than half the planet is still very far from adjusting to this definition. More than half the planet is governed by individuals or families of individuals who extol collective identity in their own benefit. If something similar to NATO or a Society of Nations can still have a sense nowadays it is not, at any rate, to preserve the relic of benefiting those who won the last war. The only thing a club of nations from this century should impose as the joining condition for its presumed members is democracy as that system able to respect individual identity inside collective identity. Is this not trivially essential? The law of “supercoexistence” has been possible thanks to a new conceptual schema, and especially the concept of “individuality” through eight criteria. The only thing left to explore is how these eight concepts sound in a social context. Such is the remaining exercise of coherence. Let us see, concept by concept, the place that individuality occupies in society.

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“Identity” is the central concept which appears in the heading of the law of “supercoexistence”, but it is only one of the eight concepts proposed to evaluate the individual-individuality relationship. The other seven (selective unity, compactness, irreversibility, structure, independence, reproduction and development) can also be relevant as excellent indicators to sound the alarm when the fundamental social rule is being violated and, therefore, of the infamy of human groups. Let us quickly go through them. “Selective unit”. A type of selection also acts on a collective. We will devote this essay’s epilogue to analyse the four classes of different selection to be found in this world’s reality: fundamental selection, natural selection, cultural selection and social selection. Social selection is the one which acts on a new individuality of individuals. According to the criterion of the selective unit, the mere fact it exists reinforces the collective’s character as a new individuality. And therein lies the hope of the individual; to survive even if it is inside a new individuality. This requires the new individuality to be selected. But the limit is again marked by the law of “supercoexistence”. The Jewish people are perhaps the only ones who claim they are the chosen, although they are certainly not the only ones who think so. For example, the word Alemania12 comes from old German all (“every”) and man (“men”); literally speaking, the Germans make up the whole of mankind. In fact maybe we can guarantee that all ethnical, national and religious groups, be they big or small, think this. Many ethnic groups with little contact with civilization call themselves “the humans” and the rest something resembling “the others” (for example, the Yanomami). All religions (let us remember, some hundred thousand so far) consider themselves to be unique and true, although some realise they are not necessary to reach eternal life. The terrible thing is that an individual becomes extinct because his group (not him) has been selected for extinction. This is how genocides and holocausts are. The irreversibility of individuals to undo the path of a collective is also relevant to evaluate the degree of a new individuality of individuals. However be careful when overstepping the red line of harmony between individual and collective identity. The most alarming sign of a 12

Translator’s note: Alemania means ‘Germany’, but it is necessary to keep the original Spanish word to fully understand the etymology cited in the main text.

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human group occurs when the first symptoms of having reached the point of no return appear. This happens in all kinds of collectives, be they Mafia organizations or cryptic sects. To flee at the first sign of irreversibility is often the best approach. Every individual should have the chance and right (certainly not the obligation) to leave a group or change group (be it a nation, a religion, a football club or an artistic or cultural vanguard) at any time and place. The right is not only to leave, but to flee, to flee without offering explanations, without having to convince anybody… “Structure”. In a new individuality, the degree of structure which diversifies and coordinates function for the benefit of the group is valued. However again be careful if the law of “supercoexistence” is compromised. The brain coordinates all bodily functions on behalf of the organism concept and not the cell concept. But the law of “supercoexistence” is not applied to an organism, but a group of organisms: a government, a town hall or a religious hierarchy should not mock or violate the rule. “Independence”. It is the inevitable syndrome of all new individuality. The clearest advantage of a group of individuals reuniting in a new one is that of gaining independence in the face of environmental uncertainty. Gaining independence is the most precise and clear definition of what progress13 can mean, where progress is at least to manage to survive where before such thing was unachievable. Notice that it is a case of gaining collective independence at the expense of individual identity. When a couple of workers get married, they can better afford the rent of a home which they share at the expense of loosing a part of their respective individual identities in favour of a certain couple identity. Okay. But if the fundamental social rule is violated, there always comes a time when someone knocks at the door requesting the sacrifice of an individual life in order not to loose certain collective identity; for God, for the Homeland, for the King. Phew, phew! The stereotype of a hero is that of someone who does not change identity for anything in the world, but the definition of a hero nearly always refers to a collective identity. If the idea is not to change the individual identity at any price, then we do not call the person in question a hero but an intellec13

Jorge Wagensberg, El progreso:¿un concepto acabado…

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tual, who is only a hero for other intellectuals from a few centuries later. This could be the case with Spinoza, Galileo or Van Gogh… “Reproduction”. The sixth criterion that assesses a new individuality is whether it can reproduce as such and, in this case, how does it do so. Nonetheless, in general human groups never reproduce directly from other groups but from individuals. A nation does not have daughter nations in the sense of an organism; even so this would be true of an anthill. Societies of living beings do not reach the sufficient degree of individuality to transmit their identity to eventual descendents in a sole package. Therefore it seems that the concept of reproduction does not affect the law of “supercoexistence”. Although something of this remains in some political systems. This applies to autarchic monarchies (obviously not so much in parliamentary monarchies) which, like the queen of the anthill or termite mound, establish new collectives founded and ruled for life by a direct and, therefore, genetically close descendent. This was the most frequent system in the history of mankind until the French Revolution (emperors, pharaohs, tsars, kings…). Interestingly, at the beginning of this twenty-first century a pseudo-monarchic phenomenon is occurring in many other political systems, many of which are considered to be truly democratic. That is, some nations continue to reproduce themselves through the close kinship of their leaders: Mr. and Mrs. Clinton and the father-son Bush duo in the United States, the father-son duo Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong-il in North Korea, Mr. and Mrs. Kirchner in Argentina, the Castro brothers in Cuba… Phew, phew! “Common development”. A new individuality conceived by the direct reunion of a collection of mature individuals is not the same as a new individuality whose individuals have a common history of origin, growth and differentiation. It is the difference between a simple aggregate of bacteria and a multicellular organism. Between such limits (that is, one composed of cells that are practically exempt of a common history, and the other composed of cells from a single one called a zygote), there are degrees. It is, for example, the case of a colony of social insects or that of a human society. Individuals from many human collectives share a good deal of common history, from certain countries to certain religions and even certain football clubs of stale pedigree. Here we should also address the fundamental social rule which balances individual and collective identity because within it we can again find the

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ethical limits between an individual and the collective individuality to which he/she belongs. History is full of transgressions: when there is insufficient shared history, then it is invented, when there are insufficient shared traditions, then they are manufactured… Heroes are a good tool to establish a common history, as trees are useful for protecting land against erosion. History should be, although it is not, the most objective, intelligible and dialectic science. Those who write history should keep the maximum distance possible from the history they are writing. Generally this does not happen. The general tendency is that history’s winners commission its writing. Most autobiographies are written to polish history in the author’s benefit. It is the difference for example between the history of Spain written mainly by the British and the history of France written mainly by the French. A good practise – trivially – perseveres because it is a good practise, that is, because it keeps all its sense and function like a good Valencian paella,14 for example. On the contrary, a good tradition is kept – non the less trivially – just for tradition’s sake because its only beneficial function for the group is to conserve identity, because the symbols of a common history cannot be lost, like the celebration of a large victory or of an unjust defeat, like the pompous and cumbersome protocol of the coronation of the King or Queen of England…Customs respect the law of “supercoexistence”, customs benefit the group and the individual (the paella), on the contrary tradition usually mocks the law of “supercoexistence”, tradition undoubtedly benefits the group but is usually an insurmountable annoyance to the individual whose professional objective is not precisely to maintain traditions (rituals and ceremonies). Phew, phew! This is the most notable difference between custom and tradition: the first perseveres by itself whereas the second’s perseverance requires professional help. Creative triviality affects custom, but not tradition. Custom has its own conatus whereas tradition does not have one. The perseverance of a good custom costs nothing whereas the perseverance of traditions requires the constant updating of its budget. Custom perseveres because it is compatible with the fundamental social rule. In general, tradition transgresses it. 14

Spanish rice dish which originated in Valencia but that nowadays, despite this specific origin, is prepared and served all over Spain, and has come to symbolise Spanish cuisine.

Talking the talk? Language and Identity in the European Soap Opera Hugh O’DONNELL Glasgow Caledonian University

Introduction Soap operas – and their close cousin the telenovela – are among the most widely viewed and avidly consumed cultural products in Europe. Though the form itself first emerged in the depression-hit United States of the nineteen-thirties – the world’s first ever soap opera, Painted Dreams, went out on radio there between 1930 and 1941 – following the recent demise of a number of the longest-running American offerings their heartland has now shifted to western Europe where, with relatively few exceptions, they are currently among the highest rating television programmes in virtually every country.1 The world’s currently longest-running television soap is the British production Coronation Street, launched in 1960 and still in production fifty-three years later.2 It regularly leads the ratings in the United Kingdom along with its great rival EastEnders. Soap operas have from the outset been a genre dominated by talk rather than action. As early as 1948 the American journalist James Thorburn defined them as follows in the New Yorker, highlighting their simultaneously dramatic and commercial function: A soap opera is a kind of sandwich whose recipe is simple enough although it took years to compound. Between thick slices of advertising spread twelve minutes of 1

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The world’s longest-running soap opera ever, The Guiding Light, came to an end in 2009 after seventy-two years of existence in the USA, first on radio and then on television, and with a total of over 18,000 episodes. The second longest-running American soap, As the World Turns, ended in 2010 after fifty-four years on air and with just under 14,000 episodes. The live episode of Coronation Street aired in 2010 to celebrate the production’s fiftieth anniversary attracted an audience of 14.1 million viewers in the UK.

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dialogue, add predicament, villainy and female suffering in equal measure, throw in a dash of nobility, sprinkle with tears, season with organ music, cover with a rich announcer sauce and serve five times a week.

Action is by no means lacking, and over the years it has become more important as the soap opera audience has expanded beyond its original housewife target to now include around a thirty percent male component, but even so the predominance of dialogue remains a defining characteristic of these products. As a result the spoken word is a key element in soap operas not only in terms of constructing the identity of their characters but also, and much more importantly, in determining the identity of the soap opera itself and thereby the identity relationship it attempts to establish with its audience. In addition to this, the way in which language is mobilized as an identity resource in soap operas varies greatly from one European country to another. This article offers a detailed analysis of these language-based identity strategies, focusing not so much on the language of the characters themselves, but on the way in which the various television channels have used language in their soap operas to both construct and establish a relationship with their audience.

1. The British Case: Early Soap Operas The first country outside the United States to develop soap operas of its own was the United Kingdom. As had been the case in America, these developed initially on radio, the first ever being Mrs Dale’s Diary (1948– 69) which reached a total of approximately 5500 episodes, followed a year later by The Archers, a programme which remains in production to this day, having totalled over 17,000 episodes, meaning that it has now taken over the mantle of the world’s longest-running soap (Coronation Street is merely the world’s longest-running television soap). It took a further five years for the first televized soap to appear, the BBC’s production The Grove Family: in a pattern which we will see repeated, its emergence was in direct response to the imminent launch of the commercial television station ITV in 1955 – soap operas are now the key

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resource in either retaining audiences (in the case of already existing channels) or of creating one (in the case of newly launched channels). The Grove Family ran from 1954 to 1957. Unlike most of today’s soaps it went out only once a week, totalling 148 episodes before its final demise. Though 148 episodes is trivial by today’s standards, in the early nineteen-fifties this represented a significant technical triumph. However, it is not just the relatively small number of episodes which differentiates this production from its modern-day counterparts. What dates The Grove Family most strikingly is the way the characters speak. Though officially presented by the BBC as of lower-middle-class origin – and they certainly have nothing in common with the oil-rich millionaires of the American soap operas of the eighties – the characters of The Grove Family without exception speak a characteristically upper-class form of Southern England English known as Received Pronunciation (or RP for short), also known popularly as ‘the Queen’s English’ or even ‘BBC English’. RP is characterized by, among other things, heavy diphthongization of the vowels ‘a’ and ‘o’ which in the dialectical mythology of the United Kingdom more or less automatically indicates upperclass membership and – with flagrant disregard of any sense of ‘realism’, a point to which I shall return below – it is spoken by all the characters, including the policeman who, in a typical piece of BBC didacticism, arrives in the first episode to give the family advice on home safety. As I have argued elsewhere in relation to this phenomenon, ‘On occasions, complex and powerful discourses can be carried by the fact that a single vowel is pronounced one way rather than another’.3 A number of reasons can be advanced for such a linguistic choice. First of all, RP had long been the standard language of BBC radio, and had from the very beginning been the only form of English heard, for example, in news bulletins – a situation which has only begun to change, and then to a relatively limited extent, in the last decade or so.4 In addition, in 1955 the number of television sets in use in the United Kingdom was in fact relatively limited (around 4.5 million) and beyond the reach of most working-class families, so that the television audience – 3 4

Hugh O’Donnell, Good Times, Bad Times: Soap Operas and Society in Western Europe (London: Leicester University Press, 1999), p. 21. Hugh O’Donnell, Noticias y ciudadanía. El telespectador, el poder y el debate público (Madrid: Ediciones de la Torre, 2007), p. 25.

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unlike the radio audience – was indeed a predominantly middle-class one.5 The BBC was therefore, in its soap opera, speaking what it understood to be the language of its audience. Technological change would, however – as it would continue to do throughout the twentieth century and up to the present day – make such a situation quickly obsolete.

2. The Emergence of the ‘British Model’ When ITV was launched in 1955 it faced the challenge which many of the new European channels launched in the late nineteen-eighties and early nineteen-nineties would confront some thirty years later: how to create an audience in a market already dominated by an existing television station. Its strategy was two-pronged. On the one hand it placed a much greater (American-style) emphasis on entertainment as opposed to the somewhat paternalistic Reithian ethos of the BBC.6 On the other, with the increasing availability of television sets causing a rapid expansion of the television audience beyond the middle classes – by the early 1960s falling prices had increased the number of sets in the UK to around twelve million – it opted for the development of a much more resolute working-class persona.7 A step in the development of this corporate identity was the launch in 1960 of its soap opera Coronation Street.8 While The Grove Family was set in the London area Coronation Street was set in the city of Manchester in the north of England, and from the very outset its characters spoke – and continue to speak in 2013 – with strong working-class Mancunian accents. In his study of 5 6

7 8

Stuart Laing, Representations of Working-Class Life 1941–1964 (London: Macmillan, 1986), p. 142. John Reith (1889–1971) was the first Director General of the BBC and one of the most influential people in the development of its public-service ethos. He was the author of the famous triad ‘inform, educate, entertain’. See: Richard Collins, “‘Ises’ and ‘Oughts’: Public Service Broadcasting in Europe”, The Television Studies Reader, Robert C. Allen, Annette Hill, eds. (London: Routledge, 2004), pp. 33–51. Stuart Laing, Representations of Working-Class…, p. 142. For detailed information on this production see: Coronation Street, Richard Dyer, ed. (London: BFI, 1986).

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representations of working-class life in the UK, Stuart Laing describes the culture shock which Coronation Street represented in the UK television landscape as follows: Reality was guaranteed by the northern setting, through the idea of northerners as more down-to-earth than effete, insincere southerners, and the sense of anthropological observation of a hitherto unknown tribe (in 1961 TV Times published a glossary of northern terms, e. g. ‘mithered’ and ‘nowty’ likely to be unfamiliar, particularly to southern viewers).9

By mid-1961 Coronation Street was claiming audiences of over twenty million, and a shift of seismic proportions had taken place in the linguistic world of the British soap opera. ITV proceeded to bet heavily on the mobilization of regional working-class accents in all its subsequent soaps, as did the fourth terrestrial channel Channel 4 when it was launched in 1982. The resulting linguistic patterns were as follows: Soap Opera

Regional Accent Used

Coronation Street (1960–ongoing, >8000 episodes)

Mancunian (Manchester)

Crossroads (1964–88, 4441 episodes)

Brummie (Birmingham)

Emmerdale (Farm) (1972– ongoing, >6600 episodes)

Yorkshire

Brookside (1982–2003, 2915 episodes)

Scouse (Liverpool)

These regional dialects should not be seen as merely isolated non-standard forms: in the British soap-opera landscape they function as varieties of an alternative national language and they offer a likewise alternative working-class definition of the nation as opposed to the middle-class definition carried by RP/the Queen’s/BBC English. Despite the success of these ITV productions, the BBC attempted a few further soaps with middle-class settings dominated by RP or less ‘marked’ forms of Standard English – the most obvious examples being

9

Stuart Laing, Representations of Working-Class…, p. 188. TV Times is a weekly publication detailing the schedules of the various UK channels.

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Compact (1962– 65, 373 episodes) and Triangle (1981–83, 78 episodes), set in the world of magazine publishing and on a North Sea ferry respectively. Their poor audience figures and (for a British soap opera, that is) relatively short runs are indicative of a paradigm shift on a large scale. When the BBC launched EastEnders in 1985 – a move to some extent triggered by the imminent arrival of satellite television – it also finally opted for a working-class setting (the East End of London) where the bulk of the characters speak the local working-class dialect known as Cockney. Two further BBC productions still resisting the use of working-class accents and dialects – Eldorado (1992–93, 156 episodes) and Castles (1994, 24 episodes) – were resounding failures, and the paradigm shift was complete. This marked not only the complete consolidation of the British Soap Opera Model but also a just as important change in how an organisation like the BBC understood its own corporate identity and its relationship with what is now termed the ‘market’.

3. The Soap Opera in Western Europe The spread of the soap opera format in Western Europe outside the UK was a slow process indeed. The first country other than Great Britain to adopt this format was Ireland, for reasons not just of geographical proximity but also due to the fact that British television has long been available in the north and east of the Republic of Ireland through simple overspill, given that the television signals from the UK have always been strong enough to reach various parts of Ireland – including the capital Dublin, where around a quarter of the population lives. Its first offering, Tolka Row (1964–8) was very much in the British mould, being set in an urban housing scheme and dramatizing the move from the countryside to the town which was beginning in Ireland around this time.10 Though some later soaps – most notably the long-running Glenroe (1983–2001, 521 episodes) – deployed a rural setting, Ireland’s

10

Not even RTÉ’s press department has been able to tell me how many episodes Tolka Row ran for. An educated guess might be between 150 and 200.

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only currently running soap Fair City (1989–ongoing, >3000 episodes) is set in a working-class district of Dublin and features a range of working-class Dublin accents. With the exception of Ireland, it would be twenty-five years after the launch of Coronation Street before any other European country would essay a domestic soap. In 1985 both Sweden and Germany launched their own soaps, a genre in which they had no previous experience whatsoever. They were aired on their main public-service channels – Lösa Förbindelser “Loose Connections” (30 episodes) on SVT1 and Lindenstraße “Lime Street” (ongoing, >1400 episodes) on ARD (Das Erste) respectively – and the reasons for their launch were no different in nature from, though much larger in scale than, those which prompted the BBC to launch The Grove Family in 1954 and EastEnders in 1985: by the mid-nineteen-eighties it was clear to everyone working in the television industry in Europe that the days of the public-service monopolies were numbered, that the arrival of new commercial channels was now inevitable, and that the new satellite technology meant that it would be not just one or two new channels which would be emerging, but potentially very large numbers indeed. What better way to hold on to your audience in the face of this increased competition than to offer them a long-running soap opera? If the rate of diffusion of the soap opera throughout western Europe was agonisingly slow to begin with, it would reach vertiginous speeds by the mid-nineteen-nineties. By 1995 well over fifty were in production, the only countries not to have a soap of their own being Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Iceland – though viewers in the first three of these could, and did, tune into the German productions if they so desired.11 Germany was perhaps the most emblematic case,

11

The loyalty of European viewers to their own television market has always been conditional when an alternative source of supply can be found in the televisual output of a neighbouring country with which they share a language. There has always been a significant demand for British soap operas in the Republic of Ireland, and in the nineteen-seventies and eighties Flemish viewers abandoned their own television stations in droves when Dutch television proved to be much more appealing. See: Joke Bauwens, “De openbare televisie en haar kijkers: oude liefde roest niet?”, Publieke televisie in Vlaanderen: Een geschiedenis, Alexander Dhoest, Hilde Van den Bulck, eds. (Gent: Academia Press, 2007), pp. 91–124.

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going from a single soap in 1990 to eight in 1995 as the new channels competed with the PSB establishment – and with each other – for audiences. Such a rate of growth was unsustainable, needless to say, and though a further three new soaps would be launched in 1997–98, the overall number would eventually fall back to five, where it has remained stable to this day. In the intervening period the situation has changed somewhat. The extraordinarily successful Greek soaps of the 1990s – Lampsi “Splendour” (1991–2005, 3579 episodes), Kalimera Zoi “Good Morning Life” (1994–2006, >3000 episodes) and Apagorevmeni Agapi “Forbidden Love” (1998–2006, 1682 episodes) – have now disappeared, though shorter-run soaps have to some extent taken their place: Mega’s Ta Mystika Tis Edem “Edem’s Secret”, launched in 2008, reached 625 episodes before ending in 2011.12 Sweden went from one soap in 1991 to five in 1999 and has now dropped to none following later unsuccessful attempts such as Skeppsholmen (2002–3, 52 episodes), Orka, orka “Hang on in There” (2005, 24 episodes) and more recently the Gothenburg-set Andra Avenyn “Second Avenue” (2009–10, 185 episodes), all shown on the public service channels.13 Switzerland eventually produced two soaps – the highly successful Lüthi und Blanc (1999–2007, 288 episodes) and the disastrous Tag und Nacht “Day and Night” (2008, 36 episodes) – while Austria’s one and only attempt at the genre, designed specifically to attract the younger audience away from the German soaps, was an equally unmitigated disaster: Mitten in 8en “In the Eighth District” (2007, 56 episodes).14 Despite these ups and downs the European soap opera scene remains buoyant with growth in some areas (Catalonia, France, Italy, Portugal), a strong tendency for countries initially producing telenovelas to move over into soaps – most notably Catalonia and Portugal – and with the decline in soap opera production in

12 13

14

Both Lampsi and Kalimera Zoi were produced by the incombustible film director Nikos Foskolos, then in his seventies. Skeppsholmen is the name of a small island in the Stockholm inner archipelago, where the action of the Swedish soap opera took place. Andra Avenyn was, to the best of my knowledge, the first soap to be accompanied by a daily parallel web soap, each episode lasting around five minutes. The ‘Eighth District’ referred to in Mitten im 8en is the district of Josefstadt in Vienna.

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Germany being more than offset by the recent boom of the telenovela format in that country: over ten have been produced there since 2004, some of them – such as Sturm der Liebe with now over 1700 episodes – having effectively transformed into soaps. The major challenge facing European channels when they decided to opt for the soap opera format at the beginning of the nineteen-nineties was their absolute lack of experience of the logistics of producing a programme which would go out (in most cases) five days a week: early offerings in Germany and Sweden were in fact once-a-week productions, and even something lasting fifty or sixty episodes was considered gargantuan in television environments where a six or eight-part miniseries was already felt to stretch resources to the limit. The immediate answer to the problem was to borrow models, working practices and in some cases personnel from other countries with much greater experience of working with this genre. In the case of countries which initially produced telenovelas rather than soaps – Spain, Portugal, and (briefly) Italy and Greece – the main source of inspiration was Latin America. In terms of soap operas, however, the sources turned to with the greatest frequency were Great Britain, Australia and the United States. In the case of Greece all the early soap operas – all of which were aired on commercial channels – took their inspiration from daytime American soaps such as The Bold and the Beautiful. Elsewhere, however, more than one of these sources of inspiration could be found at play in most countries, though in a very general sense the public service companies were much more likely to look to the British model and the commercial ones to its Australian counterpart. The resulting links between language use and identity are outlined below.

4. The British Model Abroad The first European soap opera to show a clear influence of the British soap-opera tradition was Lindenstraße in Germany: its creator Hans W. Geißendörfer had spent some time in England where he became familiar with Coronation Street, and Lindenstraße – which can be translated into

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English as Lime Street – is modelled on that British soap.15 Other productions to show a clear British influence – at times openly acknowledged by their producers – were the early Swedish soaps Varuhuset “The Department Store” (1987–89, 60 episodes) and Storstad “Capital City” (1991– 2, 58 episodes), the Norwegian soap I de beste familier “In the Best of Families” (1995, 21 episodes) – this production was the brainchild of the Englishwoman Karin Bambourgh who was at that point NRK’s Head of Drama – the Belgian soap Thuis “At Home” (1995–ongoing, 3500 episodes), the Finnish soaps Kotikatu “Home Street” (1995–2012, 588 episodes) and Salatut elämät “Secret Lives” (1999–ongoing, 2500 episodes), the Basque soap Goenkale (1993–ongoing, ±4000 episodes) and the Catalan soap Poblenou (1993–94) as well as the later El cor de la ciutat (2000–09, 1906 episodes).16 What they all borrowed from the British Model was its commitment to social realism (relatively ‘ordinary’ characters, unglamorous locations and so on). Some also borrowed the UK soaps’ ‘real time’ narrative frame, where time within the soap parallels real time. What none of them borrowed, however, was the British soaps’ mobilization of regional accents and dialects. These soaps are for the most part – I return to the specifics of the Basque and Catalan cases later – characterized by the use of the standard form of the national language, even when this runs diametrically counter to their official claims of ‘realism’. Lindenstraße is a truly emblematic case of this conundrum. Though actually filmed in Cologne in the north of Germany its narrative is set in Munich in Bavaria (an unimaginable situation in the UK, where soaps are automatically shot in the same place that their narrative is set). Despite this few of its characters have ever spoken with a Bavarian accent, far less Bavarian dialect.17 It is on the 15

16

17

Joan Kristin Bleicher, “Die Lindenstraße im Kontext deutscher Familienserie”, Lindenstraße: Produktion und Rezeption einer Erfolgsserie, Martin Jurga, ed. (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1995), p. 41. The Basque term “goenkale” has no simple translation into English: it refers to a road or street going up a hill (the reference to a street – as in the case of Lindenstraße and Kotikatu – to some extent also betrays its British origins). Poblenou is an area of Barcelona. For further details on many of the soaps mentioned here see: Hugh O’Donnell, Soap Operas and Society (Leicester: Leicester university Press, 1999). The only exception to this was the Austrian character Else Kling – Lindenstraße was originally a joint German-Austrian production – who spoke an identifiable Austrian/ Bavarian German. She disappeared from the production in 2006, shortly before the death of the actress who played her, Annemarie Wendl.

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contrary Hochdeutsch – Standard or High German – which dominates, an extremely unrealistic situation. Some later German soaps have continued this pattern, with the more recent In aller Freundschaft “In All Friendship” (1998–ongoing, >600 episodes) likewise being delivered in High German despite being set in Leipzig, a city where the local dialect is at times so strong that people from other parts of Germany can have genuine difficult following it. And other examples of this partial appropriation of and variation on the British model are not difficult to find. RAI3’s recent troubled soap opera Agrodolce “Bitter Sweet” (2008–09, 250 episodes) is peopled by characters speaking a very classic Florentine Italian despite being set in Sicily: no trace of the local Sicilian dialect/language are anywhere to be found.18 In the Flemish soap Thuis almost all the characters speak Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands (ABN) – or Standard Dutch – with a Flemish accent, a highly unlikely situation given its particular dramatis personae. Only two dialect speakers are to be found – Frank Bomans, the plumber, who speaks with a mild Antwerp accent, and the short-lived Freddie Colpaert (who entered the soap in 2009 and exited in 2011) who spoke an equally mild Bruges dialect. The most entertaining example of this phenomenon, however, is to be found in Mitten im 8en. In its final episode one of the characters phones the television station broadcasting the soap – the public-service broadcaster ORF – to complain about… Mitten im 8en, the very soap he is in! And his complaint is quite precisely that no-one in the real Josefstadt speaks the way the characters in the soap do! How are we to account for this appropriation-cum-adaptation of the British model? A number of reasons can be advanced. Firstly, when the British Model was being developed in the UK in the nineteen-sixties and seventies, the discourse of class was not only still extremely strong in that country, it was also a powerful structuring force in the creation of both personal and collective identities. It therefore represented a prominent social resource which the commercial channels were able to use strategically in both creating their own identity and in creating a relationship with their new-found audiences. By the nineteen-

18

Agrodolce was suspended in 2009 due to a funding crisis. Despite repeated promises, it has so far failed to reappear.

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nineties, with the gradual spread of the neoliberal hegemony, and its corresponding emphasis on individualism, throughout Europe, the discourse of class was simultaneously weakened and contested, increasingly presented as backward-looking and out of touch: it was no longer available to function credibly as a consensual link between channels and their viewers. The disabling of the discourse of class left the field to be dominated by two different conceptions of the audience – on the one hand a conception of the ‘national audience’, broadly favoured by the public-service channels, and on the other a conception of the audience as an aggregate of different demographics, an approach broadly favoured by the commercial channels. This division was not hermetic, however, and both conceptions could be found to differing degrees in both PSB and commercial television stations. Secondly, the increasing force of the neoliberal hegemony was accompanied throughout Europe – to differing degrees – by a decisive move towards a free-market ideology with a corresponding weakening of public institutions of all kinds, including public service television. While in the sixties and seventies both the BBC and ITV had taken strategic decisions regarding their own corporate identity and their relationship with their audience, by the nineteen-nineties the tables had turned considerably: strategic power had decisively shifted to the market with the formerly hegemonic public sector – the PSB channels, the national health services, the universities and so on – reduced to tactical manoeuvring in response to market forces. The BBC’s ‘language-shift’ in EastEnders was a particularly dramatic sign of this change, though this did not of course prevent it from using a ‘national’ mode of address in other productions, most obviously its news bulletins. Rather than having a single identity, television channels moved towards (at least to some extent) developing different identities for different target audiences. Another striking example would be the Flemish commercial channel VTM. When it emerged in 1989 it announced that it would offer a much more demotic news service than its public-service rival, focusing not so much on high politics as on the local.19 And yet despite this it 19

This was expressed punningly in Dutch as a focus on dorpstraat (village-street) news rather than Wetstraat news: Wetstraat (Law Street) is the street in Brussels in which the Belgian Parliament is located. See: Kristel Vandenbrande, “Het journaal als inzet in de concurrentiestrijd”, Dhoest and Van den Bulck…, p. 235.

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developed the only upper-class soap opera in Europe, Familie “Family” (1991–ongoing, 5100 episodes), delivered in ABN, not the language of the village street but of the educated public sphere. Those (mostly public-service) continental European stations which chose to follow a version of the British Model, then – above all its focus on the everyday and the recognizable – replaced linguistic appeals to class-based audience identities with appeals to a ‘national’ audience. In linguistic terms the most logical choice for producing a national audience is of course to use the national language in its most standardized form, and this is the tactic they chose even when it clashed blatantly with their (explicit or implicit) claims to social realism. Minor variations are of course heard from time to time – forms of street language used by the younger characters, or occasional very watered-down regional accents, just enough to give a local flavour without in any way hindering broader comprehension – but they are a token nod towards recognition of ‘diversity-within-unity’. They therefore operate to symbolize inclusion in an overarching national whole, not to offer an alternative definition of the nation, as in the British case.

5. A Subcategory: The Language Policy Model An interesting subset of the ‘British Model Abroad’ is what we might call the Language Policy Model. This model, which appears only on public-service television channels and also shows a considerable commitment to social-realist ideals, has as its peculiarity that it is also to some extent – in some cases to a very significant extent – ideologically driven by language-shift or at the very least language-maintenance objectives and is often also subsidized for that purpose by central or regional governments. The Welsh-language soap Pobol y Cwm (1974– ongoing, >8000 episodes) was the first soap-opera of this kind, but since then a number of others have emerged. These include the Basquelanguage soap Goenkale, the Irish-language soap Ros na Rún “Headland of Secrets” (1996–ongoing, ±1500 episodes) as well as – though

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in a somewhat different way – the soaps produced in Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, Valencia and Galicia in Spain.20 Ros na Rún and Goenkale are perhaps the most striking examples of this model at work. Though spoken as a mother tongue by only around two percent of the total population of Ireland, according to the Irish constitution it is the Irish language – and not the English language which is in fact the mother tongue of the overwhelming majority of the population – which is the language of the Irish nation. This rather anomalous situation has had significant consequences for Irish society, not least the long-standing requirement for school children to learn the Irish language to at least a minimum degree of competence, and a continuing expectation that people in important public positions will speak it rather better than that. Ros na Rún – produced by the public-service Irish-language channel TG4 – is to a significant extent a product of that policy situation. It is set on the western Connemara coast and delivered almost entirely in Irish (with subtitles for those whose grasp of the language is not up to the task). Despite truly exiguous audiences – these are around 50,000, out of a total population of over four million – it is now in its seventeenth year, surviving due to policy-driven subsidy. The history of the European soap opera shows clearly that other soaps existing outside this policy framework and its related supports never survive audience figures as low as this. A clear example would be the Gàidhlig-language soap Machair in Scotland (1993–99, 151 episodes), produced and aired at a time when there was no policy in Scotland in relation to the maintenance/revitalization of this language. As soon as Machair’s viewing figures fell below 100,000 it was unceremoniously pulled from the schedules.21 Goenkale’s situation is similar in some ways, but different in others. The main difference is, of course, that the Basque language (Euskera) is not the official language of the Spanish state (as Irish is the official language of the Irish nation), but has, since the adoption of the current Spanish constitution in 1978, been one of the official languages (the so20 21

The Irish word rún also colloquially means “sweetheart”, so that the title Ros na Rún has the additional meaning “Headland of Sweethearts”. The situation has changed significantly in the interim. Following the reinstatement of the Scottish parliament in 1999 a Gàidhlig Language Act was passed in 2005 giving this language co-equal status with English.

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called ‘own language’) of the Basque Autonomous Community, Euskadi, the other being Spanish. Like Irish Euskera is an obligatory subject at school, and the Basque parliament has also established a Basque-language television channel, ETB1, in operation since 1983. The launch of Goenkale in 1993 was also very much part of a broader policy, driven from the Basque parliament, of language revitalization and reversing language shift. If anything its educational dimension is even clearer than that of Ros na Rún. For example, rather than deploying any of the existing dialects of Euskera almost all of its characters speak Batua, an ‘artificial’ standardized form of the Basque language taught in the Basque educational system (though there has been a little more variation in recent years). Despite likewise very low viewing figures – averaging around 50,000 out of a population of just over two million – it is now in its twentieth year and is now approaching 4000 episodes. The magical effects of policy subsidy are again to be seen. The case of the other Spanish Autonomous Communities having an ‘own language’ – Galicia, Catalonia, Valencia, the Balearic Islands – is somewhat more complex since their local languages, though historically minoritized – in fact banned entirely during the Franco regime – are in fact in an at least numerically much stronger position than either Irish or Basque: Catalan – spoken in Valencia and the Balearics as well as Catalonia – has over nine million speakers (and is the official language of the state of Andorra), while Galician has around two and a half million and is widely spoken, above all in the Galician countryside. The soaps produced and broadcast in the Autonomous Communities have often been extremely popular – the Catalan offerings led the ratings throughout the nineteen-nineties and for much of the first decade of the twenty-first century, and Balearic Islands Television’s almost 300-episode long Llàgrima de sang “Tear of Blood” (2008–11) was by far its most successful production ever. The Valencian soap L’alqueria blanca “The White Farmhouse” (2007–10, 119 episodes) – a period soap set in the nineteen-sixties – did have characters who spoke Spanish, but even so the desire to strengthen the position of Catalan and Galician vis-à-vis Spanish is obvious in all of these soaps and overrides the actual linguistic reality of the area in question. The early Catalan offerings, for example, had language advisors who checked that the language used in them was “genuine” (which often meant that it did not

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contain Spanish terms). In the Galician soaps everyone speaks Galician, a relatively unlikely situation in terms of the upper class Galician characters who regularly appear in them. While the similarities with the British Model Abroad are clear enough, what sets this group of soaps apart to at least some extent is not so much the dimension of overt political intervention (entirely lacking in all the other soaps) but the explicit national-identity claims made as a result through the use of what is presented as the ‘true’ national language: language here does not produce a class-based identity as in the British case, but an (in some cases contested) national one, these claims in the Spanish case at least being made in opposition to those of the much more powerful Spanish ‘other’. In addition, these claims – and the ideology and related policy and funding decisions which lie behind them – not only outrank any claims to social realism, in some cases at least they also defy the laws of the market.

6. The Neoliberal Model While European public-service channels in the main (there were exceptions) turned to a version of the British Model to meet the challenges of deregulation, the end of monopoly and the maintenance of audience shares in a situation of greatly increased competition, the new commercial channels for the most part looked to Australia for inspiration, in particular to Grundy, who was happy to sell a number of its old soap operas, and to second staff with the expertise necessary to adapt them to other countries. The first sign of this was the airing of Goede Tijden, Slechte Tijden “Good Times, Bad Times” (1990 –ongoing, >4700 episodes) on the new Dutch commercial channel RTL4 on 1 October 1990. This adaptation of the old Grundy soap The Restless Years from the late nineteen-seventies was also sold to the German commercial channel RTL, where it appeared as Gute Zeiten, Schlechte Zeiten also “Good Times, Bad Times” (1992–ongoing, >5300 episodes). Business continued to be brisk, with Grundy selling the scripts of the nineteeneighties soap Sons and Daughters also to RTL in Germany, where it

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appeared as Verbotene Liebe “Forbidden Love” (1995–ongoing, 4300 episodes) as well as to the commercial channel TV4 in Sweden where it took the form of Skilda Världar “Separate Worlds” (1996–2002, 500 episodes) and also selling the initial (identical) storylines for Unter Uns “Among Friends” (1994– ongoing, 4600 episodes) to RTL in Germany and Un posto al sole “A Place in the Sun” (1996–ongoing, 3800 episodes) to RAI in Italy. What all of these soaps had in common was a very strong focus on the younger – teenage, twenty-something – demographic, with the younger characters carrying much of the dramatic interest. Many other subsequent soaps would follow suit, from Hollyoaks (1995–ongoing, 3670 episodes) in the UK, through Nya Tider “New Times” (1999– 2006, 270 episodes) in Sweden to Morangos com açúcar “Strawberries with Sugar” (2003–2012, >2000 episodes) in Portugal. As the emphasis on fashion, cool, good looks and glamour increased, even older soaps which had started out in a somewhat more sober manner to some extent jumped on the bandwagon. Perhaps the apex of this particular movement was reached with the Danish soap 2900 Happiness (2007–09, 142 episodes) – its title, a reference to the postcode for Copenhagen’s wealthiest suburb Hellerup, being a more or less direct borrow from the American product Beverley Hills 90210 (1990–2000) – aired on the Danish commercial channel TV3. Finally a European soap about the trials and tribulations of Beautiful People. While these productions appear on the surface at least to have little interest in addressing a ‘national’ audience as normally understood, they are also in some sense at the opposite end of the spectrum from the British soaps in that, rather than calling into existence an audience clustered around a class-based identity, they tailor their appeal to the characteristics of a specific demographic as understood in what are essentially marketing terms. The language is the language of the young and the chic, who work overwhelmingly in fashion and design and other ‘in’ occupations. In fact the barriers between advertising and soap are extraordinarily porous: fashions worn by the young actors and actresses – some of whom worked as models before joining their respective soaps – are relayed to consumer-viewers through the soaps’ magazines – many of them have their own dedicated magazines – or through the soaps’ websites. The latter are crammed with ads: ‘Your favourite brands re-

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duced up to 70 %’ announces Gute Zeiten, Schlechte Zeiten’s website, showcasing Meltin’ Pot, Timberland and Lilly. Pop groups make their debut within the soaps and the cast appear during the advert breaks singing songs from their Christmas CDs (occasionally they actually sing them during the soap itself). The soaps’ theme songs – often sung in (American) English – frequently make it into the charts. As Hönsch and Graf put it in their study of the German soap Gute Zeiten, Schlechte Zeiten: Der Erfolg der Serie und des Merchandisings kann jenseits der Aufteilung nach Altersgruppen nur verstanden werden, wenn die Zuschauer als Anhänger und Konsumenten von Mode- und Musikrichtungen und spezifischen Freizeitaktivitäten verstanden werden.22 Beyond the division into age groups, the success of the soap and its merchandising can only be understood if the viewers are understood as fans and consumers of fashion and music trends and of specific leisure activities.

In these productions market and cultural text mesh almost seamlessly to the mutual benefit of each. While the considerable unease among academics regarding what Eduardo Cintra Torres for example calls ‘the colonization of content by advertising’ has focused mostly on the phenomenon of product placement, these soaps show that the relationship between content and advertising – or marketing more generally – can approach something much closer to a symbiosis than to a tactical alliance.23 In other words, while the spoken language of the characters may be youthful, hip, trendy, ‘in’, the overall language of the soaps as a whole is that of international marketing, advertising and PR.

22

23

Birgit Hönsch, Frank Graf, “Merchandising als Kultmarketing”, Pickel, Küsse und Kulissen, Claudia Cippitelli, Axel Schwanebeck, eds. (München: Verlag Reinhard Fischer, 2004), p. 126. See also: Udo Göttlich, Jörg-Uwe Nieland, “Das Zusammenspiel von Alltagsdramatisierung und Kult-Marketing: Etablierung, Nutzung, Inhalte und Vermarktung von Daily Soaps in Deutschland”, Pickel, Küsse…, pp. 139–166. Eduardo Cintra, A Televisão e o Serviço Público (Lisbon: Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos, 2011), p. 61.

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Conclusion The soap opera was in its origins a deeply modern phenomenon, the twentieth-century heir of the melodrama of the late eighteenth-century and later which Brooks describes as a ‘peculiarly modern form’, adding: Melodrama from its inception takes as its concern and raison d’être the location, expression, and imposition of basic ethical and psychic truths. It says them over and over in clear language, it rehearses their conflicts and combats, it reenacts the menace of evil and the eventual triumph of morality made operative and evident. While its social implications may be variously revolutionary or conservative, it is in all cases radically democratic, striving to make its representations clear and legible to everyone. We may legitimately claim that melodrama becomes the principal mode for uncovering, demonstrating, and making operative the essential moral universe in a post-sacred era.24

British soap operas and those elsewhere most clearly influenced by them understand their audience in classically modern terms of nation or class – either the middle-class audiences of the American daytime soaps or the working-class audiences of the UK soaps – they were heavily patriarchal in the early days (somewhat less so as time has gone on) and, to the extent that they were commercial in nature – and the American soaps were undisguisedly so – they saw their audience as a market for nationally produced goods. The fact that so many long-running soaps have disappeared over the last ten to fifteen years – not just the American daytime soaps mentioned earlier, or the Greek soaps, but also productions such as Brookside (1982–2003, 2915 episodes) in the UK, Onderweg naar morgen “Heading for Tomorrow” (1994–2010, 3130 episodes) in the Netherlands, Vivere “Living” (1999–2008, 2130 episodes) in Italy, Rederiet “The Shipping Line” (1992–2002, 318 episodes) in Sweden or the at one point seemingly unstoppable El cor de la ciutat in Catalonia – coupled with the fact that at most two even moderately successful five-day-a-week soap have launched anywhere in Europe in the last ten years (Ta Mystika Tis Edem in Greece and Els 24

Peter Brooks, The Melodramatic Imagination: Balzac, Henry James, Melodrama, and the Mode of Excess (New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 1995), pp. 14– 15. On page 204 of the same volume Brooks suggests that the name “soap opera” suggests “the filiation to melodrama via grand opera”.

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Riera in Catalonia) – is perhaps indeed a sign that modernity is in a period of protracted transition into something else. And yet the situation is more complex than it might appear at first sight. Not only do a number of the truly modern soaps survive – British offerings such as Emmerdale, Coronation Street and EastEnders or to a lesser extent Lindenstraße in Germany may have increased their glamour quotient visibly in recent years, but as things stand they appear to be in no danger of an imminent demise – many of the new ‘neoliberal’ soaps are positively buoyant. While they have largely replaced the old class or nation-based identity appeals with more postmodern consumption-based individualized ones, they none the less remain absolutely and unmistakably soaps with everything that that implies, dealing at times with difficult and even harrowing issues drawn from the social conditions in their societies – racism, sexual discrimination, intolerances of various kinds – and often taking courageous stances in favour of liberal and progressive values. In other words, while they may on one level be suffused by the international language of advertising and merchandising, they nonetheless continue to address a primarily national audience within a primarily national political and social frame.25 In other words these soaps offer what are in fact recognizably postmodern hybrid identities – transnational on one level, domestic on the other. While RTL4 in the Netherlands and RTL in Germany belong to the same parent company, itself based in neither of these countries – the Luxembourg-based RTL group – they developed quite different versions of The Restless Years for their viewers in the Netherlands and Germany respectively, responding to and dramatizing the differing preoccupations and expectations of each society.26 And this is not of course limited to soaps. The now global market in television formats, where for example different versions of (the originally Dutch production) Big Brother can be produced for around seventy different national or even 25

26

Enric Castelló, “The Nation as a Political Stage: A Theoretical Approach to Television Fiction and National Identities”, The International Communication Gazette, 71/4 (2009), pp. 303–320. For an intriguing example of the transnational meeting the local in a rather different domain, see: Helene Brembeck, Hem till McDonalds (Stockholm: Carlsson, 2007).

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regional audiences, has made this localization of the global a routine televisual experience.27 As globalization increasingly mingles the transnational and the local – the much debated ‘glocal’ – hybrid identities appear more and more to be what awaits us all, not just those whose identities are for historical reasons in some sense hyphenated.28 As the older soaps slowly but surely see their viewing figures decline – a result not just of the multiplication of channels but of the inexorable ageing of their audience – the new soaps with their enthusiastic embrace of the old and the new, of the modern and the postmodern, of the individual and the social and of the global and the national may well be the soaps of the future.

27 28

Ernest Mathijs, Janet Jones, Big Brother international: Formats, Critics and Publics (London: Wallflower Press, 2004). For the concept of the “glocal” – a mingling of the global and the local – see: Roland Robertson, Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture (London: Sage, 1992). For hybrid identity see, among others: Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 2004). A hyphenated identity would be, for example, MexicanAmerican or British-Indian.

L’imagologie face à la question de l’identité Daniel-Henri PAGEAUX Université Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3

L’imagologie regroupe les études sur les représentations littéraires de l’étranger, entendu comme espace, type social et littéraire, culture utilisée comme matière fictionnelle, dramatique, poétique. La littérature comparée qui s’attache à l’étude de la dimension étrangère, de la «relation» entre littératures ou cultures (relation et non comparaison), de la «différence» ou mieux de «l’écart différentiel» (notion que j’ai empruntée à Lévi-Strauss) a installé au cœur de ses questionnements la problématique de l’identité en relation avec celle de l’altérité. Interdisciplinaire avant la lettre, l’imagologie comme programme d’étude recoupe un certain nombre de recherches menées par des ethnologues, des anthropologues, des sociologues, des historiens des mentalités, lesquels abordent des questions portant sur l’acculturation, la déculturation, l’aliénation culturelle, l’opinion publique face à une donnée étrangère, par exemple et bien sûr les questions d’identité. Le comparatiste a tout intérêt à prendre en compte certaines interrogations pratiquées par des chercheurs voisins. Ainsi conçue, l’image «littéraire» est envisagée comme un ensemble d’idées sur l’étranger prises dans un processus de littérarisation mais aussi de socialisation. Cette perspective oblige le chercheur à tenir compte non seulement des textes littéraires, de leurs conditions de production et de diffusion, mais encore de tout matériau culturel avec lequel on écrit, mais aussi on pense, mais encore on vit. L’image littéraire tend à être un révélateur particulièrement éclairant des fonctionnements d’une culture. La notion d’image, des plus vagues, appelle moins une définition qu’une hypothèse de travail. Celle-ci pourrait être formulée ainsi: toute image procède d’une prise de conscience, si minime soit-elle, d’un Je par rapport à l’Autre, d’un Ici par rapport à un Ailleurs. L’image est donc l’expression, littéraire ou non, d’un écart significatif entre deux ordres de réalité culturelle. L’image littéraire tend à être un révélateur

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particulièrement éclairant des fonctionnements d’une culture, envisagée plus particulièrement sous l’angle d’une bipolarité: identité vs altérité, l’altérité étant envisagée comme terme opposé et complémentaire par rapport à l’identité. L’image révèle ainsi diverses possibilités dont dispose une société pour se voir, se définir, mais aussi pour se rêver. Quelques propositions simples pour mieux situer rapidement les enjeux de l’imagologie: 1.

2.

3.

On ne recherchera pas une image «moyenne» de l’étranger fondée sur un prétendu psychisme (psychologie des peuples). L’imagologie doit aboutir à l’identification d’images qui coexistent dans une même littérature, dans une même culture et à en proposer une explication. On ne posera pas comme prioritaire l’idée de la fausseté de l’image. L’étude de l’image doit moins s’attacher au degré de «réalité» de l’image, à son rapport au réel qu’à sa conformité plus ou moins nette à un modèle, à un schéma culturel qui lui est préexistant, dans la culture «regardante» dont il importe de connaître les fondements et les composantes. Le véritable problème est celui de la logique de l’image, de la logique d’un certain imaginaire. L’imagologie littéraire a partie liée avec l’histoire des idées, des mentalités. L’Autre est ce qui permet de penser… autrement. L’image de l’Autre révèle les relations que j’établis entre le monde (espace originel et étranger) et moi-même. L’image, parce qu’elle est image de l’Autre, est un fait de culture; au reste, nous parlons d’imagerie culturelle. Elle a sa place dans ce que nous appelons un «imaginaire», ou plutôt un ensemble d’imaginaires qui composent une organisation sociale et culturelle.

Pour préciser ce qu’on entend par image, il importe de réfléchir sur une forme élémentaire de représentation: le stéréotype. Si l’on admet que toute culture peut être envisagée comme un lieu d’invention, de production et de transmission de signes et tout phénomène culturel comme un processus de communication, le stéréotype apparaît non pas comme un «signe» (une possible représentation génératrice de significations), mais comme un «signal» qui renvoie à une seule interprétation possible. Le stéréotype est l’indice d’une communication univoque, d’une culture en voie de blocage.

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Si l’on fait réflexion sur la production du stéréotype, on s’aperçoit qu’il obéit à un processus simple de fabrication: la confusion de l’attribut et de l’essentiel, rendant possible l’extrapolation constante du particulier au général, du singulier au collectif. Dans un texte, le stéréotype se situe souvent au plan de l’épithète, de l’adjectivation: c’est l’attribut accessoire, qualificatif qui devient essence. D’où la formulation la plus fréquente: ‹tel peuple est…›, ‹tel peuple n’est pas…›, ‹tel peuple sait…›, ‹tel peuple ne sait pas…›. Enoncé au présent (et tranchant nettement, le plus souvent, avec le temps du récit au passé) le stéréotype est l’expression même d’un temps bloqué, le temps des essences. D’où la standardisation possible du stéréotype, sa prolifération dans toute expression culturelle fabriquée en série (la littérature «industrielle» du XIXe siècle, feuilletons, mélos, affiches, propagande, etc.). L’intérêt du stéréotype, dans ce cas, est évident: il délivre une forme minimale d’informations pour une communication maximale, la plus massive possible; il est allé «à l’essentiel». Porteur d’une définition de l’Autre, le stéréotype est l’énoncé d’un savoir dit collectif qui se veut valable, à quelque moment historique que ce soit. Le stéréotype n’est pas polysémique; en revanche il est hautement polycontextuel, réemployable à chaque instant. Ajoutons que si l’idéologie se caractérise, entre autres choses, par la confusion opérée entre une norme (morale, sociale) et un discours, le stéréotype représente, à sa façon, une fusion, une confusion particulièrement réussie et efficace. Enfin, la définition dont le stéréotype est porteur opère une confusion entre deux ordres de faits complémentaires mais distincts: la Nature et la Culture, l’Etre et le Faire. On ne doit pas s’étonner de l’importance du registre physique, physiologique, pour énoncer le stéréotype (nez crochu pour le juif, sourire-dents-blanches pour le nègre, etc.): la Nature justifie, cautionne une situation culturelle «tel peuple sait… ne sait pas…». Le stéréotype entretient la confusion typique de l’idéologie entre le descriptif (le discours, disions-nous, tel peuple est…) et le normatif (la norme, disions-nous, tel peuple ne sait pas…). Le descriptif (l’attribut physique) se confond avec l’ordre normatif (infériorité de tel peuple, de telle culture). L’idéologie raciste (aux multiples variantes) repose sur la fausse démonstration de l’infériorité physique ou de l’anormalité physique de l’Autre (par rapport à la norme qu’est le Je qui énonce le stéréotype).

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Je serais bref pour d’évidentes raisons sur la méthodologie que j’ai mise au point pour l’étude de l’image: les trois temps (le mot, la relation hiérarchisée, le scénario), les quatre attitudes fondamentales (la manie, la phobie, la philie et un quatrième cas ou figure plus complexe). Bref également sur les conséquences au plan d’une théorie de la littérature: la mise en évidence de trois niveaux d’étude et plus encore des rapports qui existent entre ces trois niveaux (socio-historique, esthétique ou formel, symbolique ou imaginaire). Ces trois niveaux permettent de mieux saisir l’opposition mais aussi la complémentarité entre l’idéologie (relevant du premier niveau) et l’imaginaire (niveau 3). Ce sont les deux pôles entre lesquels se situe ou oscille toute étude littéraire, singulièrement l’imagologie qui met en évidence à quel point l’idéologie est bien le terme opposé de l’imaginaire puisqu’elle a pour objectif la normalisation de tout imaginaire. Aussi m’a-t-il paru utile de parler dans des cas précis d’imaginaire social, et aussi d’imaginaire sous contrôle (cas de littératures en régime colonial ou néo-colonial, dominées, émergentes). Je souhaiterais plutôt m’attarder sur les domaines de recherche concernés par la problématique de l’imagologie: littérature de voyage, évidemment, esthétique de la réception qui ne peut se cantonner à l’étude de jugements «esthétiques» ou intra-littéraires. La réception critique d’œuvres étrangères ne peut pleinement se comprendre que dans le cadre d’une étude consacrée aux systèmes de représentation de l’étranger qui sont accréditées à un moment historique donné dans une culture «réceptrice» et «regardante». Accordons une place particulière à une forme de comparatisme «intérieur» à partir de ce que l’on tient couramment pour un espace culturel unifié qu’on appelle «nation» ou «état-nation» et qui est loin d’être un espace culturel et linguistique homogène. Qu’il s’agisse de la littérature «régionale» ou de la littérature coloniale, on se rend compte que le système unificateur (culture du centre contrôlant des cultures périphériques), débouche sur la problématique de l’image de l’Autre. Parce qu’elle est une réflexion sur des «écarts différentiels» (mot emprunté à Claude Lévi-Strauss dans Race et histoire),1 l’imagologie a sa place à côté d’études historiques. En France, le Gascon de la France 1

Claude Lévi-Strauss, Race et histoire (Paris: Gallimard, 1987).

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d’Henri IV et des comédies de Molière, les Bretons de romans, de chansons ou de bandes dessinées (Bécassine…) sont autant de types «étrangers» qui éclairent la littérature et la culture dite «françaises». Il s’agit là d’enquêtes intranationales ou d’un comparatisme «intérieur». La littérature coloniale nous entraîne dans un comparatisme intercontinental ou intracontinental. Il ne s’agit pas seulement de comptabiliser les stéréotypes (bien connus) du «bon Nègre», du «sale Arabe», et l’«Asiatique impénétrable», mais de comprendre aussi des états de dépendance culturelle qui ont fait de la France (Paris de Francia!) un modèle actif pour l’Amérique du Sud, Brésil compris. De comprendre enfin comment des littératures sous dépendance accédant à l’état de littératures «nouvelles», «émergentes», «décolonisées» véhiculent encore des représentations de l’ancienne culture dominante, des clichés de l’ancien colonisateur. L’imagologie d’aujourd’hui, pour un continent comme l’Afrique, offre comme programme littéraire, mais aussi culturel et anthropologique, l’étude d’un nouvel imaginaire «noir» au sein duquel circulent des images de la colonisation sédimentées, des modèles culturels non encore périmés, de nouvelles formes d’expression qui passent par la reconquête d’un espace et d’un temps, ces deux données du vécu que la colonisation politique et culturelle avait confisquées. Aussi, dans des questions où l’identité entre en jeu, la problématique de l’image de l’Autre est présente et active. Les littératures des Amériques, qu’il s’agisse du Canada, des EtatsUnis, d’Amérique hispanique ou du Brésil, sans omettre le cas spécial de métissage linguistique et culturel qu’est l’aire caraïbe, sont concernées, plus ou moins directement, par le problème de l’identité (rapport à l’Europe ou rapports intracontinentaux). The Bush Garden. Essays on the Canadian Imagination, de Northrop Frye,2 étudie, à l’aide d’exemples variés, ce délicat problème. Des travaux anthropologiques comme ceux de Gilberto Freyre ou des essais stimulants comme le provocant Canibalismo amoroso d’Affonso de Sant’Anna montrent que l’interrogation sur l’identité brésilienne est permanente et complexe, en raison même de la présence physique ou culturelle de l’Autre (Noir ou Indien)

2

Northrop Frye, The Bush Garden. Essays on the Canadian Imagination (Toronto: House of Anansi, 1971).

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qui s’est mué en composante culturelle active et élément fondamental de l’imaginaire «national». Dans l’Amérique espagnole, l’identité demeure problématique depuis le moment même où elle a été «inventée» par l’Europe selon le beau mot d’Edmundo O’Gorman (La invención de America);3 où les conquérants l’ont vue et transcrite au moyen de leurs lectures (mythes médiévaux et livres de chevalerie, comme l’a montré Irving Leonard dans son classique Los libros del conquistador).4 L’interrogation sur l’identité demeure une préoccupation fondamentale de criollo comme l’a mise en évidence le philosophe mexicain Leopoldo Zea et la quête de l’identité passe par une prise de conscience de l’espace et du temps «culturels»; plus profondément, par une prise de possession toujours problématique de l’espace et du temps. Il suffit, pour s’en convaincre, de lire un essai comme El laberinto de soledad d’Octavio Paz5 ou Cien años de soledad de Gabriel Garcia Márquez.6 Expression polymorphe d’une suite de colonisations politiques, économiques, linguistiques, l’aire caraïbe inscrit la réflexion sur l’identité et sur tous les Autres qui ont croisé dans ses eaux comme une priorité: les romans d’Alejo Carpentier, les essais de Roberto Fernández Retamar, d’Edouard Glissant, de René Despestre sont là pour montrer à quel point ce délicat et douloureux problème de l’autoreprésentation et de l’hétéroreprésentation paraît constitutif d’une culture en état de questionnement perpétuel. Quant à l’espace nord-américain, des problèmes aussi anciens qu’obsédants comme celui de la «frontière» ou des problèmes nouveaux comme la littérature d’expression hispanique (la literatura chicana, les latinos) montrent clairement que la question de l’identité passe aussi par une réflexion sur la présence et le statut de l’Autre sur un espace culturel hétérogène. En ce qui concerne le problème de la francophonie québécoise par rapport à la culture nord-américaine, j’aimerais

3 4 5 6

Edmundo O’Gorman, La invención de America (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1948). Irving Leonard, Los libros del conquistador (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1953). Octavio Paz, El laberinto de soledad (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1950). Gabriel Garcia Márquez, Cien años de soledad (Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 1967).

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citer un passage d’un ouvrage classique, Destin littéraire du Québec de Gérard Teuga:7 La littérature de nos voisins du Sud a tracé une courbe que toutes les néo-littératures du Nouveau-Monde sont condamnées à suivre, de près ou de loin. Car toutes, à certain moment, ont cherché à s’émanciper de l’Europe et c’est la littérature américaine qui la première a indiqué le chemin à suivre […] Aucun critique québécois ne s’est penché sur la littérature américaine pour y découvrir les clés de sa propre littérature […]. C’est pourquoi j’ai écrit Puissance littéraire des Etats-Unis (1979). En approfondissant les mythes qui sous-tendent la littérature américaine, on s’aperçoit qu’une image saisissante nous est fournie de l’aventure intellectuelle du Canada français.

Voilà qui nous replonge au cœur d’une «relation» complexe, je veux dire les rapports entre la production littéraire et la poétique de l’altérité. Celle-ci passe par des «images de culture», des représentations où idéologie et imaginaire se mêlent, mais aussi par des rapports de force, inhérents à toute «relation», politique ou littéraire. La question rebondit lorsque Gérard Teugas envisage les relations entre le Canada «français» et l’ancienne métropole: Il y a une malédiction linguistique qui fait que les pays dits francophones ne le sont que partiellement ou au second degré et une autre, historique, qui condamne ces pays, qui ne font pas le poids, à ne jamais pouvoir rattraper la France […]. La notoriété d’un auteur, à l’échelle de la francophonie […] dépend donc en grande partie de Paris.8

Cette situation de relation à la fois d’indépendance, d’autonomie culturelle et de dépendance, elle aussi, culturelle, légitime de multiples recherches fondées sur la notion d’«écart différentiel», notion clé de l’anthropologie de Lévi-Strauss. Si l’on choisit de mener une étude sur la représentation de l’espace, sur une certaine poétique de l’espace, pour reprendre le beau titre de Bachelard, posons-nous la question suivante: l’écrivain africain d’avant les indépendances ou en situation de néo-colonialisme (terme préférable à «postcolonialisme») a-t-il eu la possibilité culturelle (donc

7 8

Gérard Tougas, Destin littéraire du Québec (Montréal: Québec-Amérique, 1982), p. 11. Gérard Tougas, Destin littéraire…, pp. 28-29.

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quelque peu politique, sociale) de dire le réel, alors qu’il est en situation de colonisé? C’est en posant cette question que j’ai proposé l’utilisation de la notion de «proxémie» tirée de l’ouvrage d’Edward T. Hall (The hidden dimension / La dimension cachée).9 Il s’agit d’une adaptation, d’une transposition notionnelle. Comment se traduit en littérature l’occupation de l’espace? Comment le corps de l’autre est-il inscrit dans le «réel», en l’occurrence africain? La thématique du corps s’enrichit ici d’un double questionnement portant sur la mise en mots et en images de l’espace et la représentation de l’autre. Même type de lecture, de parcours, en introduisant dans l’étude littéraire le questionnement portant sur la «civilisation matérielle», notion empruntée à l’historien Fernand Braudel. J’entends par là les enquêtes sur la culture de l’autre (au sens anthropologique) à partir de textes littéraires: vêtement, cuisine, musique, avant de passer aux pratiques et aux rites. On retrouvera le niveau pleinement littéraire ou poétique avec l’étude des modèles connus, imités. Mais pour autant, nous ne sommes pas sortis de la question de l’altérité, même si l’interrogation portant sur l’imagologie semble un peu dépassée. L’emploi des textes, en traduction, ou l’adaptation sous forme d’intertextualité ne peut évacuer la question du statut de textes qui ne font pas partie pleine et entière du «système» littéraire, africain dans le cas d’espèce, et l’appellation mérite d’être affinée (continentale, nationale, régionale, zonale). La question de l’altérité sous l’angle littéraire revêt en effet un dernier aspect important, complexe: celui du public auquel le texte s’adresse. Prenons le cas du texte «francophone», écrit en un «français» marqué du sceau de la différence: français africanisé, français créolisé aux Antilles. Ecrit en français, mais publié le plus souvent dans l’espace hexagonal. La France demeure la puissance éditrice et en partie, par la réception critique, la puissance de légitimation et le foyer de la «reconnaissance» pour l’écrivain francophone. Ainsi, l’on peut poser que ‹toute littérature qui réfléchit sur les fondements de son identité, même à travers la fiction, véhicule pour se construire et pour se dire, les images d’un autre ou de plusieurs autres: le spéculatif se change en spéculaire›. Cette citation faite à partir de

9

Edward T. Hall, The hidden dimension / La dimension cachée (Nueva York: Doubleday, 1966).

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mon manuel,10 illustre de façon simple et évidente les liens entre altérité et identité. Mais je prends une autre citation, de portée plus prestigieuse, puisqu’il s’agit d’Edouard Glissant:11 Je crois que la hantise du passé […] est un des référents essentiels de la production littéraire dans les Amériques. Ce qui «se passe» en fait, c’est qu’il semble qu’il s’agisse de débrouiller une chronologie qui s’est embuée, quand elle n’a pas été oblitérée pour toutes sortes de raisons, en particulier coloniales. Le romancier américain, quelle que soit la zone culturelle à laquelle il appartient, n’est pas du tout à la recherche d’un temps perdu, mais se trouve, se débat, dans un temps éperdu. Et, de Faulkner à Carpentier, on est en présence de sortes de fragments de durée qui se sont englouties dans des amoncellements ou des vertiges.

La question de l’identité passe ici par le rapport à l’histoire. On en vient ainsi à distinguer au moins trois manières d’aborder la question de l’identité: 1. comme élément idéologique dans un texte et le risque est de prendre le texte comme document (ce qui, soit dit en passant, est souvent le cas des cultural studies); 2. comme thématique sociale, voire ethnique, l’expression d’une collectivité et le risque est de prendre le texte où s’exprime la littérature comme une illustration de questions qui relèvent de la sociologie ou de l’histoire culturelle (variante du cas précédent); 3. comme ferment identitaire, comme une thématique qui ne relève pas seulement de l’idéologie mais de l’imaginaire. Le texte est lu alors comme l’expression d’une identité à construire. Et la littérature intervient à un niveau qui est le sien propre: celui de la symbolique, de la médiation symbolique ou, plus largement, de l’imaginaire. La littérature de fondation (expression empruntée à Octavio Paz dans Puertas al campo, 1964) apparaît comme une forme de littérature émergente et donc comme une forme particulière d’affirmation d’une identité. Identité d’une collectivité qui se reconnaît dans une fiction qui la représente, qui constitue le discours de l’histoire qui est soit défaillant, soit inexistant: la Caraïbe de Alejo Carpentier, le Mexique de Carlos Fuentes, l’Acadie d’Antonine Maillet, une certaine Suisse de Ramuz.

10 11

Daniel-Henri Pageaux, La littérature générale et comparée (Paris: Colin, 1994), p. 73. Edouard Glissant, Le discours antillais (Paris: Gallimard Folio, 1997), p. 254.

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Rappelons ce que disait l’Argentin Florencio Varela en 1841, soit trois décennies après l’indépendance de son pays: Jamás una colonia tuvo ni tendrá literatura propia, porque no es propia la existencia de que goza y la literatura no es más que una de las muchas fórmulas por que se expresan las condiciones y elementos de la vida social.

C’est ici qu’il faudrait remonter à l’examen de situations coloniales. La notion de «métissage culturel», apparue timidement au détour d’une note dans le Karim d’Ousmane Socé, puis reprise par Senghor, et surtout par Carpentier qui en fait la base de son «baroque», illustrée récemment encore par les travaux de Serge Gruzinski, essentiellement sur les colonies espagnoles,12 éclaire bien évidemment toute étude portant sur une littérature qui cherche à exprimer une certaine identité culturelle, politique sans doute, mais plus encore une autonomie de son imaginaire. C’est pourquoi la notion de transculturation (transculturación) de l’ethnomusicologue cubain Fernando Ortiz13 mériterait quelque considération pour nuancer des analyses consacrées à l’acculturation, autant dire à la perte d’une identité collective. Or, si tout processus d’acculturation suppose en effet une phase de déculturation, il produit aussi des essais de reculturation ou de transculturation, justifiant ainsi des phénomènes de syncrétisme culturel (religieux, culturels, littéraires). La transculturation peut servir à éclairer des phénomènes de traduction et d’adaptation. En ce cas, comme l’a montré le Brésilien Haroldo de Campos, poète essayiste et traducteur, on parlera de «transvaloration». Un autre Brésilien, Silviano Santiago, comparatiste, essayiste et romancier, soutient non sans raison dans son Vale quanto pesa (1982) que le texte «décolonisé», dans une culture encore périphérique et dominée, finit par être plus riche que le modèle qui a été à l’origine de l’imitation (bien sûr différentielle, en excluant les cas de décalcomanie littéraire…) car il contient une représentation du texte dominant et une réponse à cette représentation au niveau de la fabulation (écriture et imaginaire). L’imagologie pourrait donc se constituer en front pionnier pour une discipline comme la littérature comparée qui, par ses ouvertures

12 13

Serge Gruzinski, La pensée métisse (Paris: Fayard, 1999). Fernando Ortiz, Contrapunteo cubano del tabaco y el azúcar (La Habana: Jesús Montero Editor, 1940).

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sur les cultures étrangères et la diversité de ses questionnements et de ses méthodes, peut devenir pleinement une «science de l’homme». ‘Toutes les sciences de l’homme […] sont contaminées les unes par les autres. Elles parlent le même langage ou peuvent le parler’. C’est ce qu’affirmait Fernand Braudel dans Ecrits sur l’Histoire. La littérature comparée, avec l’imagologie, a l’ambition d’être, en raison même de certains secteurs de sa recherche, une «science humaine», sans nier pour autant la spécificité de la littérature. L’altérité que nous étudions procède pour une large part d’une réflexion sur les notions de différence et d’interculturalité. Cette interculturalité renverrait assez bien à cette zone de l’entre-deux que nombre de chercheurs aiment de plus en plus fréquenter et étudier. L’identité vers laquelle nous portons nos regards est plus un processus, une démarche que l’affirmation d’une essence. La littérature aide à préciser, voire à transfigurer cette démarche. La littérature et la critique auraient au moins cet intérêt, cet avantage, de montrer comment l’identité, loin d’être une essence, est un processus en construction permanente et que loin d’être une réponse ou une affirmation, elle est avant tout questionnement. Les études et recherches interrogent la littérature en tenant compte de la spécificité littéraire et en écartant toute dérive vers les études dites «culturelles» ou l’instrumentalisation de la littérature. Elles sont fondées sur les notions de relation et de différence qui concernent aussi le chercheur. Car dans l’étude qu’il mène sur l’identité (et l’altérité), le chercheur ne peut faire l’économie d’un temps de réflexion sur sa propre culture, sa méthode et les «valeurs» dont il est porteur.

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Annexe Bibliographie Nous donnons les principales publications auxquelles sur lesquelles se fonde la présente communication: Alexandru Dutu, «De l’imagologie à la théorie en littérature comparée. Eléments de réflexion », Europa provincia mundi. Essays offered to H. Dyserinck on the occasion of his sixty- fifth birthday (Amsterdam: Atlanta, 1992), pp. 297-307. Hugo Dyserinck, Karl Ulrich Syndram, «Image/imaginaire », Europa und das national Selbstverständis (Bonn: Bouvier, 1988), pp. 368-379. Daniel-Henri Pageaux, Images du Portugal dans les lettres françaises (1700-1755) (Paris: Fondation Gulbenkian, 1971), pour l’introduction. Daniel-Henri Pageaux, «Une perspective d’études en littérature comparée: l’imagerie culturelle», Synthesis, 8 (1981), pp. 169-185. Daniel-Henri Pageaux, «L’imagerie culturelle: de la littérature comparée à l’anthropologie culturelle», Synthesis, 10 (1983), pp. 79-88. Daniel-Henri Pageaux, «Pour un nouveau programme d’études en littérature comparées: les relations interlittéraires et interculturelles», Bayreuther Beiträge (Bern-New York: Peter Lang, 1986), pp. 61-74. Daniel-Henri Pageaux, «De l’imagologie culturelle à l’imaginaire», Précis de littérature comparée, Pierre Brunel, Yves Chevrel, eds. (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1989), pp. 133-159. Daniel-Henri Pageaux, «L’orientalisme littéraire», Grand Atlas des Littératures. Encyclopedia universalis (1990), pp. 310-311. Daniel-Henri Pageaux, Le Bûcher d’Hercule. Histoire, critique et théorie littéraires (Paris: Champion, 1996). Daniel-Henri Pageaux, «De l’expérience poétique à la théorie littéraire», Synthesis, 24 (1997), pp. 3-23. Daniel-Henri Pageaux, «Sobre la noción de imaginario. Elementos para una teoría en literatura comparada», Anthropos, 196 (2002), pp. 138-143. Daniel-Henri Pageaux, Littératures et cultures en dialogue (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2007), en particulier chap. I, II, III, X, XII). Daniel-Henri Pageaux, «Elementos de teoría», El corazón viajero: Doce ensayos sobre literatura comparada (Lleida: Pagès Editors, 2007), vol. 1. Daniel-Henri Pageaux, «Images élémentaires de l’Espagne dans la culture française du XVIIIe siècle. De la culture matérielle à l’opinion publique», Cuadernos dieciochistas, 9 (2008), pp. 105-117.

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Quelle identité européenne? Sentiments d’appartenance et représentations de l’Europe en mouvement dans la construction européenne Thibault COURCELLE Centre Universitaire Jean-François Champollion

L’identité européenne est un thème complexe et polémique, qui est loin de faire consensus aussi bien au sein de la communauté scientifique et universitaire qu’au sein des populations européennes et de leurs représentants. L’objet de cette étude est donc de questionner ce qui peut constituer des éléments d’identité européenne et d’analyser leur évolution dans les temps longs et courts. L’identité européenne ne doit pas faire abstraction de la difficulté à définir le concept «d’identité» lui-même. Si le dictionnaire Larousse en donne des définitions somme toute assez simples: «Rapport que présentent entre eux plusieurs êtres ou choses qui ont une similitude parfaite» ou encore: «Caractère permanent et fondamental de quelqu’un ou d’un groupe»,1 le concept d’identité est en réalité polysémique et ambigu. L’identité, qui se base sur les ressemblances entre individus et qui marque leurs différences vis-à-vis d’autres individus, est en pratique difficile à définir pour identifier l’ensemble des populations européennes aux cultures nationales et/ou régionales très marquées comme l’indique la devise de l’UE: In varietate concordia en latin, «Unie dans la diversité»2 en français. La diversité fait donc plutôt appel à la complexité et à ce qui différencie les populations européennes qu’à ce qui

1 2

Le petit Larousse illustré (Paris: Editions Larousse, 2006), p. 561. Cette devise a été choisie le 4 mai 2000 par un Grand Jury européen sous la responsabilité de Jacques Delors parmi plus de 2000 devises proposées par 2500 classes d’école provenant des 15 pays alors membres de l’UE. Elle figure dans le préambule du Traité Constitutionnel de 2004 aux côtés des autres symboles de l’Europe, mais n’est pas reprise dans le Traité de Lisbonne de 2007 qui ne contient aucun article mentionnant les symboles de l’Union.

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les rassemble. Il est ainsi difficile de saisir le lien qui unit l’individu au groupe quand on le cherche dans cette diversité. Dans l’histoire de l’humanité, le concept d’Europe pour désigner un ensemble territorial spécifique s’est généralisé récemment et la construction d’une communauté politique européenne ne s’est vraiment développée que depuis une soixantaine d’années. Les différents éléments qui fondent l’identité européenne sont extrêmement complexes à définir, d’autant plus qu’ils ne sont pas figés mais en constant mouvement dont la dynamique actuelle est en grande partie liée à l’intégration politique européenne. Existe-t-il donc une identité spécifiquement européenne? Et si oui, quelles sont ses principales caractéristiques et comment évolue-t-elle dans le temps? Dans un premier temps, il convient de définir différents éléments constitutifs de cette identité européenne et de s’interroger sur leur pertinence, en tentant de différencier dans cette identité ce qui est européen de ce qui est plus généralement occidental ou universel, par exemple au niveau des valeurs éthiques ou au niveau de l’art et de la littérature. Dans un second temps, l’analyse portera sur la façon dont les institutions européennes se sont confrontées à l’identité européenne et comment elles ont cherché à définir des critères d’européanité lors de leurs élargissements à l’est à partir de la chute du Mur de Berlin. En se posant la question des limites de l’Europe et de leurs propres frontières, les institutions européennes – Conseil de l’Europe et Union européenne – se sont posées la question de la définition de l’identité européenne, et de ce qui unit les Etats dans leur diversité. Enfin, l’étude se focalisera sur les liens qui peuvent se tisser entre la citoyenneté européenne et l’identité européenne, pour analyser si cette citoyenneté récente créée ou non de l’identité et un sentiment d’appartenance à l’Europe au sein des opinions publiques européennes.

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1. Une identité difficile à définir qui ne fait pas consensus L’étymologie du mot Europe provient de la Grèce Antique, mais sa généralisation pour désigner une aire territoriale est récente. L’Europe est d’abord une notion pleine de paradoxes car elle est généralement traitée à l’école comme un continent à part entière et elle est souvent qualifiée par les média de «Vieux Continent» par opposition au «Nouveau Monde» que représente l’Amérique. Pourtant, la définition même d’un continent, du latin terra continens, est qu’il s’agit d’une «vaste étendue de terre émergée».3 C’est une banalité géographique de rappeler qu’un continent est forcément entouré d’eau – mer ou océan – alors que l’Europe, ce qui est remarquable sur toute carte, n’est qu’une petite partie d’une vaste étendue de terre émergée majoritairement constituée par l’Asie. Ce n’est donc pas un continent mais une péninsule du continent eurasiatique, qui fut même caricaturée de manière un peu provocante de «petit cap du continent asiatique»4 par le poète Paul Valéry en 1919. Avant même la chute de l’URSS, le sociologue Edgar Morin avait bien saisi la difficulté à définir l’Europe par la géographie et par l’histoire car pour lui: «L’Europe se dissout dès qu’on veut la penser de façon claire et distincte, elle se morcelle dès qu’on veut reconnaître son unité, […] c’est une notion aux multiples visages que l’on ne saurait surimpressionner les uns sur les autres sans créer le flou».5 Les limites géographiques territoriales de l’Europe au nord, à l’ouest et au sud ne posent généralement pas trop de problèmes. L’Europe est clairement délimitée par plusieurs mers et océans avec l’Océan arctique au nord, Atlantique à l’ouest et la Mer Méditerranée au sud. En revanche, la limite entre l’Asie et l’Europe n’est ni géographique, ni géologique (les Monts Oural n’étant qu’une chaîne de montagnes de faible altitude ne constituant pas un obstacle), mais entièrement historique, culturelle et géopolitique. D’abord, d’où vient l’Europe? La version la plus répandue est celle d’un mythe notamment raconté dans les œuvres d’Homère. «Europe», 3 4 5

Le petit Larousse illustré, p. 286. Paul Valéry, «La Crise de L’esprit», Œuvres (Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1957), vol. 1. Edgar Morin, Penser l’Europe (Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1987), p. 26 et 27.

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³ ›áËÀf, n’est pas un terme géographique à l’origine mais le prénom d’une princesse phénicienne, fille du roi Agénor, qui vivait à Tyr. Donc Europe, selon la légende, joue sur la plage lorsque le dieu Zeus tombe amoureux d’elle, se métamorphose en un taureau blanc pour la séduire et l’emporte sur l’île de Crête, où elle aurait donné naissance à ses trois fils. Ce mythe fondateur est notamment repris au dos de la pièce de deux euros grecque. Selon l’historien Hérodote, sans que l’on sache trop pourquoi ni comment, la princesse Europe fut donc à l’origine de la dénomination de tout un continent que pourtant, elle n’aborda pas véritablement, puisqu’elle passa d’Asie Mineure en Crète.6 La première fois que l’Europe est mentionnée dans les écrits pour désigner un continent, c’est au VIIIe s. avant J. C. par Hésiode dans sa Théogonie, pour nommer les territoires au Nord qui diffèrent du Péloponnèse. Avec la civilisation grecque s’est donc développée une vision globale du monde et une division du monde en continents. Des savants géographes comme Anaximandre de Milet ou Hécatée dessinent les premières cartes centrées sur la Méditerranée qui représentent d’abord l’Europe face à l’Asie. Les savants grecs considèrent alors que l’Europe et l’Asie sont séparées par la Mer Noire et que cette limite se prolonge par le fleuve Tanaïs (l’actuel Don en Russie). Le terme «Europe» ne désigne alors qu’un territoire et pas la population: les Grecs se représentent comme étant «Hellènes» et non pas «Européens», les étrangers étant tous considérés comme des «Barbares». La population grecque est d’ailleurs disséminée sur tout le pourtour méditerranéen, donc sur trois continents: Europe, Asie et Afrique. L’Empire romain s’est lui bâti à partir d’un concept latin et se réfère peu à l’Europe. A partir du IVe s. ap. JC, les Romains n’attribuent le terme d’Europe qu’à un tout petit territoire bien délimité puisqu’il s’agit d’une petite circonscription territoriale de l’empire romain: un diocèse de la Thrace qui correspond peu ou prou à l’actuelle Thrace turque à l’ouest d’Istanbul. Au Moyen-âge, le terme Europe sera de nouveau utilisé dans le sens des Grecs, comme unité continentale en opposition à l’Afrique et à l’Asie, avec la diffusion de la fameuse carte simplificatrice du «T dans l’O». Ce terme n’est alors connu que des lettrés et n’est pas du tout utilisé 6

Hérodote, L’Enquête, Livres I à IV, M. Larcher, trad. (Clermont-Ferrand: Paleo, 2011).

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par les diverses populations qui peuplent l’Europe. Sur le territoire de l’Europe actuelle, l’Empire romain s’effondre de manière progressive notamment sous la pression des tribus germaniques (Huns, Goths, Vandales, Alamans…) par des invasions répétées venues de l’est, qui bouleversent ses structures et ses traditions. Ces milliers de nouveaux arrivants s’installent en Europe et s’y intègrent lentement. Le juriste Alain Plantey rappelle fort à propos que c’est avec plusieurs siècles de conflits, marqués par une progressive christianisation, la domination de puissants féodaux, et la menace de l’Islam d’abord par l’ouest du continent (avec la conquête de la Péninsule ibérique par les Maures aux VIIe et VIIIe siècle jusqu’à Poitiers), puis par l’est (avec les conquêtes des Ottomans au XVe et XVIe siècles jusqu’aux portes de Vienne), que progressivement se définissent des relations privilégiées entre les peuples de l’Europe et pour qu’apparaisse le sentiment d’une certaine communauté de destin. C’est notamment à partir de Charlemagne que l’on constate la naissance d’une communauté franco-romano-germanique.7

L’empereur Charlemagne se fait d’ailleurs appelé Pater Europae (Père de l’Europe) de son vivant. L’Europe devient alors un territoire à défendre contre les invasions musulmanes, et l’idée d’appartenance à l’Europe se confond avec celle de Chrétienté qui exerce un rôle fédérateur autour de conceptions politiques, liées à l’héritage impérial romain et aux mandats pontificaux. Mais suite au schisme de 1054 entre les églises d’Orient et d’Occident, puis à celui de 1517 avec la Réforme de Luther et Calvin, et le développement du protestantisme et de l’anglicanisme, le christianisme apparaît de plus en plus divisé en Europe. A cela s’ajoute l’expansion du christianisme hors d’Europe à partir de 1492, et notamment en Amérique, alors qu’en Europe même, à partir du XVIe siècle et des progrès de la science, le christianisme a été fragilisé par le relativisme scientifique. Il est donc aujourd’hui difficile de faire de la religion chrétienne un des principaux marqueurs de l’identité européenne. Ce constat se vérifie notamment avec le clivage observé entre Etats sur le projet d’inclure une 7

Alain Plantey, «L’identité européenne et ses défis», discours prononcé lors du colloque Penser l’Europe, organisé par l’académie roumaine à Bucarest les 2, 3 et 4 octobre 2003.

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référence aux racines chrétiennes de l’Europe dans le préambule de la Constitution européenne opposant les Etats partisans (Espagne, Italie, Pologne…) et ceux qui sont attachés à la laïcité (menés par la France). Un autre élément d’identité que l’on peut relever est la création des universités à Bologne, à Salamanque, à Coimbra, à Oxford ou à Paris, à la fin des XIIe et XIIIe siècle qui se conçoivent dans un esprit d’ouverture européenne et diffusent à travers l’Europe un enseignement aux fondements communs, à la fois classique et chrétien. Elles permettent à une élite intellectuelle européenne de se dégager progressivement et de construire la voie d’une autonomie scientifique en dehors des dogmes de l’Eglise. Sur le plan scientifique donc, les grandes avancées provoquées par de très nombreuses découvertes et inventions ont marqué l’identité européenne, et ce dès avant la Renaissance, et dans tous les domaines de la connaissance scientifique et de ses applications: en mathématique, astronomie, médecine, sciences physique et chimique…etc. Une véritable révolution scientifique a permis au modèle scientifique européen de dominer le monde du XVIIe au XIXe siècles, entraînant d’irrémédiables mutations techniques et économiques, dans tous les domaines comme ceux de l’énergie, de la navigation et des moyens de transport et de communication. Le modèle scientifique européen s’est cependant répandu et développé en dehors de l’Europe et ne peux plus être aujourd’hui considéré comme un marqueur de l’identité européenne. A partir de la seconde Guerre Mondiale, les développements scientifiques ont majoritairement été réalisés au sein des deux grandes puissances – les Etats-Unis et l’Union soviétique – comme l’illustre l’épopée de la conquête spatiale. Les développements scientifiques actuels, notamment en Inde et en Chine, finissent de convaincre que la science s’est aujourd’hui complètement mondialisée et n’est plus propre à l’Europe. Ce qui différencie encore l’Europe du reste du monde dans ce domaine se situe au niveau de l’éthique. Les chercheurs européens considèrent l’activité scientifique comme faisant partie du patrimoine humain et appliquent des normes morales applicables aux sciences du vivant plus contraignantes que sur d’autres continents, notamment concernant les manipulations génétiques effectuées sur les plantes alimentaires, le clonage ou l’utilisation d’embryons humains. Les conventions sur la bioéthique adoptées par le Conseil de l’Europe en témoignent.

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Dans le domaine des arts et des lettres, que ce soit pour la philosophie, l’histoire, la littérature ou les arts, les liens anciens et les influences réciproques entre penseurs et artistes sur le continent européen ont développé une certaine vision européenne, une conception de l’art ouverte sur l’évolution et l’innovation que ce soit dans les domaines de la peinture, de la sculpture ou de l’architecture. Pour l’historien allemand Heinrich August Winkler, c’est un marqueur identitaire qui va de soit: L’identité européenne est perceptible concrètement. Que l’on songe seulement aux grandes époques de l’histoire de l’architecture, des arts plastiques et de la musique. Les Européens ont tant en commun, du point de vue culturel, que ce serait une entreprise absurde d’écrire des histoires de l’art purement nationales.8

Pourtant, avec la mondialisation favorisée par le développement de tous les moyens de transmission et de communication, une certaine forme d’uniformisation des cultures s’est opérée, notamment dans le monde occidental, si bien qu’il n’est pas toujours aisé, dans ce qui est produit aujourd’hui, de distinguer ce qui relève de la culture européenne de ce qui relève de la culture occidentale, notamment dans les arts et les lettres. Un autre élément distinctif important de la culture politique européenne se trouve dans la solidarité sociale qui se traduit dans l’Etat social (Sozialstaat) ou l’Etat providence (welfare state) et comprend, sous diverses formes selon les Etats, la couverture quasi généralisée de la population contre les divers risques sociaux. Ce modèle se fonde sur les principes d’égalité, de solidarité et de la dignité humaine et correspond à l’idée d’une communauté de destin qui va à l’encontre du modèle américain de la responsabilité individuelle. Enfin, il y a le modèle éthique européen qui permet peut-être le mieux de différencier le modèle européen du reste du monde, même si ce modèle s’appuie sur des valeurs généralement considérées comme universelles. Le concept actuel des «droits de l’homme» est intégralement d’origine européenne et trouve ses sources dans le bill of rights de l’Angleterre en 1688 et la Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen en France en 1789 et celles qui l’ont suivie. Les droits de l’homme ont été élaborés à partir de la doctrine européenne et chrétienne du «droit 8

Heinrich August Winkler, Der lange Weg nach Westen (Munich: C. H. Beck, 2000), vol. 1; quoted in: Michel Foucher, «Europe, Europes», La documentation photographique, 8074 (2010), p. 3.

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naturel» et se sont ensuite imposés comme un système de valeurs de caractère rationnel, laïque et universel. Pour l’historien et homme politique polonais Bronislaw Geremek: Les listes des valeurs européennes peuvent être formées de différentes façons. […] Mais ce qui me semble unir toutes ces listes, c’est la place centrale qu’y occupe la référence à la personne humaine. Ce socle des valeurs européennes n’est pas une construction idéologique, mais le résultat du destin collectif de l’Europe.9

L’aboutissement de cette idéologie est la Déclaration universelle des droits de l’homme promulguée en 1948 aux Nations-Unies notamment sous l’impulsion du juriste français René Cassin. Mais ce texte n’a qu’une valeur déclarative et ne créé pas d’obligations juridiques. C’est alors en Europe que cette Déclaration a trouvé son plus parfait achèvement avec l’adoption, dès 1950 par le Conseil de l’Europe, de la «Convention européenne des droits de l’homme».10 Cette convention est beaucoup plus efficace que la Déclaration universelle car elle prévoit un mécanisme, une cour de justice, qui permet de veiller à son respect par les Etats membres. La Cour européenne des droits de l’homme à Strasbourg s’est donc progressivement développée à partir de 1959 avec une jurisprudence de plus en plus étendue et une autorité plus forte qu’à ses débuts, au point d’avoir aujourd’hui une grande influence sur les juridictions nationales des quarante-sept Etats membres du Conseil de l’Europe. Elle crée donc un véritable droit commun européen de la personne humaine. Tous les Etats européens se distinguent d’ailleurs du reste du monde par l’adoption de protocoles à la Convention entraînant l’abolition totale et en toutes circonstances de la peine de mort.

9 10

Borislaw Geremek, «Identité européenne et projet d’avenir», Visions d’Europe (Paris: Éditions Odile Jacob, 2007), p. 20. CEDH < http://conventions.coe.int/treaty/fr/treaties/html/005.htm>.

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2. Les institutions européennes confrontées à la question de l’identité européenne pour leurs élargissements Durant toute la guerre froide, les institutions européennes ne se sont pas véritablement intéressées à la question de l’identité européenne, car celle-ci était considérée comme allant de soit pour les Etats d’Europe occidentale. La plus ancienne des organisations politiques européenne, le Conseil de l’Europe, a été créée en 1949. Dans ses statuts, il est spécifié que peut devenir membre de l’organisation «Tout Etat européen considéré comme capable de se conformer aux dispositions de l’article 3 [sur le respect de la prééminence du droit, des droits de l’homme et des libertés fondamentales] et comme en ayant la volonté».11 Le Conseil de l’Europe ne définit pourtant pas les critères qui distinguent un «Etat européen». Avec l’adhésion de la Turquie dès la première année de création de l’organisation, il devient évident que tout Etat qui n’appartient pas au camp soviétique dans la péninsule européenne est considéré comme clairement «européen». Même si trois pour cent seulement du territoire turc est géographiquement situé en Europe, la question de l’appartenance géographique ou culturelle de la Turquie à l’Europe ne se posait donc pas dans le contexte tendu de la guerre froide. Il est vrai que les préoccupations concernant les menaces potentielles liées à l’islamisme étaient inexistantes, et les Etats-Unis, un des principaux soutiens politiques et financiers du Conseil de l’Europe lors de sa création, ont toujours soutenu l’intégration de la Turquie en Europe. Jusqu’au début des années 1990, la question sur l’appartenance ou non à l’Europe ne se pose pas pour les nouveaux adhérents au Conseil de l’Europe, puisqu’ils sont tous situés dans la partie occidentale bien définie de l’Europe, à l’exception de Chypre. L’île de Chypre, bien que n’appartenant géographiquement pas à l’Europe en raison de sa proximité géographique avec la Syrie et la Turquie, est pourtant considérée comme culturellement européenne puisqu’elle est peuplée à 80 % de Grecs lors de son accession à l’indépendance en 1960. Son adhésion au 11

Statuts du Conseil de l’Europe .

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Conseil de l’Europe en 1961 n’a donc suscité aucun débat sur son «européanité». Pour la Communauté européenne, la question de l’appartenance de ses Etats membres à l’Europe n’a jamais été discutée lors des négociations sur les traités de Rome en 1957, car considérée comme une évidence pour les six membres fondateurs. Elle ne l’a pas été non plus lors des élargissements successifs en 1973 à 1995, où la question se posait uniquement en terme de capacité d’absorption de la CEE et de capacité d’adoption de l’acquis communautaire par les Etats candidats. C’est seulement lorsque les premiers Etats d’Europe centrale – Hongrie, Pologne et Tchécoslovaquie – adhèrent au Conseil de l’Europe en 1990 et 1991 que se posent à la fois la question des limites de l’Europe et celle des frontières futures de l’organisation, avec comme toile de fond la dissolution de l’Union soviétique qui donne naissance à quinze Etats souverains. Dès 1992, la Fédération de Russie demande son adhésion au Conseil de l’Europe, suivie de la plupart des ex-républiques soviétiques devenue indépendantes. Confrontés à toutes ces demandes d’adhésion, les Etats membres de l’organisation s’interrogent alors jusqu’où peut et jusqu’où doit s’élargir le Conseil de l’Europe. La question est de définir si les Etats de la Fédération de Russie, les Etats du Caucase et les Etats de l’Asie centrale ont vocation ou non à faire partie de l’Europe et à rejoindre l’organisation. Cette question de la délimitation de l’Europe à l’Est est présente dans tous les débats de l’Assemblée parlementaire sur l’élargissement entre 1992 et 1994. Quatre propositions différentes sur ce que doivent être les limites de l’Europe à l’Est sont présentées: 1. 2. 3. 4.

celle minoritaire qui exclut la Russie, le Caucase et l’Asie centrale, celle qui inclut la Russie mais exclut le Caucase et l’Asie centrale, celle qui inclut la Russie, le Caucase, mais exclut l’Asie centrale, et enfin celle qui inclut la Russie, le Caucase et toute l’Asie centrale.

Les parlementaires invoquent alors la géographie et s’affrontent à l’aide d’atlas. Certains utilisent l’Encyclopedia Britannica qui situe alors le Caucase en Asie, mais d’autres parlementaires rappellent que cette encyclopédie est éditée à Chicago et se base sur la définition de l’Europe des géographes soviétiques. Ils leurs opposent donc des encyclopédies considérées comme plus «européennes», celles de Larousse et de British

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Everyman, qui situent clairement le Caucase en Europe, en évoquant également la peur, pour les Etats caucasiens, de se retrouver de nouveau dans le giron de la Russie s’ils sont isolés.12 Après de nombreuses tergiversations, l’Assemblée parlementaire adopte finalement en 1994 la «Recommandation 1247» fixant définitivement les limites de l’Europe. L’Assemblée y énumère une liste de tous les Etats que les parlementaires considèrent comme européens. Cette liste inclut tous les Etats déjà membres dont la Turquie et ceux qui ont vocation à le devenir. Il ressort des débats entre parlementaires au sein de l’Assemblée que le critère culturel ou «communauté de valeurs culturelles» est très contesté et peu pertinent pour définir l’«européanité» d’un Etat. Selon l’historienne Marie-Thérèse Bitsch qui résume les deux années de débats: A défaut d’un contenu très clair pour les soi-disant valeurs communes, il existe, selon certains parlementaires, un facteur qui peut constituer un critère convaincant: c’est l’existence d’un sentiment d’appartenance à l’Europe ou la volonté affirmée de faire partie de l’Europe. Cet élément n’est pas sans rappeler la pensée d’Ernest Renan qui définissait la nation comme «un plébiscite de tous les jours» ou celle d’Altiero Spinelli qui souligne l’importance de l’adhésion des peuples à l’idée européenne comme composante de l’identité européenne.13

C’est donc sur cette base assez vague de «sentiment d’appartenance à l’Europe» ou de «volonté affirmée» d’en faire partie, que l’Assemblée décide finalement de donner aux trois Etats du Caucase la possibilité d’adhérer: «En raison de leurs liens culturels avec l’Europe, l’Arménie, l’Azerbaïdjan et la Géorgie auraient la possibilité de demander leur adhésion à condition qu’ils indiquent clairement leur volonté d’être considérés comme faisant partie de l’Europe».14 L’emploi du conditionnel dans cette décision est révélateur du difficile compromis finalement trouvé à l’Assemblée où ces trois Etats ont été traités ensembles en raison du lobbying permanent de la Turquie, proche de l’Azerbaïdjan, qui a veillé à ce que les trois Etats du Caucase ne soient pas dissociés.

12 13 14

Marie-Thérèse Bitsch, Wilfried Loth, Raymond Poidevin, Institutions européennes et identités européennes (Paris: Éditions Bruylant, 1998), p. 148 et 149. Marie-Thérèse Bitsch, Wilfried Loth, Raymond Poidevin, Institutions européennes et identités…, p. 146. Recommandation 1247 (1994) de l’Assemblée parlementaire du Conseil de l’Europe.

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La dernière catégorie, celle des Etats d’Asie centrale issus de l’exUnion soviétique, ne rentre donc pas dans la définition d’Etats «européens», bien que l’un d’entre eux, le Kazakhstan, ait une partie de son territoire en Europe, d’après la ligne de démarcation entre l’Europe et l’Asie fixée en 1703 par le tsar Pierre le Grand et son géographe et cartographe attitré Vassili Tatichtchev. Une minorité de parlementaires fait d’ailleurs remarquer que le Kazakhstan, largement peuplé de Russes, pourrait être considéré comme «européen» et d’autres que l’Organisation pour la sécurité et la coopération en Europe (OSCE) inclut tous les Etats successeurs de l’URSS sans distinction. Le géopoliticien Michel Foucher synthétise les critères retenus par le Conseil de l’Europe qui «combinent la culture (histoire et valeurs), la politique (transition démocratique à encourager), l’intention d’un rapprochement (Caucase) et la représentation classique d’un continent dont les limites seraient l’Oural et le Bosphore».15 La recommandation fixant les frontières géographiques et culturelles de l’Europe permet au Conseil de l’Europe de poursuivre ses élargissements à la Russie en 1996, puis aux Etats du Sud Caucase entre 1999 et 2001. L’Union européenne (UE) s’est quant à elle élargie à dix Etats d’Europe centrale et orientale en 2004 et 2007, portant à vingt-sept le nombre de ses membres. Cet élargissement confronte l’UE au problème de ses propres limites. Comme le Conseil de l’Europe dans les années 1990, l’UE doit répondre à de nouvelles demandes de candidature. Mais face aux élargissements récents, et surtout à venir, une bonne partie de l’opinion publique européenne porte un regard circonspect, ou s’y oppose fermement. Les pays des Balkans souhaitent tous officiellement rejoindre l’UE et les négociations ont déjà bien avancé avec la Croatie. La Macédoine a également un statut reconnu de pays candidat par le Conseil européen depuis 2005. Le Monténégro et l’Albanie ont soumis leur candidature en 2008 et 2009, ainsi que l’Islande depuis la crise en 2009. Les autorités d’Ukraine et de Géorgie ont déjà officiellement émis leur volonté d’adhérer. Et bien entendu la Turquie, qui entretient avec l’UE des relations étroites et anciennes (depuis 1963 avec la CEE), et qui a démarré les négociations d’adhésion en 2005.

15

L’Europe. Entre géopolitiques et géographies, Michel Foucher, dir. (Paris: Éditions SEDES/CNED, 2009), p. 21.

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La question des limites territoriales de l’UE n’a jamais été tranchée dans les traités qui la constitue: ni dans le traité de Rome de 1957, ni dans le traité de Maastricht de 1992, ni même dans le projet de traité constitutionnel rejeté en 2005 ou dans le traité de Lisbonne de 2007. Le géopoliticien Pierre Hassner relève l’ambiguïté structurelle du processus d’élargissement de l’UE: Il semble bien que l’Europe de la construction européenne soit condamnée à rester ambiguë par rapport à la géographie, qu’elle ne puisse se penser sans frontières mais que ces frontières soient condamnées à rester mouvantes et contradictoires.16

La question de nouveaux élargissements est pourtant un sujet de divergence majeur à la fois entre les Etats et au sein de leurs opinions publiques, mais également au sein des institutions de l’UE. Le comité des affaires étrangères du Parlement européen se montre très critique et virulent envers la politique d’élargissement de la Commission européenne. Il plaide dans un rapport en 2007 pour une clarification de la stratégie de l’UE en direction des pays voisins en indiquant que l’élargissement ne peut plus être la seule possibilité offerte aux Etats européens voisins. Le dernier sondage Eurobaromètre traitant de la perception des élargissements à venir indique que 43 % des personnes interrogées sont favorables à leur poursuite et 46 % sont contre.17 Mais on rencontre un clivage entre l’opinion publique des nouveaux Etats membres majoritairement favorable à de nouveaux élargissements, et celle des membres fondateurs, qui y est majoritairement défavorable. Cette situation est certainement imputable au flou et à l’ambiguïté longtemps entretenus par les institutions européennes quant à la question des valeurs fondant l’identité européenne et la question des frontières.

16

17

Pierre Hassner, La terreur et l’Empire (Paris: Seuil, 2003), p. 116, quoted in: Michel Foucher, «L’Union politique européenne: un territoire, des frontières, des horizons», Revue Esprit (2006), p. 90. Eurobarometer 71, Future of Europe, Fieldwork: June - July 2009, Publication: January 2010, Commission européenne, p. 160.

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3. L’identité européenne se forge-t-elle par la citoyenneté européenne? Pour tenter de forger auprès des populations européennes un sentiment d’identité, les institutions européennes ont paré l’Europe de symboles: un drapeau, une hymne sans paroles (le prélude de l’Ode à la joie de la 9e symphonie de Beethoven), une journée (le 9 mai en souvenir de la déclaration Schuman du 9 mai 1950) et une devise («Unie dans la diversité»). Le drapeau, représenté par une couronne invariable de douze étoiles d’or, symbolise la plénitude et la perfection, ainsi que la solidarité et l’harmonie, sur fond bleu azur. Créé par le Conseil de l’Europe en 1955, puis repris par les Communautés européennes à partir de 1986, il est sans aucun doute le symbole le plus connu de tous les Européens et dans le monde. Une étude réalisée en 2001 auprès des Etats membres de l’UE et de tous les Etats candidats révèle que ce qui fait l’Europe est avant tout historique et culturel.18 Mais l’analyse des perceptions de son identité et du sentiment d’européanité dessine à cet égard une ligne de clivage principale Sud-Nord, entre un très grand «Sud» et un Nord très restreint. Ce «Sud» inclut une très grande majorité des pays européens situés géographiquement au Sud, au centre ou l’Est du continent, dont les citoyens, sont fortement conscients de l’existence d’un ciment culturel. Ils voient d’abord dans l’Europe une entité historique, une terre de culture, un lieu de brassage et d’échanges constants au fil des siècles entre des peuples divers mais ayant un fond commun. Les citoyens de tous ces pays ressentent, plus ou moins spontanément, l’unicité d’un modèle qui repose fondamentalement sur des valeurs culturelles et humanistes. Ce modèle oppose notamment l’Europe aux Etats-Unis dont la mentalité collective est largement ressentie comme très différente. De façon plus ou moins spontanée s’y manifeste une forme d’empathie pour les autres Européens.

18

«Perceptions de l’union européenne. Attitudes et attentes a son égard», Etude qualitative auprès du public des 15 Etats membres et de 9 pays candidats a l’adhésion, Rapport général réalisé par OPTEM S.A.R.L pour la Commission européenne en juin 2001, p. 8.

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A l’inverse, dans un petit nombre de pays situés dans la partie Nord de l’Europe, les concepts de racines et de proximité culturelle sont beaucoup moins valorisés, et l’existence d’un ciment historique et culturel commun est beaucoup moins présente dans les esprits. Il s’agit du Royaume Uni – dont beaucoup des citoyens interrogés refusent net de se considérer comme européens – des Pays Bas, du Danemark et de la Suède: il y règne une conviction ancrée de la supériorité ou de la spécificité du modèle de société que le pays a développé avec ses valeurs propres, et une faible propension au partage avec d’autres qui tendent à être ressentis comme menaçant leur modèle national. L’empathie pour les autres Européens y est faible, notamment pour ceux du Sud avec lesquels la distance psychologique est grande, et envers qui s’affiche même assez ouvertement une forme de mépris (pour leur absence de sérieux, de sens de l’effort, d’ordre, etc.). Depuis les débuts de la construction européenne, la participation citoyenne pour faire adhérer les peuples au projet européen est une des thématiques les plus récurrentes. A l’origine, les fédéralistes sont persuadés que seule l’adhésion des peuples au processus politique européen est à même de lui assurer une légitimité. Mais les partisans du fédéralisme sont minoritaires dans les mouvements européistes. Dans les années 1960, les divergences entre les six membres fondateurs de la CEE sur la nature de la construction européenne ne laissent aucune place à l’idée de citoyenneté européenne, notamment à cause du président français Charles de Gaulle, qui ne souhaite qu’une union d’Etats-nations indépendants. La CEE s’impose alors grâce à la supranationalité mais sans autre légitimité démocratique que celle transmise par les Etats membres. Dans le Traité de Rome de 1957, les Européens ne sont pas considérés comme des citoyens, mais comme des travailleurs et des consommateurs. On constate peu d’évolutions dans les années 1970 hormis l’organisation d’élections du Parlement européen au suffrage universel direct, mais celles-ci se maintiennent dans un cadre électoral strictement national, ce qui en limite la portée. Dès les premières élections de 1979, ce sont des enjeux nationaux qui priment avant tout et empêche tout espace public européen de se développer. Dans les années 1980, la relance de l’intégration européenne repose largement sur l’affirmation d’une «Europe des citoyens» à défaut d’une véritable citoyenneté européenne.

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Lors du Conseil européen de Fontainebleau en 1984, les chefs d’Etats et de gouvernements estiment «indispensable que la Communauté réponde à l’attente des peuples européens en adoptant les mesures propres à renforcer et à promouvoir son identité et son image auprès des citoyens et dans le monde».19 Il charge un comité ad hoc «Europe des citoyens» de préparer et coordonner des actions et d’étudier les mesures destinées à mettre en œuvre l’Europe des citoyens.20 Ce comité présente son rapport – le rapport Adonino – en 1985 au Conseil européen de Bruxelles et prône l’institution d’une procédure électorale uniforme pour les élections européennes, le renforcement du droit de pétition des citoyens européens, la mise à l’étude d’un «médiateur» chargé de recevoir les plaintes des citoyens auprès du Parlement, le droit de vote et l’éligibilité aux élections locales pour tous les résidants citoyens d’un autre Etat membre, et enfin l’assistance et la protection consulaire réciproque des citoyens en dehors de la CEE. En 1990, la construction européenne s’intensifie sur fond de réunification allemande et de profonds bouleversements géopolitiques de l’Europe. Le lancement du projet d’union politique s’appuie alors – dans le discours politique officiel – sur l’Europe des citoyens. L’ensemble des droits civiques proposés en 1985 est alors intégré au Traité de Maastricht en 1992. La liberté de circulation voit le jour avec l’adoption du marché unique en 1993, la suppression des contrôles aux frontières devient une réalité avec l’application des accords de Schengen à partir de 1995. Des programmes communautaires sont développés dans les domaines de l’éducation (Erasmus), de la jeunesse et de la santé. Cette citoyenneté européenne n’a pourtant pas véritablement permis l’affirmation d’une identité européenne et n’a pas vraiment renforcé le sentiment d’appartenance des Européens à l’UE. En 1996, un sondage de l’Eurobaromètre contenait la question suivante: «Dans un futur proche, vous voyez-vous personnellement avant tout comme un citoyen de l’UE? Un citoyen de votre pays? Ou un citoyen de votre région?». Cette question, ainsi formulée, oblige à un classement des allégeances territoriales, les citoyens ne peuvent pas se

19 20

Bulletin CE, 6/1984, Conseil européen de Fontainebleau, p. 11. María José Garot, La citoyenneté de l’Union européenne (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1999), p. 237.

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considérer comme autant attachés à deux citoyennetés.21 Les réponses obtenues conduisent à un premier constat, c’est que le sentiment de citoyenneté européenne est faible en Europe, alors même que la question se place dans l’avenir et non pas dans le présent. En moyenne générale, seulement 14 % des personnes interrogées se réclament avant tout de la citoyenneté européenne à l’avenir, contre 64 % de la citoyenneté attachée à leur pays, et 22 % de la citoyenneté régionale. Le sentiment de citoyenneté régionale le plus fort se trouve en Espagne avec 39 % de la population qui s’y réfère avant tout. En 2006, même constat,22 les Européens se sentent plus attachés à leur pays (90 % d’entre eux), leur région (87 %) ou leur ville/village (86 %) qu’à l’Europe (63 %) ou l’UE (50 %). La moitié des Européens ne se considère pas du tout attachée à l’UE. En 2009, encore un tiers des Français se sentent seulement Français et pas vraiment Européen. Il convient cependant de nuancer ce résultat avec d’autres représentations, car 82 % des Français considèrent que la construction européenne n’est pas une menace pour l’identité française. Concernant les éléments qui constituent l’identité européenne, les valeurs démocratiques (droits de l’homme, démocratie et Etat de droit), arrivent largement en tête des sondages d’opinion européenne en 2009 avec 41 %, suivi du critère géographique avec 25 %, d’une histoire commune avec 24 %, d’un haut niveau de protection sociale avec 24 % également, et d’une culture commune avec 23 %, la place d’un héritage religieux commun arrivant en dernière position avec seulement 8 % des opinions.23 Les résultats concernant la faible identification à l’identité européenne vont dans le même sens qu’un autre constat régulièrement opéré lors des élections européennes: dans tous les pays de l’UE, la plupart des personnes qui ont l’intention d’aller voter indiquent que les enjeux nationaux compteront davantage que les questions européennes dans leur vote. Les résultats des dernières élections européennes de juin 2009 21

22 23

Claude Dargent, «Citoyenneté européenne: la concurrence des identités territoriales et sociales», L’opinion européenne, Bruno Cautrès, Dominique Reynié, eds. (Paris: Editions Presses de Sciences Po, 2000), p. 48. Eurobaromètre 65, L’opinion publique dans l’Union européenne, Fieldwork: Mars mai 2006, Publication: janvier 2007, Commission européenne, p. 72. Eurobarometer 71, Future of Europe, Fieldwork: June - July 2009, Publication: January 2010, Commission européenne, p. 40.

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donnent les partis de droite gagnants en Europe avec 288 députés pour le Parti Populaire européen contre 216 députés pour les socialistes et 99 pour les libéraux-démocrates. Ces résultats cachent mal une autre réalité qui est celle de l’abstention puisque plus d’un électeur sur deux en moyenne (soit 57 % des électeurs), voire deux électeurs sur trois dans certains Etats ne sont pas allés voter. L’abstention est faible en Belgique et au Luxembourg où le vote est obligatoire, mais elle est très élevée partout ailleurs, particulièrement en Europe centrale. Ce désamours alors même que ces Etats viennent d’intégrer l’Union européenne s’explique en grande partie par la crise économique et financière mondiale. Touchés de plein fouet par la crise, les Etats membres d’Europe de l’Est sont également secoués par des crises politiques. Quatre gouvernements (Hongrie, Lettonie, Lituanie, République Tchèque) ont été renversés peu avant les élections à cause de leur gestion de la crise économique. Et le manque de solidarité affiché par les pays de l’ouest vis-à-vis de leurs voisins de l’est a accru la déception des populations.24 La tendance à l’augmentation croissante de l’abstention enregistrée depuis 1979, date de la première élection du Parlement européen au suffrage universel direct, est soulignée par tous et inquiète les institutions européennes. On pourrait peut-être voir dans cette forte abstention généralisée dans tous les Etats européens, avec une note d’humour, un ciment de l’identité européenne commune.

Conclusion En dépit de toute la littérature ayant cherché à définir l’identité européenne et les valeurs de l’Europe, de nombreuses interrogations subsistent. Cette identité européenne est-elle déjà en partie construite ou reste encore à construire? Comment peut-elle s’articuler aux identités déjà existantes, nationales, régionales ou locales, des Européens? Ce manque d’identification à l’Europe explique-t-il le non-usage de la citoyenneté au niveau des élections? 24

Barbara Delbrouck, «Europe de l’Est: Vote de crise ou crise du vote?», site .

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A l’évidence, il n’existe pas de conception figée de l’identité de l’Europe qui se réfère à des normes permanentes. Celle-ci se nourrit de ses différents héritages, plus ou moins valorisés selon les contextes géopolitiques présents et selon l’avenir souhaité. Le fait que l’identité européenne ne procède pas d’un consensus peut suffire à mettre en question son existence. Mais la relative nouveauté, historiquement parlant, d’une communauté politique européenne, rend difficile le fait d’envisager l’identité européenne comme un construit figé et statique, résultant uniquement d’un processus historique. C’est une identité qui se construit sur un processus d’intégration européenne qui reste une dynamique en constante évolution soumise aux aléas du contexte géopolitique international et de ce que nous voulons faire ensemble, et c’est donc une identité en mouvement.

Multi-culturalism or Many-colours-ism The ‘Colours’ of the Presidents Obama and Khama Maria SAUR University of London

Shortly after I arrived in Kachikau a small town called “a village” in Northern Botswana / Southern Africa, I was “put in charge” of all children considered to be of so-called mixed heritage “because they were white like me” so I was told. I smiled then, the “I know better”, arrogant smile. Today I know they were right – these children were just as white as President Obama is black. The USA pride themselves in having their first black President – although he is just as white as he is black given his ancestry and heritage. In short why is Obama black? Why does he mostly describe himself as such? Why does the non-silent majority agree with him? Although President Obama himself and most of his compatriots perceive him to be their first black President I will show that this is not the case everywhere. He is seen as white in many – less vocal – parts of the world; white as all people having his skin tone and of mixed origin are perceived there. The President of Botswana Ian Khama for example, who like President Obama has an Anglo-Saxon mother and an African father, is seen by many Batswana (the people of Botswana) to be the “first white African President” of their black African country. Some therefore fear he might be destroying their culture. The question I am trying to address is: What informs our perception, our colour vision or perhaps colour blindness in this so called multicultural world? Is it perhaps just a multi-coloured world informed by shades of skin tone and degrees of pigmentation? Why is so much cultural, social and even psychological meaning given to the variation of shades? Why is the focus on the perceived otherness, which constitutes the difference from the mainstream, the one in vogue, and the one in power? Why do we not perceive President Obama as a white man with

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an olive skin tone and President Khama as a rather light skinned black man? Even if we were to acknowledge the fact that both Presidents, Obama and Khama, are just as white as they are black, my data shows that an almost insurmountable reluctance remains to even try to see them in that way. Most individuals in the USA literally can’t perceive their President as a white person, few in Botswana can perceive their President as a black person even if they try. During my research the majority of my interviewees from Europe and North America reacted in various degrees rather aggressively at times when I asked if they could perhaps just try to imagine the above. “Because he is black!” referring to Obama, was the sometimes rather irritated answer I mostly received. As if this was a priory fact. There was often great reluctance/resistance to join me in my exploration of why we put a person of a clearly mixed background categorically in one box and feel it almost impossible to see him or her in any different way. As I once did in Kachikau. What are the reasons for this? One could argue that the one-drop rule seems to be still ruling our minds? This rule stated that if you have one drop of African blood in you, you are black – as applied in the era of segregation and institutionalised discrimination, and varied different forms of racism.1 At times Barack Obama presented his heritage as “just as white as you and me from Kansas” in a lot of his speeches during the election campaign in certain states where that was deemed helpful – “I have all what you have in me through my grandparents and my mother”2. But 1

2

A little joke: ‘A South American President is asked by a former visiting president from the USA: “How high is the percentage of white people in your country?” “99 %” replies the President from the southern country. “That’s impossible” the visiting US President replies. “Would you please tell me then how do you define black in your country” requests the South-American President. “We apply the one drop rule” says the US President. “Well, so do we” replies the South American one’. Author unknown, contributes to the discussion at the IRIS conference “Identities on the Move” 24, 25, 26 November 2010 in Lleida, Catalunya, 2010. Noir parmi les Noirs quand il est dans le Sud, Obama redevient le fils du Kansas lorsqu’il retourne dans le Middle West. ….. En juillet 2008, dans un spot publicitaire diffusé dans des États républicains – la Géorgie et la Caroline du Nord –, Obama insiste exclusivement sur son héritage blanc, illustrant son histoire de photos de famille où on le voit aux cortès de sa mère blanche et de ses grands-parents blancs.

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the reaction to him presenting himself like that was at best – well he is black, with a white enough upbringing to be one of us, to be elect able.3 Just as my fellow village citizens in Kachikau/Botswana would perceive their mixed relatives as white. We will come back to explore the reasons for that. Let us first look at both Presidents’ backgrounds. President Ian Khama is currently the 4th President of the Republic of Botswana, situated in the southern part of Africa, roughly the size of France, peaceful, prosperous and with a variety of regional differences – just like everywhere else. The President is also the Kgosi (Monarch) or so called ‘Paramount Chief ’ (a term introduced by the British colonial rulers) of the Bagmanwato. His parents were Ruth Williams Khama from London/England and Seretse Khama then the Kgosi/Monarch – in waiting of the Bagmanwato who were accepting Ruth as his wife. They were living under British Rule in the country that was then named Bechuanaland Protectorate by the British colonial administration – now Botswana. When Ian Khama’s parents got engaged in London in 1948 where they had met, there was an international diplomatic frenzy urging the British Labour Government to prevent the couple from marrying – initiated by the neighbouring South African and Southern Rhodesian governments who were strictly opposing mixed marriages, forbidding them in their respective countries. Britain obliged, not only under economic and political pressure but also its own Zeitgeist/ideologies, trying forcibly, yet in vain, to stop the marriage going ahead. The married couple relocated to live in Bechuanaland/Botswana, were Seretse Khama had become Kgosi/Monarch elected

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Obama veut ainsi prouver à chaque section de l’électorat qu’il partage ses valeurs es ses codes culturels. Etre identifié par chaque communauté comme étant l’un des siens est plus payant électoralement que se positionner au-delà des identités. François Durpaire, Olivier Richomme, L’Amérique de Barack Obama (Paris: Demopolis, 2007), pp. 205–206. “Still, Barack Obama was able to overcome the dilemma of race and misconceptions. He was able to convince 53 percent of the American people that he wasn’t too Black to be our president, or too white to understand the quagmire, inner city youth find themselves in… […] America was transformed forever and Dr King could finally rest in peace – we as a people had made it to promised land”. Senator Rickey Hendon, Black enough / White enough: the Obama dilemma (Chicago: Third World Press, 2009), pp. 194–195.

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by his people. He was not recognised by the British Colonial rulers and he and his wife were forced by the British Government and administration to leave. From 1950 they were forced to live a life in exile, in Britain! A unique measure and hard to imagine that it happened during the childhood of the now ruling President Ian Khama, the son of the then exiled couple. Fenner Brockway then MP of Eaton and Slough summed up the injustice in a pamphlet4 opposing the labour government: It is intolerable that an alien administration (the British Labour Government MS) should banish a man for life from his country and his people on the ground only that he married a white woman.

Yet that is exactly what had happened to Ian Khama’s father Seretse Khama at the hand of the British colonial power. Seretse Khama was banned from his own country and forced to live in Britain because he was married to a white British woman. Contrary to Ruth Khama’s hopes, the incoming Conservative Government upheld the decision also bowing to South African and Rhodesian demands, and banned him for life from his own country. Therefore their son Ian Khama was born in England. He and his parents were only allowed to go home to Botswana five years later, when, after massive public protests in England the ban was fiercly questioned. Their next son was named Tony after Tony Benn MP who together with Clement Freud MP had strongly supported their fight against this forced unjust exile. Back home Seretse Khama founded the first political party in his home country and became the first Prime Minister of the Bechuanaland Protectorate and later the first President of the Republic of Botswana as the country was renamed after Independence in 1966. Ian Khama his son born in exile, became President in 2008. In contrast President Barack Obama was a US citizen from day one and elected as its 44th President also in 2008. He was born in Hawaii to a mother from Kansas/USA and a father from Kenya/Africa. He grew up in the US and other countries as his mother was a social anthropologist. 4

Fenner Brockway, Pamphlet, London 1954.

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So, both these Presidents have Anglo-Saxon mothers and African fathers and were raised in several different countries. In their time they were both confronted with varying degrees and forms of discrimination. Sometimes, for not being white enough or not being black enough for being one or the other, for not being clearly categorised. Ian Khama’s parents suffered oppression, by being exiled and punished for having entered a “multi-cultural/mixed heritage marriage”. Barack Obama’s parents did not manage to remain married due to a multitude of factors. At the time of both weddings multi-ethnic marriages were still illegal in many states of the USA and some colonies in Southern Africa. President Obama was largely raised in a white middle class setting in North America with spells in Indonesia, but never in Africa. Yet he is predominantly seen as a black African-American by his people – and also portrays himself as such, but not always. Describing his struggle with his identity he writes: ‘I tried to become a black male’.5 President Ian Khama, largely raised in a black upper class context in Southern Africa after his birth in exile, is seen as white by many of his people and black by others, accepted by all as their President and by the Bagmanwato also as their Kgosi/Monarch.6

1. Cultural comprehension I will be arguing that the reasons for this form of cultural comprehension and interpretation of the ethnicity of these two presidents are to an extent determined by the fact that das Sein bestimmt das Bewusstsein (social being determines consciousnesses) – Messers Marx and Engels tried to prove. To put it in simple terms if you are a black Batswana and nearly everybody around you is black you will see the person who is less black than you, and those around you as not black but white. If you are a 5 6

Barack Obama, Dreams from my Father (New York: Kodansha International, 1996). Though some accuse him for destroying their African culture by trying to implement American culture (please note that America and England are often not clearly distinguishable by the people in many Southern countries like Botswana).

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white North American and most people around you are white, as you are, you will perceive anyone with a slightly darker skin tone than the ones around you as socially black. Hence to an extend the social being determines consciousness. An example illustrating the above is that in Botswana and Southern Africa Indians and Asians are mostly seen as white people, no difference from Europeans is perceived – whereas that is quite different on the European Continent and in North America, as we all well know. When I went with colleagues from Asia for our village-stay to study and practise Setswana the language of Botswana, everybody took me as also being Asian. When I protested the difference they laughed at me, they could literally not see it. But to try and understand why people are often not able, let alone willing to equally classify president Obama as white, one has to explore deeper levels of the human psyche and furthermore explore the historical and political context. We have to confront the question – why is it that a person of mixed heritage in North America is almost “automatically” classified as belonging to the group that is less powerful in society, that has a lesser standing and a lesser social prestige, not to speak of lower income. Furthermore they are classified as belonging to a section of society the so called whites feel themselves superior to. The one drop rule still rules the heads – and hearts perhaps? How hurtful that can be is clearly shown in President Obama’s own account in just one example of many. When describing, that on a regular basis he was given their car key by white couples in front of restaurants as he himself was waiting for his car to be brought up from the garage by an employee. This shows that any person of perceived mixed heritage is put “automatically” into the “chauffeur’s category” and not the “lawyer’s” – mostly by white people but not only so.7 Like an American business man whom I interviewed, who went to the prestigious Ritz Hotel in London for tea having booked in advance, was the only person questioned on the way in – he was also the only person of mixed heritage there. He and Barack Obama are/were also regularly followed by security guards in any shopping centre.

7

Barack Obama, Dreams from my Father…; François Durpaire, Olivier Richomme, L’Amérique de Barack Obama…, pp. 196.

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Obama describes his outrage, his hurt and bewilderment regarding this kind of treatment yet continues: I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy – particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.8

Despite these insults he has managed to become the person everyone can identify with, if they wish to do so. Yet those who don’t can still abuse him in similar ways as described above, as the political opposition of his own country permanently try to as well as fellow statesmen like then Berlusconi from Italy for example, constantly remarking on his skin tone. They can’t ask him to get their car from the garage anymore but they can force him to present a birth certificate – a procedure no other President had to go through anywhere ever. On the other side of the spectrum people worldwide see him as one of theirs and point out the far reaching positive impact this has for them. Mme Christiane Taubira, then in the French Assembly9 explains why Obama is so popular, why everybody can find a part of their identity in him. She calls him the “Icon of Globalisation” and says that he incarnates, for the millions of citizens with transnational identities, “the end of mutual exclusive identities”. In her words: On trouve en lui un part de leur identité – ‘icône de mondialité’ pour les millions de citoyens des identités transnationales il incarne la fin des identités mutuellement exclusive.

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Speech: “A more perfect union” 2008. Speech delivered by Senator Barack Obama on March 18, 2008 in the course of the contest for the 2008 Democratic Party presidential nomination. Débute de la Guyane et première femme noire á avoir brigue en France la présidence de la République en 2002 ne veut pas idéaliser Obama mais elle estime que sa performance mérite d’être saluée parce qu’elle a pulvérise des clichés”. (François Durpaire, Olivier Richomme, L’Amérique de Barack Obama…). “Representative (MP) from Guyana and the first black woman who has run for president of the republic in 2002 does not want to idealise Obama but she thinks that his performance should be saluted because it has pulverised the clichés” (Trans. by Maria Saur).

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Bien au delà des Etas Unis et des nos combats immédiates elle éclaire le monde d’une relation nouvelle, moins chargée d’agressivité moins marquée de défiance […] nous pouvons et nous devons prolonger les batailles livrées par Obama pour les arrimer a nos propres luttes et contribuer a insuffler au monde plus de lucidité, de paix et de fraternité. Far beyond the United State and our own immediate struggles it enlightens the world with a new relationship less charged with aggressiveness less marked by defiance […] we can and we must continue with the battles delivered by Obama to make them part of our own struggles and to contribute to infuse into the world more clarity, peace and fellowship.10

The dilemma and poignancy of creating ones own form out of these multiple not exclusive identities is very well described by what I have quoted above, that he was trying to raise himself “to be a black man in America”, “and beyond the given of my appearance, no one around me seemed to know exactly what that meant”. This quote shows that he himself could also not imagine then that his very own appearance could be perceived as white and is seen as white in some places on this globe.

2. Multi-culturalism or Many-Colours-ism? Identitiés Transnationales or Mixed Heritages? The term and concept of multiculturalism is currently undergoing yet another substantial transformation from meaning anything and everything to everybody and anybody with a positive connotation, to meaning anything and everything in a negative way – one could say. Never ever clearly defined it was mostly used to describe the more or less tolerant way in which people in the North share a common predominantly urban space.11 10 11

François Durpaire, Olivier Richomme, L’Amérique de Barack Obama…, pp. 200– 211 (Trans. by Maria Saur). There was recently a scandal about a TV producer in England who would refuse to put a character with visibly mixed heritage in a crime series about life in a British village. He said it would not be authentic to do that since there is no multicultural community there – he lost his job although the fact is correct since the visible multi-

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Multi-culturalism was used to describe different cultural approaches to all aspects of life under the flag of one nation state. Different religions, world views, etc. would have come under that definition in any country. Nonetheless it was mainly used to describe the effects of recent migrant movements and settlement patterns in the so called Western World or Northern Hemisphere. No one really speaks of multiculturalism referring to the state of South Africa. It had a positive connotation in the form that a tolerant living-side-by-side of people with different world views and ideologies was described. Recently the concept has been attacked by ruling governments who used to pride themselves on it, giving way to rather right leaning and fundamentalist ideologies. Ministerpräsidentin Angela Merkel of Germany as well as David Cameron PM of the UK have recently declared in their speeches: ‘Multi-culturalism is dead’. Cameron did not do it at home but in Munich. Lets hope there is no foreboding in that. They both claimed it had never worked, blaming the immigrants themselves for not having tried harder to adapt to the countries they pay tax in. One could almost laugh at the clichéd kind of reaction to a crisis by both heads of state, as if taken straight out of Marx’s or Brecht’s “textbooks” or plays respectively. – “In times of crisis blame a scapegoat and divert the anger towards it, away from the governments and ruling classes who created it and burden the poor with the effects.” One wonders if Frau Merkel former ‘Genossin/Comrade’ Merkel might well have taken note of the analysis of the heroes of her childhood and in doing so meets PM Cameroon coming from the other end of the spectrum on the way. They attack something that means to everybody whatever they want to see in it – but are trying to direct the anger and frustration and blame clearly and unashamedly towards the so called ‘outsider’ whoever that might be – whoever is made to be it. It can be immigrants and fundamentalists today, the unhappy demonstrating youth tomorrow and

culturalism seems to end at the bigger city’s borders –. Some even say London and Birmingham for example are different countries. A caricature in the Guardian newspaper showed a road sign saying “Chingford” and below “end of multi-culturalism”. Chingford is ca. 10 km NE of London in Epping Forest, the latter given by a Queen to the people of East London for their recreation. One rarely sees one of the many “mixed heritage” East Londoners there.

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the whole political opposition one day perhaps. Hence cementing their power and rendering it unquestionable. When I started to work on this paper I just wanted to show that multi-culturalism has been watered down to multi-colourism in many ways. The advertisements for the clothing firm Benetton have demonstrate that vividly for years. Trying to have a representative of every skin tone and hair structure present in their adverts – saying we all look good in Benetton’s clothes, so what’s the problem? Just love each other and love living together. – As if the defining factor of culture was the skin tone and as if a common taste in fashion would bring us together. If you scrutinise their adverts you will find that they just reinforce the stereotypes and categories of coolness attributed to the respective type. I guess I do not have to explain the over simplification in that approach, given that they mostly operate in Europe where people from different cultural backgrounds have killed each other for centuries despite liking and wearing the same sartorial style or fashion – jeans recently. Idealistically and naively multi-culturalism would be the antidote to racism and nationalism but to the contrary side steps the roots of racism and nationalism. However the concept of multi-culturalism has been around for some time. Nietzsche had already envisaged it 133 years ago calling it “the age of comparison”. In 1878 he wrote: “Who, indeed, is subject to any strict compulsion at all to tie him- or herself or their offspring to one particular place [culture, religion world view]?” Just as all the different styles of art are used side by side, so with all levels and kinds of moralities, customs, and cultures. – Such an era receives its importance from the fact that all different world-views, customs, cultures can be compared and lived with side by side …. This is the age of comparison! – Let us understand the task of our age in as positive a way as we can: then future generations will thank us – future generations who will have gone both beyond the mutually separate original folk cultures and beyond the culture of comparison”.12

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Friedrich Nietzsche‚ Menschliches allzu Menschliches (Leipzig: C. G. Naumann, 1873); The Multicultural Riddle Rethinking National, Ethnic, and Religious Identities, Gerd Bauman, trans. (New York: Routledge, 1999), p. 8.

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Shortly after he had proclaimed this optimistic insight and vision for the future (and we all know Nietzsche was not an optimist!) the worst conflicts and atrocities were committed, more intolerant and less prepared to embrace an age of comparison than ever before. In contrary, as if to prevent the dawning of an age of comparison and a parallel of cultures – an attempt was made to cast cultural pre-determination and racism in stone. All variety had to be banned, persecuted and destroyed during Fascism in Europe. Colonialism acted in a more measured way yet at its roots was informed by a similarly chauvinistic ideology. One could wonder with hindsight, if the sheer prospect of the dawn of an ‘age of comparison’ might have evoked such ferocity in those who felt threatened by it. As if the possibility of a side by side existence, let alone a chance to go beyond, ‘the mutually separate original folk cultures’ and even ‘beyond the age of comparison’ (Nietzsche 1878) had evoked such fear as to clutch at deterministic, chauvinistic ways of thinking, and enforce them. The assumption that similar deterministic and destructive forces are currently emerging could be seen in that light. Fear of loss of power and the feeling of superiority, fear of diversity, fear of a not clearly defined standpoint to hold on to – literally. Before I try to investigate the forces and mechanisms within human beings, that can hinder a person to value difference in general, and different identities in the same way as ones own, I feel it is important to see how the concept and ideology of race and racism came into being and what purpose it served politically.

3. The Invention of Race Perhaps it is best to look at the origins of the concept of race and racism first. This will provide us with some understanding of the historical and political context and might even explain why there is so little true effort being made to eradicate it and to enlighten and empower people in that respect.

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The following brilliant and succinct analysis by Mario Erdheim, a Social Anthropologist and Ethno-Psychoanalyst is worth a long quote: The conceptualisation of racism developed as a response to the French Revolution. The idea of a biologically superior race was developed by Count Gobineau as a reaction to the postulates of Liberté Egalité Fraternité (Freedom Equality Brotherhood)13. The French Revolution in particular was a time of dramatic change that changed the rigid concepts of the feudal society (Staendegesellschaft) and Divine Kingdom of God (Gottesgnadentum). This development was accelerated by the emergence of capitalism. I consider it characteristic that it was at that particular time that the concept of racism came into being. At a time when everything was in motion the individual’s body became the yardstick: What is in one’s own body can’t be changed. You belong to a race or you don’t. One is either ruled over because one is inferior, or one belongs to those who rule – and that is something stable/fixed. […]. The definition of different races originates in pure ideological thinking. To distinguish between people with big ears and small ears blond and brunettes – the criteria was completely arbitrary. These ideologies had impact till the 20th century. It is important to comprehend that racism is a kind of twin brother to national-socialism/ fascism and that both have a similar potential to mobilise. Both concepts have the same roots. I define these with the concept of ethnicity. Ethnicity means to belong to a certain culture, to a defined religion, to a defined history, to a defined region. Ethnicity is a very important part of defining ones identity. The transformations caused and brought on by the French Revolution ‘blew up’ the concept of ethnicity. That had a pre-history. The centralisation of the state by the absolutism had all ethnicity sub-ordinated to the powers of the state. Along this line developed nationalism and racism. The core of the problem though is the ethnic identity under threat – for which nationalism and racism offer substitutes.14

So the concept of racism was invented and implemented in an attempt to keep a hierarchical world order in place and to avoid the spread of ‘revolutionary’ ideas like equality brotherhood, and freedom. It is interesting that in the nineteenth century this was seen as a ‘revolutionary concept’ but nowadays it is subscribed to by every political colour, in their manifestos on paper, and in speeches. Yet how can it be that so little has been achieved with regard to implementing these principles in societies? These once revolutionary, nowadays mundane, principles are even used to justify the bombardments and invasions of certain countries who do not subscribe to them. Is this not also what Napoleon pursued after the French revolution – take the freedom and spread these 13 14

The cradle of Human Rights. Mario Erdheim, “Fremdenangst kennt jede Kultur”, NZZ Folio, 6 (1992).

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principles by force, by first centralising the French state then declaring war all over Europe. (I could never help myself but see in Blair a kind of wannabe British Napoleon the man ‘from the people’ going to war to spread freedom; supposedly.) Nowadays the gap between rich and poor here in Britain is bigger than it was 100 years ago. Likewise its upwards mobility has decreased in the last century. No equality, no freedom, let alone brotherhood here, let alone ‘Fellowship is the meaning of life’ as William Morris, a national hero, has expressed it also more than 100 years ago. It is interesting that by using the revolutionary liberation concepts from the nineteenth century as a theory as well as concepts invented as their antidote at the same time society is kept static, the class and wealth divisions impermeable. It now seems that Multi-culturalism was an ideal tool to combine the two. Let the co-existence of different cultures and invented races in one society be acknowledged and therefore undermine social mobility and flexibility. Coming back to Presidents Obama and Khama, who are often seen as symbolically representing freedom of possibilities and change, they are none the less, always defined by the so called ‘race ideology’. We have now seen the political concepts that support this re-action namely the belief that there must be hierarchy for any society to function – it keeps the status quo and avoids flexibility and mobility. If clear cut divisive feudal structures have become obsolete we have to invent and implement biological ones.

4. The ethno-psychoanalytical discours There are yet also psychological elements at work. Fear of the unknown, the other, the stranger is an element of every culture and instinctive in children. Every culture/society is “ethno centric”. There is always ambivalence, fascination and fear towards the stranger. The question is whether the ambivalence can be endured. It depends on the socialisation of the individual person whether fascination or fear will prevail; whether integration or polarisation will occur. Erdheim wrote that culture per se

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is the product of a constructive engagement Auseinandersetzung with the unknown.15 So following this argument one could say that multi-culturalism idealised the other cultures instead of engaging with them to create something new (perhaps the fear of the unknown wanted to avoid just that). Now, our two Presidents, clearly the outcome of two foreign sides engaging with each other to create something new, are not allowed to be seen as that – something new. They have to attribute themselves to one or the other of their heritages – and are mostly forced to one particular side. They cannot possibly be perceived as white in the northern hemisphere for example. The difficulty of the individual to acknowledge one approach just as valid as the other one is remarkable. The reason may lie in what is called the “narcissistic insult”16 which occurs when a person has to recognise that any one person can only be one not also the other or even both17. This is hard to accept and not easy to endure. Therefore one tends to deny the fact and idealises one’s own part in the duality and regards it as superior. The same might apply for black and white. If I see President Obama just as another protestant white person18 who am I then? Lost! Yet he and his colleague President Khama from Botswana are just as white as I am so I was taught in Kachikau, Botswana/Africa; – thanks dear neighbours, colleagues and friends there!. In that sense I would like to end with some recent linguistic invention – language being the mother of all culture perhaps. Culture created by the engagement with the foreign. A new word as seen in graffiti and on stickers in Spanish speaking USA, North and South America: “¡Obámanos! ”

For the few non-Spanish speakers: this is a combination of Obama obviously and vamos meaning “we go” or vámonos – let’s go. In Spanish, 15 16 17 18

“Fremdenangst kennt jede Kultur” Mario Erdheim. “Narzisstische Kraenkung” Sigmund Freud. Children still believe they can and act accordingly. Paul C. Mocombe, The liberal black protestant heterosexual bourgeois male (Chicago: University Press of Michigan, 2010), p. 6.

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exclamation marks are also put in front of the sentence – in reversed form – so you know what’s coming. I leave to your fantasy and imagination the magnitude of meanings here-in.

Notes This paper presents is a glimpse into research in progress. I would like to thank with all my heart, all my interview/dialogue partners who prefer to remain anonymous as well as Cem Angeli, Ken Carter, Gerd Baumann, Gina Borbas, AF, Jane Gibson, Barbara Koester, Thomas Kuppler, Poppy Lloyd, Zita Lloyd, Nametso Mothoka, CR, Hannah Thompson, Christine Williams and Elisabeth Zimmermann for their invaluable contributions. They were the best interlocutors there could possibly be.

Les mutations du racisme contemporain Michel WIEVIORKA International Sociological Association

Je voudrais vous montrer comment un certain nombre de grands changements depuis une cinquantaine d’années ont fait que la question du racisme s’est complètement renouvelée. Dans les années cinquante, on pouvait espérer la fin du racisme. Le racisme avait été biologique, et consistait alors à dire que des individus appartiennent à une race qui se définit par des attributs physiques, biologiques, et que c’est ce qui fonde pour chacun de ses membres son infériorité. Donc les caractéristiques physiques fabriquaient, dans le racisme classique, une infériorité, y compris intellectuelle. C’était l’idée principale. Après la Seconde Guerre mondiale, après la découverte du nazisme et de ce qu’il avait impliqué comme racisme, après les mouvements de décolonisation qui ont fait regarder autrement les peuples colonisés ou qui ont remis en cause l’idée de race, après le mouvement pour les droits civils aux États-Unis, dans les années quarante, cinquante, et au début des années soixante, on pouvait se dire: ‘le racisme va disparaître!’ Mais ce n’est pas ce qui s’est passé. Le racisme à continué d’exister, mais autrement. Il s’est perpétué et transformé pour apparaître autrement, que dans ces catégories classiques, coloniales, biologiques, physiques. Je vais donc vous indiquer quels sont les grands changements qui ont détermine les transformations du racisme. Premier point sur lequel je voudrais attirer votre attention: les transformations des phénomènes migratoires, et en même temps, les transformations dans nos analyses de ces phénomènes. Comment d’ordinaire, réfléchissait-on aux phénomènes migratoires jusque dans les années cinquante, soixante, soixante-dix? Le plus souvent, les sciences sociales, en particulier, et pas seulement, réfléchissaient de la manière suivante: un migrant, c’est quelqu’un qui quitte une société, peu importe laquelle, elle n’est pas importante, et qui arrive chez nous, en France, Etats-Unis, Angleterre, etc. En deux ou trois générations, il va

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devenir pleinement un national, un citoyen, un membre de la société d’accueil. La question qui était posée était: Comment s’opère cette intégration? À la limite, comment s’opère cette assimilation? C’est-àdire que tous les attributs culturels du migrant disparaissent. Et par conséquent, l’idée était que le migrant est quelqu’un qui se socialise dans la société où il arrive, en y perdant progressivement tous ses attributs liés à son origine. Je n’entre pas dans le détail, mais vous voyez que les approches classiques considèrent les migrants sans guère s’intéresser au pays d’où ils viennent. Pratiquement, on l’oublie. Et, deuxièmement, sans s’intéresser aux processus migratoires et à ce que se passe entre le moment où on quitte un endroit et le moment où on arrive dans un autre endroit. Sans non plus se préoccuper du fait que peut-être le migrant arrive chez nous avec l’idée d’aller ailleurs, avec l’idée d’être en transit, de vouloir continuer à bouger. C’étaient des questions qu’on ne se posait pratiquement jamais. Les sciences sociales, en général, étaient commandées par cette vision des choses. Et si les migrants ne s’intégraient pas, s’ils ne se socialisaient pas, s’ils n’appartenaient pas pleinement à la société, alors il y avait un certain espace pour le racisme. On pouvait dire: ‘C’est de leur faute, ils ont des caractéristiques tellement fortes que jamais ils ne trouveront leur place dans ma société, parce qu’ils sont différents physiquement et culturellement, et que cette différence leur interdit d’être comme moi, d’être comme nous›. Le racisme avait quelque chose à voir avec ces façons de penser, même si tout le monde ne réfléchissait pas de cette manière-là. Ainsi, ceux d’entre vous qui connaissez les sciences sociales et, en particulier, la sociologie, connaissez certainement ce livre célèbre de Thomas et Znaniecki, sur le paysan polonais, The Polish Peasant in Europe and America1, c’est-à-dire un livre où justement on s’intéresse à la relation du migrant polonais arrivé aux États-Unis avec la Pologne. Et donc, c’est un monument, en fait plutôt illisible. Mais que permet de réfléchir autrement. Mais enfin, il y avait cette façon de réfléchir. Aujourd’hui nous considérons tout à fait autrement les phénomènes migratoires, même si nous laissons une certaine place à ces approches classiques. Aujourd’hui, nous savons que les migrants apportent avec eux des particularismes linguistiques, religieux, culturels, on peut appe1

William I. Thomas, Florjan W. Znaniecki, The Polish peasant in Europe and America. Monograph of an immigrant group, 5 vols. (Boston: R. G. Badger, 1918-1920).

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ler ça des traditions, et que ce qu’ils apportent n’est pas condamné à la disparition, et peut être extrêmement vivant au point de contribuer à des grandes transformations dans la société où ils arrivent. Il y a par exemple aujourd’hui des travaux très intéressants aux États-Unis sur l’apport linguistique des migrants qu’on appelle «hispaniques», en particulier, mexicains. Alejandro Portes, pour citer l’un des sociologues américains les plus connus (il est d’origine cubaine je crois), a montré qu’il n’y a plus un unique modèle linguistique aux États-Unis mais trois. Qu’il y a les migrants qui sont dans ce qu’il appelle «l’acculturation consonante», c’est-à-dire qu’ils se mettent à parler anglais, ils oublient l’espagnol. Il y a ce qu’il appelle ensuite «l’acculturation dissonante», elle concerne, les enfants des familles très pauvres, et là, ce qui est terrible, c’est qu’ils adoptent un anglais très médiocre et perdent l’espagnol. Et il y a enfin le troisième modèle qu’il appelle «l’acculturation sélective», c’est-àdire qu’il y a une mobilité sociale ascendante chez certains migrants d’origine hispanique qui se caractérisent par le bilinguisme, ils parlent à la fois anglais et espagnol. Alors je n’entre pas dans le detail, mais je trouve intéressant de voir qu’aujourd’hui on est obligé de réfléchir à la diversité, par exemple, linguistique qui a beaucoup à voir avec les phénomènes migratoires dans des pays où n’aurait pas imaginé il y a cinquante ans de tels phénomènes. Premier point. Deuxième point, les migrants quand ils arrivent dans un pays, peu importe lequel, contribuent à inventer des identités, à inventer des particularismes culturels, à produire leurs différences. Ils en produisent à leur propre compte, en tant que migrants d’une certaine origine qui les amènent, mais ils en produisent aussi en se mêlant à la vie sociale plus générale ou bien encore en important dans d’autres sociétés des formes, par exemple, de vie culturelle, artistique qui n’y avaient pas jusque-là par cours. En France, par exemple, la culture américaine du rap doit beaucoup à des enfants de migrants d’origine algérienne, marocaine ou tunisienne. Voilà des formes intéressantes d’invention culturelle, où des migrants, mais qui ne sont pas venus des Etats-Unis, importent puis transforment des modes d’expression. Peu importe le jugement esthétique, évidemment, ou artistique que l’on peut avoir. Les migrants contribuent à la production de différences qui, selon les cas, doivent quelque chose à leur origine, au travail sur elle-même de la société dans laquelle ils arrivent, et à ce que l’on peut appeler la mondialisation et à la

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capacité de faire circuler la culture, les formes d’inventivité culturelles à l’échelle de la planète. Et chose qui n’était jamais étudiée, il y a cinquante ou soixante ans, les migrants non seulement contribuent à la transformation des sociétés dans lesquelles ils arrivent, mais aussi à celle des sociétés d’où ils proviennent. Si vous allez au Mexique, il est évident que les transformations de la société mexicaine, y compris dans les endroits les plus éloignés des grands centres urbains, y compris dans les campagnes et dans les montagnes indiennes, doivent beaucoup à l’influence des migrants mexicains qui vivent aux États-Unis, et qui envoient de l’argent, les fameuses «remesas», qui constituent la deuxième ou la troisième source du produit intérieur brut mexicain, mais qui amènent aussi des éléments de changements culturels, dans les rapports homme-femme, par exemple, pour le meilleur et pour le pire. Je dirais même que dans certains cas les migrants en retour ont pesé sur des logiques démographiques. Un un exemple, qui est une hypothèse, qui me semble très intéressante: les démographes ont constaté que les pays du Maghreb ont opéré un tournant démographique qui est le même que celui des sociétés européennes. Aujourd’hui en Tunisie, il naît à peu près le même nombre d’enfants par femme, le taux de fécondité est à peu près le même qu’en Europe. Par contre, dans d’autres pays d’Afrique du Nord, par exemple, en Égypte ou en Libye, la démographie n’a pas opérée ce tournant, vous avez encore un taux de fécondité beaucoup plus considérable. Des démographes disent que ceci a peut-être quelque chose à voir avec le fait que tous ces pays sont des pays de migrations, mais que quand on migre depuis le Maghreb, on va en France, on va en Belgique, on va en Europe, ou au Canada. Et l’effet en retour est d’importer les modèles, de comportements familial, sexuel, démographique de ces pays, de les réimporter en Algérie ou en Tunisie. Les migrants égyptiens ou palestiniens, ou libyens, et il en a beaucoup, vont plutôt travailler dans les pays du Golfe, dans les Pays Arabes, où conséquent, ils sont confrontés à d’autres formes culturelles dans lesquelles la démographie, la famille, la sexualité ne sont pas pensées du tout de la même façon. Et, en retour, ils ne pèsent pas sur la démographie de leur pays de la même façon. Ainsi, il faut une réflexion globale, générale, et non plus simplement réfléchir, aux phénomènes migratoires en se disant que les migrants quittent un pays, arrivent dans un autre et se socialisent et s’intègrent, c’est-à-dire: se dissolvent.

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Je voudrais maintenant m’éloigner un instant, de ce thème des migrations, encore qu’il y ait un lien avec ce que je vais vous presenter, pour évoquer un autre point important. Depuis les années soixante, soixante-dix, nous voyons naître des mouvements à l’intérieur même de nos sociétés qui sont des mouvements identitaires, se réclamant du passé, d’une mémoire, pas seulement d’une histoire, et d’une mémoire qui est souvent victimaire. Les acteurs disent: «J’ai été victime d’un génocide»; «j’ai été victime de la destruction de ma langue»; «j’ai été victime de la traite négrière»; «je suis aujourd’hui ce qui reste d’une identité qui a été presque détruite». Voilà ce que disent, je vais prendre l’exemple français, dès la fin des années soixante, les Bretons et les Occitans: «le centralisme jacobin français a voulu détruire ma langue et il y a presque réussi». Voilà ce que disent, dans beaucoup de pays, les Juifs, surtout les Juifs d’Europe, ceux qui ont survécu: «Nous avons été victime d’une destruction dans laquelle il n’y a pas que les nazis qui ont des responsabilités». En France, les Juifs de France ont longtemps demandé, ils l’ont obtenu, que la France elle-même reconnaisse sa responsabilité pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale pour la destruction des Juifs. Vous avez en France, toujours, je prends cet exemple parce que c’est celui que je maîtrise le mieux, on peut trouver des choses très comparables en Espagne, vous avez des gens qui disent: «Moi, je suis arménien. J’ai été détruit. Ce sont les Turcs qui ont essayé de me détruire. 1915». Nous avons des communautés arméniennes très importantes en France qui ont réclamé, qui ont obtenu d’ailleurs, deux lois, il y a deux lois en France qui reconnaissent le génocide de 1915. Et cela veut dire que celui qui dit qu’il n’y a pas eu de génocide peut être considéré comme raciste. Vous avez des mouvements Noirs, en France comme ailleurs, qui disent: «Je veux qu’on parle de la colonisation, je veux qu’on parle de la traite, je veux qu’on parle de l’esclavage». Vous avez toute sorte de groupes, qui disent: «Je suis victime historiquement, j’appartiens à un groupe qui a souffert historiquement, ne pas reconnaître cette souffrance, ces violences du passé, c’est être raciste». De plus, aujourd’hui encore, disent certains de ces groupes, «je paye pour ce passé». Regardez aux États-Unis ces mouvements Noirs qui demandent à l’État américain de payer des réparations pour l’esclavage. Et, parmi les arguments de ces noirs américains, un des plus forts consiste à dire qu’aujourd’hui les noirs américains souffrent d’un racisme

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structurel qui trouve son origine dans l’histoire des noirs qui ont été victime, par conséquent, d’un racisme depuis longtemps. On peut ainsi faire apparaître des liens entre des reproches, plus ou moins fondés bien sûr, des reproches de racisme passé et des reproches de racisme présent à partir de l’appartenance à un groupe très minoritaire qui peut ou non avoir quelque chose à voir avec les phénomènes migratoires et avec des phénomènes d’invention des différences, de production des différences. C’est ce paysage-là que je voulais tout d’abord tracer. Tout ceci est d’autant plus compliqué que cela se joue dans des espaces qui ne sont pas seulement ces nations dont nous venons de parler. Si vous êtes arménien, si vous êtes noir, si vous êtes juif, si vous êtes même basque ou catalan et que vous vous plaignez, eh bien ce n’est pas seulement un État-nation qui est concerné, c’est très vite plus. Très souvent, ces questions ont des dimensions qu’on peut appeler globales, on ne peut plus y réfléchir en les ramenant uniquement au seul cadre de l’État-nation, il faut une vision plus large de ces problèmes. Ce qui fait que les problèmes de racisme ont des dimensions aujourd’hui, et ça c’est un point important, à la fois globales, puisque liées à tous ces phénomènes qui dépassent le cadre de chaque nation. Ils ont des dimensions à la fois globales et de fragmentation. On voit très bien comment toutes sortes de groupes peuvent dire qu’ils sont victimes du racisme ou qu’ils ont été victimes du racisme. Il n’y a pas seulement un groupe, un ensemble indifférencié. Tout ceci nous met en face de la crise des modèles d’intégration. Crise théorique et crise pratique aussi. Pourquoi? L’idée d’intégration, c’est l’idée qu’un individu ou un groupe se sentent eventuellement à l’extérieur de la société, ensuite y trouvent leur place, que tout le monde trouve sa place. On peut montrer je crois assez facilement que si les phénomènes dont je viens de vous parler se développent, c’est bien parce qu’il y a des difficultés croissantes pour les modèles d’intégration à bien fonctionner. Et ici on pourrait faire une comparaison FranceAngleterre, et ajouter juste l’Espagne en bas de page. Je vais le dire sur un mode anecdotique. En juillet 2005, en Angleterre, des attentats terroristes on eu lieu, et les Anglais ont découvert qu’ils avaient quelque chose à voir avec la société britannique. Ce n’était pas uniquement un phénomène qui venait du dehors, comme les attentats de septembre 2001 aux États-Unis, les auteurs vivaient dans la société anglaise. Et à

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ce moment-là, dans les journaux français, on a vu des articles signés par des intellectuels ou des responsables politiques importants pour dire: «Vous voyez le modèle britannique, le «Londonistan», ce modèle d’intégration qui respecte les communautés, modèle très multiculturaliste, eh bien qu’est-ce que ça a fabriqué? Ça a fabriqué du terrorisme, puisqu’on a laissé dans les mosquées les prédicateurs dire tout ce qu’ils voulaient jusqu’à fabriquer ce terrorisme». Donc, le modèle britannique, le modèle anglais ne marche pas. On ne peut plus parler de ce modèle d’intégration. Trois mois plus tard en France, en octobre-novembre 2005, pendant trois semaines, tous les soirs, les banlieues, les quartiers populaires ont été l’objet de très grandes violences, les voitures brulaient, 400 en moyenne chaque nuit, c’est quand même beaucoup. Et souvent, les gens qui brulent les voitures sont des jeunes très colorés. Et cette fois-ci, c’est dans la presse anglaise que vous trouvez des articles sur le mode: «Vous voyez les Français, ils se sont permis de critiquer notre modèle d’intégration il y a trois mois, mais aujourd’hui regardez le modèle d’intégration français! Qu’est-ce que ça donne? Des voitures qui brûlent, des banlieues en feu, etc.» Et donc, l’idée, c’est que le modèle d’intégration à la française ne marche pas davantage. Et dans les deux cas, quand un modèle d’intégration ne marche pas le racisme prospère. En France, ces émeutes dans les banlieues étaient avant tout un problème social, lié au fait que la République française fait des promesses qu’elle ne tient pas. Elle dit Liberté-Égalité-Fraternité à des gens à qui elle donne de la liberté, mais enfin, pas tant que ça, et elle ne donne certainement ni égalité ni fraternité à ces jeunes de quartier. Mais un certain nombre de discours ont préfere dire: «Ce sont des émeutes ethniques et peut-être même aussi religieuses. Est-ce qu’il n’y pas l’Islam derrière tout ça?» Le racisme prospère lorsqu’il y a la crise de l’intégration, et ce va servir, dans ce cas-là, à accuser ceux à qui on ne donne pas les ressources de l’intégration de ne pas vouloir, ou de ne pas pouvoir, s’intégrer. Au lieu de dire: «Je vais donner à ces gens-là de quoi s’intégrer, travail, logement, etc.», on dit: «Ils ne veulent pas s’intégrer, ils ne veulent pas faire confiance à la République, et on leur envoie la seule réponse qui est possible, on leur envoie la police.» Il y a là un immense ensemble de questions qui dans certains pays, je dis bien dans certains pays, ont beaucoup à voir avec les changements économiques. C’est vrai pour la France, c’est vrai pour le Royaume-Uni,

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c’est peut-être moins vrai pour d’autres pays. Nous sommes sortis du l’époque industrielle, nous sommes sortis de certains modèles de fonctionnement économique et, en particulier, de modèles où l’industrie avait besoin d’une main-d’œuvre immigrée abondante et non qualifiée. Les grandes usines des années cinquante, soixante et même encore du début des années soixante-dix, en tout cas dans mon pays, mais on voit aussi cela aux États-Unis, avaient besoin de beaucoup de travailleurs sans aucune qualification. Et ces travailleurs, où allait-on les chercher? D’abord dans les campagnes, quand les campagnes du pays ne suffisaient pas, on allait les chercher à l’étranger. Aux États-Unis ont a fait monter les noirs du Sud vers le Nord à partir du début du XXe siècle. S’il y a autant de noirs dans des villes comme Chicago, c’est parce l’industrie du Nord attirait les noirs qui vivaient dans les campagnes. Mais à partir des années soixante-dix, ce modèle industriel et économique, qui était souvent associé au plein emploi, ce modèle s’est transformé, on n’a plus eu besoin de toute cette main-d’œuvre. Et au changement culturel que je vous ai décrit longuement il y a un instant, s’ajoutent depuis la même époque et tout ceci est lié, des changements d’ordre économique, dans les modes de fonctionnement de l’industrie, en particulier, qui font qu’une main-d’œuvre abondante et immigrée, et souvent plus ou moins colorée de couleur de peau, ou en tout cas différente culturellement, eh bien, cette main-d’œuvre, on n’en a plus besoin, ou beaucoup moins. Et là, on commence à comprendre une des grandes transformations du racisme. Quand vous avez besoin d’une main-d’œuvre bon marché, pour bien l’exploiter, en la payant très mal parce qu’elle n’a aucune qualification, le racisme peut trouver sa place dans ce que l’on appellera des «logiques d’infériorisation»: «Viens ici, que je t’exploite! Je t’exploite parce que tu es différent physiquement et, par conséquent, inférieur intellectuellement et, donc, je peux me permettre de mal te payer, de te faire habiter dans des conditions de logement indécentes, de te mépriser, de ne pas laisser ta femme et tes enfants avec toi, etc.» Et donc, le racisme en période de grande industrie, consommatrice de ce type de main-d’œuvre, est un racisme plutôt d’infériorisation. «Viens ici, que j’oppresse, que je te domine!» Mais quand la même main-d’œuvre est inutile, on n’a plus besoin d’elle. Le racisme va se renverser et va consister à dire: «Va-t’en! Je ne veux pas te voir chez moi! Tu n’as rien à faire chez moi!» Et comment est-ce qu’on argumentera? En transformant un peu le racisme.

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Au lieu de dire: «Tu es inférieur, je vais t’exploiter», c’est le vieux racisme, on va dire: «Tu es différent culturellement, tu n’as pas ta place dans ma société, tu menaces mon intégrité culturelle, tu menaces ma nation, tu menaces mon identité!» Le nouveau racisme, qu’on va voir se développer dans un certain nombre de pays à partir des années quatrevingts, va tenir ce discours, non pas tant de l’inclusion infériorisante, mais plutôt de l’exclusion, et de la différenciation. Au lieu de dire: «Viens, que je t’exploite, que je te domine!», on dit: «Va-t’en! Tu me menaces dans mon être, dans ma culture, dans mon identité.» Je voudrais maintenant vous indiquer plus nettement les grands changements qui concernent le racisme. Tout a commencé dès la fin des années soixante, dès le début de cette période dont je vous ai parlé. Puisqu’on pouvait penser que le racisme devait disparaître, comme je vous l’ai dit au début, puisqu’on pouvait penser que le racisme était vraiment un crime, comme l’a dit Jean-Paul Sartre à propos de l’antisémitisme, et pas seulement une opinion, le racisme a commencé à se transformer. Les spécialistes ont dit: en devenant «voilé». Le mot anglais, c’est subtile, subtil. On n’est pas explicitement raciste. Et la forme extrême de ce phénomène qui masque en quelque sorte la réalité du racisme, c’est ce que très tôt les spécialistes ont appelé «le racisme institutionnel». C’est l’idée, certes très contestable, que les individus ne sont pas racistes, que personne n’est raciste; ce sont les institutions qui sont racistes, les organisations. Et cette idée a été développée, c’est très intéressant, aux États-Unis par des militants du mouvement noir au moment où ce mouvement retombait et où ils se radicalisaient, plutôt à la fin des années soixante. C’est l’idée que personne n’est raciste, mais je ne trouve pas d’emploi, je ne trouve pas de logement, j’aurai toujours un salaire moins élevé qu’eux parce que je suis noir. Et, à partir de là, il y a tout un ensemble de travaux qui montrent qu’il existe, effectivement, des types de racisme qu’on peut appeler «institutionnels», qu’on appelle parfois du «racisme indirect» ou de la «discrimination indirecte». Je vous en donne un exemple concret. J’ai lancé une recherche, il y a déjà assez longtemps, avec un de mes amis qui finalement s’est occupé complètement de cette recherche, Philippe Bataille, dans une petite ville de la France qui s’appelle Alès, située dans un bassin où il y avait des mines. Toutes les mines ont fermé. Or pour exploiter le charbon des ces mines, on avait fait venir beaucoup d’immigrés d’Algérie et du

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Maroc dans les années d’après-guerre. Dans cette ville, les mines ont fermé, le taux de chômage est devenu très élevé, et les immigrés et leurs enfants sont toujours là, ils ne sont pas repartis, pas tous. Et il y a une entreprise qui emploie 600 salariés qui marche très bien, une filiale d’un grand groupe automobile, et dans cette entreprise, un beau jour, des syndicalistes s’aperçoivent qu’il n’y a pas un seul immigré ou enfant d’immigré parmi les 600 salariés. Quand on languit dans cette ville où peut-être 25, 30, 40 % de la population est issue de l’immigration, dans cette usine, dans cette entreprise il n’y a pas un seul immigré. Eh bien, les syndicalistes ont mené une enquête avec nous, les sociologues, et la réponse a été très simple. Il y a dans cette usine ce que l’on peut appeler de la discrimination ou du racisme institutionnel. Personne n’est raciste. Quand vous interviewez les salariés, ils ne sont pas racistes. Mais qu’est-ce qui passe? Chaque fois qu’un emploi est libre, il y a toujours quelqu’un pour dire: «Mon frère, mon cousin, mon ami, mon fils cherche un job». Et donc, dès qu’un emploi se libère, il est tout de suite donné à quelqu’un qui ressemble à ceux qui sont déjà dans l’emploi. Et, comme par hasard, ce ne sont pas des immigrés. Donc, si personne n’est immigré vous n’aurez jamais d’embauche d’immigrés. Personne n’est raciste, mais le résultat, c’est le racisme, c’est-à-dire qu’une partie de la population est discriminée. L’intéressant, c’est ce qui se passe quand la démonstration, du type que je viens de développer, est faite devant les salariés. Est-ce qu’ils vont changer leur façon d’agir? Est-ce qu’ils vont accepter une autre politique pour recruter du personnel? En tout cas, dès la fin des années soixante, on s’est aperçu qu’il y a du racisme institutionnel qu’on peut appeler du «racisme indirect» et qui revêt toute sorte de formes, y compris, ce ne pas du racisme mais ce n’est pas très éloigné, le fait que les femmes sont systématiquement discriminées dans la recherche d’emploi. On parle parfois de «racisme systémique». Tout ceci, c’est le même jargon pour désigner ce type de phénomène où apparemment personne n’est raciste à la ligne. Puis, arrivent les années quatre-vingts où les phénomènes culturels et socioéconomiques dont je vous ai parlé, ont pris tout leur essor. Et c’est là où l’on prend conscience de ce deuxième changement encore plus important dans le racisme. Et là, je vais vous indiquer le vocabulaire que les chercheurs ont inventé. Les uns ont dit, c’est un nouveau racisme qui ce met en place, c’est un «racisme symbolique», ça, c’est aux États-

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Unis. Les psychologues, les politologues parlaient de «Symbolism Racism» dès la fin des années soixante-dix, début des années quatrevingts, c’est l’époque Reagan, le début du libéralisme, qui est aussi l’époque du début de la grande crise industrielle. Et que dit-on quand on est raciste symboliquement? On dit que le problème des noirs, c’est que culturellement ils ne partagent pas nos valeurs à nous les blancs: «les noirs ne croient pas dans le travail», «ils veulent toucher l’argent de l’État», «les noirs ne croient pas dans la famille»; ils fabriquent ce que l’on appelle les «familles monoparentales», c’est-à-dire que la mère est toute seule avec les enfants, le mari il part. Le «racisme symbolique» consiste à dire qu’avec les noirs américains, le problème ne serait pas physique, le problème, c’est qu’ils ne partageraient pas le credo américain, les valeurs américaines. Ce «racisme symbolique» consiste à dire que le problème n’est pas une différence physique, le problème n’est pas d’inférioriser pour exploiter, mais d’affirmer qu’ «ils»ne veulent pas s’adapter aux valeurs américaines, aux valeurs dominantes. En Angleterre, ce même phénomène va prendre une autre forme qui sera appelée le «New Racism», le «nouveau racisme». C’est exactement la même chose, sauf que sont visés de gens de couleur issus de l’immigration, ils viennent de tout le Commonwealth alors q’aux États-Unis, c’est un phénomène intérieur, les noirs américains sont déjà là depuis longtemps. Mais c’est le même discours raciste. Ces migrants, dit-on alors sont différents culturellement, jamais ils ne feront de bons Britanniques ou de bons Anglais, ce n’est pas possible, parce qu’ils ont une différence culturelle. Cette différence culturelle si elle est irréductible, ne serait-elle pas aussi un peu naturelle? C’est dans ce sens qu’on peut parler d’un nouveau racisme. Puis ces idées-là ont commencé à se développer en Belgique et en France, et vers le sud de l’Europe. D’autant plus que des pays comme l’Espagne ou l’Italie cessaient d’être des pays d’émigration pour devenir des pays d’immigration. On a parlé de «racisme culturel», de «racisme différentialiste», parfois aussi de «néoracisme». Voilà des expressions que vous pouvez rencontrer, il y a en encore d’autres, qui disent toutes la même chose. Ce qui est reproché aux personnes qu’on veut exclure, c’est leur différence culturelle, et puisque jamais «ils» ne s’assimileront, jamais «ils» ne trouveront leur place dans ma nation, dans mes valeurs, dans mon identité, il faut qu’ils s’en aillent. Tout ceci, s’inscrit dans la grande évolution des années

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quatre-vingts, sur fond de changements économiques, de libéralisme, puis de néo-libéralisme, et de poussées de ces logiques de fragmentations culturelles dont nous avons parlé. Puis, les choses se sont compliquées avec deux logiques supplémentaires, en tout cas pour certains pays. La première tient aux tendances à «l’ethnicisation» et à «la racialisation» de nos sociétés. Dans les modèles classiques d’intégration, des gens différents perdent leur différence, s’intègrent, s’assimilent. Aujourd’hui, à travers tout ce que je vous ai décrit, on voit que des individus et des groupes s’affirment dans des identités. Certaines de ces identités peuvent être culturelles ou religieuses, elles peuvent devenir aussi raciales. En France, par exemple, nous avons un mouvement noir relativement important dans lequel les gens disent: ‹Je suis noir, je veux être considéré comme noir›. Mais si des groupe «s’ethnicisent» ou «se racialisent», c’est-à-dire s’affirment eux-mêmes dans des catégories qui sont les catégories de la race, alors la question du racisme devient bien plus compliquée qu’avant. Car auparavant, quand les racistes disaient que telle ou telle personne est inférieure ou différente parce qu’elle est noire, il leur etait repondu: «ne me parlez pas de la question noire, ce sont des êtres humains comme les autres». C’est ainsi qu’on réagissait. Mais maintenant, pratiquement, si les personnes concernées disent: «Attendez! Je veux être défini comme noir», le débat devient bien plus compliqué. La question du racisme se complique parce qu’on va accuser ceux qui s’affirment de manière ethnique ou raciale, ou qui demandent qu’on reconnaisse l’ethnicité ou l’attribut du genre la couleur de peau dans le débat public, de fabriquer le racisme. Je vous en donne un exemple français. En France, on débat beaucoup sur la question de savoir s’il faut collecter certaines données pour le recensement, par exemple, l’origine nationale, la religion. Et certains disent qu’il faudrait avoir des données sur la façon dont des personnes se définissent elles-mêmes en termes de race. Il y a des groupes qui le demandent. Et d’autres qui disent qu’accepter ça, c’est faire le jeu du racisme, c’est contribuer à inventer le racisme soi-disant pour faire plaisir à certains et en réalité pour mieux fabriquer de la discrimination, de la violence et des préjugés. Enfin, dernier point, aujourd’hui, avec toutes ces logiques dans lesquelles plein de groupes se constituent pour s’affirmer dans leur identité, le racisme se fragmente, c’est-à-dire que chaque groupe est susceptible, d’être victime du racisme, mais aussi lui-même

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de porter en son sein certaines formes de racisme. Je viens d’un pays où on découvre que des Noirs peuvent être antisémites et des Juifs racistes anti-noirs. Où on découvre que dans certains quartiers populaires, les originaires de tel pays d’Afrique du Nord sont en guerre quasiment raciste contre des originaires de tel pays d’Afrique subsaharienne. Le pasteur Jackson, figure très gauchiste, disons, du mouvement noir américain, disant au début de la campagne d’Obama: «Mais qui est ce type? Il n’est pas vraiment comme nous!» C’est-à-dire qu’entre noirs américains il y avait des noirs d’origine américaine descendant d’esclaves et d’autres venus plutôt d’immigration plus récente. Je ne dis pas du tout que Jackson est raciste, mais on voit bien se mettre en place des logiques de fragmentation dans lesquelles chaque groupe est susceptible d’être à la fois victime et auteur de préjugés, d’attitudes, de logiques racistes. La question du racisme aujourd’hui, malheureusement, nous n’en avons pas fini avec elle. Le phénomène se transforme, réapparaît, se déclare, devient multiforme, et continue à faire partie, je crois, des grands problèmes du monde contemporain.

Identities. An interdisciplinary approach to the roots of present Identités. Une approche interdisciplinaire aux racines du présent Identidades. Una aproximación interdisciplinar a las raíces del presente

Individual or collective, assumed or imposed, accepted or disputed, identities mark out the basic framework that root the human being in society. Language, literature, the creation of a shared memory, social formulas and the range of all cultural expressions have contributed to articulating human life as a mixture of identities. Given these concerns, this series publishes books from the different branches of the Humanities and Social Sciences, which have taken identity as a prism through which the problems of current society and its historical roots are studied. The preferential use of English, French and Spanish ensure greater dissemination of research collected here. The series includes monographs, collected papers, conference proceedings. Individuelles ou collectives, assumées ou imposées, acceptées ou combattues, les identités configurent le premier cadre d’enracinement de l’être humain en société. La langue, la littérature, la création d’une mémoire commune déterminée, les formules sociales et toutes les expressions culturelles ont contribué à articuler la vie humaine comme un treillis d’identités. Compte tenu de ces préoccupations, cette collection publie ouvrages depuis les diverses branches des sciences humaines et sociales qui prennent l’identité comme prisme par lequel étudier les problèmes de la société d’aujourd’hui et ses racines historiques. L’utilisation préférentielle de l’anglais, le français et l’espagnol assure une plus grande diffusion des recherches ici présentés. La collection accueille des monographies, ouvrages collectifs et actes de congrès. Individuales o colectivas, asumidas o impuestas, aceptadas o combatidas, las identidades configuran el primer marco de enraizamiento del ser humano en sociedad. La lengua, la literatura, la creación de una determinada memoria común, las fórmulas sociales y todas las expresiones culturales han contribuido a articular la vida humana como un entramado de identidades. Asumiendo estas preocupaciones, esta colección publica obras provenientes de las distintas ramas de las Humanidades y las Ciencias Sociales que adopten la identidad a modo de prisma con que estudiar los problemas de la sociedad actual y sus raíces históricas. El uso preferente del inglés, el francés y el castellano garantizan una mayor difusión de las investigaciones aquí recogidas. La colección acoge monografías, obras colectivas y actas de congreso.

Editorial address:

Institut for Research into Identity and Society (IRIS) University of Lleida Plaça Víctor Siurana 1 25003 Lleida Catalonia / Spain

Vol. 1 Flocel Sabaté (ed.) Identities on the move ISBN 978-3-0343-1296-7, 2014 Vol. 2 Flocel Sabaté (ed.) Hybrid Identities ISBN 978-3-0343-1471-8, 2014