The Travails of Liberal Catalanism, 1875–98

Abstract

As seen in the previous chapter, bourgeois elites and those politically close to them were, in general, not to go further than a timid regionalism. However, the 1880s were to see the rise of a cultural and political Catalanist movement under the leadership of Valentí Almirall, which built on the ideas elaborated by the literary circles of the La Renaixensa group during the Sexennium and by the most regionalist wing of the Catalan branch of the federal republican party. His greatest political successes were the formation of the cultural-political association the Centre Català (Catalan Centre) in 1882, and the lead role he took in the elaboration of the Memorial de Greuges, which was presented to King Alfonso XII in 1885. Yet, he was unable to build the mass-based political party he had planned, and the Centre Català split in 1887 and then collapsed in the early 1890s.