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claims of Archduke Karl of Austria. Barce-
lona welcomed the Habsburg pretender and
his English allies, but after the triumph of
P
HILIP
V in 1713-14 the Catalans were pun-
ished for their defiance by loss of virtually
all their remaining regional privileges.
Catalonia did not go unscathed by the
Napoleonic invasion or the Carlist wars, but
by the late 19th century it had experienced
a massive growth in industry and trade that
created socioeconomic issues. Class conflict
developed between the urban working
class, which had swelled by the movement
of job seekers from less developed parts of
Spain, and Catalan industrialists, business
magnates, and their supporters in the Bar-
celona middle class. While the newcomers
flocked into the socialist and anarchist
movements and the unions that supported
radicalism, the better-off elements staunchly
defended the interests of capitalism. On the
question of Catalan nationalism the urban
elites favored autonomy, or even indepen-
dence, while the urban workers generally
had no interest in purely Catalan matters.
The rural population of Catalonia, on the
other hand, preserved their regional lan-
guage and culture and were prepared to
fight for autonomy should the opportunity
arise. During the first years of the 20th cen-
tury these overlapping aspirations created a
series of clashes between the various inter-
ests in Catalonia and the central govern-
ment. Politicians in M
ADRID
were as much
baffled as angered by the complex situation
in Barcelona. Following the proclamation
of the Second Republic in 1931 Catalan
nationalists were able to obtain a consider-
able degree of autonomy. By 1934, how-
ever, misunderstandings with the central
authorities led to an armed insurrection in
the region that was not resolved until 1936.
Needing the support of every potential ally
in the S
PANISH
C
IVIL
W
AR
, the republic
restored the rights that had just been with-
drawn from the Catalan rebels and increased
their autonomy. The Catalan nationalists
had little time to celebrate. Although they
fought hard for the republic and even pro-
vided a temporary capital at Barcelona, the
cause of Loyalism was doomed by early
1939. The victorious general F
RANCISCO
F
RANCO
was determined to make an exam-
ple of the Catalan dissidents as well as assert
the absolute priority of Spanish unity. He,
therefore, not only once again stripped the
region of political autonomy but virtually
banned all manifestations of Catalan lan-
guage and culture.
With the death of Franco in 1975 and
the constitutional reconstruction that was
undertaken soon thereafter, autonomy
once again became a subject open for dis-
cussion. The new Spanish constitution
attempted to compromise by guaranteeing
the identity and self-expression of nation-
alities within the larger context of Spanish
unity. For the Catalans, who were now
allowed to create their own parliament and
regional government and to have free use
of their language, this seemed at first to be
sufficient. Jordi Pujol, who became the
leading Catalan politician of the next two
decades, succeeded in developing a regional
administration that maintained a balance
between various political tendencies in Cat-
alonia while keeping lines of communica-
tion open with Madrid. A relatively small
group of Catalan nationalists pursued their
militancy to the point of armed violence
during the 1980s but never reached the
threat level achieved by Basque terrorists
who seemed almost moderate by compari-
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