Desperta, és un nou dia, la llum del sol llevant, vell guia pels quiets camins del fum. No deixis res per caminar i mirar fins al ponent. Car tot, en un moment, et serà pres.
L’aire resplendent arrela en el plany. Ales de la sang drecen a claror. De la llum a la fosca, de la nit a la neu, sofrença, camí, paraules, destí, per la terra, per l’aigua, pel foc i pel vent.
Salvo el meu maligne nombre en la unitat. Enllà de contraris veig identitat. Sol, sense missatge, deslliurat del pes del temps, d’esperances, dels morts, dels records, dic en el silenci el nom del no-res.
Today, the weather is good and TheGrandma has decided to walk out with her closer friend ClaireFontaine. They have visited Montjuïc, the historic mountain that rises between the city of Barcelona and the Mediterranean Sea.
This mountain is a great witness of the history of the city and today, the city of Barcelona commemorates the anniversary of the Battle of Montjuïc, when in January 26, 1641, the Catalan troops defended the city from the attack of the Castilian troops during the Reapers' War.
Catalan troops won this battle and protected the city from the tyranny of the Castilian troops who killed all people -civilians and militaries- who found on their way.
This battle was an episode of the Reapers' War, a conflict that had an effect in the Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659), which ceded the County of Rosselló and the northern half of the County of Cerdanya to France, splitting these northern Catalan territories off from the Principality of Catalonia and the Crown of Aragon.
Nowadays, Catalonia is an historic nation, one of the oldest European ones, whose territories are divided in two states -French and Spanish. There are other cases like this: Basque Country (France and Spain), Alsace (France and Germany), and Britain (France and United Kingdom)...
History demonstrates that borders do not determinate a community but culture does, and one of the most significate symbols of culture is language. A spoken language determinates a community and it is a vivid element of its history, past and present.
The Battle of Montjuïc took place on 26 January 1641 during the Reapers' War. A Spanish force under Pedro Fajardo launched an attack on the Catalan army led by Francesc de Tamarit, with French cavalry support.
The Catalan rebels had taken up position on the heights of Montjuïc which dominated the city of Barcelona.
The Spanish launched several concerted attempts to capture Montjuïc Castle, but were continually repulsed. Finally a large force of Catalan rebels counter-attacked from the direction of Barcelona. Large numbers of Spanish troops were killed and the remainder had to withdraw to Tarragona along the coast. The Spanish force had recently massacred hundreds of rebels who had tried to surrender at Cambrils.
The Battle of Cambrils or the Massacre of Cambrils took place in December 1640 during the Reapers' War.
Barcelona, 17th century
The revolt had started in May-June 1640 and as a reaction the Spanish Army had occupied Tortosa in Catalonia in September. On December 8 a large army under Pedro Fajardo de Zúñiga y Requesens headed for Barcelona, passing through Cambrils. Here, a small force of Catalan rebels attempted to ambush this much larger force, before withdrawing into the town and attempting to defend it. After several days of bombardment and heavy fighting the Spanish captured the town.
When the defenders tried to surrender, some 700 of them were massacred.The three leaders were quickly trialed and executed on the garrote. The next day, more people were hanged and the city was sacked.
The Spanish army then continued in the direction of Barcelona, taking Tarragona on December 24. Later this army was decisively defeated in the Battle of Montjuïc.
The Reapers' War, in Catalan la Guerra dels Segadors, also known as CatalanRevolt was a conflict that affected a large part of the Principality of Catalonia between the years of 1640 and 1659.
The war had its roots in the discomfort generated in Catalan society by the large presence of Castilian troops during the Franco-Spanish War between the Kingdom of France and the Monarchy of Spain as part of the Thirty Years' War.
Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of Olivares, the chief minister of Philip IV, had
been trying to distribute more evenly the huge economic and military
burden of the Spanish Empire, until then supported mainly by the Crown
of Castile. But his Union of Arms policy raised hostilities and protests
all across the states of the Monarchy of Spain.
Battle of Montjuïc, 1640
Resistance in Catalonia was especially strong; the Catalan Courts of 1626 and 1632 were never concluded, due to the opposition of the estates against the economical and military measures of Olivares, many of which violated the Catalan constitutions.
In 1638, the canon of La Seu d'Urgell Pau Claris, known for his opposition against non-Catalan bishops who always collaborated with the Crown, was elected by ecclesiastic estate as president of the Generalitat, while Francesc de Tamarit was elected member of the Generalitat by the military estate and Josep Miquel Quintana for the popular estate.
Around 1639, both causes approached and the identification and solidarity of the peasants took place with the attitude of political distrust of the authorities. Thus the political doctrine of the uprising and the popular ideology of the revolt were formed.
Catalan peasants, who were forced to quarter Castilian troops and reported events such as religious sacrileges, destruction of personal properties and rape of women by the soldiers, responded in a series of local rebellions against their presence.
The revolt grew, until the Corpus Christi day of May 1640 in Barcelona, with an uprising known as Bloody Corpus in Catalan Corpus de Sang, under the slogans Long live the faith of Christ!, The King our Lord has declared war on us!, Long live the land, death to bad government, Reape our chains. When the bishop of Barcelona, after blessing the furious crowd, asked them: Who is your captain? What is your flag? They raised a big Christ in the Cross Statue covered with an all black cloth and shouted Here is our captain, this is our flag!.
This Bloody Corpus which began with the death of a reaper, in Catalan segador and led to the somewhat mysterious death of The 2nd Count of Santa Coloma, the Spanish Viceroy of Catalonia, marked the beginning of the conflict.
The irregular militia involved were known as Miquelets. The situation took Olivares by surprise, with most of the Spanish army fighting on other fronts far from Catalonia. The Council of Aragon demanded more military presence in Barcelona as the only way to restore the order.
Pau Claris, MHP of the Generalitat
Pau Claris, President of the Generalitat of Catalonia, called the politician members of the all Principality in order to form a Junta de Braços or Braços Generals (States-General), a consultive body.
The calling was a success, and the presence of royal cities and feudal villages was exceptionally large. This assembly, which worked with individual voting, began to create and apply various revolutionary measures, such as the establishment of a Council of Defense of the Principality and a special tax for the nobility (the Batalló), while the tension with the monarchy grew.
At the same time, the Generalitat maintainedcontacts with France, in order to establish an alliance between the Principality of Catalonia and this country. By the pact of Ceret, French promised to help the Principality. In this way, theStates-General presided by Pau Claris proclaimed the Catalan Republic under the protection of the French monarchy, on January 17, 1641, which lasted a week until January 21, 1641, when they declared the French king Louis XIII Count of Barcelona as Louis I.
The threat of the French enemy establishing a powerful base south of the Pyrenees caused an immediate reaction from the Habsburg monarchy. The Habsburg government sent a large army of 26,000 men under Pedro Fajardo to crush the Catalan Revolt.
On its way to Barcelona, the Spanish army retook several cities, executinghundreds of prisoners, and a rebel army of the Catalan Republic was defeated in Martorell, near Barcelona, on January, 23.
In response the Catalans reinforced their efforts and the Franco-Catalan armies obtained an important military victory over the Spanish army in the Battle of Montjuïc (January 26, 1641).
Despite this success, the peasant uprising was becoming uncontrollable in some places, progressively focusing on the Catalan nobility and Generalitat itself. In effect, the conflict was also a class war, with the peasants revolting both against the Habsburg monarchy and against their own ruling classes, which turned to France for support.
For the next decade the Catalans fought under French vassalage, taking the initiative after Montjuïc. Meanwhile, increasing French control of political and administrative affairs -maritime ports, taxes, key bureaucratic positions- and a firm military focus on the neighbouring Spanish kingdoms of Valencia and Aragon, in line with Richelieu's war against Spain, gradually undermined Catalan enthusiasm for the French.
Battle of Montjuïc, 1641
A Franco-Catalan army under Philippe de La Mothe-Houdancourt moved south and gained several victories against the Spanish, but the sieges of Tarragona, Lleida and Tortosa finally failed and the allies had to withdraw. In the north of Catalonia in Rosselló, they were more successful. Perpinyà was taken from the Spanish after a siege of 10 months, and the whole of Rosselló was under French control. Shortly after, Spanish relief armies were defeated at the Battleof Montmeló and Battle of Barcelona.
In 1652 a Spanish offensive captured Barcelona bringing the Catalan capital under Spanish control again. Irregular resistance continued for several years afterwards and some fighting took place north of the Pyrenees but the mountains would remain from then on the effective border between Spanish and French territories.
The war was concurrent with the Arauco War in Chile where the Spanish fought a coalition of native Mapuches. With the Arauco War being a lengthy and costly conflict the Spanish crown ordered its authorities in Chile to sign a peace agreement with the Mapuche in order to concentrate the empire's resources in fighting the Catalans. This way the Mapuche obtained a peace treaty and a recognition on behalf of the crown in a case unique for any indigenous group in the Americas.
The conflict extended beyond the Peace of Westphalia, which concluded the Thirty Years' War in 1648 but remained part of the Franco-Spanish War (1635-1659) with the confrontation between two sovereigns and two Generalitats, one based in Barcelona, under the control of Spain and the other in Perpinyà, under the occupation of France.
In 1652 the French authorities renounced Catalonia, but held control of Rosselló, thereby leading to the signing of the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659.
Quan roures enyorosos de verds marins comencen crepusculars missatges, volent-te foc, demano nova claror, que siguis, davant altars on cremen ardents silencis d'ales, encès cristall, més flama,
Josep Lluís Savall Rom (1959-2006) was born on the Beach of Cambrils in a family of fishermen. He arranged the family office with the studies of Catalan Philology in the University of Tarragona, when it was still part of the University of Barcelona.
He was a founding member and also president of the artistic-literary group La Gent del Llamp.
Among his publications, it is worth mentioning several texts of literary creation and a study-prologue to a selection of Poetry by Jaume Vidal Alcover. He was head of the area of activities of the Maritime Museum of Barcelona.
In the field of research, Josep Lluís Savall presented, in February of the year 1990, as a degree thesis, the work that was titled The Vocabulary of the Fishermen of Cambrils.This was an exhaustive study that semantically ordered the terms used by fishermen, masters of hawk and cameraman shipowners and it gives the definitions very often accompanied by precise drawings that complement the graphic vocabulary of the sailor.
Peace has always been my greatest concern.
I learnt to love it when I was but a child. When I was a boy, my mother, an exceptional, marvellous woman, would talk to me about peace, because at that time there were also many wars.
What is more, I am Catalan.
Catalonia had the first democratic parliament, well before England did.
And the first United Nations were in my country. At that time, the Eleventh Century , there was a meeting in Toluges -now France- to talk about peace, because in that epoch Catalans were already against, AGAINST war.
That is why the United Nations, which works solely towards the peace ideal, is in my heart, because anything to do with peace goes straight to my heart.
Today is a difficult day to write. After the terrible news in Barcelona and Cambrils, The Grandma decided to respect the three days of mourning decreted by the Catalan Government and she hasn't posted or twitted anything.
It's impossible to understand these events because they're consequence of terror and terror is insane in itself: no reason, no excuse.
Although The Grandma was born in Andorra, she has lived in Barcelona the most part of her life and she feels the city as her hometown. It's the same case for Claire Fontaine, Tina Picotes and Joseph de Ca'th Lon. All of them want to pay tribute to "their" city giving voice to its poets, who wrote some homages to the city in the recent past, some poems which are little pearls to be read.
Jacint Verdaguer
A Barcelona is a poem by Jacint Verdaguer, published in 1883. It is a triumphant song of the transformation undergone by Barcelona since the mid-19th century.
Consisting of 46 quatrains of Alexandrine verses, and a re-editing process started in 1874 and completed in 1875, it is the fruit of a labour started in 1883. The author then lengthened and amended it three times, the last two shortly before its publication.
The first three stanzas present the city protected by the mountain of Montjuïc, identified with Alcides, Hercules, the mythic founder of Barcino according to a legend that Verdaguer had already picked up on in The Atlàntida (1878).
Next are sixteen quatrains, in which the poet celebrates the demolition of the walls and the extension of the city (1859), with a prophecy of bursting growth, beyond the Collserola mountain range and the Besos and Llobregat rivers, as if Paris of the Seine had been transplanted to Catalonia.
However, the three following stanzas, in the name of the homeland, reject any awe of the French capital, affirming instead the personality of Barcelona, which had been the Catalan center of a medieval Mediterranean empire and She shone on Spanish lands as eastern star.
The Grandma & The Cathedral of Barcelona
In the 23rd to 40th stanzas, the poet evokes the historical characters and the monuments that distinguish the city.
The six final stanzas, written from the perspective of the Cathedral, imaginatively transfigured into King Jaume I, formulate the ideological conclusion, the providential perspective, in which Barcelona and Catalonia are exhorted to promote economic progress, based on their industries, but without ever renouncing the Catholic tradition, since in the end God alone brings down or lifts up peoples.
In spite of the rhetorical flourishes denounced by some critics, the poem, rewarded with an extraordinary prize in the Jocs Florals (Floral Games) of 1883, expresses faithfully the expectations of the élite of the period. This is confirmed by the fact that the Ajuntament, city council, published a popular edition of the poem, with a print run of 100,000 copies.
On the other hand, the poem has also provoked numerous imitations and responses, noteworthy of which are the New Ode to Barcelona by Joan Maragall and the Ode to Barcelona by Pere Quart.
Quan a la falda et miro de Montjuïc seguda, m'apar veure't als braços d'Alcides gegantí que per guardar sa filla del seu costat nascuda en serra transformant-se s'hagués quedat aquí.
I en veure que treus sempre rocam de ses entranyes Per’ tos casals, que creixen com arbres en saó, apar que diga a l'ona y al cel y a les muntanyes: - Mireu-la: òs de mos òssos, s'es feta gran com jo!
Per’ que tes naus, que tornen ab ales d'aureneta, vers Cap-del-Riu, a l'ombra no es vagin a estellar ell alça tots los vespres un far ab sa mà dreta i per’ guiar-les entra de peus dintre la mar.
La mar dorm a tes plantes besant-les com vassalla que escolta de tos llavis el còdic de ses lleis; y, si li dius "Arrera!" fa lloc a ta muralla com si Marquets i Llances encara’n fossin reis.
En nàixer amaçona, de mur te coronares, més prompte ta creixença rompé l'estret cordó; tres voltes te’n cenyires, tres voltes el trencares, per sobre’l clos de pedra saltant com un lleó.
Per què lligar-te’ls braços ab eix cinyell de torres? No escau a una matrona la faixa dels infants; més val que l'enderroquis d'un cop de mà, i esborris. Muralles vols ciclòpees? Déu te les da més grans.
Déu te les da d'un rengle de cimes que’t coronen, gegants de la marina dels de muntanya al peu, que ferms de l'un a l'altre les aspres mans se donen, formant a tes espatlles un altre Pirineu.
Ab Montalegre encaixa Nou-pins; ab Finestrelles, Olorde; ab Collcerola, Carmel y Guinardons; els llits dels rius que seguen eix mur són les portelles; Garraf, Sant Pere Martir y Montgat, els torreons.
L'alt Tibidabo, roure que sos plançons domina, és la soperba acròpolis que vetlla la ciutat; l'agut Montcada, un ferro de llança gegantina que una niçaga d'hèroes plantada allí ha deixat.
Ells sien, ells, els termes eterns de tos eixamples; dels rònecs murs a trossos fes-ne present al mar, aon d'un port sens mida seran els braços amples que’l puguen ab sos boscos de naus empresonar.
Com tu devoren marges y camps, y es tornen pobles, els masos que’t rodegen, ciutats els pagesius, com nines vers sa mare corrent a passos dobles; a qui duran llurs aigues sinó a la mar, els rius?
Y creixes y t'escampes; quan la planicie’t manca t'enfiles a les costes doblant-se a llur jaient; en totes les que’t volten un barri teu s'embranca, que, onada sobre onada, tu amunt vas empenyent.
Geganta que tos braços avui cap a les serres extens, quan hi arribis demà, doncs, què faràs? Faràs com eura immensa que, ja abrigant les terres, puja a cenyir un arbre del bosc ab cada braç.
Veus a ponent estendre's un prat com d'esmeralda? Un altre Nil el forma de ses arenes d'or, aon, si t'estreteja de Montjuïc la falda, podrien eixamplar-se tes tendes y ton cor.
Aquelles verdes ribes florides que’l sol daura, Sant Just Desvern que ombregen els tarongers y pins, De Valldoreix els boscos, d’Hebron y de Valldaura, Teixeixen ta futura corona de jardins.
Y aqueix esbart de pobles que viuen en la costa? Són nimfes catalanes que’t venen a abraçar, gavines blanquinoses que’l vent del segle acosta, perquè ab tes ales d’àliga les portis a volar.
La Murta, un jorn, la Verge del Port, la Bonanova, seran tots temples, si ara lo niu de tots amors; els Agudells, en blanca mudant sa verda roba, abaixaran ses testes per’ser tos miradors.
Junyits besar voldrien tos peus ab llurs onades, esclaus de ta grandesa, Besòs y Llobregat, y ser de tos reductes troneres avançades els pits de Catalunya, Montseny y Montserrat.
Llavors, llavors al témer que’ls vols per capsalera, girant els ulls als Alpes el Pirineu vehí, demanarà, aixugant-se la blanca cabellera, si la París del Sena s’es trasplantada aquí.
Crazy me don't think there's pain in Barcelona. They dance you round a waltz confound but i fear it's a long way down this road.
Marianao, which means the ship of Maria, it’s a place in Cuba where a Catalan family, The Samà,created a big fortune. They were Indians.
Salvador de Samà i Torrents, Marquis of Samà, Marianao and Vilanova i la
Geltrú (1861-1933) was a senator in the Spanish Court and Mayor of Barcelona (1905-1906). He received some lands from his father. They
were in Sant Boi de Llobregat and
thanks to the architect Josep Fontseré,
these lands became in a big palace inspired in medieval castle with lots of
Gothic ornaments and rounded by tropical vegetation.
Today, these
lands are known like Marianao Park.
In 1899,
Salvador de Samà sold some lands in Barcelona to Eusebi Güell. In these lands, some years later, it was built the Park Güell. He also ordered to build
another park in Cambrils which is
named like the family.
Salvador
Samà and Eusebi Güell had good personal relations and Güell introduced Antoni Gaudí to Samà. It was very
important because it can explain the clear influence of Gaudí in two
constructions of the Marianao Park: the Miranda
Tower and the bridge. When Salvador de Samà, Marquis of Marianao, died
his family sold the Marianao Park to a Majorcan family: the Bordoy. Abdon
Borboy, the new owner decided to convert the park in the first residential
place in Catalonia (1957). Since 1974, the City
Hall of Sant Boi is the owner of this park.
Nowadays, the Marianao Palace is a public place which
hides some secrets: for one hand, it was the place where Miguel Primo de Rivera, a Spanish general coup, signed the putsch
(coup d’état) during the kingdom of Alfonso XIII in 1923; for another, it was
the residence of José Mallorquí the
creator of “El Coyote”.
Since 1765,
when Carlos III, the Spanish king, had to be more flexible with the commercial
monopoly of the Southern Spanish ports over Cuba, we have news about Catalan migrants in this Caribbean Island.
The beginning of the Catalan Industrial Revolution and this political resolution
marked the economic success of some Catalan migrants in the island during the
first half of the 19th century (1820-1840). During those years, the
Catalan migrants had an intensive commercial activity and they became in new
members of the Cuban society. In Santiago de Cuba, the commercial activity was
so big than native people say “I go to the Catalan” when they went to the winery
and surnames like Baró, Martí, Alegret, Ametller or Arnau mixed with the native
ones.
Judges like
Josep Verdaguer, businessmen like Facund Bacardí Massó (founder of Bacardí Rum)
and Jaume Partagàs i Ravell (founder of
Partagàs Tobacco Factory), bankers like Narcís Gelats (founder of Banco Gelats)
or religious like Antoni Maria Claret, the archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, were
only an example of personal successes in the island.
The existence
of the Modernism art in La Habana is a great influence of the Catalan artists
in architecture, painting and sculpture. The main Catalan settlements were Guantánamo,
Santiago de Cuba, La Habana, Matanzas, Bayamo, Manzanillo and Holguín.
Those who
became rich and had fortune returned to their hometowns and built Indian-style
houses. They missed the island and tried to evocate the Caribbean architecture in
towns like Cambrils, Torredembarra, Sitges, Vilanova i la Geltrú, Arenys
de Mar, Blanes, Lloret de Mar, Palafrugellor Begur.
Lots of
Catalans helped Cubans in the Independence Wars against Spain (1868-1878 and
1895-1898) and some years later, lots of Catalans loyal to the Republican
troops must emigrate: it was a political exile (1936-1939). Some of them,
famous intellectuals, contributed to found prestigious institutions and
universities (Universidad de Oriente, 1947) and worked in them.
Nowadays, the
influence of Caribbean cultre is still visible along the Catalan coast in the architecture
and in the traditions.
Local people celebrate parties to reminisce these cultural
influences where Havaneres (Cuban-Catalan
music) and rum are the main protagonists.
