Catalan Republic (1931)

Catalan Republic
República Catalana  (Catalan)
1931
Anthem: Els Segadors (Catalan)
"The Reapers"
Location of the Catalan Republic within Europe
Status Republic within Iberian Federation
Capital Barcelona
Common languages
Demonym Catalan
Government Republic under provisional government
Acting President  
• 1931
Francesc Macià
Historical era Interwar period
• Proclaimed
14 April 1931
• Establishment of the Generalitat
17 April 1931
Currency Spanish peseta (de facto)
Preceded by		Succeeded by
Restoration (Spain)
Generalitat of Catalonia
Second Spanish Republic
Today part of  Spain
 ∟  Catalonia

The Catalan Republic (Catalan: República Catalana, IPA: [rəˈpubːlikə kətəˈlanə]) was a state proclaimed in 1931 by Francesc Macià as the "Catalan Republic within the Iberian Federation".[2] It existed between 14 and 17 April 1931.

History

Francesc Macià i Llussà
Proclamation of the Republic in Plaça de Sant Jaume, Barcelona, 14 April 1931

By the Pact of San Sebastián (August 17, 1930), the Spanish republican parties agree to prepare a change of regime in case of victories in the following elections. In this project, there was a provision for the political autonomy of Catalonia, within the Republic. On 14 April 1931, after the municipal elections which gave in Catalonia the large majority to a party founded three weeks before of the elections by the union of the independentist Estat Català and the Catalan Republican Party, the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), its leader Francesc Macià, few hours before the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic in Madrid, from the balcony of the Palace of the Generalitat (then the seat of the Provincial Deputation of Barcelona), proclaimed the "Catalan Republic, expecting that the other peoples of Spain constitute themselves as republics, in order to establish the Iberian Confederation".[3] Macià was appointed as acting president.

Immediately, Macià began exercising power and dismissed General Despujols, chief of the Spanish Army in Barcelona, appointing General López Ochoa, loyal to the new republican government in his place, while his companion of party, Lluís Companys, was designated civil governor of Barcelona. He also appointed the ministers of the Catalan government, dominated by the Republican Left of Catalonia, and included a member of the Radical Republican Party and another from the UGT trade union, but none from the conservative Regionalist League (on the streets many citizens said against the leader of the League "Long live Macià and death to Cambó!").[4] The government also had representatives from the Socialist Union of Catalonia and Acció Catalana, and Macià even offered a ministry to the anarchist CNT, but the anarcho-syndicalist organization finally refused to participate, claiming its traditional apoliticism.

The provisional government of the Catalan Republic was formed by:


Three days later, the government of the new Spanish Republic, worried about this proclamation, sent three ministers (Fernando de los Ríos, Lluís Nicolau d'Olwer and Marcel·lí Domingo) to Barcelona in order to negotiate with Macià and the Catalan government. Macià reached an agreement with the ministers, in which the Catalan Republic was renamed Generalitat of Catalonia (Catalan: Generalitat de Catalunya), becoming an autonomous government within the Spanish Republic, that would be granted an Statute of Autonomy after the elections to Spanish Cortes. Francesc Macià would be the President of the Generalitat of Catalonia (as acting until November 1932, when it was elected by the Parliament of Catalonia) until his death in December 1933.

References

  1. ↑ Torra, Quim (15 April 2012). "Una República Catalana que governa". El Punt Avui (in Catalan). Retrieved 3 November 2017.
  2. ↑ "Spain: Macià's Catalonia". Time. 20 June 1932.
  3. ↑ Juliá, Santos (2009). La Constitución de 1931. Lustel, Madrid pp. 31-32 ISBN 978-84-9890-083-5
  4. ↑ Balcells, Albert (2006). «El reto de Cataluña». La Aventura de la Historia (15). ISSN 1579-427X.

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