The Catalan Renaissance or Catalan Renaissance ( cat. Renaixença ) is a literary, linguistic and cultural movement that emerged among the Catalan ethnic Kingdom of Spain for the revival of Catalan as a full-fledged self-sufficient language independent of Castilian. The movement was quite a success, since it was parallel to the process of active industrialization of Catalonia, whose more dynamic economy allowed it to stand out against the background of backward agrarian Spain. At the end of the Renaissance period (1833–1892), in which several stages were distinguished, the speakers of Catalan, especially the large and small urban bourgeoisie , stopped feeling their language with the Spanish dialect . Moreover, the Renaissance directly or indirectly stimulated the movement for the independence of Catalonia . In parallel, in the ethno-cultural environment of neighboring minority peoples, similar, but ultimately somewhat less successful, phenomena of a revival of interest in their own culture and language are observed (the Majorcan Renaissance among the Balearians , the Resurdimento among the Galicians and the movement of felibres in French Provence ).
Content
Background
Middle Ages
The establishment of political borders in the Middle Ages led to the differentiation of central Romania into fairly close Provençal and Catalan languages. The latter received official status in the kingdom of Aragon . Within Aragon, there was a significant expansion of the Catalan language in the Middle Ages: during the Reconquista, he ousted the Arabic language of Valencia and its neighboring Mozarab dialects, spread to the Balearic Islands and partly to the west of Fr. Sardinia . The rich medieval literature in both languages of the medieval period is preserved. In XIII — XIV, contingents of the Almogavars widely used Catalan throughout the northern northern seas : the famous Chronicle of Muntaner on military operations against Muslims in Asia Minor was written on it.
The conclusion of the union with Spain led to a gradual strengthening of the position of the Castilian language in Catalonia itself. In 1733, Charles III issued a decree formally prohibiting the use of the Catalan language in public places, but the poor level of implementation of the laws led to the fact that the Spanish language , although it was already familiar to the general population of Catalonia, was still very limitedly used for example in primary education . Moreover, notarial documents and other small local documentation prior to the beginning of the XIX were compiled mainly in Catalan [1] . However, the languages of sublime literature in the region from the 15th century are Spanish.
The period of falling interest ended in the 19th century: during this period Catalonia became a hotbed of industrialization and progress in backward and provincial Spain. The well-to-do Catalan bourgeoisie began to actively oppose their linguistic identity with the impoverished Spanish noblemen and peasants, who rushed to work in Catalan factories and plants.
The first stage (1833-1859)
At the initial stage, the Catalan revival is primarily of a thematic nature: Catalan writers devote more and more of their Catalan theme, although the language of their works remains almost everywhere Castilian, which continues to be perceived as a higher stylistic Catalan version. The turning point in this relatively harmless (for a unified Spain) phenomenon was set by the law of Moyano 1857 , according to which universal primary education throughout Spain should henceforth be exclusively in Castilian. In response, the Catalan intelligentsia goes to a conscious break not only with the general Spanish theme, but also with the Spanish language.
Implications
For a long time, Spanish (Castilian) was the only official language of the province. In the period between the end of the 18th century and 1975, when the dictatorship Franco ended, the Spanish government pursued a policy of complete Spanishization . After Franco's death, the situation changed: in the Statutes of the Catalan Autonomy of 1979, only the Catalan language was declared “the own language of Catalonia”. In the 1980s, all schools and universities of Catalonia were required to use only the Catalan language as the only language of class education; Spanish in the schools of Catalonia is allowed to teach in schools as a subject in the amount of two hours a week [2] . In 2010, part of the provisions of the Statutes of the Catalan Autonomy was repealed by the Constitutional Court of Spain. [3]