Fake History. Sobre la manipulación del pasado en Cataluña
Fake History. Manipulating the Past in Catalonia

Summary/Abstract: This article analyzes a form of historical policy which aims to enforce a particular historical narrative, i.e. one which supports the political project of Catalonia as an independent state. To begin with, the author introduces the circumstances behind the attempt to manipulate the past in that country, showing the advancing nationalization of history, with its categories and paradigms. Subsequently, specific examples are cited to show how the past has been intentionally tampered with in order to mould the consciousness and beliefs of the Catalans. These methods include a victimist narrative perspective, mythologization of events and figures, inventing names that historically did not exist, silencing and misrepresenting historical facts and alternative approaches to the latter, Catalonization of historical events and figures, lies and fabrication of new historical facts that celebrate the glory and greatness of Catalonia as well as legitimize its distinctiveness and uniqueness, colonial rhetoric and comparisons to the Holocaust in describing Spanish-Catalan relations, linguistic persuasive devices in narratives and titles of history books, and the shaping of public space in a nationalist spirit. Finally, the author concludes that in the manipulated interpretation of Catalonia’s past, the historical (material) reality is in fact replaced by a psychological (narrative) reality, along with the presumed images/constructs of that history. Consequently, what one witnesses there is a form of seduction by means of a particular kind of soft power, whose prime victims are none other than the Catalans themselves.

• Details
• Contents