Diada de Catalunya

   This is the name given to the Catalan national day, which marks not a joyous event but the beginning of one of the blackest periods in Catalan history. Following Barcelona's surrender to French and Spanish troops on 11 September 1714, Philip V abolished all Catalan political institutions, and imposed Castilian laws, absolutism and centralism. During the twentieth century, the Diada has become a symbol of Catalanism and of defiant resistance to the Spanish state. The first attempt during the Franco era to celebrate the national day came in Barcelona in 1964. In 1977, nearly two years after the death of Franco, over a million people joined a peaceful street demonstration in Barcelona to demand the restoration of Catalan autonomy.

   See also: history; regional nationalism; regionalism

   DAVID GEORGE