CATALONIA
This is a region of Catalonia called Penedès. In the northeast of the region, you will find Sant Sadurní d’Anoia, our hometown since 2014. Penedès is known for its wine (and nowadays, Cava) since ancestral times. It’s a wonderful landscape, southwest of the capital of the country, Barcelona. Behind the fields of grape, you can see Montserrat a singular mountain and the home of the Moreneta (a Christian virgin and the patroness of Catalonia).
Catalonia and their civilians has more than 1000 years of existence. Not easy since we are between two strong nation states: France and Spain (an state of nations dominated politically speaking by the Castilian nation). There are many historical occasions where we did not success in our dream of being independent, after being conquered. The two nearest examples in time are in September 1714 when Barcelona capitulate against the Castilian military invasion (under the government of the Spanish/Castilian Borbon dinasty (the father to the power of n of the current Spanish king: Felipe VI) and in 2017 when we celebrate a Referendum (and we wan) but all Catalan government should either go to the exile or it was sent to jail. Of course, during the period 1936 to 1939 we were part of the Spanish Civil War and we also lost since we were in the Republican side of the conflict. In particular, our president Lluís Companys i Jover was arrested by the Nazis in collaboration with the Spanish authorities and sentenced to death (Castell de Montjuïc, Barcelona, 15 October 1940). He is the only president of a democratic parliament executed in Europe. Still the government of Spain did not find the time to apologize.
Anyway, I am happy to be Catalan (it is not neither my fault nor a prize from my effort, its a result of chance). We share our culture and language with other regions of the world (País Valencià, Catalunya Nord, Alguer, Andorra…), which at some point of the past were part of our Nation. Catalan language is the cornerstone of what we are. Nowadays, due to the pressure of a global world we are defending everyday its recognition (even inside Europe with no help – to be nice – from the state we belong to). This is the speech of Pau Casals in the United Nations, which I think explain very well our dreams since ever.
I am a Catalan. Today a providence of Spain. But, what has been Catalonia? Catalonia has been the greatest nation of the world. I will tell you why. Catalonia has had the first Parliament much before England. Catalonia had the beginning of the United Nations. All the authorities of Catalonia at the XI century met in a city of France (at that time Catalonia), to speak about piece. At the XI century!! Piece in the world and against, against against the war, the inhumanity of the war. This was Catalonia. I am so, so happy to be here with you… (Pau Casals, United Nations, 1971)
Every year since 1981, on September 7-8, we celebrate the Festa de la Fil·loxera. This is the major festivity of Sant Sadurní d’Anoia, one among the many traditional festivities of Catalonia, featuring dancing, fireworks, and correfocs. The festivity commemorate the arriving of the Dactylosphaera vitifoliae (fil·loxera), a tiny but enormously prolific insect that during the second half of the nineteen century devastated the vineyards across Europe (1879 to the Penedès). The performance explains how the people (the farmers) fighting against the plague and finally overcome the fatality.