The protests in recent days in Barcelona over the imprisonment of rapper Pablo Hasél and the incidents after the demonstrations have reopened the debate on the ease with which this type of specific revolts periodically occur (against globalization, Iraq war, 15 -M, Can Vies, 1-0, Hasél) and the subsequent controversies about the violent drift by minority sectors.
And chance has made it coincide with the presentation of the book The bullanga of Barcelona. The city on fire , by the historians Jordi Roca and Núria Miquel, who has inaugurated the collection “Days that have made history” (Rosa dels Vents). A volume in which the authors explain that the events of Barcelona of July 25, 1835 and later days they turned the concept of “bullanga” into “a degrading expression of the revolutionary phenomenon due to its destructive, uncontrollable and popular dimension”.
From the uproar of the quintas of 1773 to the Tragic Week of 1909
Agustí Alcoberro, director of the collection, highlights the cyclical nature of the protests
In the prologue, Agustí Alcoberro, director of the collection, points out that “the people of Barcelona had already starred in some violent revolts in previous years, which started, at least, from the uproar of the quintas of 1773 or the protests of the pan de 1789 “. And he adds: “Put to the point, the bullangas were reproduced cyclically in the following years, and even had a last expression of great dimensions in July 1909 with the Tragic Week.” And others could be cited such as Els Fets de Maig from 1937. Even the episodes of recent years, although they are not comparable in terms of violence, because with very specific exceptions there have been no attacks against people.
Barcelona, the city that registers more barricade fights than any other in the world “
The quote of the Marxist leader Friedrich Engels is well known, who in 1873 wrote: “Barcelona, the largest industrial city in Spain, the city whose history registers more barricade fights than any other town in the world”. An idea later collected by Eric Hobsbawm: “Barcelona has been the European city that has experienced the most workers’ struggles and popular rebellions throughout the 19th and 20th centuries”.
Barcelona ‘on fire’. The smoke comes from the flames of barricades burned by radicals, in the center, on October 18, 2019 during the protests for the “judgment of the procés”
As the authors of the book point out, another word has also been associated with the revolt of 1835 patuleia (patulea in Castilian). It was the title of a painting by the painter Antoni Ferran, who wanted to represent the excited and euphoric crowd. The Catalan Encyclopaedia also links the word with the subsequent revolt of La Jamància, of 1845, and defines the patuleia as “squads of subproletariat that took advantage of the revolutionary situation to destroy monuments and rob or insult citizens.”
The term bullanga became popular as a revolutionary phenomenon with the autonomous participation of poorly organized popular collectives, and contributed to creating the image of a subversive Barcelona, although never with the destructive capacity of that initial revolt, at least until the Tragic Week and the civil war. .
A spontaneous demonstration that ended with the burning of convents
Some meek bulls in a bullfight in Barceloneta unleashed the protests
From that first racket there have also been a series of topics that Jordi Roca and Núria Miquel try to unravel in their book. And the first is the one that attributes the revolt to the protest over a bullfight with meek bulls. The song says it: “ Five bulls came out, / they were all bad, / this is the cause / of burning convents ”. It is true that the incidents began in the Plaza El Torín, in Barceloneta, when the spectators claimed the money for the tickets after seeing that several bulls had to be returned to the corrals for their meekness. That afternoon of July 25 there were two rival bullfighting gangs, one sympathizing with the Carlists and the other with the Liberals. And at the time from the fifth bull the public could jump into the arena without touching the bulls. It was forbidden to throw oranges, melon skins or other objects into the sand or to enter with sticks or hit the barriers, but there was direct participation from the public. Already the previous afternoon a group of angry spectators had jumped into the arena, had seized the bull by the horns and had stabbed it to death. And again the scene was repeated, but this time the crowd tied the animal by the horns and dragged it out of the square, while all kinds of damage were caused inside. Then they left the square and headed dragging the bull towards the Ramblas where other groups were added.
The cyclical repetition of riots in Barcelona has its own characteristics but is not exclusive to the city
Suddenly the objective was the convents, because in that context of war the religious were identified as a support to Carlism. And the burning of convents and churches began. The religious began to ring the bells for help but the army and the militia were overwhelmed and were slow to act. 16 religious died and another 700 had to take refuge that same night in the military barracks of Ciutadella, Montjuïc and Drassanes. There was also looting, which affected some private houses. One of the characteristic images of that day is an engraving of the burning city.
Engraving of Barcelona on fire, 1835
During the following days the protests continued. Such was the fear of the authorities that weapons were handed over to neighbors to prevent attacks and white spirit was confiscated from drugstores to prevent it from being used to set fire to buildings. The state of collective excitement increased on August 5 when it was learned that General Pere Nolasc de Bassa had decided to enter Barcelona with his soldiers. The general settled in the Palau Reial (in Pla de Palau) and there about six thousand people gathered to demand his resignation. Soon there was an assault that ended the general’s life. The first to shoot him was the liberal Josep Massanet, “known for his joy and hunchback.” The corpse was thrown from the balcony and the aroused mass dragged it down the streets with ropes and ended up burning it. That same afternoon a statue of King Ferdinand VII that was in front of the Palau Reial was also demolished. The statue aroused animosity and the fact that he pointed his finger at the grass around the pedestal was interpreted as a provocation, as if the king wanted the Catalans to eat the grass on his feet. There were also assaults on other buildings, especially some tax collection centers. And that same night there was the assault and destruction of Bonaplata, the first factory that worked with steam power. There was the idea that factories impoverished workers. They did not require qualified weavers, they produced cheaper fabrics than those of manual weavers and they needed mineral coal that arrived by sea and had to unload poorly paid sailors.
The burning of convents meant in practice the continuation of the confiscation process that would culminate in the Mendizábal decree since many of these convents were no longer rebuilt.
Victor Hugo as a reference
Moderate liberals discredited the protest by targeting a hunchback and gypsies
The revolts showed that “the triumph of the liberal regime in Catalonia would only be achieved with the support of the popular world.” But at the same time, the Liberals drew red lines by condemning the attacks on tax collection spaces and the burning of the El Vapor factory. The moderate liberals themselves took it upon themselves to discredit the noise. The gypsies were accused of the excesses and the hunchback Massanet of the death of Bassa. Not surprisingly, Victor Hugo had published his novel in 1830 Notre Dame de Paris , with the hunchback Quasimodo and the gypsies as protagonists.
The historian José Enrique Ruiz Domènec believes that this type of “riots” were already documented in the 12th century, against the increase in taxation, in the 13th, against King Pedro el Grande, or the Corpus de Sangre of 1640. and they repeat in Genoa, Ghent, Paris …. “Barcelona has a long tradition of riots, some violent, but it does not have exclusivity. We could talk about May 2 in Madrid, let alone Paris, give the storming of the Bastille and, if you like, until the recent movement of the yellow vests ”. Even so, Ruiz-Domènec recognizes some of its own characteristics in Barcelona with strong inequalities that favor anarchism, “of which it must be said that violence is not strictly part of its anarchist philosophy and that the libertarian movement also uses other ideological and union strategies ”. And another peculiarity is anticlericalism. “The Church – adds the historian – supports the upper classes and the urban proletariat, absorbed by the libertarian ideal, makes it responsible for their ills.”
‘La patuleia’, by the painter Antoni Ferran. Protest of a group of armed men, representatives of the lower classes, who are trying to contain an elegant bourgeois during the noise of 1835
Josep Maria Muñoz, also historian and director of the magazine The Advance , refers to Jaume Vicens Vives who already in his Noticia de Catalunya he speaks of the “persistence of the revolutionary act” in Catalonia and especially in Barcelona, from the rebellions of the Remensas to the civil war. And it refers to a double mistrust towards the State, which provokes the rejection both of a bourgeoisie that perceives it as centralist and oligarchic, and of the labor and anarchist movement, which denies its own existence.
Along the same lines, Alcoberro emphasizes that “the State is far away.” Remember also how in Romania all the revolts of the 19th and 20th centuries took place in Timisoara and not in the capital, in Bucharest. As a Catalan characteristic, it also adds an antimilitarism that caused the revolt of the fifths and the rejection of the incorporation of reservists that led to the Tragic Week.
The revolt of 1835 began in the Plaza El Torín de la Barceloneta and ended with fires in the convents
Finally, on the last “noise”, Ruiz-Domènec refers to the necessary existence of an adversary. “Now it is not the clergy, but the IBEX or the big brands, but we are on a confusing horizon. We have an obligation to understand it, to prevent it from becoming chronic. But it is not easy, for example, some young people can be occasionally violent but at the same time they are respectful with the curfew. And certain foreign antisystems are here because Barcelona is an attractive city and they sign up for a liturgical party. There is no deep doctrinal basis and there are many inconsistencies ”.
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