Francesc Macià: Grandfather of the Catalan People

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Francesc Macià i Llussà was the first President of the Generalitat de Catalunya after the establishment of the Second Spanish Republic in 1931. He was also one of the most beloved men in the history of Catalan politics, and was affectionately referred to as l'Avi, the “grandfather,” of Catalunya. His lifelong goal was to further the economic, social and political independence of the region, which he briefly declared an independent state; he was instrumental in cementing Catalunya’s status as an autonomous community. 

Early Life

Macià was born in the town of Vilanova i la Geltrú during the Industrial Revolution in 1859; he was one of six children. His family was originally from the town of Les Borges Blanques in the province of Lleida; they made their money trading in olive oil and wine. After the death of his father when he was 16, young Francesc joined the Military Academy of Guadalajara, graduating in 1879 as a lieutenant. He joined the Engineer Corps of the Spanish Army as a specialist in bridge construction. He spent time in Madrid, Barcelona and Sevilla, eventually rising to the rank of lieutenant-colonel in his capacity as Commander of the Engineers. He served all of his time in Spain; he didn’t get stationed overseas or participate in any of the Spanish colonial wars.

He was transferred to Lleida in 1887, which is where he met his wife: the wealthy heiress to a family of landowners, Eugènia Lamarca. They would have three children. 

In 1893, he set up a civil engineering company with a partner; the company, called Batlle, Macià, i Cia, registered and obtained the patent for reinforced concrete in Spain. This was a revolutionary building material at the time, and the company designed and constructed approximately forty projects, including water tanks and sewer systems. These projects may not sound glamorous, but they commanded solid fees. 

However, in spite of his commercial success, his focus was mainly on his military career, and Macià transferred the company to the architect Claudi Duran i Ventosa in 1899. Macià continued to take on a small number of private commissions as an engineer, many of these through his father-in-law, Agapit Lamarca, who was a noted architect, politician and businessman. 

The financial backing and numerous social and political contacts of his in-laws, as well as Macià’s own contacts forged while rising within the ranks within the Army, would be a useful source of support when he switched his focus to politics. 

Getting into Politics

In the early 1900s, Macià reached a crossroads in his military career which would lead to the start of his work as a political organizer. He publicly spoke out against the Army’s 1905 attack on the offices of a satirical Catalan magazine called Cu-Cut!, as well as another publication, La Veu de Catalunya. These acts of violence were retaliation for anti-government satire published in Cu-Cut!. In response, the Spanish government created a 1906 directive called the Law of Jurisdictions, which made certain acts crimes against the military and the government.

An assortment of political groups responded by coming together to form the Solidaritat Catalana (Catalan Solidarity) political party, with which Macià was heavily involved. His vision of the political state of the country as well as of the politicians in power at the time had also been markedly influenced by the events commonly referred to as the overwhelmingly negative outcome of the Spanish-American Conflict of 1898. Macià blamed the old guard politicians for the painful defeat, and resented that they shifted the blame onto the Army to deflect blame away from themselves. 

The Army did not approve of its members forming a part of regionalist movements or parties, interpreting their very existence as an attempt to divide the country. Macià was informed he would be transferred to a town in Lleida and promoted to the rank of colonel; aware that this was a tactic to distance him from his political involvements, Macià declined the promotion and resigned his military career.

In 1907, Macià ran on the Solidaritat Catalana ticket for the districts of Barcelona and his family’s home district, Les Borges Blanques. He won in both districts, and thus chose to represent Borges Blanques, renouncing the Barcelona position. He was reelected as deputy in Borges Blanques six times between 1914 and 1923. From his position within the Spanish Congress, he initially was more of a centrist Catalan regionalist, but as the years passed, he evolved into a left-leaning advocate of full independence for the region. In Macià’s mind, a strong Catalunya was the antidote to the fraught Spanish political system at the end of the 19th century. 

Although his alliance to the various leftist parties would shift with the myriad of conflicts and upheavals brought about by the internal politics and changing ideologies within those parties, his push towards Catalan autonomy only grew stronger the more adversity he faced.

Becoming an Independentist Leader 

In 1916 he was sent to France, hired as a foreign correspondent by the liberal Barcelona-based newspaper La Publicidad. His experiences there served to cement his beliefs, and helped him to form the opinion that the support of workers’ unions would be essential to the potential success of Catalan independence. 

When he returned in 1917, he began publicly advocating for an independent state. He went back France for a short time in 1917 to avoid being arrested for his pro-Leftist activities. He returned when the immediate danger seemed to have passed, and was later re-elected to Parliament in 1918. 

In 1919, in response to flagging commitment from some of his allies, combined with the nationalist initiative of the Lliga Regionalista (Regionalist League)—which was aimed at uniting the Spanish regions—he founded the Federació Democràtica Nacionalista (Nationalist Democratic Federation). This party pushed for Catalan self-government, either through a federal or co-federal solution, and tried to appeal to the Catalan bourgeoisie and working classes. 

However, when Macià’s official proposal for an independent Catalan state was not accepted, he began to distance himself from the party. His allegiance wasn’t necessarily to any one political entity, but to the overarching concept of independence. As a result, in 1922, Macià founded the firmly independentist party Estat Català (Catalan State), using the left-wing weekly newspaper La Tralla as a tool to help spread his ideas to the masses.

Estat Català also formed relationships with sympathetic separatist organizations in the Americas, the first of which was created in Havana, Cuba, in 1922. (Today, the party continues to support separatist movements around the world, including in the Basque Country and Scotland.)

Simultaneously, he continued to try to push the idea of a united Catalan front at home, which resulted in his support of the Federation of Leftists of Catalunya in 1923, which was unsuccessful. As a result, he supported the Acció Catalana (Catalan Action) party in the spring elections of 1923. However, in that same year he was forced to to flee with his family to Perpignan, after the dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera’s coup d’etat; they later moved to Bois-Colombes, near Paris. 

From Exile to President of the Generalitat

While in exile, Macià continued to search for support for his cause anywhere he could. He reached out to the anarchic CNT trade union; to Basque nationalists, Irish groups, and groups in the Philippines in effort to form a League of Oppressed Nations, as well as to the Communist Party of Spain. This last alliance led him to participate in the formation of the pro-communist Revolutionary Committee of Paris, and even to take a trip to Moscow in 1925 to ask for financial support from the Communist International Party. 

This trip was ultimately a failure. The disappointment that Macià experienced in Moscow combined with the failed 1926 Sanjuanada anti-government plot convinced him that force, rather than diplomacy, was more likely to carve a path for change.

From Bois-Colombes and later from Prats de Molló, he attempted to instigate an insurrection three years later. Macià used family assets and sought financing from Catalan nationalists living overseas in the Americas, as well as potential investors who were closer to home, with the aim of ousting Primo de Rivera from power. Macià and his associates hired an estimated 50 to 100 Italian mercenaries that had previously fought in the French Foreign Legion during WWI and were living in exile in France. 

However, the French authorities found out about the Prats de Molló plan partially thanks to the help of a double agent, Ricciotti Garibaldi Jr.—the grandson of one of the men famously responsible for the unification of Italy, Giuseppe Garibaldi. Garibaldi Jr. pretended to be an anti-fascist fighter, but was in fact working for the fascist police. The French police were warned, and the plot’s participants arrested. 

Macià’s trial in Perpignan was covered in newspapers around the world, which helped propel him to fame as one of the leaders of the Catalan cause; his statement in defense of himself and his co-conspirators was essentially a call for Catalan independence and an end to the dictatorship. Thanks to his efficient defense attorney, Henri Torrès, Macià was convicted to a relatively light sentence of two months in Paris’ La Santé prison, and a fine of 100 francs. 

After the trial, in 1927, Macià was expelled from France and went to Belgium, Brussels being the de-facto gathering place for Spanish exiles at that time. There, in just a few short months, he founded the Casal Català de Brusseles (“Catalan House of Brussels”) along with a group of like-minded supporters. In 1928, he left for Uruguay, where he continued to advocate for Catalan independence. He traveled through Argentina, and later went to Havana, Cuba, to advocate tirelessly for his cause. 

That same year in Havana, Macià was a participant in the Constituent Assembly of Catalan Separatism that founded the Partit Separatista Revolucionari de Catalunya (PSRC) and drafted the Provisional Constitution of the Catalan Republic. He became increasingly popular at home as news of his exploits abroad continued to be covered by the press. In 1930, he returned home when the dictatorship of General Primo de Rivera fell—even though the amnesty issued by the Spanish State for all conspirators in the Prats de Molló plot conspicuously left his name off the list of those pardoned. He was exiled again for a few months before finally returning home for good.

Macià continued to in an influential part of Catalan politics under the “soft dictatorship” of Primo de Rivera’s successor, General Dámaso Berenguer Fusté. Estat Català along with other anti-monarchy forces participated in the Pact of Sant Sebastián in 1930, which helped to pave the way to the transition to the Second Spanish Republic.

In March of 1931, the Estat Català joined forces with the L’Opinió Grup and the Catalan Republican Party to form the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (the “Republican Left of Catalunya”). Even though many of his old allies were gone, the appeal of Francesc Macià’s reputation as a tireless fighter against the dictatorship was undeniable, and he became the leader of this newly formed party. Soon after, the national elections gave the local majority to the Republican Left of Catalunya, and resulted in the exile of King Alfonso XIII. 

Spanish Republic, Yes—Catalan Republic, Not Quite

The Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed in Madrid on April 14th, 1931. Only hours later, Francesc Macià publicly proclaimed the Catalan Republic from the balcony of the City Hall of Barcelona in Plaça Sant Jaume. His expectation was that other regions of Spain would follow suit, declaring themselves to be independent and autonomous, and the result would be some kind of Iberian Confederation of independent states. However, this prediction did not come true, and Macià and his supporters were forced to come to an agreement with the Spanish State. 

Even in semi-defeat, however, Macià continued to do what he could to push the issue of Catalan self-governance. He formed a coalition with the Republican Left and the Socialist Union of Catalunya, preparing the Statue of Autonomy of Catalunya in 1932. He chaired the delegation that presented this declaration to the then-President of the Spanish Republic, Niceto Alcalá- Zamora.

Macià was also chosen to be acting President of Catalunya in the negotiations with the Spanish government, which sent three ministers to negotiate with the Catalan leaders. The short-lived Catalan Republic was became the Generalitat de Catalunya, an autonomous community under the rule of the Spanish State. Macià was tasked with revising and editing the Statute of Autonomy, which after much back and forth, was finally approved by the Spanish Congress on the 9th of September, 1932. The first Catalan parliamentary elections took place two months later, where Macià retained his post by an overwhelming majority.

He held the position of President of the Generalitat until his death the following year, on Christmas Day in 1933, while still in office. As his passing was unexpected—the result of complications from appendicitis—it rocked the Catalan capital and resulted in a massive public outpouring of grief. Over a million people turned out for his funeral. 

Francesc Macià is buried in la Plaça de la Fe in Montjuïc Cemetary. He was succeeded as President of the Generalitat by another famous Catalan political figure, Lluís Companys. Five years after Macià’s death, the Franco regime abolished Catalan autonomy in 1938; it wouldn’t get it back until 1979.

Local Legacy

There are homages to Macià all over Catalunya, including the Plaça de Francesc Macià in Barcelona. Located off of Avinguda Diagonal at the intersection of the districts of Eixample, Les Corts and Sarriá-Sant Gervasi, it’s located at one of the main entry and exit points of the city. In the square is a pond shaped like the island of Menorca, which is where Nicolau Maria Rubió i Tudurí—the architect who designed it—was born. Rubió was tasked with the project during the 1930s; when first completed, it was named for Niceto Alcalá -Zamora, in honor of the president of the Second Spanish Republic. 

In the ensuing decades, the square has had several names, with the renaming in honor of Francesc Macià occurring in 1979. The square also features a statue depicting a young woman, created by artist Manuel Benedicto titled Juventut (“Youth,” 1953).

In 1991, a monument to Macià by the sculptor Josep Maria Subirachs—whose work also appears on the “Passion” façade of the Sagrada Familia—was also erected in Plaça de Catalunya. This wasn’t the first time that the sculpture Subirachs had been tapped to pay homage to Macià; in 1983, he was commissioned to create an obelisk that was installed in Macià’s place of birth, Vilanova i la Geltrú.

And in 2011, the Espai Macià, a space dedicated to preserving the man’s personal and political legacy, was inaugurated in Les Borges Blanques. Thanks to these homages, Catalunya is unlikely to forget "l'Avi."