Sometimes I don’t understand why humanity is so eager to engage in fighting,
even though it has so many other things to do.
- Jaume Cabré, Confessions
That conversation took place in a cozy Pittsburgh kitchen, on a quiet street where writers from all over the world live, in the house that I am temporarily staying in the United States. My then-lover, a 28-year-old American student at Slippery Rock University’s creative writing department, literally swept me off my feet. Somewhere in the middle of a conversation about Spanish, which he had been studying for many years, and about Don Quixote’s place in the modern world, when I began to confess my love for Diego Velázquez to him, he suddenly showed me a portrait of Pope Innocent X on his phone and asked me with an overly serious expression:
“What exactly do I like about this painting?”
I must admit that at first, the question made me tense up. But our discussions about culture and art never led to conflict, despite how different our backgrounds and experiences are. I quickly replied that my love for Spain certainly did not begin with portraits of popes, even if they were painted by Velázquez.
Our heated conversation transported me from post-industrial Pittsburgh, with its wonderful array of universities and numerous venues for discussion, to temperamental Barcelona, where many important things happen right on the street.
And here I am, walking in a thin strapless dress to a poetry party in the medieval streets of the Gothic Quarter. The street was densely packed with loud, bright bars and restaurants, their doors always open, happy people slowly flowing out of them like thin streams into a large river. And this stream mixed us together and carried us all further into the city that breathed freedom, that embraced and caressed us. Don’t think I’ve lost my mind: the city spoke to me, and I heard and understood it.
I was working as a journalist in Ukraine at the time and had to write several articles and interviews for national publications, so I walked through an area closed to tourists, where drugs were sold and cheap prostitution took place. Do not repeat this without the accompaniment of local residents and without a research necessity. I listened to an incredibly beautiful morning mass at the Sagrada Familia: in Catalan, Spanish, French, German, Italian, English, and Portuguese. I blended in with the crowd at the strikes. I visited the birthplace of Salvador Dali — the Catalan town of Figueres — and returned several times to Horta Labyrinth Park to get lost again and again in its hedge mazes and search for the Exit.
Catalonia triumphant
shall again be rich and bountiful.
Drive away these people,
Who are so conceited and so contemptuous.
(First verse of the Catalan anthem “The Reapers”)
The anthem of Catalonia originates from a folk song. It is known that the song was born during the Catalan uprising against Spain in 1639-1640. The war of the reapers of the seventeenth century reached the Pyrenean world. I flew to the city at the end of September 2017 and almost immediately realized that the referendum on breaking the embrace between Catalonia and Madrid would take place. As a Ukrainian, it was very difficult for me to discuss its format and legitimacy after the Russian annexation of Crimea and the war that had been going on in Donbas for over three years. But the mood of Spanish citizens did not scare me because I refused to believe in the trend of such high-profile European “divorces.”
Now is the time, reapers.
Now is the time to stand alert.
For when another June comes,
Let us sharpen well our tools.
(Second verse from the Catalan anthem “The Reapers”)
The days of Franco are long gone. Barcelona is boldly transforming large markets into museums and creating schools in places of mass shootings and destruction. The city is working with memory carefully and in a modern way. Above the mass grave of Catalans who died in the war with Philip V, an eternal flame burns, never going out.
Corruption, corruption, corruption is all you hear from all sides. Extortion and underfunding of the regions have stretched the patience of citizens to the breaking point. Every evening at exactly 10 p.m., Barcelona bangs on pots and pans for 10 minutes. People bang on pots and pans with all their might while sitting in their kitchens, invisibly generating a wave of protest.
“Viva, Spain!” they shouted in response.
“Visca Catalunya libre!” they shouted back, and the pot-banging God covered the amazingly beautiful space with a lid.
A young man steps out onto the lace-like dark blue balcony. He has black, slightly wavy hair and a naked torso, shining with perfect form under the September Catalan sun. A cigarette is casually clamped between his teeth, emitting smoke the color of the sky. He attaches the flag of Catalonia with a white star on a blue triangle to the balcony, and droplets of his salty sweat may well be dripping onto this flag. The Barceloneta area has high humidity, and laundry takes two days to dry in September. You never know when and how this drying of laundry on clotheslines will end. Is everything okay with their rope industry? It is unknown.
“Catalans want money, nothing else interests them,” say the emigrants I manage to talk to, who are quietly waiting for economic surprises from the nationalist sentiments in the country. Who doesn’t want money, I ask you? Who wants anything other than money, if we dig deeper into the historical causes and consequences with a trench tool, what will we see there? Perhaps, in addition to money and the struggle for power, the following will shine through: the national idea, the right to self-identification and language, the Catalan language. Jaume Cabré’s language did have financial support in modern history, up to a certain point.
For 23 years, the former Convergence and Union bloc, led by Jordi Pujol, was on good terms with Madrid, and its supporters and bankers financed the revival of the Catalan language and culture through education and the media. The situation changed dramatically in 2010. A crisis ensued, and the Generalitat, now headed by a new leader, pursued a policy of severe cuts in all areas of the social sector. Following these events, the Spanish Constitutional Court revoked some of the autonomy’s rights, and the beacon of Catalan secession burned ever brighter in the Mediterranean mist.
On September 11, 2012, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Barcelona on Catalonia’s National Day (La Diada). They demanded independence. And a few years later, the moment came when the slogan “Why feed Madrid?” was heard.
Strike with your sickle!
Strike with your sickle, defenders of the land!
Strike with your sickle!
(Refrain of the Catalan anthem “The Reapers”)
On October 1, 2017, the day of the referendum, Barcelona is literally occupied by tourists, and I am one of them. It is fabulously beautiful here, it smells of legends, of the works of Picasso and Dali, although the last one is not present enough for me. Near the Sagrada Familia, representatives of different races trample on ant trails. Looking at Gaudí’s legacy, even those with heart conditions find their rhythm returning to normal, their movements becoming smooth, their consciousness pacified. I wander through the master’s cathedral as if under anesthesia. The construction of the most beautiful building in the world continues today. Pablo Picasso is attributed with the saying, “Gaudi and the Sagrada Familia can go to hell!” The self-obsessed artist would be stunned to learn that in 2025, the Vatican began a process that could lead to Catalan architect Antonio Gaudí being declared a saint — precisely for his Temple of the Holy Family.
People eager to vote have been arriving at polling stations since nightfall. I am receiving photos from polling stations where everything is quiet, with no movement and no casualties. There are polling stations where there are simply no police officers. Security forces are unevenly distributed across the voting map. Clashes are breaking out in isolated areas. Mini-tractors are also in action, some of them blocking the police’s passage to the polling station.
May the enemy tremble,
upon seeing our symbol.
Just as we cut golden ears of wheat,
when the time calls we cut off chains.
(Last verse of the Catalan anthem “The Reapers”)
On the eve of the referendum, the city held a correfoc, or “fire-run.” Barcelonans dressed in costumes of dragons and devils, similar in color to Diego Velázquez’s portrait of Pope Innocent X, lit firecrackers to the sound of loud drums, seduced, went wild, and sinned as best they could. The fire runs ended, as they should, with “Death.” I can’t explain why, but I rushed towards it. It was strange and even reckless to climb under the festival fireworks, but I was still fearless then, because the merciless darkness would only begin for me in five years, when I would fully experience fear and despair when in 2022 my home, my Ukraine, would be engulfed by a great war and the Russian army would begin bombing peaceful Ukrainian cities and villages. And no “spells” or pleas would save people from violent death. But then, at the festival in Barcelona, she looked at me silently from under her mask, and I sent Death, dressed in costume, an imaginary and naive message:
“Eat some ham, drink some wine, and go home, please.”
Until the end of voting in the 2017 Barcelona Referendum, there were mass clashes, but the news was still good: there were no casualties.
It was impossible not to recognize then that events were unfolding in the world just as in the novel by Catalan writer Jaume Cabré, Confessions, where the life story of the novel’s protagonist is by no means limited to the few decades of his actual existence. The writer, a master of complex composition and undoubtedly a lyricist, confuses the reader, and his narrative becomes clear not because of indulgence. Is this a story about evil? Probably yes. Is this a story about the regularity and interconnectedness of things and people in the world? About memory loss? Until the very end, Cabre keeps the reader guessing, never letting them rest. And while history itself was also unable to sleep, Barcelona played Las Palmas 3:0 in a stadium without a single spectator, but in reality, the eyes and ears of millions were glued to them. Right on schedule at 10 p.m., the clanging of pots and pans covered the city, and ahead of us lay a brutal, non-festive, long European night.
Jaume Cabré is a Catalan linguist, writer, and screenwriter. He is the co-founder of the literary society Oflia Dracs, whose goal was to promote reading in Catalan and publish books written in that language. He is the recipient of numerous literary awards.
Cabré’s career as a writer began with short stories collected in two volumes, published in 1974 and 1977. Today, the author’s bibliography includes a dozen novels, half a dozen collections of short prose, essays, screenplays, several children’s books, and even a play. His works have been translated into many languages and have found admirers all over the world.
Cabré writes about power, people in the face of that power, creativity, and Catalonia. The author’s most outstanding work is considered to be Jo confesso/Confessions. The novel sold half a million copies.
