Bakhtiarova, Empires of The Habanera, 2002

EMPIRES OF THE HABANERA:
CUBA IN THE CULTURAL IMAGINARY OF CATALONIA
by
Galina Bakhtiarova
A Dissertation Presented to the

FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements of the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(SPANISH)
August 2002
Copyright 2002
Galina Bakhtiarova
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This dissertation is made possible in part through generous grants from
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ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
List of Figures
iii
Abstract
iv
Introduction:
Chapter I :
Catalonia and Cuba: Approaches to a Historical Discourse
30
Chapter II:
Transculturations of the Habanera I: Transatlantic Journeys
67
Chapter III:
Transculturations of the Habanera II: Inventions of Catalonia
145
Chapter IV:
The Habanera in Catalan Film: Desires of an Empire
220
Chapter V:
The Habanera in Catalan Fiction: An Empires Residues
253
Conclusion
287
Bibliography
292
LIST OF FIGURES
Fig. 1. Gran Casino de Barcelona. Advertisement.
Fig. 2. Book cover of Album de habaneras.
135
Fig. 3. Josep Maria Prim, La cana dulce.
171
Fig. 4. Josep Puig, Alla en La Habana.
176
Fig. 5. The giants El Pigat and La Lucia, Vilassar de Mar.
179
iv
ABSTRACT
EMPIRES OF THE HABANERA: CUBA IN THE CULTURAL IMAGINARY OF
CATALONIA
Drawing on the central position that popular songs occupy in the cultural
make-up of nations as imagined communities, this dissertation explores the habanera
as an ambivalent cultural sign. Originated as a dance in the early nineteenth century
and later transformed into a genre of popular songs, the habanera is bom in the
process of transculturation that underlies the formation of Cuban culture and
nationhood. Virtually forgotten in Cuba, this genre returns to Spain and survives
in various regions with traditionally strong links to the old overseas empire.
Once seen as a manifestation of tropical exoticism, the habanera, at the turn
of the last century, is perceived by many as a trademark of Spanishness, as
European composers exploit it as a Spanish theme in their works. In Catalonia, at
the time of the renewed assertion of Catalan nationhood during the last years of the
Franco dictatorship and the transition to democracy, the habanera becomes a new
emblem of cultural self-fashioning comparable to the sardana, Catalonias traditional
dance. Originally sung in Spanish, the habanera starts to develop in Catalan and
adopts new subjects apart from the nostalgia for the lost tropical paradise associated
with Cuba. In the 1990s, film productions, such as Antoni Verdaguers Havanera
1820, and popular fictionAngeles Dalmaus Habanera and Manel Alonso i Catalas
En el mar de les Antillesunderscore the habanera as a viable sign of Catalan

identity.
The phenomenon of Catalan habanera, with its evolution from imperial desire
and nostalgia into national self-assertion through new songs created in the vernacular
language suggests that the convergence of culturesa process far from being simple-entails constant metamorphoses of cultural signs, indeed, transculturations. But
these do not stop with the formation of new nations and cultures, such as Cuba.
They continue into the postmodern world by traveling back to the old imperial
centers and having a boomerang effect on the ever shifting nature of cultural
imaginaries.
1
Introduction
A reader who opened the Barcelona newspaper La Vanguardia during the

summer weekends of the year 2000 could easily spot the following advertisement, in
oversized font, occupying an entire page (see fig. 1):
El teu avi va anar a Cuba.
Tu puedes ir mucho mas cerca.
Porque organizamos las noches marineras.
Todos los viemes y sabados, una cena bufet de pescado
y marisco, cantada de habaneras y para acabar la fiesta,
el tradicional Cremat. En el gran casino de Barcelona
disfrutar del mar es mucho mas facil, no hace falta que
vayas a Cuba. (La Vanguardia 4 Aug. 2000, 12)
One might ask to what meanings, exactly, does this hybridized bilingual sign
point. Why would the advertisers of the seamans nights at the Barcelona Gran
Casino evoke the memory of grandfathers who went to Cuba to appeal to the
public, mixing the two languages spoken in Barcelona in a Spanish language
newspaper? What has the singing of habaneras to do with the seamans nights and
with Cuba, and what is traditional cremat? If one addresses these questions to the
natives of Catalonia, the answers will inevitably and willingly mention grandfathers,
great uncles, or at least some other family members who, in a not far away past,
departed to Cuba in search for a better life and social advancement. That some of
them were drafted into the army, not being able to pay off the infamous three
hundred duros required to extricate oneself from the military service during the years
of the last colonial war lost by the Spanish empire, does in no way hamper the
mythical status of Cuba in the Catalan imaginary.
2
12 I \
VtfiRNES. 4 AGOSTO2fH)0
v a n g u a r d *\
bloch.es M a r i n e r as
El teu avi va anar a Cuba.
Tu puedes ir mucho
mas cerca
Porque organizam os fas noches m arineras; Todos
4ostVferbes y s5bados; una cena b ufet de pescado
-y m ariseo^ cantada-'de h a b a n e ra s y paravacabar :
ia fje sta f>el.tr.adiclon.al;eremat- En el GranvCasino:
de B arcelona d is fru ta r de! m ar e s m ucho m as
fficil, no h ace falta que vayas a Cuba.
ENTRADA
+ CENA CON
MARISCO
HABANERAS
C S EMATs
S.500
PTAS
(+IVA)
OC
G ran
CasinO
B A R C E L O N A
Fig. 1. Gran Casino de Barcelona. Advertisement. La Vanguardia. 4 Aug. 2000:

12.
The respondents will also most likely mention a playful error in the invitation
to the seamans nights at the Barcelona Casino. Not El teu avi va anar a Cuba,
but El meu avi va anar a Cuba (My Grandfather Went to Cuba), is the title and first
verse of a popular Catalan habanera, sung almost without exception at every cantada
3
of habaneras that takes place in Catalonia. Since its first presentation to the public in
1971, this habanera, with a verse exceptionally significant for Catalans, Visca
Catalunya! Visca el Catala!,1 has obtained the status of an emblem comparable
perhaps to the Catalan national anthem Els Segadors,2 or to the sardana, Catalan
national dance. One will also learn that cantada. literally singing, is usually
applied only to the singing of habaneras and not to any other musical genre. The
authors of the announcement in a Spanish language newspaper must have been
certain that the quotation in Catalan is recognizable for any person who lives in
Catalonia, or spends the summer there, when numerous cantadas take place in
Catalan cities and towns.
Habaneras, whose very name points to their connection with the Cuban
capital city, Havana, once called Spains beloved colony, are sung all over Spain.
Bom as a product of the transculturation that underlies the formation of Cuban
culture and nation, habaneras continue their almost two hundred year history into the
twenty-first century. The European country-dance arrives in the New World with
European immigrants, and in Cuba, it fuses with African rhythms and gives birth to a
1 Long live Catalonia! Long live Catalan!
2 Els Segadors or Cant dels Segadors (Song of the Reapers) initially
originated during the rising of the Catalan peasantry in 1640 headed by Pau Claris
against the expense of maintaining Spanish troops billeted in Catalonia and also,
indirectly, against feudal dues and privileges (Balcells 13). During the Renaixenca,
Manuel Mila i Fontanals transcribes some verses that existed in oral tradition, and
Francesc Alio composes music based on a folkloric song that already existed. The
actual text, adopted by Catalan parliament in 1993 for the national anthem, dates
back to 1899 and belongs to Emili Guanyavents, as stated on the Catalonias
Regional Government official website <http://www.gencat.es/simbols/chimne.htm>.
4
kind of song that returns to Spain and flourishes there for almost two centuries. At
the turn of the twentieth century, the habanera is perceived by many as a trademark
of Spanishness, as such European composers as Bizet, Ravel, and Lalo, among
others, exploit it in musical pieces with the Spanish theme. In fact, substituted by
other song genres in Cuba, primarily by the bolero, and virtually forgotten there in
the twentieth century, the habanera survives in the mother country, where one can
hear it in Alicante, the Basque Country, Cadiz, the Canary Islands, Castile,
Catalonia, and Murcia. Different regions of Spain claim to sing the habanera with
their own distinctive features. The Annual Habanera Choral Festival of Torrevieja,
Alicante, celebrated since 1954 attracts choirs from all over the world and is
broadcast nationwide. In the Basque Country habaneras are performed by traditional
otxotes, groups of eight men divided into four voices. In Totana, Murcia, they are
sung by female corales, a tradition dating back to the times of the massive packaging
of fruit for export in this rural area.
Catalan researchers of the habanera claim that, among other popular songs,
habaneras were traditionally sung in taverns in Costa Brava towns by masculine trios
without any musical accompaniment. In 1967, a group of enthusiasts of a small
Costa Brava town, Calella de Palafrugell, organizes the first public cantada outdoors
on the first Saturday of August, during the period of summer vacations traditional for
Spain. The organizers of this event are motivated by a desire to preserve traditional
forms of popular culture as they see them threatened by drastic changes brought
about by the boom of the tourist industry. The success of a summer-night singing of
nostalgic songs that evoke sailors and mulatto women left behind on the beaches of
the lavish tropical paradise exceeds all expectations. Groups of habanera singers
evolve all over Catalonia. Some facts make one think of an outstanding place that
this song genre occupies in Catalan popular culture. The now traditional Cantada
dhavaneres de Calella de Palafrugell that first took place in 1967, in recent years
attracts between thirty-five and forty thousand spectators to a town with a winter
population of three hundred dwellers. The Mostra de lhavanera catalana in Palamos
is another massive event that will be celebrated for the twenty-first time in 2002.
According to the Ernest Morato Foundation (Palafrugell), created by habanera
enthusiasts in order to recover and preserve the genre of the habanera as part of the
Catalan national heritage, there are about eighty habanera groups in Catalonia today,
which participate in more than three thousand cantadas that take place annually
tPrimer cataleg 100). At the time of the renewed assertion of Catalan identity in the
last years of the Franco regime and during the years of the transition to a democratic
state, the habanera, traditionally sung in Spanish, starts to develop in Catalan, and
acquires the status of a national emblem comparable to the sardana, the Catalan
national dance. The phenomenon of Catalan habanera, a cultural sign broadly
acknowledged at the end of the twentieth and into the twenty-first century as an
emblem of Catalan identity, offers a privileged space for reflecting on the
permutations of cultural signs that in different historical and sociological
circumstances serve the needs of constructing national and cultural identities.
6
Benedict Anderson in his model of nations as imagined communities
emphasizes the unique role that poetry, songs and especially national anthems, which
create a unique experience of unisonality, play in the realization of imagined
communities:
Singing the Marseillaise, Waltzing Matilda, and
Indonesia Raya provide occasions for unisonality, for
the echoed physical realization of the imagined
community. (So does listening to [and maybe silently
chiming in with] the recitation of ceremonial poetry,
such as sections of The Book of Common Prayer.)
How selfless this unisonance feels! If we are aware
that others are singing these songs precisely when and
as we are, we have no idea who they may be, or even
where, out of earshot, they are singing. Nothing
connects us all but imagined sound. (132-33)
Drawing on the unique position that popular songs may occupy in the cultural
imaginary of nations as imagined communities, I propose to explore the habanera as
a cultural sign in Catalonia, a nation within the Spanish state that presents an
exceptional example of a nationalism expressly based on the revival, in the
nineteenth century, of its vernacular language and other forms of culture related to it.
One might ask what connection is there between the popularity of songs with
the name evoking their exotic origin in Havana, divina perla de las Antillas (divine
pearl of the Antilles), and the construction of Catalan identity. For centuries,
Catalonia has been self-fashioning itself as a nation of hard-working, rational and
industrious laborers as opposed to the Castilian Other, with his black legend of
slavery, misuse and abuse of the colonized world. The discourse evolving around
the participation of Catalans in Spains colonial enterprise in Cuba, however, seems
7
to point to the profound impact that this participation leaves on the Catalan cultural
imaginary and challenges traditional identity construction. Exploration of this
discourse may help to understand better the representation of the complex
interrelationship between the colonized and the colonizer.
If asked about Cuba, the Catalans will probably point to luxurious mansions
facing the Mediterranean on the seaside promenades and main streets of Catalan
coastal towns. In Sitges, one may go on a tourist route to visit the houses of
Americanos, landmarks built by wealthy immigrants returning from Cuba. These
immigrants receive the name of americanos or indianos and are surrounded by a flair
of legends concerned with their wealth, houses, and women, sometimes of other
races and from other lands. Some of the houses built by americanos are converted
today into local museums with exhibits devoted to the maritime connection with the
Caribbean. As for cremat, one will be fascinated by the solemn process of the
preparation of this beverage, which evokes ancient pagan rituals of burning the evil.
Free treats of cremat are an integral part of virtually every cantada of habaneras
usually organized by municipal authorities. Cremat, Catalan for burnt, is a
beverage made of rum with lemon peel and a little bit of cinnamon. The ingredients
are put on fire and patiently burned to the point when the alcohol evaporates. To
extinguish the fire, the masters of ceremonies use coffee beans. Does this alchemy
and its ingredients remind one of an overseas connection? As one can imagine,
Catalan fields do not produce coffee beans nor cinnamon, while rum is a traditional
overseas import. If interested, one will easily learn that the founder of the famous
Rum Bacardi, Facund Bacardi Masso, a native of Sitges, founded his rum empire in
Cuba in the mid-nineteenth century. Indeed, he is one of those great grandfathers
who went to Cuba. And he is not the only one. The exodus of Catalans towards
Cuba took place over a prolonged period of time and left its impact not only on the
material culture of the region, in the form of the mansions already mentioned,
charitable foundations, monuments on the central squares of coastal towns, and street
names, but it also seems to have left a profound impact on the spiritual make-up of
the nation. A proof of it is the attention given to the contacts between Catalans and
Cuba by researchers, journalists, writers and filmmakers in recent decades. Since the
early 1970s, the last years of the Franco dictatorship, the so-called dictablanda,
characterized by a weakening of repression against Catalan language and culture, the
presence of Catalans in Cuba and Puerto Rico became the subject of studies, thesis,
and conferences. With the transition to a democratic Spain, the Generalitat de
Catalunya, Catalan regional government, sponsored five conferences, entitled
Jomades dEstudis Catalanos-Americans organized between 1985 and 1993. In view
of 1998, the year when Spain and Catalonia were rethinking the impact of the
Disaster, as the loss of the last colonies of the Spanish empire is known in Spains
historical discourse, various exhibits were successfully held at the museums of
Barcelona and other Catalan cities and towns.3
3 Catalunya i Ultramar: Poder i negoci a les colonies espanyoles (1750-1914),

Museu Maritim, Barcelona (1995); Americanos Indianos: arquitectura i
urbanisme al Garraf, Penedes i Tarragones (Baix Gaia), segles XVIII-XX,
Biblioteca-Museu Balaguer in Vilanova i la Geltru (1998); Escolta Espanya:
If one continues to ask questions, which I have actually done, about the
meaning of the sign Cuba for Catalans, one may hear a surprising yet shocking
answer that Cuba is the fifth province of Catalonia. What are my respondents
trying to say? Did they forget that Cuba obtained its independence from the Spanish,
empire more than a century ago? Did they forget that in the recent forty years Cuba
instigated, led and supported all kinds of national liberation movements in different,
sometimes distant regions of the world? What does Cuba have to do with Catalonia,
a nation within the Spanish state that for centuries has been consistently building and
vigorously claiming its nationhood in opposition to the larger state? What kind of
assumption is this? Is there any real basis for the claim of the fifth province of
Catalonia? Can one trace how this belief was bom and what its consequences are?
What lies behind repeated allusions to Catalan fortunes created overseas in the
autobiographical prose of Catalan-born writers, as Juan, Lufs and Jose Agustfn
Goytisolo? Interestingly, two novels published in 1999 share the same title
Habanera, and there is a TV miniseries entitled Havanera 1820.
Repeated references to the Catalan-Cuban heritage and issues related to Cuba
in Catalan non-fiction, narrative and film, which explore the relationship between the
nation that possesses a strong feeling of cultural identity directly connected to her
language, and the last colony of the Spanish empire, make one think of a discourse
nostalgically revolving around the memories of the colonial past. It is no secret that
Catalunya i la crisis del 98, Museu dHistoria de Catalunya (1998). The catalogues
of some of these exhibits had more than one edition.
10
Cuba occupies a specific place in the relationship between Spain and its former
colonies. Together with Puerto Rico and the Philippines, it remained formally united
to the colonizer much longer than other colonies. From the time of the sugar boom
of the early nineteenth century up to 1898, Cuba presented probably a unique
example of a colony much more dynamically developed than its colonizer, and
therefore exceptionally attractive for immigration. For more than a century and a
half, Cuba projected an image of economic and financial prosperity due to the
opportunities that it offered to business minded immigrants. Even after the years of
the last colonial wars, in which Spain lost thousands of her children to the obstinacy
of her leaders, willing to sacrifice people and common sense up to the last man and
the last peseta, immigration continued. Multiple human contacts between the
colony and the colonizer, repeated departures and returns of immigrants created a
discourse that represents not only the image of Cuba as a commercial paradise but
also as a nostalgically desired space of the past. In the cultural imaginary of Spain,
Cuba continues to produce the image of a voluptuous paradise, with its alluring
music, exotic palm-trees, fine beaches, and stereotypically sensual mulatto women.
Drawing on Svetlana Boyms multifaceted exploration of nostalgia, one may view
the representation of Cuba in the peninsular cultural imaginary as the island of
utopia where time has happily stopped, as on an antique clock (13).
It is true that the discourse about Cuba as a nostalgically desired space of the
past is not an exclusive prerogative of Catalonia. Immigrants from Galicia, Canary
Islands, the Basque Country, Cantabria and other regions of Spain, which
participated in the colonial expansion, contributed to the articulation of this

discourse.4 However, I am proposing to explore Catalan discourse related to Cuba
and its impact on the cultural imaginary of Catalonia. Why Catalonia? Raymond
Carr in the preface to his Spain: 1808 - 1975 apparently had to justify attention given
to Catalonia in his work: Thus, if the author has exaggerated the role of Catalonia,
this is partly because Catalan historians have examined their past with greater care
than the historians of some other regions (vii). Catalan historians have not only
examined their past with care, but also have consistently articulated the specifics of
4 It should be noted that other regions of massive emigration,Asturias,

Galicia, Cantabriahave contributed to the study of different aspects of immigration.
The Archivo de Indianos in Colombres has extensively published recently. See, for
example, Fernando Alos, Emigracion en el oriente de Asturias 1845-1860 v
genealogfas de indianos (Llanes: Oriente de Asturias, 1992). Covadonga Alarez
Quintana, Indianos v arquitectura en Asturias, 1870-1930 (Gijon: Colegio.de
Arquitectos, 1991). Pedro Gomez Gomez, De Asturias a America: Cuba, 18501930: la continuidad asturiana de Cuba (Colombres: Archivo de Indianos, 1996).
Eduardo Mencos, La gran aventura de los indianos (Barcelona: Lunwerg, 1998).
Marfa Cruz Morales Saro, Arquitectura de indianos en Asturias: exposition
organizada con motivo de la inauguration del Archivo de Indianos de Colombres
(Colombres: Principado de Asturias, 1987). Xose M. Nunez Seixas, Emigrantes.
caciques, indianos: o influxo sociopolftico da emigracion transoceanica en Galicia
(1900-1930) (Vigo: Xerais de Galicia, 1998). German Ojeda y Jose Luis San
Miguel, Campesinos, emigrantes, indianos: emigracion v economfa en Asturias,
1830-1930 (Salinas: Ayalga, 1985). Maite Paliza Monduate, Olozaga egoitza:
indianoen arkitekturaren adibidite bat Bizkaian: Casa Rosada edo Casa Encantada
Basagoiti Etorbidea, 20 (Getxo) (Bilbao: Aldundia, 1992). Manuel Pereda de
Reguera, Indianos de Cantabria (Santander: Diputacion Provincial, 1968). Francisco
Suarez Moreno, Indianos, arabes y emigrantes: apuntes para el estudio de los
movimientos migratorios en La Aldea (Gran Canaria: Ilustre Ayuntamiento de La
Aldea de San Nicolas, 1998).
12
Catalan identity linking them to the regions history.5 Yet this is not the only reason,
as we shall see.
Since the nineteenth century, Catalan history and identity are closely
connected. To better understand Catalonias consistent strive for its identity and her
relationship with the hosting Spanish state one should recall some major milestones
in the history of this maritime community that once dominated the Western
Mediterranean.6 The origins of Catalonia can be traced back to the ninth century
when, in 878, Count Wilfred the Hairy unites under his rule the earldoms of
Barcelona, Girona, Osona, Urgell and Cerdanya. In the middle of the eleventh
century, Ramon Berenguer I (1035-76) creates the Catalan feudal state, which, as
Balcells points out, together with England constitute the most highly developed
examples in Europe of the institutionalization of the structure of feudal vassalage
(4)7
5 Vicens Vivess Noticia de Catalunya first published in 1954 is a

paradigmatic example.
6 The historical account is based on the following sources: Albert Balcells,
Catalan Nationalism (New York, 1996); John Hargreaves, Freedom for Catalonia?
Catalan Nationalism, Spanish Identity and the Barcelona Olympic Games
(Cambridge, 2000); Jaime Vicens Vives, Moments crucials de la historia de
Catalunya (Barcelona, 1962); Noticia de Catalufia (Barcelona, 1980); Pierre Vilar,
Cataluna en la Espafia Modema (Oxford, 1977).
7 Balcells further compares Catalonia of the Middle Ages with England as
two most advanced models of a monarchy limited by the legislative power of a
parliament representing the nobility, the clergy and the burghers (4).
Catalan historiography distinguishes the development of pactismo, a

political system based on negotiation, and the formation of the Catalan parliament,
known as the Corts, in the thirteenth century, as the most important achievements of
Catalan social development of the epoch. The thirteenth century is also the time of a
significant Catalan expansion in the Mediterranean. James I (1213-76), later by
merit called the Conqueror, conquers the island of Majorca and forces the Muslims
out, thus extending Catalan rule to the Balearic Islands. Later, the joint venture of
Catalonia and Aragon brings Valencia to the Crown of Aragon as a new self-ruled
kingdom. The successor of James I, Peter the Great of Catalonia, invades Sicily in
1282. Sicily will continue to be ruled as an independent but allied kingdom by his
successors and will be annexed to the Crown of Aragon later, in 1397. The Catalan
expansion through the Mediterranean culminated in the conquest of Sardinia, which
began in 1323. Catalan dominion in the Western Mediterranean is tightly linked
with its commercial expansion. Catalan merchants develop their trade through their
representatives in the Mediterranean ports, the phenomenon frequently referred to as
Catalan commercial diaspora. The Catalans developed a network of consuls in the
Mediterranean ports who served as representatives of the Catalan merchants before
the local authorities and looked after their compatriots interests. The Maritime
Consulate in Barcelona not only coordinated the activities of the consuls, but also
Hargreaves offers a concise definition of pactismo: a notion that rules are

made by free agents entering into contracts of their own accord and that social life is
based upon bargaining and negotiation between them, and not upon unilateral
violence and imposition (20).
14
served as a corporation of merchants, a trade exchange and a court of justice. The

Llihre del Consolat de Mar (Book of the Maritime Consulate) compiled the
sentences of the Consulate and later constituted a foundation for the international
mercantile law (Balcells 7).
Catalan commercial and maritime prosperity led to the flourishing of its
language and literature created in Catalan that gradually replaces Latin and
Provencal as the language of culture and of the court. James the Conqueror imposed
the use of Catalan in the royal chancellery, and ordered the chronicle of his reign to
be written in Catalan (Balcells 8). At the end of the thirteenth century, the
masterpieces of Ramon Llull (c.1233-1315), a Majorcan poet and thinker of
universal dimension, are written in Catalan. Catalan literature will reach its peak in
Valencia in the fifteenth century with the novel Tirant lo Blanc (1490) by Joan
Martorell, included by Cervantes into the library of his ingenious hidalgo (129; pt. 1,
ch. 6).
Catalan Mediterranean expansion and prosperity last until the first half of the
fourteenth century when Catalonia would be fragmented, control over Majorca and
Sicily would be lost and, in the middle of the fourteenth century, the region would be
mortally struck by the plague that led to an unprecedented decrease of the population
and its overall debilitation. From a flourishing maritime city of 50,000 inhabitants in
1340, Barcelona would become a city of 20,000 by 1477. At the end of the fifteenth
century the population of Catalonia was half of what it had been one hundred and
fifty years earlier (Balsells 10). A civil war followed that divided the people and
15
devastated the country (1458-62 and 1472-79). The consequences were economic
stagnation and loss of cultural vitality, which affected the whole population.
However, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Catalonia retained its own
independent institutions, currency, customs, and tax system. Catalan continued to be
the official language. In 1640, in the middle of the Thirty Years War, the Catalan
peasantry revolts against the expenses of maintaining Spanish troops. The revolt is
suppressed and Catalonia remains attached to the Spanish Crown, though Portugal
gains its independence at the same time.
According to Pierre Vilars theory of peripheral recuperation, the Catalan
economy starts to recover at the end of the seventeenth century. One of the
significant consequences and indexes of the recuperation is the creation, in 1680, of
the Real Companfa de Barcelona and the beginnings of Catalan trade with the
Americas, initially through Catalan representatives in Seville and Cadiz that laid a
foundation for the development of an overseas commercial diaspora later in the
nineteenth century. War was intermittent throughout the period. Catalonia
participates in the War of the Spanish Succession, is defeated and, on September 11,
1714, Barcelona is compelled to surrender to the troops of Philip V.9 As the result
of this defeat, all Catalan political institutions were abolished, Castilian laws were
imposed, and the country was overburdened with taxation. The Catalan language is
abolished from public use. Spanish, however, was not generally employed in
9 In the twentieth century the date of September 11 would be chosen as the

Catalan national day.
16
primary education and notary documents until the nineteenth century (Balcells 17).
Yet the total loss of the remnants of autonomy has important repercussions for the
economic revival of Catalonia. New markets, including interior markets in Spain
and overseas in the Caribbean start opening for Catalan merchants and sailors. The
raising of Andalusia privileges at the end of the eighteenth century and the growth of
small Catalan maritime enterprises lead to an active participation of Catalans in
Spains colonial expansion throughout the nineteenth century. The success of
Catalan trade in the Caribbean lies beneath the foundation of Catalan industrial
capital, as the historians of the school of economic history created by Jaime Vicens
Vives show in the twentieth century. Catalan trade and immigration to the
Caribbean leave its profound impact both on the economy and cultural imaginary of
the nation.
Why am I exploring the cultural imaginary of Catalonia? In Culture and
Imperialism. Edward Said points out that culture does not only embrace all those
practices, like the arts of description, communication, and representation, that have
relative autonomy from the economic, social, and political realms and that often exist
in aesthetic forms, one of whose principal aims is pleasure, but also is a concept
that includes a refining and elevating element, each societys reservoir of the best
that has been known and thought, as Matthew Arnold put it in the 1860s (xii-xiii).
In this second meaning, as Said points out, culture can be associated with a
differential fact, something that differentiates us from them, almost always with
some degree of xenophobia. Culture in this sense is a source of identity, and a rather
17
combative one at that, as we see in recent returns to culture and tradition (xiii).
This second meaning of culture can be associated with a nation or a state, sometimes
aggressively. Apparently, Said refers to the rising of certain fundamentalist
movements in recent postcolonial history. In this respect, Catalonia, whose strive for
a national identity is based on language and culture, offers a privileged space for
exploration. My focus is not history or sociology, nor is it musicology. Rather, I
propose to explore the habanera in the cultural imaginary of Catalonia as a sign
directly related to its language.
Language is emphasized as a major pillar of nations formation in traditional
and postmodern models. For Benedict Anderson, however, the most important
thing about language is its capacity for generating imagined communities
(emphasize added) as opposed to the way that certain nationalist ideologues treat
themas emblems of nation-ness, like flags, costumes, folk-dances, and the rest
(122). The revival of the Catalan language and culture in the nineteenth century,
known as the Renaixenca movement that coincided with the end of the Spanish
colonial empire, is in many respects contingent with Andersons perception of the
exceptional role of language for generating imagined communities.
The economic success of the Catalan bourgeoisie in the nineteenth century,
based in part on the capital created overseas, specifically in the Caribbean colonies,
coincides, or perhaps triggers, the processes of recovery and revival of the Catalan
language and culture. This revival is stimulated by the romantic interest of the
intelligentsia in the literature and other forms of culture connected with the language
18
that flourished in medieval times. By the nineteenth century, the language in which
Martorell and Llull wrote their masterpieces, lost its significance as the language of
education and literature, and was mostly used as the language of everyday
communication lacking a grammar system and a literary form. Traditionally,
Aribaus poem Oda a la Patria, written in Catalan in 1833, is perceived as a
starting point for the Renaixenya, the cultural movement intrinsically linked with the
revival of Catalan language and literature. Albert Balcells argues, however, that the
recovery of Catalan self-esteem and national identity associated with the Renaixenca
can be traced backwards to the end of the eighteenth century when Catalan scholars
started to sketch the history of Catalonia from the Middle Ages onwards. This work
was done in Castilian, however, as this was the language in which the majority of the
population was educated and read. The lack of standard rules for spelling and usage
in Catalan was another obstacle for the creation and spreading of literary works.
According to Balcells, for all these reasons, the literary growth of Catalan occurred
later in prose than in poetry (25).10 Yet the merit of Aribaus poem, which was
preceded by a Gramatica i Apologia de la Llengua Catalana by Joan Pau Ballot
published in 1814, and by a Catalan translation of the New Testament published in
1832, consisted in identifying language and homeland. This idea, formulated by
Aribau unintentionally, in the words of Balcells, will later become one of the key
10 Balcells refers to the romantic works by Victor Balaguer and other more
learned studies, which were an integral part of the Renaixenca, and were written
and published in Castilian (25).
19
ideas of Catalanism, a theory and a practice for the Catalan nationalist movement.11
From this time on, Catalan ideologists will emphacize language and the fet
diferencial, differential fact of the Catalans, as two pillars of Catalan national
identity, among which, the least questionable [element] is language and the
adhesion of Catalan people to their mother tongue as Fransesc Cambo wrote in
1930 (qtd. in Conversi: 171).12 Thus for the Catalan philosopher Ferrater i Mora, la
personalidad catalana solo puede manifestarse con plenitud por medio del uso de su
propia lengua. Cuando esta, por motivos que fuere, retrocede, o se deteriora, o se
vicia, se encoge el modo de ser propio de Cataluna. El Catalan deja de ser Catalan
(Una cuestion 284). The idea of the core significance of the language for Catalan
national identity is consistently discussed and propagated by the leaders of Catalan
nationalist movement.13
11 See Balcells: While for other nationalities, race or religion were to

constitute the main sign of a distinctive collective identity, for Catalonia this role
would be played by the language (25-26).
12 Daniele Conversi offers an overview of the development of language as a
unitary bond for Catalan nation (169-173). Among others, he quotes Rovira i
Vergili: Of all the elements which constitute a nationality, language is the deepest,
the strongest and the most decisive. That value, at once corporeal and spiritual,
which Joan Maragall found in the word, turns language into the symbol and the
lively expression of the personality of a people (qtd. in Conversi: 171).
13 Conversi points out that the tie between language and identity in
Catalonia has been continually stressed up till the present, and in recent years, it has
been increasingly emphasized (172). He quotes an abstract from Jordi Pujols
speech in March of 1989: The language issue will indicate whether the relations
with the central government are progressing or not[...] If some issue is absolutely
crucial for Catalonia, it is its language and its culture, because they are the core
elements of our identity as a people. Catalonia will not deem its historical grievance
20
Language becomes the core of the Floral Games revived in 1859, Joes
Florals, a poetry contest evoking ancient troubadour competitions. The impact of the
Floral Games on the development and refining of the Catalan language, and on
Catalan culture, is directly connected to the participation in them of such poets as
Jacint Verdaguer and Joan Maragall, among others. Their contribution to the
formation of the Catalan literary language can be compared to the enormous effort of
syntactic, phonemic and semantic systematization realized by an outstanding
linguist, Pompeu Fabra, originally a chemistry professor. However, the Renaixenqa,
as Balcells points out, encountered a lot of difficulty due to the overall use of
Spanish in the daily press and the success of serialized novels written and published
in Spanish.14
Pierre Vilar compares the Renaixenca with the contemporary effort of
Frederic Mistral in the neighboring Provence:
The real question is how did this intellectual
movement, of no greater literary value than that of
Mistral, acquire a theatre, a press, institutions and
finally leave its mark on a whole people instead of
resolved until the cultural issue is settled [...] Catalonia did not want autonomy for
political or administrative reasons, but for reasons of identity (Declaration of Jordi
Pujol, in El Pais, 2 March 1989, p. 14. qtd in Conversi 172).
14 See Balcells: Newspapers and novels written in Spanish but published in
Catalonia did more than the schools to foster diglossia and linguistic and cultural
alienation. This was so, not only because the powerful Barcelona publishing
industry catered for the widest possible market and thus worked exclusively in
Spanish, but because, as in the case of the daily press, as long as the Catalan
language remained unstandardized it was difficult to reach the average reader, even
though Catalan was both his mother tongue and the language he normally spoke
( 26 ).
21
remaining confined to the work of coteries and

ephemeral publications? (Spain: A Brief History 74).
For Vilar, the answer lies in social and economic factors such as the
impotence of the Spanish State and the growing difference between the social
structure of the Catalan area and that of the majority of the nation (Spain: 75).
However, the cultural aspect and the construction of the differential fact of the
nation should not be overlooked, specifically in the case of Catalonia for its strongly
emphasized sentiment of national identity. As Balcells points out, the Renaixenca
tended to express itself in a medievalized, archaic language, far removed from
spoken Catalan (25). Therefore he emphasizes the impact of the publications with
lesser literary pretentions for the development and standardization of the Catalan
language (26). These are the religious apologetics by the fervent priest and preacher
Antoni Maria Claret (1807-1879),15 and the outstanding work of Anselm Clave,
creator of the Euterpe movement that organized Catalan workers into numerous
choral societies. The Euterpe movement along with other forms of organized
collective time spending, asocianisme, is considered to be a distinctive feature of the
Catalan society from the Renaixenca until today.16 The propensity of Catalans to
15 Antoni Maria Claret was appointed archbishop of Santiago de Cuba in

1851 and left the island in 1858. We will discuss his religious and literary activity in
connection with the moral and ethical issues of Catalans in Cuba in Chapter Four.
16 See Giner: Catalonia possesses an exceptional number of voluntary
associations devoted to the most varied of peaceful pursuits: choirs, mountaineering
clubs, pigeon-fancying clubs, small public libraries (privately founded), cooperatives
of all sorts, philatelic associations, theatrical societies, local action groups,
geographical and astronomical amateurs clubs (10-11). See Hargreaves: The
22
create groups and associations of all kinds from the scout movement, hiking groups,
football supporters, neighborhood associations, private libraries, and sardana dancing
groups is emphasized as a distinctive feature of Catalan society and a basis for
Catalanism, a theory and a practice of Catalan nationalist movement.17
The articulation of Catalan uniqueness takes place at the time when major
Catalan urban centers, Barcelona, Reus, and Tarragona, as well as smaller towns,
become a workshop for the architectural genius of Antonio Gaudf, Lluis Domenech i
Montaner, and Josep Puig i Cadafalch. Catalan Modemisme, which coincides in
time with Art Nouveau in Belgium and France, Jugendstill in Germany and Liberty
in Italy may be viewed as a child of Renaixenca and an art movement with clear-cut
nationalist connotation. Modemisme is claimed to contain signs and symbols related
to Catalan identity: architectural shapes and motifs derived from historical styles and
popular art, the ubiquitous Catalan coat of arms and the legend of the countrys
patron Saint George, with its militant overtones. Modemisme may also be viewed as
a successful attempt at creating an up-to-date culture in harmony with Europe. It is
reflected in the numerous references to northern architecture and in technological
intense private associationism of Catalan society and the proliferation of voluntary

associations, many of them devoted to the maintenance of such traditions, rituals,
games, dances and festivities is a key feature of Catalan culture (22).
17 See Conversi: Asociations of sardanistes (sardana dancers), folk-singers,
hikers and excursionists, as well as choirs, alumni associations, hobby groups,
private clubs, football supporters, and Scout and Guide gatherings all served to
encourage Catalanist socialization (133-134). See Balsells: The social base of
Catalanism consisted of choral societies, rambling clubs, sardana dancing groups,
and even independent, nationalist associations, most of them local, though some
covering wider areas (52).
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
23
innovations involving the use of new materials, like sheet iron, industrial glass and
reinforced concrete or improved brick building techniques. A number of Gaudfs
creations, including Parc Gilell are sponsored by the Giiell family whose financial
capital has its origins in overseas commercial enterprise with deep roots in Cuba. An
outstanding creative energy of a writer, artist and collector Santiago Rusinol who
moved to Sitges in 1891 gives to this seafaring town, which already was the center of
luminista artistic movement, a status of an important cultural center. Through a
series of artistic activities organized by Rusinolthe Festes Modemistes (1892-1899)
featuring exhibitions, theatrical performances, the rediscovery of El Greco paintings-Sitges acquires the status of a cultural center which it maintains until today. Later
in the twentieth century, Catalonia will be home to Picasso, Miro and Dali. At
present, Catalonia hosts significant collections of paintings of all three artists.
As the result of the systematizing efforts of Renaixenpa that reached its peak
in the 1880s with the poetic genius of Jacint Verdaguer, dramas by Angel Guimera
and the realist novels by Narcfs Oiler, not only did the language acquire a
standardized form, but a set of characteristics of Catalan national identity that
constitute the fet diferencial of the Catalans were formulated and propagated by
the ideologists of Catalanism. Coined and first used by loan Maragall, this notion of
the uniqueness of the nation is based on the attachment of the Catalans to their
language, in which the literary masterpieces of the early Renaissance were written,
and on their national character, a complex of beliefs, values and practices attributed
24
to the nation.18 As the philosopher Ferrater i Mora formulated it, the Catalans
possess the following virtues: iroma (an ironic outlook on life), mesura (taking a
measured, balanced view of things), continuitat (working persistently over the long
term to achieve objectives), and seny (good, old commonsense).19 Seny, however,
tends to be the most controversial of these qualities, as Catalan history arguably
abounds in outbursts of rage and uncontrolled actions including the burning of
churches and convents. The idealistic terms in which Vicens Vives and Ferater i
Mora describe the Catalan national character definitely do not represent the richness
of the national character. John Hargreaves mentions rauxa as the other side of senv-a propensity to seek relief, on occasion, from social constraint by indulging in
uncontrollable emotion and outbursts of irrational behaviour: from getting drunk and
fornicating to burning churches and convents (22).
It is also believed that Catalan national identity and the above mentioned
virtues are represented through a number of cultural symbols. The most common of
these symbols are the sardana, the Catalan national dance, such popular activities as
the castells, building and competitions of human towers that involve hundreds of
participants; and the Nova Canco movement of the sixties.20 Catalan national dance,
18 See Hargreaves p.22; Conversi p. 139; Giner p. 12.

19 See Ferrater i Mora, Las formas de la vida catalana, (Madrid, 1967) 23975.
20 The Nova Canco movement, which started in the sixties, combined highly
politically charged auteur songs with the folk elements and flourished in the last
decade of the Franco regime.
25
the sardana is traditionally considered to be the most distinguished element of

Catalan popular culture. One can see it performed regularly by the public that
gathers in parks or central squares of Catalan cities and towns. In Barcelona, one can
join the sardana circle on Sunday mornings in front of the Barcelona cathedral.
01
The outstanding significance attributed to the sardana for the national identity of
Catalans is based above all on the role that the associations of the sardanistes played
in the semi-clandestine organization of the Catalans during the Franco dictatorship
when all forms of Catalan culture were abolished.22 Together with the Catalan
language, the sardana was prohibited in some locales in and around Barcelona, but
not in the countryside, according to Brandes: No doubt because the dictatorship
considered the sardana to be relatively innocuous, the dance was allowed to flourish
as a form of what we might call peaceful protest against the regimes most
21 The sardana and the castells are believed to reflect the inclusiveness of the
Catalans. See Brandes: By stressing the inclusion of everyone who learns the rules,
the dance is a microcosmic reflection of the general Catalan belief in ethnicity as an
achieved status. However, the sardana also excludes those who neither know nor
follow the detailed rules of the dance (39). See Giner: Some of these rituals like
the sardana, the national dance, in which rich and poor, old and young, men and
women, participate in one single unbroken circle, have still not left the busiest
squares and thoroughfares of Barcelona, Perpignan, Tarragona, to this day (10).
Also see Hargreaves: One can readily see it performed in village, town and city
squares al over Catalonia today. Its contemporary political significance can be
gauged from the fact that the Generalitat and the main nationalist party, CiU,
promote the dance, and it is not uncommon to see hundreds of dancers on, say, a
Sunday morning in the Parc Joan Miro, or a festival day in Poble Nou, dancing under
the CiU banner (101).
22 See Hargreaves: Associations of sardanistes formed an integral part of the
semi-clandestine social networks that circumvented Francos proscription of Catalan
culture at the micro level, and the dance thereby played an especially important part
in helping sustain Catalan sentiment and political identity (101).
26
effective and oppressive campaign to eliminate the public use of the Catalan
language (35). At the same time, the sedate, collective, solemn and even asexual
character of the sardana is supposed to reflect such aspect of Catalan national
character as seny. a propensity for reasoning and common sense.23
The movement of the colies dels castellers, groups of builders of human
towers, who compete in the squares of Catalan towns during the summer, is growing
definitely in the late twentieth century as it embraces more participants outside of the
traditional areas of Vails or Tarragona where it originated. Both the sardana and the
castells are believed to represent the inclusiveness of the Catalan nation, and
immigrants from other regions of Spain and other countries who live in Catalonia are
welcome to participate. The three phenomena, habaneras, sardana and castells. have
many common features. All three are relatively new cultural traditions. The sardana
can de considered a child of the Renaixenqa as it was created at the peak of this
cultural movement aimed at the revival of the language and other autochthonous
cultural forms.
24
The creation of the new dance based on folkloric traditions of the
23
Hargreaves quotes Torras i Bages, an ideologist of Catalan nationalism of

the turn of the twentieth century, who excoriated the growing popularity of the
Andalusian flamenco in Catalonia as something radically opposite to the Catalan
identity: Nothing could be more antithetical to the Catalan character, or be more
damaging to the severity and restraint of our race (qtd. in Hargreaves 101). Also
See Hargreaves: Possibly more than most aspects of Catalan culture the sardana
expresses what has been popularly depicted as the Catalan national character.
Catalans like to think of themselves as disciplined, hard-working, efficient, and
possessed of that quality they call seny. meaning something like good commonsense.
They are often seen in the rest of Spain in less flattering terms, that is, as rather cold,
calculating, mean and selfish (103).
27
Emporda region in North-Eastern Catalonia is traditionally associated with the name

of Pep Ventura (1817-1875). Ventura modified the traditional musical group, cobla,
added to it a renovated instrument, the tenora, and created numerous sardanas, based
on folkloric traditions that already existed for centuries. Launched at the Liceu
Theater in 1859, the dance gradually acquires popularity and becomes the most
characteristic of Catalan dances, in the words of Balcells (45).
The origin of the habanera also takes place in the nineteenth century and goes
through a process of constant transformations as I will explore in this dissertation.
The three phenomena discussed above, the sardana, the castells and the habanera, are
distinctly collective events and are experiencing growth and enhancement in recent
decades not without the help of mass media. Salvador Giner stresses the significance
of collective cultural phenomena as symbolic acts of ethnicocultural affirmation
for small advanced stateless nations (10). In this respect, Catalonia may be
viewed, according to Giner, as one of the very few industrial countries where the
progress of technology and capitalism has not meant the relegation of a vast number
of traditional festivities, dances and ritualistic games of all sorts either to remote
rural areas, or to certain pockets of the popular classes (10). However, while these
relatively young cultural traditions have been studied and recognized in connection
with the construction of the Catalan national identity, the role of the habanera in this
24 On the sardana as an invented tradition, see Stanley Brandes, The

Sardana: Catalan Dance and Catalan National Identity, The Journal of American
Folklore 103 (1990): 24-40.
28
regard has been overlooked so far.25 I will argue that the habanera, a permutable
cultural sign bom as a product of transculturation in the former colony, Cuba,
continues its life into the twenty-first century in Spain and may be represented as a
crucial sign for the construction of Catalan national identity alongside traditionally
recognized emblems of this identity: the sardana, the castells, and the singing
movements such as the Euterpe movement of the nineteenth century, or the Nova
Canco of the 1960s. The phenomenon of the habanera in Catalonia, a region where
popular cultural signs are not confined to folkloric relics, but are an integral and
evolving part of social life, represents a privileged field for study and exploration.
My research started with the exploration of approaches to a historical
discourse concerned with the participation of Catalonia in Cuban colonial enterprise,
which I discuss in Chapter One. A study of the origins of the habanera, a product of
transculturation that underlies the formation of Cuban nation and culture, that may be
explored as a vehicle of collective memory and nostalgia for the lost tropical
25 Salvador Giner, Albert Balcells, Daniele Conversi, John Hargreaves stress

the significance of festivals and other forms of popular culture for Catalan national
identity, however never mentioning habaneras. See, for example, Balcells: [T]he
symbols of Catalan identity have been reinforced during the last decade, a fact which
causes surprise among most foreign visitors. Not only are many signs now written in
Catalan but the vitality of popular festivals is playing a primer role in integrating the
population into Catalan culture. One example is the success and proliferation of
local teams of castellers, who compete with one another to build daring human
pyramids, and whose popularity has now spread over a much larger area than that
around Vails and Tarragona where they originated. Another very recent
phenomenon, whose potential importance has been compared with the Nova Canpo
movement of the 1960s, is the resounding success of Catalan rock groups, whose
members write the words to their own songs (191).
29
paradise in Catalonia is the subject of Chapter Two. In Chapter Three, I trace the
permutations of the habanera in Catalonia as it becomes an emblem of Catalan
cultural identity at the time of the recuperation of Catalan nationalism during the last
years of the Franco dictatorship and the transition to a democratic Spain that
acknowledges the heterogeneity of its nations.
As I progressed in my research, I discovered that the habanera becomes an
underlying grid for film-productions crucial for redefining Catalan identity,
specifically for Havanera 1820 (1993, dir. Antoni Verdaguer) and La ciutat cremada
(1976, dir. Antoni Ribas). In Chapter Four, I explore how these films reinvent
history and contribute to the project of Catalan national cinema. In the last decade of
the twentieth century, the habanera also becomes part of fiction, yet another
permutation. In Chapter Five, I focus on two novels of the late twentieth century, En
el mar de les Antilles (1998) by Manel Alonso i Catala (Pupol, 1962), and Habanera:
El reencuentro con un oculto pasado antillano (1999) by Angeles Dalmau
(Barcelona, 1960), which challenge and subvert stereotypes and myths of Catalan
immigration to Cuba and the Caribbean.
30
Chapter One
Catalonia and Cuba: Approaches to a Historical Discourse
No hay pueblo en La Habana: no hay mas que

amos y esclavos. Los primeros se dividen en dos
clases: la nobleza propietaria y la clase media
comerciante. Esta se compone en su mayor parte de
catalanes que, llegados sin patrimonio a la isla, acaban
por hacer grandes fortunas; comienzan a prosperar por
su industria y economfa, y acaban por apoderarse de
los mas hermosos patrimonios hereditarios, por el alto
interes a que prestan su dinero. (The Countess of
Merlin, Viaie a La Habana [1844] 112)
This dissertation is concerned with the cultural imaginary of Catalonia, a
nation, within a larger state, that for centuries has been self-fashioning itself as a
maritime community with strong overseas links and its own place in Europe, even if
it often has been overshadowed by Spains central government. Catalonias
continuous self-representation as an entity equal to European states may be explored
through a discourse that relates to its involvement in overseas colonial expansion.
This discourse is explicitly articulated at the end of the Franco dictatorship, which
aimed to suppress cultural and national differences within Spain in order to create a
monolithic nationalist state. The end of the dictatorship, the reemergence of various
European nationalisms, and European Union integration lead to the reshaping of a
historical discourse related to the participation of Catalans in Spains colonial
enterprise. Through the emphasis that it places on its participation in the colonial
enterprise in Cuba, Catalonia represents itself as an equal to established European
31
empires. This reshaping of the self-image of this nation without a state but with a
heightened sensitivity to issues of cultural identity will be explored in this
dissertation through the permutations of the habanera, a musical legacy from the time
of colonial expansion, which becomes a relevant cultural signifier in Catalonia
during the last decades of the twentieth century. However, before analyzing the
habanera as a cultural signifier relevant for the self-fashioning of Catalonia as a
nation it is necessary to explore the historical discourse related to this enterprise.
The overview of the discourse concerned with the involvement of the Catalans in the
Cuban colonial enterprise may help to rectify the origin of certain myths and
stereotypes persistent in the cultural imaginary. As we will explore in the chapters
that follow, in the late twentieth century, these myths and stereotypes are reinvented
in Catalan cultural imaginary through popular songs, fiction and film.
The epigraph to this chapter is taken from a work that strictly cannot be
qualified as historical discourse. However, as a testimonial narrative, the Countess
of Merlins observations of the role of Catalans in Cuban society can still be
classified as historical. For a considerable time, perhaps until the publication of
works by the historian Jaime Vicens Vives (1909-1960), the participation of Catalans
in the Cuban colonial enterprise was confined to observations by travelers such as
Merlin or John Wundermanwhose testimony of the entrepreneurial spirit of the
Catalans in Cuba will be discussed later in this chapteror the notorious apologetic
work Los catalanes en America: Cuba by Carlos Marti, published in Havana in
1920.
32
The publication of Martis book, which articulates a flattering and paternalist

discourse towards the deeds of the Catalans in Spains beloved colony can be seen
as a sign of the times. The first decades of the twentieth century are marked by an
outstanding growth of Catalanism and the theorization of the Catalan nation. This
theorization, as articulated by the leader of the Lliga Regionalista Enric Prat de la
Riba (1870-1917), bears clear-cut imperialist intentions. In La nacionalitat catalana
(1906), the leader of the conservative Catalan bourgeoisie theorizes the possibility of
a Catalan exterior projection as a hypothetical consequence of its national
institutionalization.
7f-
Martis book, preceded by a letter-prologue in Catalan by
another prominent ideologist of Catalan conservative nationalism Francesc Cambo,27

for all its limitations and flaws may be explored as the first attempt at reshaping the
traditional historical discourse that excluded Catalonia from Spains colonial
enterprise. Martf s ambitious project consisted of two parts. The first part, which
covers the period from the conquest to the late nineteenth century, was supposed to
0 f\
Javier Tusell in an introduction to Prat de la Ribas work published in 1998

points out that Prat de la Ribas ideas ought to be seen in the context of imperialist
conceptualization of Catalonia by Catalan nineteenth-century intellectuals, a state
that, if it does not exist yet, will exist some day. Tusell also points out that Prat de la
Ribas imperialism may be seen as the projection of Catalonia on the Iberian
peninsula through art, literature, and legal concepts (21-22).
27 Francesc Cambo i Batlle (1876-1947) assumed the leadership of the Lliga
Regionalista upon the death of Prat de la Riba. A prominent industrialist, he is the
author of the economic program of Catalan conservative nationalism. As the
Minister of Economic Development of Spain (1918) and (1921-1922), Cambo
promoted the development of the railroad infrastructure and the electrification of
Spain. He died in exile in Buenos Aires.
33
be followed by a second part dedicated to the activities of his contemporaries. This

second part was never published.28
Marti traces the involvement of the Catalans in the overseas venture of the
Spanish Crown back to the participation of Captain Pedro de Margarit and Brother
Bemat Buil, a monk from Montserrat, in Cristopher Columbuss second journey to
the Americas. Foregrounding the role of the Catalans, Marti articulates a discourse
that is contingent with Prat de la Ribas imperialist theorizing. The representation of
Catalan colonial enterprise in Cuba is explicitly viewed in Los catalanes en America:
Cuba as part and parcel of the assertion of Catalan nation and identity. As Cambo
puts it, the activities of the Catalans described by Marti represent a live testimony of
perennial national personality of Catalonia (Cambo 5). It happens at the time of the
renewed imperialist drive of major Western World nations after World War I, which
is a crucial time for the assertion of Catalan identity in its continuous opposition to
the hegemony of the Castilianized center. The apologetic discourse of Martf s book
towards the successful immigrants who create immense fortunes in Cuba completely
ignores and silences participation in the slave trade as a major source of the fortunes
created in the first half of the nineteenth century. For all its errors, unintentional
flaws and intentional silencing of negative aspects of the colonizing effort of
See Martf: Es el presente tomo un tributo de lealfsimo homenaje a
nuestros antepasados en Cuba. En un nuevo tomo sabremos destacar los meritos, las
energfas, la influencia, la actividad y los dotes de los contemporaneos. Los
elementos representatives, las entidades y el nucleo valiosfsimo de catalanes
residentes en Cuba apreciaran nuestro esfuerzo. Poseemos datos, biograffas,
anecdotas y retratos en superior cantidad y en valiosa calidad (326).
34
Catalans, Martis work may be viewed as the first attempt at asserting Catalan
identity through the involvement in the colonial enterprise and through the
articulation of imperialist intentions.
The decades of the Civil War in Spain and the ensuing Franco dictatorship
intent on building a monolithic nationalist Catholic state did not facilitate the
discourse related to Catalan involvement in the colonial enterprise, the established
prerogative of Castile. It is no secret that history always and everywhere has been a
subject of interpretation and manipulation based on political or ideological needs.
Spanish and Catalan historiography has had its share of manipulation. However, in
the 1950s, while the official historiography continues to serve the needs of the
Franco regime, Jaime Vicens Vives applies an innovative approach for the Spanish
historiography based on statistical methods and a meticulous study of documentary
sources. The oeuvre of this historian creates a methodology and a prominent school
of economic history in Barcelona. Vicens Vives not only postulates basic
90
approaches to the history of Spain, but also makes a significant contribution to the
theorization of Catalan identity in his work Noticia de Cataluna (1954), in which he
argues that the accumulation of Catalan financial capital and the creation of
prosperous industries in Catalonia in the nineteenth century were generated in the
colonies (47).
90
See his highly acclaimed work Aproximacion a la historia de Espana first

published in 1952.
35
The other methodological pillar for Catalan historiography is the work by the
French Hispanist Pierre Vilar, whose work Cataluna en la Espafia Modema (1962)
was first published in France. From a Marxist standpoint, Vilar asserts that the
development of Catalan industrial capital in the late nineteenth century is based on
the fortunes created overseas and invested in Catalonia. The ideas of Vicens Vives
and Vilar lay a foundation for Catalan historical discourse concerned with the
relationship between Catalonia and the colonies in the Caribbean, specifically Cuba.
In the decades following the death of Franco, Catalan projection to the colonies is the
center of attention by historians who consider themselves to be the followers of the
school of economic history designed by Vicens Vives and Vilar.
With the liberalization of the dictatorial regime, a broader and more open
discussion of the participation of Catalans in overseas expansion becomes possible.
In 1973, Jordi Maluquer de Motes publishes La burguesfa catalana i la esclavitud
colonial: modes de produccio i practica polftica, a pioneering work that serves as
the catalyst for a discussion that focuses on colonial expansion and its consequences
for Catalan economy and culture. Maluquer de Motes points out the connection
between outstanding Catalan fortunes of the second half of the nineteenth century
and Catalan overseas commerce, which included and prospered from slave trade. In
the 1970s, Catalan involvement in Cuban colonial enterprise becomes the subject of
dissertations, books, articles and conferences that discuss the role of the Catalans as
the protagonists of overseas commerce, their participation in the development of the
36
2
sugar industry, crucial for Cuba, and the involvement of the Catalans in the slave
trade whose profitability becomes a cornerstone for notorious Catalan fortunes
created overseas. Between 1985 and 1993, with the sponsorship of the revived
Generalitat de Catalunya, the Catalan regional government, Comissio Catalana del
Cinque Centenari del Descobriment dAmerica organizes five conferences entitled
Jomades dEstudis Catalanos-Americans, at which different aspects of Catalan
involvement in Cuba are discussed and whose proceedings are published. In this
chapter, I will explore how the historical and sociological discourse related to
Catalan involvement in Cuba reinvents Catalan nation and identity.
Catalan historians divide the participation of Catalans in the overseas colonial
expansion into certain periods of larger or lesser activity and financial, social and
cultural repercussions. Though it is relatively difficult to offer strict temporal limits,
certain boundaries aimed at reshaping the traditional discourse were established.
Thus the period prior to 1778, when the Cadiz privileges were raised,31 is explored as
the period of early Catalan involvement in the overseas enterprise. Since the
30 Cuban historian Manuel Moreno Fraginals, whose work El ingenio is a vast

study of Cuban sugar industry and of its repercussions for the formation of the
Cuban society, formulates in a very precise way the importance of sugar industry for
Cuba. In Cuba/Espana Espafia/Cuba, historia comun, he calls Cuba la sociedad que
el azucar formo, the society formed by sugar (199).
31 Since the time of early conquest and colonization, the 1560s, the Spanish
Crown controlled trade with the colonies through Andalusia cities, Seville and Cadiz,
the only Spanish ports from where ships organized in fleets could sail to the
Americas. The fleet system functioned with different regularity since the 1560s until
the eighteenth century. Only in 1778, Charles III signs Reglamento y Aranceles
Reales para el Comercio Libre, which officially permits trade with overseas
territories of the Spanish Crown from other ports than Cadiz.
37
nineteenth century, Romantic Catalan historiography articulated the position of
Catalan exclusion from the colonial expansion due to the notorious testament of the
Catholic Queen, Isabella, that privileged Castilians in the colonization of the new
lands. This discourse is questioned by Vicens Vives in Noticia de Catalunya (1954).
He argues that the Catalans did not participate in Spanish colonial expansion not so
much because of the legal limitations created by the Spanish monarchy at the
beginning of the sixteenth century, but because of the financial weakness and lack of
capital in Catalonia. Vicens Vivess argument is indicative of his clear-cut intention
of comparing Catalonia to European states in the context of Catalan relationship with
the Crown of Castile:
Porque hay que decirlo, de una vez para siempre: es
una lamentation absurda la que se ha venido haciendo
durante el ultimo siglo respecto a la exclusion jurfdica
de los catalanes del comercio con America. Quiero
admitir que sea un hecho cierto; mas aun, admito
incluso que la monarqufa de los Austrias monopolizo
aquel trafico en manos de los burgueses andaluces.
Pero los menos versados en historia economica saben
hasta que punto los franceses, los holandeses y los
italianos supieron aprovecharse de aquel monopolio
para hacer pasar el oro americano de las areas
espanolas a sus bolsillos sin que el gobiemo de la
monarqufa hispanica pudiera mover un solo dedo para
evitarlo. Si los catalanes de los siglos XVI y XVII
hubieran dispuesto de capitales o industrias, y posefdo
espfritu de empresa, de un modo u otro se las habrfan
ingeniado para obtener el mismo provecho objetivo
que alcanzaron otros, tambien extranos a la Corona
castellana. Si no lo logramos, no es que no lo
supieramos hacer; simplemente, no disponfamos de
capitales para sobomar a los mercaderes sevillanos o
convencer a la monarqufa. (46)
38
In addition to his theory of the commercial and financial weakness of

Catalonia in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Vicens Vives offers a
technical explanation of the lack of Catalan overseas activity before the end of the
seventeenth century. British historian Jan Read quotes it in his book The Catalans;
There was a technical factor which made commerce
between the Mediterranean coast and Columbus
newly-discovered America an impossibility. It was the
following: it was not feasible for a caravel to make the
passage of the Straight of Gibraltar from west to east,
against current and winds, without losing much time
and risking men and ships. It required the nautical
revolution of the early eighteenth century, especially
the introduction of sails known as foes and an enlarged
cruising range before the Mediterranean peoples could
hope to participate in the American trade, (qtd in
Read: 121)
Vicens Vivess assertion of the weakness of Catalonia as opposed to the
prevailing theory of the legal power executed by Castile becomes a foundational
thesis for works by historians who consider themselves to be the followers of the
school of economic history and explore the contacts between Catalonia, the Spanish
Empire and its colonies. The works by Otte, Delgado Ribas, Martinez Shaw,
Maluquer de Motes, Fradera, and Sonessen explore the participation of the Catalans
in Spanish colonial expansion prior to 1778, the year of the official end of the Cadiz
privileges. Drawing on Vicens Vivess theory, Carles Martinez Shaw argues that the
legal exclusion of Catalans from American trade is a legend created by Catalan
nationalistic discourse in the nineteenth century (Cataluna y el comercio 223).
Martinez Shaw discusses three major arguments of this discourse, as pointed out by
39
Delgado Ribas earlier: (1) Catalonia played a major role in the so-called Discovery
through the participation of the allegedColumbus, Juan Cabotoor real Catalans
(Father B oil)32 and financial support of the expedition by Luis de Santangel; (2)
despite this protagonism, the country, el pars, was excluded from the benefits
gained in the New World; (3) Catalan economic decadence in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries is the consequence of this exclusion (Cataluna y el comercio
223). Further Martinez Shaw argues that the legal restrictions imposed by Queen
Isabellas testament were raised even before the liberalizing measures of Charles V
by Ferdinands authorization to all subjects of his crown a transit to the Americas as
of March 5, 1505, (Cataluna y el comercio 228). Enrique Otte shows that Catalan
merchants and sailors found ways of commerce with the Americas through Seville
and later Cadiz as early as the first half of the sixteenth century (Otte 459-80).
According to Martinez Shaw, who insists that the absence of Catalans from active
expansion to the colonies is a pure legend (Cataluna en la carrera 15), the creation of
the Real Companfa de Barcelona in 1680 may be viewed as the starting point for the
Catalan bourgeoisie to participate in colonial trade (Cataluna en la carrera 10).
In 1702, Philip V grants the Catalans a right to ship their merchandise to the
Americas with two ships annually. These ships, however, had to join the Spanish
fleet in Seville until 1717, and afterwards in Cadiz, and set sail from Andalusian
ports. As the result of the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-1713), Catalonia
32 In Martf s Los catalanes en America: Cuba, this last name is spelled as

Buil, while in Martinez Shaw it is Boil.
40
loses in 1714 the remnants of its regional autonomy. However, new vast markets,
both in Spain and Europe, open up for the products of incipient Catalan
manufactures. In the early eighteenth century, Catalan merchants start establishing
their representatives in Cadiz in order to ship their merchandise to the Americas on
Spanish ships. According to Josep Fradera, this arrangement allows the Spanish
Crown to exercise complete tax control and double monopoly through the Spanish
merchant fleet, on the one hand, and through the privileged Houses of Commerce of
Seville and Cadiz, on the other (Els Catalans arriben tard 6). At the same time, the
Catalans who engage in commerce and fully depend on the merchandise brought by
the Spanish ships start to establish themselves in some overseas ports, thus laying the
foundation for the Catalan commercial diaspora.
Drawing on Pierre Vilars theory of peripheral recuperation, it is generally
agreed that by the late eighteenth century, Catalonia manages to recover
economically and demographically from the devastation initially caused by the
plague in the fourteenth century and later aggravated by the wars, in which Catalonia
continuously participates in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. By
the end of the eighteenth century, Catalonia accumulates enough manufactured
products to start the expansion to other markets, which, with the liquidation of the
Cadiz privileges in 1778, include vast overseas markets. Catalonia starts to export
agricultural produce and productswine, brandy, dried fruit, waxto the colonies.
The products of Catalan incipient industries, such as paper and printed calico, are
destined mostly to the Spanish interior market and, specifically, Madrid (Fradera,
41
Els Catalans 7). By the time Charles III signs on October 12, 1778 the Reglamento
y Aranceles Reales para el Comercio Libre, Catalan merchants and owners of
commercial fleet are ready to expand their commerce, or diaspora, overseas. In the
words of Fradera, the Catalans arrive late, but with power, amb forga, to the
colonial high road (Els Catalans 6).
The term diaspora applied to Catalan commercial system overseas originates
as the definition of the Catalan system of commerce in the Mediterranean. The peak
of Catalan commercial activity in the Western Mediterranean is the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries. From as early as the thirteenth century, Catalan merchants
establish their representatives in Mediterranean ports and dominate the Western
Mediterranean trade up to the second half of the fifteenth century, when it slowly
declines (Vicens Vives, An Economic History 201-210). The organization of
Catalan trade in the form of a commercial diaspora is represented as another
differentiating trait of Catalan nation comparable to such distinctive features of
Catalan identity as pactismo, a system of civic agreement between the citizens and
the ruling administration, or the Corts, a parliamentary system claimed as original to
Catalonia. In Noticia de Cataluna (1954), Vicens Vives distinguishes the naval and
commercial expansion of Catalonia in the Mediterranean as a factor comparable to
the most relevant traits that constitute the differential facts of the Catalans:
Si el proceso historico debilito nuestras fuerzas en el
preciso instante en que el Atlantico se ofrecfa con
todas sus tentadoras empresas, no por ello hemos de
silenciar las notables realizaciones que emprendimos
durante los siglos XIV y XV en el Mediterraneo
42
occidental. En ellas vimos precisamente, una de las

facetas mas finas y sensibles del espfritu de nuestro
pueblo, similar a la solution pactista del nexo politico
entre el Estado y los ciudadanos que hemos examinado
anteriormente. (90)
In the tripartite model of Spanish overseas immigration proposed by
Maluquer de Motes, Catalan immigration to Cuba is characterized as a commercial
diaspora, as opposed to other models of immigration characteristic of different ethnic
groups of the Spanish population:
La instalacion de los canarios constituye una expansion
de frontera. El establecimiento de los catalanes, una
diaspora comercial. La partida de los gallegos y
asturianos se justifica, en cambio, por la busqueda de
recursos de apoyo para una explotacion familiar rural
economicamente inviable por sus reducidas
dimensiones, en un contexto de sobrepoblacion relativa
y de oferta limitada de trabajo. (Nation e inmigracion
67)
Catalan immigration and commercial enterprise in Cuba are most active
between 1778, the year when the Cadiz privileges were eliminated, and the
beginning of the 1870s, the time of the first Cuban war for independence. During
most of the period of Catalan commercial enterprise in Cuba, trade technology still
preserves the atavistic features of the seventeenth century trade. On the one hand,
travel by sail ships presupposes slow and high-risk trips. On the other, payments in
form of bills of exchange require the travel of merchants together with their
merchandise and means of payment. This arrangement leads to a vast network of
agents of absolute reliability, generally belonging to the same family who are able to
connect directly, man to man, the markets on both sides of the Atlantic. The
43
Catalans, with their longstanding tradition of commercial diaspora in the

Mediterranean, project their experience to the Atlantic. The massive expansion to
the Caribbean starts at the end of the eighteenth century and achieves its climax in
the middle of the nineteenth century (Yanez, Saltar con red 49). The lead in
commerce during the first stages of overseas expansion belongs to the population of
the Catalan coastal towns. According to Delgado Ribas, at the end of the eighteenth
century, twenty four per cent of all Catalan immigrants were from Barcelona, twelve
per cent from Mataro and thirty five per cent from Sitges and Vilanova combined.
He explains this phenomenon by the general process of specialization, which takes
place on the Catalan coast during the second half of the eighteenth century (Els
comerciants Catalans 75-76). Powerful overseas commerce generates conditions
that allow Catalan sailors and merchants to visit American ports continuously for
many decades. These liaisons create strong links between Catalans who establish
residence in overseas ports and those who stay in their native towns. Continuous
voyages of Catalan ships from coastal towns to the Americas, mostly to the Western
Caribbean, make it possible for generations of Catalans from coastal towns to be
aware of the opportunities which offer themselves to those eager to abandon their
homes and assume the risk of crossing the seas, cruzar el charco (Yanez, Saltar
con red 48).
44
Catalan immigration is also viewed as a classic example of chain

immigration.
The first destination for an immigrant typically would be the
established House of Commerce of a relative or a family friend, from where, having

accumulated the initial capital, an immigrant would proceed to open his own
business. According to Delgado Ribas, forty-three per cent of Catalan immigrants
would settle on the Antillean islands, while one quarter of the immigrants would
conduct their business in the River Plata area (Els comerciants Catalans 75-76).
Yanez emphasizes the continuity of three relevant features of the early Catalan
immigration: the protagonism of merchants and sailors from the coastal towns of
Catalonia; the form of diaspora assumed by immigration; and specific territories
chosen for immigration (Saltar con red 47).
Catalan immigration to the West Indies is stimulated by high attractiveness
and grows steadily until the second half of the nineteenth century. Delgado Ribas
has studied 1,263 known cases of early immigration between 1765 and 1820. Later,
in the central decades of the nineteenth century, the average number of immigrants
equals or exceeds a thousand per year (Yanez, Saltar con red 51). With the growth
33 The concept of chain immigration was defined by John and Leatrice Mac
Donal and further developed by Samuel L. Baily on the examples of Italian
immigration in Argentina and New York. See: John MacDonald and Leatrice
MacDonald, Chain Migration, Ethnic Neighborhood and Social Networks, The
Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, (42, 1, 1964) 82-96. Samuel Baily, Marriage
Patterns and Immigrants Assimilation in Buenos Aires (1882-1923), Hispanic
American Historical Review (61, 1, 1980) 33-48. Patrones de residencia de los
italianos en Buenos Aires y Nueva York, Estudios Migratorios Latinoamericanos
(1, 1985) 8-47.
45
of immigration its structure changes. If at the beginning immigration is the
prerogative of merchants and sailors, by the 1850s immigration includes
representatives of almost all social strata and professional occupations. However,
the majority of immigrants are young unmarried men, sometimes starting at the age
of twelve, who come from an urban milieu and in many cases possess a profession.
The numbers of immigrant women are significantly lower than those of men. Male
immigration, in all periods for which data is available, always exceeds eighty per
cent of the total of immigrants. In most cases, women immigrate to reunite with
family members (Yanez, Saltar con red 56-61).
With the raising in 1827 of the Reglamento del Comercio Libre that limited
the stay in the colonies to three years with an obligatory return to Spain, immigration
becomes more stable. The state loses control over immigration after 1835, the year
when the issuance of passports is delegated to local authorities. This liberalization
opens doors to massive immigration. However, due to the absence of statistical data,
it seems problematic to calculate the amounts of immigrating Catalans, and data
quoted by researchers differ. Yanez uses the study by Perez Murillo who found in
the Archivo General de Indias 2,475 embarkation licenses of Catalans who traveled
to Cuba between 1800 and 1830. Most of them proceeded to the Indies to work in
commerce and were demanded by a family member. Out of 4,249 Spaniards whose
licenses were found in the Archive, the Catalans constitute 58.2 percent (Yanez 53).
Based on this data, Yanez speculates that Catalan immigrants constitute 58.2 per cent
of Spanish immigration between 1830 and 1835; 10.4 per cent in 1860 and 10.8 per
46
cent in 1861 (Saltar con red 53), while the population of Catalonia never exceeds 10
per cent of Spanish population.34
Yanez builds his hypothesis of the leading role of Catalans in the Spanish
colonial enterprise in the first half of the nineteenth century on three factors that
coincided in time: the weakening of the Spanish colonial system as the result of the
revocation in 1827 of the Reglamento del Comercio Libre; the recovery of the
Catalan merchant marine with the renovated strength of naval construction; and
economic expansion in Cuba based on sugar production (Saltar con red 54). Since
the late eighteenth century, Cuba presents exclusive opportunities for economic
growth and development due to its flourishing sugar industry. The shifting of the
world sugar production from the French colony of Saint-Domingue after the slave
revolt of 1791, converted Cuba into the major sugar producing country in the world
and created enormous opportunities for outstanding growth and development on the
island. The steady growth of the Cuban sugar industry, on the one hand, and the
continuation of the Spanish colonial dominion on the other, constitutes two major
factors that add to the attractiveness of immigration. In the collective conscience of
Spain and Catalonia, the continuous journeys back and forth of successful
immigrants create an aura of relatively rapid wealth behind the counter of a comer
store.
34 Maluquer de Motes gives the number of 8,703 Catalans residing in Cuba in
1859. According to Yanezs calculation based on partial data offered by Jacobo de la
Pezuela, the number of the Catalans residing in Cuba between 1858 and 1860 was of
about 10,681, which represents 15.6 per cent of the peninsulares, immigrants from
the Iberian Peninsula, and 9.1 of all Spanish immigrants (Saltar con red 84).
47
According to Yanez, there was no other peninsular group that possessed

technical and professional capacities to benefit from the opportunities offered by
customs duties protection to the Spanish merchant marine as the Catalans. By the
1850s, Catalonia had a merchant fleet with experienced crews and captains who
knew very well the mechanisms of Atlantic commerce. Not only did they possess
the know-how of navigation and commerce and had established representatives in
the Caribbean ports since the beginning of the century, they also possessed social
and cultural cohesion that allowed them to act as a group of interest. Maluquer de
Motes, Yanez, and Moreno Fraginals insist on specific relations within the Catalan
ethnic group in Cuba which add to the success of the immigrants. Cooperation and
subordination, closely linked to cultural identity according to Yanez, distinguishes
the Catalans from other competing groups (Saltar con red 91). According to the
Cuban historian Moreno Fraginals, the Catalans constitute a differentiated ethnical
group that preserved its distinct cultural identity in Cuban society, as opposed to all
other Spaniards, denominated peninsulares in Cuba:
El Catalan, a su llegada a Cuba, entraba en contacto
con su grupo etnico diferenciado dentro de la
poblacion peninsular en la Isla, que en la ideologia
polftica era colonialista y en la dimension social
asumfa los valores burgueses. Mediante la cohesion de
los elementos regionales, la solidaridad etnica
reforzaba la ideologia polftica y evitaba, o por lo
menos entorpecfa, que el grupo Catalan se integrase en
las subculturas del grupo criollo receptor. La fuerza
del prejuicio hacia el negro y hacia el criollo los llevo a
adoptar los marcos de referencia de la cultura de sus
antepasados: es decir, afianzarse en sus rafces. Esta
fue la razon del exito y la persistencia de la Sociedad
48
de la Beneficencia de Naturales de Cataluna, fundada
en 1840 y que aun existe. El Catalan fue el unico grupo
migratorio cuya herencia etnocultural sobregiro el
concepto de lo espanol peninsular adquiriendo una
connotacion especffica dentro de la sociedad.
(Cuba/Espana 221)
Specific connotation refers to the perception of Catalans in the Cuban
society as merchants who create their well-being through years of hardships and hard
work. The aura of the specialization in commerce and the wealth of the Catalans
nurture the legend of Catalan prosperity in Cuba that gradually propagates in
Catalonia and beyond it. Testimony of a specific position of Catalans in Cuban
society can be found in various literary sources dating back to as early as the 1840s.
The Countess of Merlins observation about Catalans as those who arrive to the
island of Cuba without patrimony and create immense fortunes thereused as an
epigraph to this chapteris taken from her Viaie a La Habana first published in 1844.
North American traveler John G. Wundermann, repeatedly quoted by Catalan
researchers, also publishes his Notes on Cuba in 1844. He describes Cuban trade of
the period as concentrated in the hands of the Catalans who are generally referred to
as the Spanish Jews:
[...] the sale of groceries and provisions is
monopolized by Catalans. These latter, are an
industrious, shrewd, economical class; and have,
perhaps in consequence of these qualities, received
their sobriquet of Spanish Jews, which can only be
construed into a compliment to the Israelite. A large
portion of the commerce of the island is in their hands,
as well as a very great part of its wealth. In the interior
of the island they appear to monopolize every branch
of trading, from the pack of the humble pedlar to the
49
country tienda with its varied contents; and in the

maritime towns, many a commercial house, whose
ships cover the sea, is theirs. (42-43)
The historical and sociological discourse of the last decades of the twentieth
century continuously privileges the Catalans as the protagonists of immigration to
the Caribbean colonies in the first half of the nineteenth century. It is repeatedly
stressed that having started with merchant marine trafficking, the Catalans gradually
diversify and increase their interests with the growth of their fortunes, and
subsequently occupy a prominent position in the Spanish colonial elite of Cuba.
This assertion leads Yanez to the following statement: Es posible que sea una
exageracion decir que Cuba y Puerto Rico fueron colonias catalanas mas que
espanolas, pero en el siglo XIX no es desmedido afirmar que el colonialismo espanol
no se hubiera sostenido igual sin el concurso de los catalanes (Saltar con red 79).
Maluquer de Motes not only stresses the importance of Catalan presence in Cuba
during the first two thirds of the nineteenth century, but also points to the
commercial specialization of this minority group and to their close connection with
the economy of their native region:
Aparece en forma dispersa en el territorio y
concentrada en labores asociadas al desarrollo y
financiacion de la plantation azucarera y de la
economfa de exportation. Su principal dedication a la
intermediation comercial se define en la creation de
un mercado interior, complementario de los flujos de
extraction del azucar y de intemacion de alimentos y
manufacturados para el consumo interior. Un
comportamiento compacto, de mutuo apoyo entre sus
miembros, refleja, en fin, la pertenencia a una diaspora
comercial asociada a las relaciones exteriores de la
50
economfa de su region de procedencia. (Nation e

inmigracion 93)
The collective perception of Catalans in Cuba as merchants is even reflected
in Cuban idiomatic expressions. The word Catalan in nineteenth-century Cuba is
used to signify the owner of a comer store. Fernando Ortizs Nuevo catauro de
cubanismos (1974) offers the following definition o f the word Catalan:
Catalan. En Oriente, sinonimo de bodeguero. Antano

fue sinonimo de bodeguero, modesto comerciante de
vfveres, que entre nosotros es cabeza de turco de befas
y bromas, como en Madrid el hortera. Por eso se canto
la guaracha:
A1 pasar por un barranco,
Grito un negrito bozal:
;Ay, mi Dio! Quien fuera branco,
Aunque fuera Catalan!35 (132)
In the first half of the nineteenth century, el Catalan also becomes one of the
protagonists of Cuban comic theatre. Moreno Fraginals explains:
El teatro bufo, que reflejo como ninguna otra
manifestation artfstica la realidad cubana, hizo de el
Catalan su personaje clave en contrapunto con la
mulata de rumbo y el negrito sagaz y oportunista,
que era una vision disimulada y despectiva del criollo.
Fue necesaria la enorme migration del ultimo tercio
del siglo XIX para que el Catalan fuese sustituido por
el gallego en el teatro. (Cuba/Espana Espana/Cuba
221 - 22 )
In Catalonia, the prosperity of those who immigrate to Cuba and return with
fortunesamericanos or indianos as they are denominated at homegradually creates
35
This popular refrain is quoted virtually by every author who writes about
the presence of Catalans in Cuba.
51
an aura of legend nurtured initially by oral tradition and later through literary
representations. In these literary representations, most of which are dramatic works,
the figures of indianos36 or americanos are frequently associated with a slave trade
that is condemned by the authors.37 In Catalonia, the myth of prosperity associated
with immigration to Cuba is reinforced through the actual contribution of these
returning immigrants to the material culture of Catalonia. Urban projects,
TO
railroads, public buildings, hospitals and private villas are built with the capital
created in the colonies. Even today, the names of Josep Xifre, Salvador Sama,
Panxo Marti, Antonio Lopez y Lopez, and Joan Giiell are still associated with the
prosperity of Catalan financial capital in the second half of the nineteenth century,
and are also directly linked to some landmarks of Barcelona and coastal towns of
Catalonia.39
-5
Following the tradition started in the literature of the Spanish Golden Age,
with such acclaimed contributors as Lope de Vega, the figure of indiano is a
recurrent character in Spanish and Catalan narrative. On the figure of the indiano in
Lope de Vega, see Jaime Martinez Tolentino, El indiano en las comedias de Lope de
Vega, (Kassel: Reichenberger, 1991).
37 For a discussion of the figure of negrero in Catalan literature of the
nineteenth century, see Josep Fradera, La figura del negre i del negrer en la
literatura catalana del XIX, Dossier. LAvenq 75 (1984): 56-61.
oo
It is constantly stressed throughout the works devoted to Catalan

participation in Spains colonial enterprise that the first railroad in Spain between
Barcelona and Mataro was built with the capital created in Cuba. It happens in 1848,
while the first railroad in Cuba is built in 1837.
39 For a discussion of the architecture of indianos or americanos see Imma
Julian, Cristina Cadafalch and Carmen Grandas, Academicisme i modemitat en
l arquitectura dels indians a Catalunya, V Jomades dEstudis Catalanos-Americans.
52
In the pioneering work that opens the discussion of the role of Catalonia in
the Spanish colonial enterprise, La burguesfa catalana i la esclavitud colonial:
modes de produccio i practica polftica, Maluquer de Motes shows that exceptional
wealth and prosperity, which led to the creation of powerful financial institutions as
Banco Hispano Colonial in 1876, the General Tobacco Company of the Philippines
and the Transatlantic Companyall three the property of Antonio Lopez y Lopez, the
Marquis of Comillas, who establishes his headquarters in Barcelona after returning
from Cubacould hardly be reached behind the counter of a comer store. For
centuries, slave trade represented an incomparable source of wealth because of its
profits. The Spaniards join it later than other nations, but they manage to profit from
it probably longer than their colleagues from countries where strong Protestant
abolition movements manage to put an end to the infamous trade at the beginning of
the nineteenth century.
Historians and investigators who write about the participation of the
inhabitants of the Peninsula, and particularly of the Catalans, in the slave trade agree
that it is inseparable from the whole complex of commerce based on and serving the
interests of the growing Cuban sugar industry. In El Ingenio (1964), Moreno
Fraginals explores the development of Cuban sugar industry as based completely on
servile labor. However, the Spaniards and the Catalans join the trade later than the
(Barcelona, 1993) 225-233. Jaime Aymar Ragolta, La huella americana en

Barcelona, Barcelona, puerta europea de America (Barcelona. 1993) 183-201.
Americanos Indianos: arquitectura i urbanisme al Garraf, Penedes i Tarragones
(Baix Gaia), segles XVIII-XX, ( Vilanova i la Geltru, 1998).
53
Portuguese, the Dutch, the French and the English. Maluquer de Motes and later
Fradera explain this delay by the fact that the Spanish colonial system until the end
of the eighteenth century was based almost exclusively on indigenous labor. With
the major shift of sugar industry from Saint Domingue to Cuba and Puerto Rico after
1791, and with the devastation of indigenous population in the Spanish Caribbean,
the constant bringing of labor hands becomes a necessity. The policy of plantation
owners in Cuba was to bring male slaves capable of enduring the hard work required
at the plantations. As a consequence, lack of procreation leads to a constant
necessity of new import of slaves from Africa. Fradera sees in it one of the reasons
for a certain symbiosis between traders and plantation owners (Catalunya i Cuba
42).
The Real Orden of January 25, 1780, authorizes all Spanish subjects to
participate in slave trade from Spain or any other neutral country. The authorization
is legal until September 22, 1817, when Spain and Great Britain sign a treaty, which
definitely prohibits slave trade and establishes a transition period until 1820.
However, as it has happened many times in history, the prohibition leads to an even
stronger activity and bigger profits. Catalan participation in the trade and African
traffic, started legally in the last decades of the eighteenth century, is consolidated
between 1810 and 1820, and achieves its maximum strength and efficiency at the
beginning of the forties, after which it gradually declines (Moreno Fraginals, El
Ingenio 262-269; Fradera, Catalunya i Cuba 42-47). Fradera calculates that during
thirty years of legal trafficking between 1789 and 1820, 146 Catalan ships
54
transported a total of 30,696 slaves to Cuba, which constitutes 15.08 percent of all
slaves brought legally to the island and 21.74 percent of slaves brought under
Spanish colors (La participacio catalana 124). The prohibition of traffic critically
changes its organization. Maluquer de Motes, Moreno Fraginals, and Sola show that
it is concentrated in the hands of powerful negreros such as Salvador Sama, Panxo
Marti, Pau Forcade, Josep Marfa Borrell, and Miquel Pous.40 On the other hand,
Maluquer de Motes and Fradera argue that not only the financial empires of Antonio
Lopez y Lopez or Salvador Sama, but also many other small or medium Catalan
fortunes, have their origin in Catalan trade tightly linked to slave trade. The
enormous profitability of the slave trade is a major factor of attractiveness for the
continuation of business after the legal prohibition. Catalan ships set sail from
coastal cities carrying such traditional exports as wine, brandy, wax, and dried fruit,
and they follow the triangular route stopping at African coasts to pick up the cargo
of Africans, victims of endless intertribal wars. From there, the live cargo, which
after 1820 is called bags or coal in log books, proceed to Cuban ports, most
frequently to Havana. According to Maluquer de Motes and Fradera, the most
important contribution of traffic to the Catalan economy should be examined from
the perspective of its integration into Catalan exterior trade. From the first
40See Jordi Maluquer de Motes, La burguesfa catalana i la esclavitud

colonial: modes de produccio i practica polftica, Recerques 3 (1974), 83-136.
Manuel Moreno Fraginals, El ingenio: Compleio economico social cubano del
azucar (La Habana: Ciencias Sociales, 1978) 262-69. A. Sola, Tres notes entom les
actituds i valors de l alta burgesia barcelonina a mitjan segle XIX, Quaderns de
flnstitut Catala dAntropologia 3-4. (1981): 123.
55
expeditions to African coasts, the profits of slave trade become a fundamental means
to compensate for the losses incurred on Catalan American commerce by the
saturation of colonial markets and rivalry with other merchant marines, as well as by
the raising of freight and insurance costs as the result of insurgent privateering. On
the other hand, the benefits of overseas trade, in which Cuba played a key role,
compensate the permanent deficit of Catalan trade during the nineteenth century
generated by expensive imports of European manufactures, energy resources,
machinery and food which could not be compensated by interchange with the
Spanish interior market. Catalan foreign trade, in contrast to other Spanish foreign
trade, was based on two poles, colonial and American trade on the one hand, and
European trade on the other. The Africans constitute one of the major items of
American commerce after wine. Traffic, on the one hand, is a source of profits for a
vast circle of Catalan commerce, on the other, is a decisive factor in maintaining a
complex system of exterior relations (Fradera, Catalunya i Cuba 46-47).
The participation of Catalans in the colonial enterprise and slave trade, which
is represented as an inseparable part of this enterprise, becomes the subject of a
multifaceted discussion in Catalan society at the end of the twentieth century. As I
already mentioned, the Comissio Catalana del Cinque Centenari del Descobriment
dAmerica organizes five Jomades dEstudis Catalanos-Americans from 1985 to
1993. In 1984 the magazine of historic studies LAveny publishes a set of articles
about the involvement of the Catalans in slave trade under the title Dossier.
Fraderas Catalunya i Cuba en el segle XIX: el comerg desclaus, which I broadly
56
quote, is part of this Dossier. In the same magazine, Armengou offers an overview
of the iconography of some Catalan negrero ships from the funds of the Maritime
Museum of Barcelona. Rovira Fors, Director of the Parrish Archive of Canet de
Mar, in an article about the brigantine Tellus built in Canet de Mar and used for
slave trafficking, offers his perspective on the participation of Catalans in the slave
trade. The author comes from a family of veritable sea wolves who, in the
nineteenth century, engaged in all types of maritime labor from fishing to coastal
sailing or trading. According to this author, the participation in slave expeditions,
which was difficult to resist for their great profitability, required certain heroism
on behalf of the participants because of the numerous difficulties and perils that this
type of ventures involved for their participants. Rovira Fons also argues that the
treatment of Africans by their transporters was not always as brutal and inhuman as
described in some works of fiction and film:
Existf, malauradament, un comportament infrahuman
en alguns capitans i tripulacions, pero hi hague-a part
de raons humanitaries i etiques que, en alguns casos i
encara minimament, deurien funcionar-un interes logic
i raonable a no malmetre la mercaderia, i es
procurava evitar morts i malalties i que els negres no
arribessin fets malbe als ports de destf. (54)
This perspective explicitly seems to be seeking acquittal for the deeds of the
past, but it also evokes a traditional discourse towards slave traffic, called in the log
books of negrero ships comercio de ebano, black wood commerce. As early as in
1926, Arturo Masriera points out that there are two types of discourse about
57
negreros. Some authors represent them as humanitarians who care for their
merchandise in order to profit from it:
Puestos en el piano de un dulce optimismo, anaden
estos autores que el negro, al poner el pie en un buque
negrero, era alimentado, cuidado y atendido, con
solicitud, sino caritativa, por lo menos utilitaria, ya que
su valor en el proximo mercado, dependfa del estado
de nutrition, salud y lozama con que llegase al
mercado. Y asf, las duchas, las danzas y conciertos, la
alimentation sana y abundante, y hasta las lecciones de
lectura y escritura, no faltaban a bordo de los buques
negreros. (152)
Masriera points further to the reverse side of the discourse about the overseas
fleet that condemns all sailors as ruthless negreros. This type of discourse, according
to Masriera, starts with their representation in Heinrich Heines poetry that was
translated into Catalan in 1878, Antoni Altadills Barcelona v sus misterios,41 and
finally, Las inquietudes de Shanti Andfa by Pfo Baroja (153-154).42 The publication
41 In the novel Barcelona y sus misterios (1860) by Antoni Altadill, the

protagonist is a young republican deported to Cuba by the Principatos authorities.
In a mixture of a mystery and adventure novel reminiscent of Eugene Sue, he is
shipwrecked and saved by a ship that transports slaves. Thus the young idealistic
protagonist gets in contact with the brutal world of the slave trade. The figure of the
captain of the ship, a brutal negrero who sells the protagonist into a ten-year slavery
in Africa, is contrasted to the idealism of the protagonist. According to Fradera, the
figure of the captain evokes the figure of Pedro Blanco, an infamous Spanish negrero
(La figura del negre 59).
42 At the same time, one may turn to El Ingenio by Moreno Fraginals, who
quotes the report to the Real Consulado compiled by the officers of the port of
Havanaamong them doctor Tomas Romayabout the condition in which the
Africans arrive to Cuba during the period between 1808 and 1820. Moreno
Fraginals characterizes this period as a transition period from British to Spanish
trafficking. As an example, the Cuban historian mentions a trip by a Spanish frigate
Amistad that took on board seven hundred thirty three slaves in Africa and lost five
58
by Rovira Fons seems to be indicative of a desire to understand and not judge the
past from todays perspective. One can also view this publication of the time of
renewed assertion of Catalan identity at the time of the transition to democracy in
Spain as one of the sources that continue to nurture the construction of Catalan
identity tightly linked to maritime culture:
Ser navegant era el rol i la sortida brillant en la vida
daquell temps. Una generacio de navegantsagosarada i valenta. Tambe ho foren, anys mes tard,
els americanoso indianos; un alter tipus de vida i
daventura relacionada amb America i el mar. La
generacio dels americanos constitui'ren el veritable
suport a la nissaga de fabricants i empresaris de
1epoca industrial. (55)
Another aspect of Catalan colonial involvement alongside the participation in
the slave trade, as maintained in the historical discourse of the late twentieth century,
is an emphasis on important positions in the Spanish colonial administration
occupied by some prominent Catalan merchants, bankers, industrials and landowners
in Cuba and Puerto Rico. In consequence, as Yanez points out, Catalan bourgeoisie
becomes a natural ally of the Spanish colonial authorities and major beneficiary of
the Spanish colonial system (Saltar con red 82). Catalan historians show the grounds
hundred forty five during the trip that lasted for fifty-two days. The surviving one
hundred eighty eight presented such a deplorable picture that it provoked wrath in
doctor Romay who gave them vaccination upon arrival to Havana (264). The frigate
Amistad. called schooner in some sources, seemingly continues its infamous
business into the late 1830s. The revolt of Africans on board of the Amistad in 1839
becomes a significant event for the American judicial system. In 1997, the story of
Amistad becomes the subject of an opera, with music by Anthony Davis and libretto
by Thulani Davis, and of an acclaimed film produced by Steven Spielberg in 1998.
59
for the unanimous colonialist positions of the Catalan bourgeoisie during the
nineteenth century. The decade of the 1860s is marked by the weakening of Catalan
immigration to Cuba, on the one hand, and by the development of Catalan industrial
capital, on the other. In the Catalan discourse of the late twentieth century, following
the ideas of Vicens Vives and Vilar, nineteenth-century Catalonia is represented as a
center that accumulates financial capitals generated in the colonies. The growing
accumulation in Catalonia of financial capital created in the colonies is so strong that
in the 1870s it provokes a fear among the contemporaries of converting Cuba into a
Catalan factory.43
The end of the nineteenth century may be viewed as the third period of
Catalan overseas involvement. Catalan historiography explores a whole set of factors
which affect the changes that characterize participation of the Catalans in the
colonial venture at the end of the nineteenth century. One of these factors is the
43 Cesar Yanez quotes documents published by Ines Roldan de Montaud in

La Hacienda en Cuba durante la guerra de diez anos (1868-1880) testifying to the
controversy provoked by the creation of such financial giant as Banco HispanoColonial in Barcelona in 1876: Desde el 1 de noviembre [1876] el delegado del
Banco [Hispano-Colonial] en La Habana, [...] quedaba en posesion de recaudacion
de las rentas de aduana. Desde aquel momento, y en tanto durase el contrato, todos
los productos obtenidos en las mismas quedaban a disposicion del delegado. La
sociedad nombro una serie de agentes en las diversas aduanas para fiscalizar las
operaciones. Podia nombrar tambien los auxiliares que creyese oportunos para que la
contabilidad de aduanas se llevase al dfa y con exactitud. Tenfa tambien derecho a
proponer el ministro de Ultramar el cese de cualquier empleado de aduanas y el
nombramiento de otros nuevos[...] Con aquellas atribuciones en el nombramiento de
empleados se coma el riesgodirfa uno de los Diputados que mas se opuso a la
ratification del contrato en las Cortesde convertir aquello en una factorfa
comercial reducida al punto en donde tuviera el domicilio el prestamista, habfa el
peligro de que Cuba llegara a ser pura y simplemente una factorfa catalana con
perjuicio del resto de la nation y de la isla misma. (qtd in Saltar con red 50)
60
crisis of Catalan shipping companies that did not manage to shift successfully to the
new maritime technologies brought into practice with steamships in the late sixties.44
The obsolete sail shipping technology, together with the growing abolitionist
movement in Spain, lead to the loss of profitability in the traffic,45 and as a
consequence of all overseas commerce. Another crucial factor is the cotton hunger
provoked by the Civil War in the United States, which leads to the temporal
stagnation of the Catalan textile industry and the subsequent crash of the Barcelona
stock exchange in 1866. However, the crucial event for the relationship between the
metropolis and the loyal colony is the first war for Cuban independence (18681878), the following years of instability, and the colonys final rupture with the
metropolis in 1898.
44 See Raymond Carrs analysis of Catalan society in Spain: 18081975:
[T]he relatively large class of ship owners, a striking element in Barcelona society
and throughout the Catalan littoral in the fifties and sixties, had gone by 1898. As
was their habit, Catalan protectionists blamed its disappearance on the refusal of the
Madrid government to protect national shipping; in fact most Catalan shippers
lacked the capital to finance the change from sail to steam (435).
45 A known case of an attempt at continuing slave traffic is the case of Pere
Mas i Roig, a captain from the coastal town of Vilassar de Mar in the province of
Barcelona. Known under the nickname El Pigat (The Freckled), Mas i Roig makes
a failed attempt at slave trafficking with a steamship right before the Glorious
Revolution of 1868 (Masriera 160, Fradera Catalunya i Cuba 44). The figure of El
Pigat deserves special mention. In 1998, his native town chooses him and his
legendary mistress La Lucfa, a mulatto woman allegedly brought by him from the
Caribbean, to be the prototypes for the gigantic figures that represent their town
during annual festival processions, festes majors (see fig. 5). Mas i Roig is also one
of the protagonists of the three part documentary Retrats dindians produced by the
Catalan network TV-3 and first aired on July 11, 18 and 25, 2001. We will discuss
the representation of El Pigat and La Lucfa in Chapter Two while exploring the
representation of the relationship between Catalan men and Cuban women in the
cultural imaginary of Catalonia.
61
With the war and the changes in the economic situation of Spain and Cuba,
the structure of immigration transforms itself. In Cuba, voluntary immigration,
motivated by factors of attractiveness, is replaced by a massive arrival of soldiers
recruited by the Spanish government or participating in the volunteer troops. During
the years of the wars in Cuba between 1868 and 1899, many immigrants remigrate to
the United States, New Orleans in particular. The financial capital, however, as
Vicens Vives argues, tends to return to Catalonia, thus leading to the creation of
prosperous industries in Catalonia based on financial capital generated in the
colonies (Noticia de Cataluna 47). The names of Lopez y Lopez, Xifre i Casas,
Salvador Sama i Torrents, Fontanals, Canela i Raventos and others46 are associated
both with overseas trade and with Catalan financial capital. Maluquer de Motes
argues, however, that not only the above mentioned financial giants but also small
merchants, owners of bodegas, ship owners and officials return to Catalonia with
relatively important fortunes (La burguesfa catalana 112).
According to Raymond Carr, by 1894, sixty percent of the Catalan export
trade was to Cuba. Therefore the loss of the colony seemed to threaten economic
disaster in Catalonia (Spain 397). Financial interests of the Catalan conservative
bourgeoisie deeply rooted in Cuba lead to their loyalty and defense of Spanish
An
colonial interests. The defense of protectionism,
which in Spain meant the
46 An extended list can be found in Maluquer de Motes, La burguesfa

catalana i la esclavitud colonial: modes de produccio i practica polftica (Recerques,
3, 1974) 112.
62
prohibition of imports, especially textile, from other countries while in Cuba gave
tax privileges to Spanish merchants, becomes the creed of Catalonia in the words
of Carr (Spain 201). The Catalan bourgeoisie viciously protects its interests in Cuba.
One of its ideologists is Joan Giiell i Ferrer, a successful proprietor and entrepreneur,
whose fortune created in Cuba was invested in Catalonia. He is the founder of the
dynasty that later, at the beginning of the twentieth century, patronizes the work of
Antoni Gaudf in Barcelona, including the Parc Giiell. A man of many talents, Giiell i
Ferrer publishes a number of pamphlets, which clearly express the positions of the
Catalan bourgeoisie of the time, and put him into a position of a strong defender of
integral protectionism and, as a consequence, of the Spanish colonial system.
Maluquer de Motes quotes the pamphlet Rebelion Cubana, published by Giiell i
Ferrer in 1871, in which the latter argues that Cuban independence was not only
unjustified, but also not convenient for Cuba. According to Giiell i Ferrer, the vast
majority of Cuban revolutionaries were adventurers and people without fortune que
tenfan horror al trabajo y escesivo (sic) amor a los goces, y quieren obtenerlos pronto
y sin fatiga (qtd. in La burguesfa catalana i la esclavitud colonial 114). The
Catalan bourgeoisie was willing to pay the price of maintaining Spanish troops in
47 For more details on protectionism and Catalonia see Carrs Spain: 18081975: Catalan industrials had long been protectionists, but it was the revolutionary
change to doctrinaire free trade in the budget of 1869the handiwork of a Catalan,
Figuerolawhich brought them into a prolonged and bitter agitation. The demand
for the restoration of protection became, in the seventies and eighties, the demand of
all classes in Catalonia. Backed by the most powerful pressure group in modem
Spain, the Fomento del Trabajo Nacional, the crusade was preached with all the
moral overtones characteristic of the early free traders (539).
63
Cuba. Carr mentions such groups of powerful interests as the agriculturalists of the
Institute of San Isidro and the industrialists of the Fomento del Trabajo Nacional,
who set up a Permanent Commission for the Defense of Spanish Interests in Cuba
(Spain 309). Moreno Maso mentions that Catalan financial moguls invested 39,150
pesos duros. a substantial amount for the time, to finance the so-called Voluntary
Battalions. The list of sponsors opens with the name of Antonio Lopez y Lopez,48
whose company, the famous Compania Transatlantica, will carry Spanish troops to
Cuba during the war, and contains the names of other outstanding financial figures
such as Salvador Sama i Torrents, Josep M. Sarra and Joan Jover i Serra, whose
capitals are directly connected to Cuba. Public opinion and the press conduct a vast
recruiting campaign. Moreno Maso quotes a promotional leaflet designed to present
the campaign as a short-term triumphant war against the corrupted children of the
mother country: alia en Cuba, hijos espureos de la Madre Patria, raza degenerada y
corrompida, asestan sus punales contra los buenos espanoles con la mas perfida
ingratitud, la mas infame rebelion. Los Batallones de Voluntarios Catalanes
volveran victoriosos, cubiertos de gloria y vuestras madres os recibiran orgullosas
(60-61). The participation in the Voluntary Battalions is represented by the military
propaganda of the time as an advantage over being recruited to the regular army, for
48
The protagonism of Lopez y Lopez in the creation of Catalan industrial

capital based on colonial trade has become an icon of the links uniting Catalonia and
overseas colonies. The controversy and the revelation of Lopez y Lopezs
involvement in slave traffic are in the center of attention since the first openly critical
biography written by his brother-in-law Francisco Bru in 1885. See La verdadera
vida de Antonio Lopez i Lopez, por su cunado Francisco Bru (Barcelona: Leodegario
Obradors, 1885).
64
their substantially higher salary and an opportunity to emigrate at the states expense.
It is especially attractive for those who lose their jobs because of the stagnation of
cotton and railway construction industries in Catalonia at the time.
The Spanish goal of formally maintaining Cuba as its colony was achieved
after nine and a half years of devastating guerrilla warfare in a tropical climate where
infectious diseases, insects and climatic conditions were the natural and undoubted
allies of the mambises, the Cuban insurrects. Specifically, the case of the Voluntary
Battalions, according to Moreno Maso, is exceptionally tragic. None of those few
who returned ever received any of the promised benefits. Moreno Maso quotes a
letter written in 1895 shortly before the beginning of the new war to the members of
the Union, a charitable association created in 1892 to help improve the deplorable
life conditions of the former voluntaries:
[Cjonocidas son todas las penalidades sufridas en
aquel mortffero clima, como lo atestigua el sencillo
dato de que de los 3.600 hombres que partieron, sanos
robustos llenos de vida, solo resta el oxfgeno de 160,
cargados de achaques y enfermedades a consecuencia
de aquella Guerra civil que duro nueve anos y medio
[...] (qtd. in Moreno Maso 75)
However, the Ten Year War was only a prologue to the Disaster of 1898, as
the loss of the colonies in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines at the price of
thousands of lives of young Spaniards is called in the history of Spain. The Disaster
had specific repercussions in Catalonia. The weakening of the Spanish state and its
inability to maintain the empire on the one hand, and thousands of lost lives and
crippled soldiers returning home from an involuntary trip to the former colonies on
65
the other, create conditions for a nationalistic rupture of Catalonia from the Spanish
state. Catalanism, which is seen by some todays scholars as part of
Regeneracionismo,49 a movement of the intelligentsia that called for the regeneration
of Spain, saw in the Cuban defeat a foreseeable outcome of the secular faulty politics
of centralism imposed by the Spanish state. On the other hand, there was a structural
change inside the Catalan nationalistic forces. Until the loss of Cuba, while the
substantial forces of the Catalan bourgeoisie were strongly supportive of the colonial
politics of the Spanish Empire, it was impossible to advocate for Catalan selfgovernment while denying it to Cuba. But by 1899, as Balcells points out, the
Catalan high bourgeoisie was more willing to listen to the regionalist and
regenerationalist message of the radical Catalan nationalists. This alliance between
the intellectuals and the financial capital will lead to the strengthening of the
nationalist movement.50 In the words of Raymond Carr, Catalanism could no
longer be neglected: it was to dominate and distort Spanish politics for the next half
century (Spain 538).
The historical and sociological publications overviewed in this chapter appear
at the time of the renewed assertion of Catalonia as a nation with a strong maritime
tradition that has its roots in the medieval domination in the Mediterranean. Through
the discourse that foregrounds the participation of the Catalans in the colonial
49 See Conversi p.26.

50 For a discussion of the Catalan Nationalism and of its relationship with the
Disaster see Dfez Medrano 94-105; Conversi 25-27.
66
enterprise that includes the infamous slave trade, Catalonia strives to assert its place
among the colonial and imperial powers of Europe even though it does not
historically possess colonies or constitute an Empire. In the chapters that follow I
will explore how the historical and sociological discourse about Catalan involvement
in Cuba is articulated and reinforced in the last decades of the twentieth century
through popular musical culture, film and fiction.
67
Chapter Two
Transculturations of the Habanera I: Transatlantic Journeys
En Cuba
tierra hermosa del ardiente sol,
bajo su cielo azul,
adorable triguena
entre todas sus flores
la reina eres til
(Tu, lyrics by Feman
Sanchez, c. 1894)
Tecla
se llamo la mulata que yo
camelaba con sal.
De la mismita Habana
la pobre Teclita
era natural.
(Tecla, anonymous, no date)
The epigraphs to this chapter are taken from two habaneras that are sung to
the same music created by the Cuban composer Eduardo Sanchez de Fuentes in
1890. Tu, with lyrics by Feman Sanchez, became extremely popular during the
turbulent time when Cuba fought for its independence from Spain and is perhaps the
most famous of the Cuban habaneras. Tecla, sung in Catalonia to the same
melody by Sanchez de Fuentes with the lyrics by an anonymous author, is
traditionally perceived as an intrinsic part of Catalan folklore of the twentieth
century. The transformation of the Cuban habanera Tu into the Catalan Tecla
and the processes underlying it make one think of the continuation of the complex
68
phenomenon of mutual influence and fusion of cultures, defined by the Cuban
scholar Fernando Ortiz as transculturation.
The habanera, a cultural sign whose very name invokes its overseas origin, is
claimed by the Catalans at the end of the twentieth century as one of the emblems of
their cultural identity. The privileging of the habanera in the discourse about Catalan
culture is explicitly stated in the habaneras created in recent decades in Catalonia.
Among the examples that we will discuss in Chapter Three, one can quote the
habanera El mar i la patria by Antonia Vilas, which explicitly points out the
singing of the habanera as a sign of Catalan identity:
I mentre feinegen, la mar juganera
bressola la barca i els seus tripulants
entonen alegres un cant dhavanera
que deixa entreveure que son Catalans. (Mar
endins 70).
At the end of the nineteenth century, however, the habanera is generally
perceived as a trademark of a larger Spanishness when European composers Bizet,
Debussy, Saint Saenz, Lalo, Ravel, Laparra among others, repeatedly return to it in
their works dedicated to Spain. Virtually forgotten in Cuba, the habanera continues
its life in Spain, from where its roots were once transplanted into the musically fertile
Cuban cultural soil. In Catalonia, in the last decades of the twentieth century, the
habanera, traditionally perceived as a legacy of colonial times, strives with new
subjects and in a new language, Catalan. The habanera may well be a moveable
cultural sign whose constant permutations lead to the creation of new cultural forms
and meanings. The exploration of the habanera as a cultural sign highly relevant for
69
Catalan cultural identity can be pursued from a double perspective. In this chapter, I
will take a closer look at a long-standing debate about its origins, comparable
perhaps only to the debate about the origins of its closest musical relative, the tango.
I will also discuss the ways of the transmission of the habanera that may be directly
connected to Spains colonial expansion and to the participation of the Catalans in
the colonial enterprise. I believe that the exploration of the discourse about the
origins and the ways of transmission of the habanera will help to support my thesis
of the significance of the songs that evoke the lost tropical paradise for the cultural
imaginary of Catalonia and for the construction of its cultural identity. In Chapter
Three, I will explore the transculturation of the habanera as a cultural sign in
Catalonia in the twentieth century as it becomes one of the emblems of Catalan
cultural identity.
Transculturation is an important concept in the discussion of the habanera.
Still difficult to find in dictionaries and encyclopedias of the English language, it is
defined by Encarta World English Dictionary as the change in a culture brought
about by the diffusion within it of elements from other cultures. The concept of
transculturation was coined by the Cuban scholar Fernando Ortiz whose interests lay
in a broad field of sciences that included anthropology, history, criminology,
ethnography, lexicography and music, among other disciplines. In Contrapunteo
cubano del tabaco v el azucar (1940),51 Ortiz introduces the term transculturation
51 The first English edition was published in 1947. Both editions were
preceded by a favorable Introduction by Bronislaw Malinowski, one of the most
70
and opposes it to already existing concept of acculturation. Seemingly focusing on

the transculturation of tobacco and sugar, two crucial elements that originate in Cuba
and conquer the world as a kind of guilty pleasures, Ortiz transposes the concept of
transculturation to the analysis of a broad range of cultural elements that constitute
the formation of Cuban nation and culture. Discussing the history of Cuba as the
history of intermeshed transculturations, Ortiz reflects on the contribution of each
cultural group that participated in the formation of the Cuban nation. The Spaniards,
one of major contributing sources, according to him, were representatives of
different cultures and themselves tom loose from Iberian Peninsula and
transplanted to a New World, where everything was new to them, nature and
people, and where they had to readjust themselves to a new syncretism of cultures
(98). Ortiz considers his neologism, transculturation, to be more appropriate to
describe the complex processes that lie underneath the creation of the new cultures of
the colonial world than acculturation because it not only transfers the meaning of
an acquisition of another culture, as does the term acculturation, but it also identifies
other processes inseparable from the formation of nations and cultures in the colonial
and postcolonial history. Among these processes he mentions deculturation, a loss
of an uprooted culture, and neoculturation, the consequent creation of new
prominent figures in American anthropology of the time. Malinowski embraced the

term transculturation and promised to use it constantly and loyally whenever he
had occasion to do so (lvii). However, Fernando Coronil in his Introduction to the
Duke University Press Edition of Cuban Counterpoint: Tobacco and Sugar (1995)
discusses the undercurrents lying beneath the apparent amicability of Malinowski,
making a specific point that the latter hardly ever used this term, and Ortizs
necessity to recur to his authority. I quote the Duke UP 1995 edition.
71
cultural phenomena (102-3). Reading Ortizs work in the twenty-first century, one
cannot help seeing that the convergence of cultures, a process far from being simple,
leads to constant metamorphosis of cultural signsindeed, transculturations,which
do not stop with the formation of new nations and cultures of the colonial and
postcolonial world, but continue into the twenty first century.52
One can see that Ortiz emphasizes the creativity of cultural unions that give
birth to new cultural forms. In order to introduce his neologism, and probably being
conscious of the limited range of readers that he can achieve in his Spanish-language
work, Ortiz recurs to the authority of Bronislaw Malinowski. The latter postulates
that the result of every union of cultures is similar to that of the reproductive
process between individuals: the offspring always has something of both parents but
is always different from each of them (102-3). Ortiz applies the concept of the
constant creation of cultural phenomena not only to Cuban, but also to all Latin
American reality bom as a product of the hybridity of converging cultures. The
habanera may be a very good example of transculturation that continues into the
twenty-first century. Born in the process of the transculturation that took place in
Cuba during the decades of the growth of the society, formed by the sugar, in the
words of Moreno Fraginals, it crosses the Atlantic and retumes to the Iberian
Peninsula from where its roots were once transplanted into the New World. The
assimilation of the habanera by the Catalans as a sign of their cultural identity makes
52 The concept and the theory of transculturation in recent decades has been
widely applied to cultural and literary studies. See, for example, Angel Rama,
Transcuturacion narrativa en la America Latina (Mexico 1982).
72
one want to explore in detail the intriguing story of the origins of the habanera, a
permutable cultural sign.
In 1946, Alejo Carpentier publishes La musica en Cuba, which he himself
considers to be the first history of Cuban music (14). In this book, Carpentier argues
two concepts crucial for the story of the habanera: the creation of new musical forms
in Cuba as the result of the contact of three cultures that constitute Cuban reality, and
the significance of Cuban musical culture for the world. Carpentier emphasizes the
transformation that the dances brought from the Iberian Peninsula with the
immigrants undergo in America and the new character that they acquire as the result
of their contact with the African and the mestizo cultures on the Cuban soil. He also
stresses their reverse route to Europe in the form of a novelty:
Modificadas en el tempo, en los movimientos,
enriquecidas por gestos y figuras de origen africano,
solfan hacer el viaje inverso, regresando al punto de
partida con caracteres de novedad. Tambien nacfan, en
el calor de los puertos, bailes que no eran sino
reminiscencias de danzas africanas, desposefdas de su
lastre ritual. Pero America, en el perfodo de formation
de sus pueblos, dio mucho mas de lo que recibio. (62)
The story of the habanera with its overwhelming success on both sides of the
Atlantic supports Carpentiers conviction that America gave much more than it
received. The hypothesis that I propose suggests that transculturation, as formulated
by Ortiz, goes far beyond the formation of colonial cultures and has its boomerang
effect on the cultural identity of nations whose role in the initial transculturation
cannot be underestimated. The phenomenon of the Catalan habanera, booming, as it
73
were, in the last four decades of the twentieth century, and into the twenty-first, can
be seen both as a vehicle and as a product of transculturation, a process that
continues to create new cultural forms and identities, which I explore in this
dissertation.
The habanera, whose very name is a reminder of its exotic origin in the
capital of Spains beloved colony,53 is bom as the result of the encounter of three
major elements that constitute Cuban cultural hybridity: Spanish melodies and
dances that arrive in the colony with the colonizers; African musical culture brought
in with the slaves; and the remnants of the Antillean indigenous cultures. By the end
of the nineteenth century, it becomes popular in the New and in the Old World.
The popularity of the habanera at the end of the nineteenth century can only be
compared to that of its closest musical relative, the tango, some decades later. The
origin of both musical forms, the habanera and the tango, seems to be the prevalent
topic in most research about these two musical phenomena with identical rhythmical
characteristics, a parallel history and significant cultural repercussions not only for
their spaces of origin but also, due to their universal appeal and popularity, for a
global cultural space.
The origins of the habanera provoke discussions and polemics long before
Carpentiers book, in which the habanera receives particular attention from the very
first pages. Spanish composer and musicologist Felipe Pedrell (1841-1922), French
53 For Nicolas Slonimsky, habanera means Havana air (57).
74
musicologist DHarcourt, Cuban composer Eduardo Sanchez de Fuentes, author of
the habanera Tu, German ethnomusicologist Albert Friedenthal (1862-1921),
Argentinean music scholar Carlos Vega discuss the habanera as a significant part of
Cuban and Latin American musical culture. Cuban musician Natalio Gal an in his
book Cuba y sus sones54 (1983) offers a concise overview of various approaches to
the origins of the habanera. According to Galan, a la habanera se le han adjudicado
los orfgenes mas diversos e incongruentes que una pesadilla historica pueda sonar en
noche de tradiciones confusas o endilgadas tesis huidizas (225). As Galan points
out, Pedrell associated the nostalgic rhythm with the Basque zortzico, while
D Harcourt believed that the rhythm belonged to the music of the Incas, and even of
the ancient Asian cultures. Sanchez de Fuentes found its ancestors in the Cuban preColumbian music, fiercely and tellingly denying the African elements in it, while the
Argentinean musicologist Carlos Vega also places it before the discovery of the
Americas, observing that this specific rhythm can be found in the Cancionero de
palacio.55 Friedenthal imputes it to the Antillean Negroes, while Ballanta-Taylor
54 Natalio Galan (Cuba, 1917 - New Orleans, 1984) was a musician and a
researcher. According to Guillermo Cabrera Infante who wrote a prologue with a
provocative title Una historia inaudita to Galans book, the latter was hired by
Carpentier as the principal researcher for his book La musica en Cuba, published in
1946 (Prologo xviii). Carpentier acknowledges Galans help in the transcription of
some of Salas scores (14). Galans book may be read as a history of Cuban musical
culture. Perhaps due to Galans situation of a political exile in the USA, his work
remains unnoticed by the official Cuban musicology.
55 Galan refers to El Cancionero de palacio, a collection of 450 polyphonic
compositions that represent a broad spectrum of the lyrics of various regions of
75
agrees with him illustrating it with numerous musical examples of African-American

music. Sanchez de Fuentes negates African influence, arguing that the slave rhythm
did not uproot in the Cuban folklore (225). Carpentier, who supports the African
influence on Cuban musical culture, explains Sanchez de Fuentess position as a
reflection of a general racist attitude of the Cuban society of the first years of the
republic (La musica 286). Some authors, however, believe that the rhythm of the
habanera, present in El Cancionero de palacio points out to the arrival of the rhythm
to the Americas as early as at the time of the discovery and conquest.
For Galan,
the habanera is not only a Cuban-born genre but also the representation of the Cuban
cultural identity. Apparently unsatisfied with the definitions of the habanera in
encyclopedias and dictionaries, Galan offers his own allegoric definition of the
habanera, con N, jamas con N57 (240). Comparing the habanera to Cecilia Valdes,
the mulatto protagonist of Cirilo Villaverdes novel Cecilia Valdes o La Loma del
Angel, he projects the metaphor of hybridity associated with the racial syncretism of
Cuban nation on the habanera as a cultural sign and emphasizes the mestizaje of its
Spain of the Reconquista period found in the library of Madrid Royal Palace in 1870
and first published in 1890.
56 Linares discusses the arguments of the defenders of the Arabic influence
present in El Cancionero de palacio in Algunas ideas sobre la habanera I Trovada
de Habaneras: Ponenecias presentadas a la mesa redonda. Mayorga, 6 y 7 de agosto,
1993, 10-11.
57 Nicolas Slonimsky in his Music of Latin America (1945) considers the
exotic tilde over the n found in some dictionaries and music publications as the
offense, even more aggravated when a phonetic transcription habanyera is offered
as in quoted by him the Funk and Wagnalls Dictionary (57).
76
roots: Habanera, por su genealogfa, fue la mulatica musical mas presumida de

Cuba (240).
Through Galans representation of the debate about the origin of the habanera
one can see that the hybridity of the habanera may hardly be doubted. What is
debated, however, is the space where the genre is bom and the means of its
transmission. From the publications about habaneras in the recent decades on both
sides of the Atlantic, it seems obvious that the opposition lies not so much in the
opposition of the spaces of origin, the colony versus the center of the Spanish
Empire, but in the opposition of a certain space of origin versus the so-called genre
of ida y vuelta, go and return. Marfa Teresa Linares points out this opposition in
her article LHavanera danada i tomada, published in the book LHavanera: Un
cant popular (1995). However, this article by one of the most respected Cuban
musical historians, is preceded by her other article, entitled Cuba: Orfgens. This
order somehow represents the hierarchy of the priorities in this debate. Linares
agrees to the hypothesis expressed by the Spanish musicologist Arcadio Larrea, in
1972, that the habanera together with other Latin American popular genres is a genre
of go and return, indebted to the Spanish tonadilla. This form of theatrical song
performed as an interlude between the acts of a bigger dramatic piece or at the end of
one arrives to Cuba with numerous Spanish theatre groups as early as in the
eighteenth century.
The other imported predecessor of the habanera is the contradanza, the most
popular dance of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. The impact of the
77
tonadilla and of the contradanza are pointed out by Carpentier who mentions that
between 1790 and 1814 more than two hundred tonadillas were performed in Havana
(La musica 97). At the same time, Carpentier stresses the significance of the reverse
route of the peninsular dances exported to the colony, which return to their place of
origin with an air of novelty. This idea supports his crucial argument that America
gave much more than it received (La musica 62).
The spreading and the transformation that the country-dance bom on the
British Isles in the early seventeenth century undergoes in the Caribbean appear to be
one of the most striking examples of transculturation. Slonimsky uses the expression
surprisingly enough to qualify the metamorphosis of the British country-dance into
the Cuban habanera:
The English country-dance became the contredanse in
France, and this in turn was called contradanza in
Spain, or later, simply danza. When imported by the
Spaniards into Cuba, it became the danza habanera,
that is, the dance of Havana, and then was reintroduced
into Spain as habanera. During the Spanish-American
war, a popular dance Habanera del cafe appeared,
which was the prototype of the tango. (56)
Slonimskys version describes the metamorphosis of the country-dance in a

very concise manner. By the end of the seventeenth century, the dance, in which
couples form a circle, a square or two lines and perform a set of rather complicated
movements or figures, conquers Europe and becomes the favorite in the ballrooms of
the growing middle class. In Spain, with the ascension of the Bourbon house to the
throne in 1701, the country-dance is practiced alongside with rigadoons, minuets,
78
gavots, and other dances that cross national frontiers in Europe and become accepted
both in the ballrooms of the nobility and of the bourgeoisie (Lapique, Aportes
155). Gradually, the country-dance becomes the most popular among them all, and,
with those who travel to the colonies, it reaches the Antillean Islands. By the second
half of the eighteenth century, the contradanza becomes an intrinsic part of
entertainment in the Criollo society that blossoms alongside with the boom of the
Cuban sugar industry. Thus the initial gradual permutation of the country-dance
before it even transforms into the habanera creates a certain genealogy of
transculturations of cultural signs.
Though it is generally agreed that the country-dance is the parent of the
habanera, opinions differ regarding to how it arrives in Cuba. Carpentier argues that
the country-dance arrives in Cuba with the Francophone fugitives from SaintDomingue after the revolt of 1791 and takes roots in the East of the island, Oriente
province (La musica 125).58 Cuban historian Zoila Lapique mentions that this idea
is subsequently almost unanimously repeated by musicologists and historians who
write about Cuban music (Aportes 153). She argues, however, that the countrydance arrives in Cuba from Spain in the middle of the eighteenth century, and it is
known in Havana, the gateway of the Americas, approximately fifty years prior to
the massive arrival of Saint-Domingue refugees to the Oriente province. According
co
In an interview published in 1985, Carpentier acknowledged the necessity

of a complete revision and expansion of the book. See Timothy Brennan,
Introduction, Music in Cuba (Minneapolis, 2001) 6.
79
to Lapique, it is in Cuba that the Spanish country-dance acquires the rhythmic

pattern of the African origin, the conga, a style of performance cultivated by the
mulatto and negro musicians of the time bom in Cuba. The Franco-Haitian
contribution arrives fifty years later while the country-dance had already been
acclimatized for a substantial time in Havana (Aportes 154).
The assimilation of the African-born rhythm, the conga, by the European
country-dance upon arrival to the Antillean islands can be considered a crucial point
for the process of transculturation underlying the formation of the Criollo culture.
The convergence of the European country-dance and of the African bom rhythm
creates the so-called pattern of the tango, a combination of a dotted quarter note,
followed by a sixteenth note, followed by two eights. This pattern changes radically
the character of the European country-dance adding to it what may be perceived as a
joyful and sensual tempo that transforms it into a new voluptuous dance of the
tropics, or the zona torrida, as it was called by Andres Bello. The growing
popularity of public dances, especially in Havana and in the Oriente province, leads
to the proliferation of music bands consisting mostly of black and mulatto musicians
bom in Cuba. Music performed by them gradually transforms into a new generic
form of a country-dance that contains the alluring tango pattern. This new dance
receives the name of contradanza cubana, the Cuban country-dance. Within a
80
historically short period of time, probably a couple of decades, the suffix contra goes
out of fashion and the word danza,59 dance, prevails (Lapique, Aportes 165).
In Cirilo Villaverdes novel Cecilia Valdes o La Loma del Angel, one can
find repeated testimony of the popularity and significance of the Cuban danza,
characterized by Villaverde as sentimental y bulliciosa (94). For Villaverde, the
metamorphosis that the Spanish dance undergoes on the Cuban soil makes it hardly
possible to recognize its origin: sin mas demora, comenzo de veras el baile, es decir
la danza cubana, modification tan especial y peregrina de la danza espanola, que
apenas deja descubrir su origen (101-02). Villaverde attributes an exceptional
importance to danza, which, according to him, is the best representation of the
character, customs, social and political situation of the Cubans (240). Villaverdes
assertion of the importance of danza makes one think that he perceives it as a
relevant sign for the cultural identity of the Cuban nation in the process of its
formation:
El estilo es el hombre, ha dicho alguien
oportunamente; el baile es un pueblo, decimos
nosotros, y no hay ninguno como la danza que pinte
mas al vivo el caracter, los habitos, el estado social y
politico de los cubanos, ni que este en mas armoma
con el clima de la isla. (240)
59 Among the definitions of the word danza in Diccionario de la lengua

espanola de la Real Academia Espanola (1992), one can find under number three a
laconic: habanera. Habanera, in its turn, is defined by this dictionary as: 4. f. Baile
de origen cubano, en compas de dos por cuatro y de movimiento lento. 5. Musica y
canto de este baile.
81
The dance also serves as a vehicle of communication between different social

groups in Villaverdes novel. The white male protagonist of the novel visits the
dances of the high society of Havana as well as an event entitled cuna, which, as
Villaverde explains, was a meeting of individuos de ambos sexos de la clase de
color, sin que se les negase tampoco a los jovenes blancos que solfan honrarlos con
su presencia (92). Among the most interesting features of the Cuban danza as
Villaverde sees it, is perhaps the erotic character of it, which the author connects
directly to the restrictive moral and ethical laws of the Criollo society based on the
cultural traditions that arrive from Spain:
La cubana danza sin duda que se invento para hacerse
la corte los enamorados. En si el baile es muy sencillo,
los movimientos comodos y faciles, siendo su objeto
primordial la aproximacion de los sexos, en un pais
donde las costumbres moriscas tienden a su
separation; en una palabra, la comunion de las almas.
Porque el caballero lleva a la dama casi siempre como
en vilo, pues que mientras con el brazo derecho la
rodea el talle, con la mano izquierda le comprime la
suya blandamente. No es aquello bailar, puesto que el
cuerpo sigue meramente los compases; es mecerse
como en suenos, al son de una musica gemidora y
voluptuosa, es conversar mtimamente dos personas
queridas, es acariciarse dos seres que se atraen
mutuamente, y que el tiempo, el espacio, el estado, la
costumbre ha mantenido alejados. (239-40)
In the first Cuban lexicographical source, Diccionario provincial casirazonado de vozes y frases cubanas compiled by Esteban Pichardo,60 one can find a
60 Pichardo publishes his first dictionary of Cubanisms in 1836, subsequently

amplifies and reedits it in 1849, 1862 and 1875. The edition quoted here is based on
1875.
82
detailed definition of danza. Pichardo calls it the favorite dance of all the Antilles,
which can be found both in the capital, as well as in el mas indecente Changiii (sic)
del ultimo rincon de la Isla (222). According to the author, the country-dance has a
peculiar and noted, afamado, musical style. Pichardo describes various figures of
the dance in detail and notes that the music can be both a composition of the most
agreeable opera fragments, as well as cantos vulgares. Pichardo offers a rather
extensive list of adjectives to describe this music, including into it such seemingly
mutually exclusive adjectives as, alegre, triste, followed by sentimental, and
enamorada (223). This search for the most adequate means of verbal
representation apparently leads him to the conclusion with which he finishes his
vocabulary entry, that the Cuban dance can be felt, not described (223). Pichardos
search for the most adequate means of representation points to some crucial
characteristics of the sensual and voluptuous dance that gradually becomes a seal of
the exotic tropical paradise.
In 1911, the German musicologist Albert Friedenthal publishes a collection
of Criollo dances and songs from different countries of Latin America, and his
commentary about Criollo music. His collection consists of six notebooks, which
contain lyrics of songs in Spanish with translations into French, German and English.
The introduction and commentary to these songs are also in French, German and
English. 61 This multilingual edition perhaps points to an ambitious project of
61 Albert Friedenthal, Stimmen der Volker in Liedem. Tanzen und

Charakterstiicken, (Wien, 1911).
83
acquainting the broad European public with Criollo music. Friedenthal can be
considered one of the first defenders of the Africanism in colonial culture. The
habanera receives particular attention in his collection and in his commentary.
Discussing the Cuban dance, Friedenthal acknowledges the African influence in it,
and argues that there is nothing like it in Europe, not even in Spain. This is only
another reason for supposing that its origin must have been limited to the torrid zone,
where the climate forbids lively dancing (ix). Through Friedenthals representation
of habaneras in the form of the dance, one can see how the myth of the voluptuous
tropical dance continues to be created:
The swaying of the hips back and forth is, next to the
steps, the main feature. This swaying must be done
very gracefully. The only difference between a negro
tango and the habanera as danced in fashionable
society is in the movements of the hips. In the negro
dance they are usually very obscene. The
incomparable fascination exerted by an habanera dance
on the beholder cannot be depicted in words. The
dancers are closely clasped in each others arms, not a
word is spoken, only murmurs tender and low are
perhaps exchanged, not meant for other ears. There is
no singing either during this dance; it would break the
spell. The whole breathes ardent desire and love. To
see a dance like this in the marble courts of the
aristocratic Creoles, or better still under the drooping
branches of the palm-trees in the moonlight of a
tropical night, is a sight never to be forgotten, (x)
Friedenthals gazehis fascination with the exotic and erotic dancereflects
an already formed by his time tradition of the perception of Cuba, its landscape, its
music and its women as signs of a voluptuous tropical paradise. The habanera, with
84
its dotted and languid rhythm, explicitly plays a significant role in the creation of the
image of this tropical paradise.62
This image and the perception of the Gran Antilla as a voluptuous tropical
paradise cannot be separated from the outstanding economic situation of Cuba
throughout the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century. One should not
forget that Cuba, in the nineteenth century, (as well as in much of the twentieth) is
the center of world sugar production. In addition to this, Havana is the port of entry
for virtually all the ships sailing and, later, steaming from Europe to the Americas.
Therefore, the music generated in this crossroads point finds its way both to the other
ports of the Americas as well as back to the mother country, Spain. Thus one can
distinguish two main routes of export of Cuban music: on the one hand, oral
transmission by sailors and merchants passing through Havana on their way to
Yucatan and the River Plata region, on the other, printed Cuban musical scores are
exported to other countries of the Americas and, naturally, back to Spain with the
constant coming and going of immigrants and colonial functionaries. The scores
appear under different names: contradanza cubana, contradanza habanera (in
Mexico), danza americana (in Spain). All these names refer to the same genre of a
dance that is triumphantly conquering the world. Its popularity and triumph are
directly connected to the sensual metamorphosis that the country-dance undergoes in
fiO
In his introduction to the song Maria Dolores, which he calls Tango

from Cuba and later addresses as the habanera, and which is a popular in the
nineteenth century habanera Maria la O, Friedenthal notes: A mulatto girl is here,
as usual in most of the West Indian songs, the central figure (V.2, 15).
85
the colony. The initial European country-dance, in which complicated figures were
performed in a square or two rows by participants who faced each other,
presupposed strict boundaries, which limited or eliminated sexual expression.
However, americanas return to Europe with the dotted rhythm of African origin that
converts the limiting and asexual dance of the middle-class ballrooms into a
voluptuous and sensual mimetic expression of sexual movements. In Cuba, the four
or more partner dance, in which partners are interchanged, gradually leaves its place
to the danzon.63 a dance performed by two partners. The triumph in Europe is
understandable, as the fascination with everything that comes from the New World
and the guilty pleasures of overseas products, among which are tobacco, sugar and
spices, is enhanced by the sensuality of the new dance, which offers a rather free
mimesis of sexual feelings and movements.
The go and return in a new form creates conditions for a constant and
continuous metamorphosis. This metamorphosis makes Galan structurally build the
story of the habanera in his book on its capability for a constant change. Though
Galan does not manipulate the concept of transculturation, he treats the habanera as a
product of a process of constant change through addition or removing of elements.
The chapter about the habanera in his book is therefore characteristically entitled La
habanera como requetemetaplasmo (The Habanera as a Super Metaplasm).64 Galan
63 Diccionario de la lengua espanola de la Real Academia Espanola (1992),

defines danzon as, Baile cubano, semejante a la habanera. Musica de este baile.
86
mentions that in Mexico, in 1836, the term contradanza habanera was used, then it is
simplified to danza habanera, and finally in the 1850s it becomes a simple habanera.
Thus while Cuba was exporting its musical scores as country-dances or dances, it
propagated three words, contradanza. danza and habanera, until the simple habanera
came into use, which designated something peculiar, though indefinable, algo
peculiar aunque indefenible. In an ironic manner, Galan suggests that should the
Spanish government accept in its newspapers the combination danza cubana, the
Cuban dance, in the middle of the nineteenth century, the habanera would be called
cubana today because of the logical suppression in the metaplasm (229). Galan
recreates the following comparative chart first proposed by the Argentinean musical
scholar Carlos Vega, which shows the transformation that the term and the genre
underwent over the period of forty years during the first half of the nineteenth
century:
Contradanza
Contradanza a la habanera
Contradanza habanera
Danza
Danza a la habanera
Danza habanera
Cancion
Cancion a la habanera
Cancion a la habanera
Habanera (229).
One can notice that our story of the habanera so far has been concerned only
with the metamorphosis of the dance. According to Cuban historian Zoila Lapique,
the year 1841 brings about the beginning of a new chapter in the history of the
64 Metaplasm is defined by Websters New Collegiate Dictionary (1976) as

alteration of regular structure usually by transposition of the letters or syllables of a
word or of the words in a sentence.
87
habanera. In 1841, at the cafe La Lonja, located in the heart of Havana at the
beginning of OReilly Street at the Plaza de Armas, close to the Captain Generals
Palace, the country-dance was for the first time accompanied by a verse sung to the
tempo of the dance (Presencia 173). Lapique considers this fact to be the
beginning of a new Cuban genre, the habanera. On November 13, 1842, the literary
newspaper La Prensa publishes the text of a song, which Lapique explores as one of
the first habaneras. Though it resembles the Spanish couplet, it is the first piece for
voice and accompaniment that has a clear tango pattern until then reserved only for
the dance (Presencia 174). The quoted text, simple and straightforward, represents
an example of a womans monologue:
Yo soy nina, soy bonita,
Y el pesar no conocf;
Yo soy nina, soy bonita,
Y el pesar no conocf.
Pero anoche, jay mamita!,
Yo no se lo que sentf.
Mi corazon latio asf...
jAy!, yo creo que se agita
Porque el amor entro en m l
Mamita, sf, mamita, s i
No lo dudes, el palpita
Mamita, sf, mamita, s i
No lo dudes, el palpita
Porque el amor entro en m l (qtd. in
Presencia 173-74)
The female discourse in the first person seems to be a feature common to the original
habanera. In the middle of the twentieth century, Marfa Teresa Linares recovers
some traditional habaneras from elderly informants in Cuba that also represent
female discourse. We will discuss these rare habaneras that survive in closed
environments in Cuba later in connection with the current habanera phenomenon in
Catalonia. In the meantime, it should be noted that Lapique in the same article
quotes a note about El amor en el baile from the same issue of La Prensa. In this
contemporary commentary, the song is described as a phenomenon that represents
the ambiance of the Cuban capital, una cancion enteramente habanera. It is also
stated in the note that El amor en el baile expresses todo el sentido abandono de
los tropicos, que solo pintan con verdad la naturaleza y las voluptuosas danzas de
Cuba (qtd. in Presencia 174). Thus at the time of the formation of the Cuban
cultural identity, the habanera is acknowledged as an intrinsic part of this identity.
Another interesting aspect is that this commentary, dated to 1842, is addressed to
female readers, nuestras amables lectoras. It makes one think that women are the
primary consumers of both the songs and perhaps of the literary newspaper of the
time. In the habaneras that survived the oblivion and are popular currently, the
female narrative voice is almost completely lost and is substituted by the
predominance of the male protagonist and narrator, while the figure of the female is
confined to the place of an object of lust and desire.
The new modality of the song genre accompanying the dance arrives to
Havana from Spain, according to Lapique.65 However, as she points out, it is in
65 Lapique mentions an anonymous master of ceremonies un famoso

maestro de baile y bastonero, who brought it from the Spanish Court and Madrid
ballrooms to Havana. However, she has not been able to find either the name or any
more information about this person mentioned in La Prensa (Presencia 174).
89
Havana that these songs acquire a new rhythmical pattern that will triumph later
throughout the world. This pattern is the already mentioned combination of a dotted
quarter note, a sixteenth note and two eights notes, which constitute the basis of the
Cuban country-dance, of the habanera song, and of the Argentinean tango later on.66
Subsequently, the novelty of the singing that accompanies the dance, brought to
Havana from Madrid, returns to the Iberian capital. Lapique quotes a letter written
by a Cuban visitor from Madrid and published in El Faro Industrial de La Habana in
1848. According to this document, one can find the habanera wherever there are
dances or reuniones particulares, private gatherings (Presencia 177). The author
of the letter is pleased to hear in Madrid a Cuban song La loterfa, called in Madrid
a ten go. which is sung by the blind,67 the young people and by everybody, todo el
mundo. Lapique notes that it was called ten go mistakenly instead of tango and it
imitated the speech of the Afro-Cubans (Presencia 177).
As time passes, the mixed genre of dance and song disappears, while the
popularity of the song written in a two-four time constantly grows. By the last
66 Spanish musicologist Faustino Nunez offers an overview of the presence of

this pattern in various musical genres in Spain and Europe in his work
Omnipresencia de la habanera, which is part of a two volume collection La musica
entre Cuba v Espana, that explores a broad panorama of musical links between Cuba
and Spain. Nunezs work is entitled La vuelta and follows La ida, written by the
Cuban musicologist Maria Teresa Linares, in which she discusses the formation of
the Cuban musical culture from the perspective of the concept of transculturation.
(s i
We will discuss the role of the blind in the transmission of the habanera
later. The blind wondering from one locality to the other, in the nineteenth and in
the first decades of the twentieth century, will be one of the important agents
spreading the habanera together with other songs of their varied repertory all over
Spain.
90
quarter of the nineteenth century, the habanera is perceived throughout the world as a
trademark of Spanishness, as European composers, Bizet, Debussy, Saint-Saenz,
Ravel, Albeniz, Laparra among others, exploit it in their works as a Spanish theme.
Pieces in the form of the habanera seem to add exotic Iberian flair to their work.
The habanera as a Spanish theme is present in Camille Saint-Saenzs works for piano
and violin (1875); in Claude Debussys La soiree dans Grenade, Iberia first
performed in 1903 in Paris; in Maurice Ravels La Rhapsodie Espagnole (1907).
The rhythm of the habanera can also be observed in Isaac Albenizs Rapsodia cubana
(opus 66) and in the piece Cuba (capricho) that is part of his Suita espanola (1886).
Manuel de Fallas 4 piezas espanolas (Andaluza. Cubana. Aragonesa, Montanesa)
(1908) includes, as one can see, a Cuban piece as a part of the Spanish suite.68 The
French composer Raoul Laparra (1876-1943), in 1908, creates a libretto and music
for an opera, entitled Habanera, in which the habanera is the major musical theme.
The most famous piece, by all accounts, appears to be Georges Bizets Habanera
from his acclaimed opera Carmen (1875), a story that has itself attained the status of
myth.69 It is said that Bizet,70 while living in Seville in order to collect material for
68 Xavier Febres quotes Vladimir Jankelevitch who believes that Cubana is

an allusion to the habanera of salons and to Criollo sentimentality (qtd. in Aixo es
55).
69 See Nelly Furman, The Languages of Love in Carmen: Carmen may be
the only story of operatic origin to have attained the status of myth: for the Carmen
we know best is not the Merimee novella of 1845; the legendary Carmen is the love
story enacted in Georges Bizets opera of 1875 (168). Furman gives a footnote to
Dominique Maingueneau, Carmen: Les racines dun mythe (Paris, 1984), 11, and
Jean Roy, Bizet (Paris, 1983), 3.
91
his opera, heard the melody, which he thought anonymous perhaps for its popularity,
but which, in fact, belongs to Sebastian Iradier, one of the most intriguing and
mythical figures in the history of the habanera. Scarce information about this
composer on the one hand and extreme success of some of his creations on the other,
give birth to legends and allegations that continuously reappear in various
publications, ranging from PIo Barojas memoirs to encyclopedias and musical
dictionaries. Even the date of birth of this Basque composer is uncertain.
Friedenthal mentions 1809 (33), the date that reappears in some recent publications
such as Diccionario de la musica espanola e hispanoamericana (2000), published by
the Sociedad de Autores y Escritores de Espana, while other publications including
Natalio Galan (1983) mention 1819 as Iradiers date of birth (225). The piece that
Bizet adopted for the aria of Carmen is El arreglito. Iradier, however, is also the
author of the famous La paloma, (Cuando sail de La Habana), and of La
Negrita, another habanera, whose theme, according to Linares, sounds in the
Svmphonie Espagnole by Edouard Lalo (Algunas ideas 12). The story of the two
most famous habaneras attributed to Iradier, El arreglito y La paloma, in itself
presents a privileged space to reflect about transculturation. The habanera El
arreglito is perceived and used by Bizet as an autochthonous Spanish motif, while
the popularity of La paloma in Mexico in the 1860s creates the myth of an
70 Bizets inspiration is mentioned virtually by every author who writes

about habaneras. See Alejo Carpentier, La musica en Cuba 277; Natalio Galan,
Cuba v sus sones 231; Emilio Grenet Musica cubana: Orientaciones para su
conocimiento y estudio 74; Nicolas Slonimsky Music of Latin America (56-57),
subsequently repeated by other authors.
92
autochthonous Mexican song. In 1911, Friedenthal publishes his study of the

Creole songs, as he calls them, in which he insists, in a form of revelation and
discovery, on Iradiers authorship of this extremely popular and therefore considered
anonymous song (33). As I mentioned, Friedenthals study is a trilingual edition
with the text in German, French and English. The adjective Creole that he uses in
his English version, Kreole in German and creole in French, geographically
applies, according to him, to the popular music of Mexico, Central and South
Americas and the West Indies (v). Therefore one can see that Friedenthals
perception of Creole is much broader than Criollo as applied to the culture and
music that originate in Cuba. Friedenthal creates his own myth about Iradier and his
connection to the Creole music, which in its turn seems to be constantly repeated
afterwards. Friedenthal attributes to the Basque composer a broad connection with
Cuba and Mexico. In Friedenthals words, it is known for sure that Iradier
accompanied General Chacon from Spain to Cuba in 1861. Further, though there is
no evidence or data about Iradiers presence in Mexico, Friedenthal speculates that
he might have been there. This supposition is based on the use of the Mexicanism
guachinanga in the lyrics of the song and on the overwhelming success of La
paloma in Mexico where it was supposedly first interpreted by the Spanish diva
Concha Mendez in 1863 (34). Pfo Baroja publishes his biographic essay about
Itadier as part of his Reportajes in 1948. He admits that he does not possess any
concrete data or details about Iradier. It seems that the only document available to
Baroja, in addition to some comments in letters by literary personalities of the time
93
Merimees letters are mentioned in this respectis a notebook that Baroja receives
from Iradiers nephew. This notebook contains notes about the last years of the
composers life: Estas referencias y alguno que otro dato me han servido para
formarme una idea, aunque no muy completa ni detallada, de la vida del autor de La
paloma (152). Baroja unites Iradier with the troupe of Patti and Gottschalk that
travel in the Americas in the 1850s. According to Gal an, there is no mention of
Iradier in Gottschalks Notes of a Pianist published in 1881 (230). Gottschalk gives
his concerts in Havana in 1857. Baroja admits that between 1854 and 1864 there is
no information about Iradier. Barojas memoirs may be perceived as a tool that
creates a myth not only about the life of a composer of popular songs who, being a
Basque prefers to write his name with the afrancesada Y, but about the role of a
Spanish and precisely of a Basque composer in the creation of a cultural sign initially
denominating the colonies and subsequently becoming a seal of Spanishness. The
legend of the presence and even immigration of Iradier to Cuba will be
continuously repeated. However, no proof or veritable testimony of Iradiers travel
or presence in Cuba could be found so far. Linares believes that if Iradier lived in
Cuba where he possibly created La paloma and later El arreglito y La Negrita,
close in time to the publication of El amor en el baile, this must be the culmination
point of the genre, which started to spread all over the Americas and Europe
immediately (Algunas ideas 8). According to Galan, La paloma was published
in Madrid, without date, in the late forties or early fifties, when its author was a
successful music teacher and performer in this city. Galan also thinks that there is no
reason for Iradier to travel to Havana or Mexico neither in the forties, fifties or the
sixties. He mentions, however, that in Luis Victoriano Betancourts La Habana de
1810 a 1840, La paloma figures as one of the songs sung in this city during these
thirty years. Therefore Galan asks the question, if the song was sung in Havana
before Iradier publishes it, or if he used a melody already known and popular (230).
It seems that there are more questions than answers in this complicated and
intriguing story, which suggests more research and investigation. One might
perceive the first verse of the song Cuando sail de La Habana, valgame Dios, on
which all these speculations and mythology are based, as nothing more than a play
of imagination. It represents, however, the reality of thousands of Iradiers
compatriots at the time. One may ask whether it is important to know, one hundred
and fifty years later, whether Iradier ever traveled to Cuba or Mexico, as the first
verse of La paloma states: Cuando sail de La Habana. Beyond the biographic, it
seems that most important is the discourse created through the initial verse of his
famous song, which alludes to the reality of Spain where a major part of the
masculine population try, in a voluntary or involuntary way, their fortune overseas,
and therefore find themselves in the process of a constant go and return. The
overwhelming popularity of both melodies until today, that of La paloma,
translated, sung and posted on the Internet in all possible languages including
Russian, Polish and Japanese, and that of El arreglito immortalized by Bizet,
makes them crucial for the cultural imaginary not only of Spain, but also for the rest
95
of the world that perceives these two melodies as a trademark of Spanishness, not
really distinguishing between the Spanish, the Cuban and the Mexican.
Carpentier argues that the habanera never was a melody peculiar of Havana
or Cuba. He compares the name of the genre to that of cubism, which was never
called so by the artists who created it (La musica 276-77). The name was bom
outside of Cuba as the consequence of the export of the Cuban country-dance. For
Carpentier, major contributors to the creation of Cuban national music, Manuel
Saumell (1817-1870) and Ignacio Cervantes (1847-1905), are also the contributors to
the proliferation of the habanera, Cuban genre par excellence. The habanera will
acquire a crucial significance not only inside but also outside of Cuba with Eduardo
Sanchez de Fuentes outstandingly popular habanera Tu, that for its long and
voluptuous melody, could be sung as a romance, in contrast to the traditional
country-dance, almost impossible to sing for its vivacity (La musica 277).
Carpentier asserts that Sanchez de Fuentes gave to the habanera un sello propio,
his own seal, liberating it from the country-dance (La musica 283). However, it
should be noted that the melody of Tu was created in 1890, significantly later than
habaneras by Iradier and the mentioned above musical pieces by Bizet, Saint-Saenz,
Debussy, Albeniz. It means that by the time of the overwhelming popularity of Tu
with lyrics by Feman Sanchez written in 1894, the habanera already exists as a
cultural sign that embraces a popular song as well as cultural piece on both sides of
the Atlantic. Carpentier admits it decades later. In his essay America Latina en la
confluencia de coordenadas historicas y su repercusion en la musica, first published
96
in 1975, he points out the significance of Tu as a representation of what may be

perceived as the popular spirit, the folklore, the music of the people, yet calling it the
first gran best-seller mundial de la musica latinoamericana (17).
Due to the constant intense contact between the colony and the colonizer,
which brought about a displacement of hundreds of thousands of young men during
the nineteenth century, it seems difficult to establish national or regional boundaries
of the genre or weigh where they are more popular. However, the twentieth century
and the dramatic change in the relationship between Cuba and Spain bring about a
new page in the history of the habanera and a shift of its leading role from the former
colony to the former empire. Habaneras return to Spain and gain major popularity
there, while in Cuba the genre is gradually lost, substituted by other song forms,
primarily by bolero.71
Linares explains the loss of the genre in Cuba by a constant metamorphosis
of Cuban musical culture, and the necessity of satisfying certain esthetical functions.
If such function or necessity does not exist any more, a genre may be lost or
substituted by another one. According to Linares, this is what happened with the
habanera in Cuba:
La musica que canta el hombre del pueblo ejerce en el
la satisfaction de llenar una funcion, una necesidad
estetica. Si no existe esta funcion de manera
coherente, se sustituye por otra y aquella desaparece.
Esto ocurre con la musica del pasado, que la
71 About the dominance of the bolero in Cuba see La Ida in La musica entre
Cuba v Espana: La ida/ La vuelta by Marfa Teresa Linares and Faustino Nunez
(Madrid, 1998) 94-111.
97
escuchamos cantada por ancianos para los cuales tiene

un sentido, y, aunque reconozcamos su belleza y sus
valores, tenemos un su lugar otras canciones que
ocupan nuestros gustos. Tal parece que esto acontecio
con la habanera, cancion sencilla del pueblo que tuvo
un gran desarrollo en la segunda mitad el siglo XIX,
vinculada a la danza cubana. (Algunas ideas 6)
In the book LHavanera: Un cant popular. Castor Perez Diz applies this idea
to explain the viability and the popularity of the habanera in the twentieth century in
different parts of Spain. However, before exploring the functions of the habanera in
Spain where it remains popular throughout the twentieth century it is necessary to
discuss the routes of its arrival and transmission in the mother-country. These
routes may be directly connected to the self-representation of nations involved in
colonial enterprise. As a major source of transmission of music that bears the signet
of the beloved colony one can explore abundant musical scores of dances a la
Americana or a la Havanaise found in musical libraries throughout the world
(Lapique, Presencia 178; Galan 321). In addition to this written or cultural
way of transmission, two other media of spreading the habanera are traditionally
pointed out: oral transmission by sailors, soldiers and immigrants who serve as
liaisons with the overseas colonies, or rather provinces of Spain before 1898, and
Spanish autochthonous lyrical theater, the zarzuela. These two major sources of
spreading the habanera are in the focus of constant polemics and debate alongside
the debated origin of the habanera. The protagonists of go and return are
traditionally represented as prosperous indianos or americanos, or as those who
constitute a completely opposite group, that of the soldiers of the last colonial war of
98
the Spanish empire. The eco of the disaster as the result of Spains last colonial war
may be heard one hundred years later in Spain in the colloquial expression, Mas se
perdio en Cuba, More was lost in Cuba.
Following the idea of Arcadio Larrea, Linares sees a connection between the
popularity of habaneras in coastal regions of Spain and the links of these regions
Andalusia, the Basque Country, Canary Islands, the Cantabric Coast, Catalonia,
Levantewith overseas colonial trade (LHavanera danada 21-22). Looking back
at publications about the habanera, however, one can see that this connection was
pointed out and discussed significantly earlier, as the first collection of habaneras,
entitled Album de habaneras, was published by Xavier Montsalvatge, Nestor Lujan
and Josep Maria Prim in 1948. In the prologue to this colorfully illustrated book,
Nestor Lujans outlined some ideas, which will later be developed in publications
about the habanera.72 Lujan believes that fishermen and workers of the cork industry
enterprises in the Costa Brava towns sing songs that arrive there with the seamen and
sailors returning from overseas. The exotic overseas vocabulary has an exceptional
impact on the imagination of those who never had a chance to leave their native
towns: Toda la Costa se ondulo, rumorosa de estos ritmos y de su frondosa y
deslumbrante fraseologfa exotica (viii). The exotic phraseology creates a link with
79
Lujans contribution to the story of the habanera is seemingly

underestimated. According to Febres, Album de habaneras for its limited editiononly a thousand copies were publishedwent unnoticed outside of a small circle of
bibliophilists. However, Febres admits that the prologue by Lujan pointed
opportunely the lines of interest of the genre (Aixo es 96). A facsimile edition of
Album de habaneras was released in 1998.
99
overseas tropical paradise not only for those who participate in overseas adventure,
but also for those who never traveled overseas. The inland population preserve and
pass over these songs to the younger generations, although or perhaps because this
exotic vocabulary represents for them not more than a play of imagination. Lujan
points out that as time passes the popularity of the exotic songs vanishes, and
gradually only fishermen who are waiting at sea by their nets or spend long winter
nights at fishermens taverns maintain the genre, as no other type of entertainment is
available at the time.
Another means of spreading the habanera is the zarzuela, Spanish
autochthonous musical theatre. Early zarzuelas, called so after a royal palace where
they were initially performed as court entertainment, intertwined dramatic pieces
with musical numbers. By the 1880s, the zarzuela grows into the most popular
synthetic genre of Spanish lyrical theater that includes a variety of musical forms
among which a significant space is allocated to the habanera. The success and
popularity of the zarzuela makes Xavier Febres argue that in Catalonia the theater,
and specifically the zarzuela, becomes the main way of spreading the habanera (Dos
o tres 8). Febres believes that the transmission by returning immigrants and sailors
is not more than a popular myth as habaneras, surprisingly, were not cultivated in the
maritime centers of the Maresme or Garraf regions directly connected to the overseas
trade, but in the Emporda region, where they were sung by local fishermen and
workers of the cork industry who did not travel overseas.
100
It seems that both means of transmission, oral and through theater are viable,
as one cannot deny the importance of oral ways of transmission in the pre massmedia era, or the exceptional popularity of the zarzuela that flourishes both in the
mother country and in the colonies. Among the zarzuelas that gave birth to some
habaneras are Don Gil de Alcala by Penello Moreno; La verbena de la Paloma by
Breton; Marina73 by Camprodon (libretto) and Arrieta (music); Cadiz by Chueca and
Yalverde; La Gran Via by Chueca; Los sobrinos del capitan Grant by Carrion and
Caballero; El tambor de granaderos by Rogel; Nina Pancha by Romea and Valverde;
El gorro frigio by Nieto. They contained habaneras not necessarily under this name,
but often as canciones, danzas americanas, americanas or tangos americanos (Febres,
Dos o tres 8-9, Guerra Sierra 88-89). Not only Spanish but also Cuban zarzuela
generates habaneras: El submarino by Ignacio Cervantes; Los saltimbanquis by
Manuel F. Perez de la Presa; La borrachera by Jorge Anckermann; La cancion del
mendigo by Eliseo Grenet; El hijo del Camagiiey by Mann Varona; La plaza de la
Catedral by Ernesto Lecuona. Even today one may hear in Catalonia the habanera
Lamento esclavo a piece from a zarzuela by Eliseo Grenet, which is a lamento,
grievance, another genre developed in Cuba in the nineteenth century. In his forward
to the second facsimile edition of Album de habaneras (1998), Xavier Montsalvatge
notes that it was not easy to make his informants, fishermen of the Costa Brava
73 According to Andreu Navarro, the opening night of this zarzuela in Madrid

on September 21, 1855, was a failure, and it later became popular in the provinces.
Later, it was transformed into an opera by Arrieta with the collaboration of Miguel
Ramos Carrion on the libretto. (LHavanera 95, 103)
101
region, sing authentic habaneras, while they tended to show to him and to his
friends involved in the project of collecting twenty best habaneras that they were
familiar with what Montsalvatge calls some zarzuelas and banalities that were
fashionable at the time ('Album v).
Zarzuelas dominate the stages in Spain for decades, however, it should be
noted that they are available to those who live in the cities that have theatrical stages.
In the rural areas, the songs find other ways of transmission. Teresa Perez Daniel in
her book Castilla canta habaneras (1991) offers an overview of these means of
transmission. According to Perez Daniel, the primary source of the transmission of
the habanera in Castile, due to the simple and home-loving Castilian character, is
the tradition of singing at family gatherings at the table together, as well as singing
habaneras to lullaby a child. The second source is the blind, who travel from one
locality to the other, singing romances, ballads, couplets. The blind also sell the
texts of the popular songs, not necessarily habaneras, in the form of pliegos de
cordel, lyrics printed on separate folded sheets of paper.74 According to Mendoza
Dfaz-Maroto, it was women who bought, read and very often learned by heart the
contents of these popular sheets sold by the blind (19). As the third means of
transmission Perez Daniel points to the singing in taverns, a primarily masculine
74 The phenomenon of the popularity of pliegos de cordel offers an

opportunity to reflect how oral and written traditions converge. About pliegos de
cordel as literature for the illiterate see Francisco Mendoza Dfaz-Maroto,
Panorama de la literatura de cordel espanola. (Madrid, 2000.) The Centro
Etnografico de la Diputacion de Valladolid in the city of Valladolid, Castile, has a
broad collection of pliegos de cordel with various habaneras.
102
domain, especially in winter during long hours of seasonal leisure in a prevalently

rural Castilian environment. The fourth means of transmission in her classification
are traveling musicians who entertain at local holidays and country fairs and carry
their music from one locality to the other. Choirs and choral societies, whose
repertory included various habaneras is followed in her classification by the zarzuela
and the opera, which are a popular source of transmission primarily in the city. Last
she mentions las murgas, las rondallas, street musicians who play at local festivities
mostly in rural areas (28-31).
The transmission of habaneras cannot be separated from certain esthetical
functions, which are fulfilled by the nostalgic songs invoking the lost tropical
paradise of the former colonies. As I mentioned, Perez Diz discusses some of these
functions in the book LHavanera: Un cant popular. He points out habaneras ability
to satisfy more than one need as one of the most important factors of the viability
and popularity of the genre on the Iberian Peninsula and Canary Islands. Among
these needs he distinguishes two primary functions, that of the songs of labor and of
leisure (43). Together with other songs, habaneras traditionally fulfilled an
important function as labor songs, specifically in the working environments where
monotonous and silent process of production permitted minimal entertainment for
the benefit of the workers, such as reading out loud or singing. This habit of
alleviating the working environment seems to play a crucial role in the story of the
habanera. The songs with explicitly masculinist discourse of the nostalgia for the
lost tropical paradise represented by a female figure of another race were
103
traditionally cultivated in male working environments such as that of cork cutters of

the Emporda region in Catalonia75 and of Huelva in Andalusia. In the agricultural
town of Totana, Murcia, however, women sort and prepare fruit for export and these
female groups become the cultivators of the exotic overseas heritage.76 The role of
women in the preservation of habaneras is also continuously stressed in Torrevieja,
Alicante,77 where habaneras are traditionally sung as lullaby melodies.78 The idea of
the viability of habaneras through certain functions seems to be convincing.
However, the viability of songs, some of which are about a hundred and fifty years
old, and the continuation of the tradition through the creation of new songs in a
similar style suggest some other possibilities. It seems that in Catalonia where new
~ In the second half of the nineteenth and in the beginning of the twentieth
century, the city of Palafrugell was the world center of the cork manufacturing
industry that supplied with its products not only the wineries of Spain and of
adjacent France but also exported them all over the world. In the 1960s it became
the site of the revived Catalan habanera and the host of the Cantadas that attract
between thirty and forty thousand spectators annually. About the cork industry in
Palafrugell, see Santiago Hernandez i Bague, El mon del suro (Girona, 1987).
76 About Totana and a strong habanera tradition in this Murcian town see
Gines Rosa, Habanera: Canto de Cuba, nostalgia de Totana (Totana, 2000) 83-93.
77 Torrevieja is the site of annual International Competitions of Habaneras
and Polyphony celebrated since 1955 and broadcast nationwide in Spain. About the
tradition of habaneras in Torrevieja, sung by polyphonic choirs, see Ricardo
Lafuente Aguado, La habanera en Torrevieja (Alicante, 1984).
no
Among other functions Perez Diz discusses the function of singing while
sitting on after a meal el cant de sobretaula; the singing of habaneras as serenades
to the beloved woman; their transformation into civilized music, canto culto,
represented by pieces of Cuban, Spanish and French composers who cultivate
habaneras as a piece for piano or other chamber instruments; and finally that of
polyphonic singing.
104
habaneras have been continuously created for the last four decades, the habanera
fulfills other, more subtle esthetical necessities, such as, for example, collective
memory about the past. The reinvention of the past, in its turn, contributes to the
task of nations self-representation. The proliferation of the habanera in Catalonia
therefore constitutes a privileged space for exploration as it is directly connected
with language, an issue crucial for Catalan identity.
The revival of the habanera in Spanish and the proliferation of new habaneras
in Catalan at the end of the twentieth century suggest that transculturation is a
continuous process, which not only underlies the formation of nations and cultures of
the New World, but also has its boomerang effect on the cultural identities of nations
that once contributed to the initial formation of cultures of the New World. This
new phase of transculturation of a cultural signifier that returns to the space from
where its constituting elements were once exported with the protagonists of Spains
colonial expansion, takes place during the grim and turbulent decades that follow the
loss of the last colonies. Minor colonial conflicts, in which Spain is involved at the
beginning of the twentieth century, and the continuous sacrifice of young men in
these conflicts lead to an outburst of popular wreath in Barcelona in the fall of 1909
when convents and churches are burnt during a week that enters history as La
setmana tragica, the Tragic Week. Later, the strive for a republic, generated in
Catalonia, is suffocated during a fratricide civil war followed by forty years of a
dictatorship aimed at creating a mono-cultural nationalist and catholic state. Catalan
national identity becomes the target of the Francoist eliminating machine. The
105
national dance, sardana, considered to be innocuous by the authorities apparently

because it does not involve linguistic expression so much feared and hated by the
Franco nationalist machine, is frequently recognized as the only cultural survivor of
the epoch. The reason why the sardana survives lies perhaps in the fact that it is
perceived by the dictatorship as a regional dance and thus it falls within the Francoist
concept of regional cultural peculiarities cultivated by the regime in its last years in
order to stimulate tourism, which becomes Spains major industry. Due to the
negligence of the Francoist repressive machine to the sardana as a cultural
signifier, it plays an exceptional role in the organization of the Catalans and in the
preservation of their national and cultural identity during the years of the Franco
regime. The exceptional role of the sardana and of the associations of the sardanistes
in the peaceful protest of the Catalans during the years of the proscription of the
Catalan language and of other forms of culture associated with the language is
constantly stressed in studies dedicated to Catalan culture (Hargreaves 101; Conversi
8). The impact of the habanera, however, is ignored by studies dedicated to Catalan
cultural identity. The years of the Franco dictatorship in Catalonia are also the years
of the survival of the habanera. Maintained in remote areas such as Costa Brava
fishermens villages, the habanera acquires new relevant features during the decades
that can hardly be qualified as easy or exuberant with entertainment.
The exploration of the habanera in Catalonia cannot be separated from an
exceptionally relevant for Catalan identity issue of the Catalan language. Catalonia,
a nation within the Spanish state that is continuously claiming its cultural identity
106
and its differentiating fact as opposed to the Castilianized culture and the dominance
of the imposed Castilian language, not only assimilates the habanera in Spanish as a
cultural signifier but also transforms it into an emblem of its cultural identity.
Traditionally, habaneras in Catalonia were sung in Spanish even by those whose
main and sometimes only language was Catalan. Since the late 1960s, however,
habaneras are massively created in Catalan. The creation of new habaneras in
Catalan leads to a controversy and a debate in the seventies and in the eighties as for
the authenticity and the right to exist of the new songs in the vernacular language.
The center of the habanera activity in Catalonia is associated with the town of
Palafrugell, in the province of Girona. In the 1850s it becomes the center of the
growing cork manufacturing industry that alongside with economic prosperity brings
to the region significant cultural activity. According to Xavier Febres, zarzuelas and
operas are frequently performed in Palafrugell in the second half of the nineteenth
century. Febres quotes Historia del gremio corchero by Ramir Medir, who mentions
that on the occasion of the beginning of railroad construction in January of 1878, the
theatre of Palafrugell offered presentations of two operas, Verdis La Traviata and II
Trouvatore. In the 1920s, Palafrugells public could see three zarzuelas a week with
the frequent participation of famous and popular artists. At the same time, in cafes
and taverns, the music-loving workers of cork industry sang all Cuban, seamens and
Catalan songs of their repertory. According to the same source, this repertory
107
exceeded two hundred songs, most of which were Cuban, some were barcaroles,79
some may be called seafaring songs, and Catalan songs. The ones preferred by our
people were Cuban songs (qtd. in Febres 79). As Febres continues to quote from
Ramir Medir who testifies to the fact that habaneras were spread primarily by
americanos who lived in Begur, a coastal town of Girona province, he seems to
contradict his own theory of the zarzuela as the main source of spreading habaneras
in Catalonia. Medir mentions that numerous americanos who lived in Begur
cultivated the habanera and even notated the songs in their songbooks. Habaneras
were most beautifully and most frequently sung in the taverns of the industrial towns
of the region. Medirs account points out two major styles of the habanera
interpretation historically cultivated in Catalonia, that of choral polyphony and that
of more austere tavern interpretation typically by three voices without any
instrumental accompaniment. This style of singing the habanera is currently claimed
as the peculiar Catalan style of interpretation.
The proliferation of polyphony and choral singing in Catalonia dates back to
the year 1850, a starting point for Claverian movement, named after its founder Jose
Anselm Clave (1824-1874). Clave believed that music and choral singing could be a
media to elevate the cultural level of workers and give them an opportunity for
individual development and personal promotion. He organizes his first choral
society, Fratemidad, in 1850. It changes its name to Euterpe after the muse of music
79 Barcaroles are Venetian gondoliers song or melodies in imitation of these.
108
in 1857, and by 1864, Euterpe Choral Society embraces 85 chorals. The choral
society of the workers of cork industry of Palafrugell, La Taponera, was founded in
1859.80 The repertoire of the chorales includes a broad variety of songs of different
genres, and habaneras are among them. The scores of pieces performed by La
Taponera include habaneras together with sardanas, barcaroles, rancheras, boleros,
jotas, waltzes, tangos and other genres (Perez Diz 47-8; Febres, Aixo es 85-6). One
should bear in mind that the repertoire of chorales and even of smaller groups, trios
that sing in tavernsconsidered to be the basis for the revival of the habanera in
Cataloniawere never limited to habaneras only. They sang tangos, waltzes, polkas,
mazurkas and other songs.
Polyphonic singing in Catalonia is similar to styles cultivated in other regions
of Spain: the Basque otxotes. groups of eight men singing in four voices, or choral
groups of Torrevieja and Totana. The port of Torrevieja, Alicante, is the center of
the salt industry that exported it all over the Mediterranean and to the Americas via
Cuba at the end of the nineteenth century. In 1955, it becomes the site of
International Festival of Habaneras and Polyphony. This happens not without the
help of the Francoist propaganda machine represented by Juan Aparicio Lopez, who
at the time of the organization of the first Festival of Torrevieja occupied in the
Franco administration the post of General Director of Press.
Q1
Since then, this
80 The history of this society is part of the permanent exhibit of the Museum
of Cork Industry of Palafrugell. The scores of La Taponera were catalogued in the
Municipal Archive of Palafrugell by Perez Diz.
109
festival, celebrated annually, attracts choral societies from all over the world, is
broadcast nationwide, and plays a significant role in the cultivation of the polyphonic
genre. Each choral is required to sing one mandatory habanera, a fact criticized by
the detractors of the Festival as a gimmick for the chorales to participate in what
actually is a Festival of Polyphony. The Basque style of polyphonic, four voices
singing of the habanera by groups of eight masculine voices, the otxotes, can also be
considered similar to this style of choral performing. La Coruna, Guecho (Vizcaya),
San Vicente de la Barquera (Santander), and Totana (Murcia) are sites of annual
festivals of habaneras, polyphony and seamens songs.82
In Catalonia, the extremely strong tradition of choral societies dating back to
the Euterpe movement was abruptly terminated during the years of the dictatorship.
Yet patrons of fishermens taverns of the Costa Brava towns continued to sing
habaneras as the only means of entertainment available at the time. The environment
of purely male encounterswomen did not visit tavernscreates peculiar
characteristics that are claimed to distinguish Catalan style of the habanera as
81 See Jose Bema Quinto, Memorias del I Certamen Nacional de Habaneras

de Torrevieja, 1955, (N.p.m.d.), p. 23. The author points out that the idea of
Certamen was generated by a group of merchants of Torrevieja to attract tourists
who tended to spend summer in other towns because of lack of services and tourist
attractions in Torrevieja (23). The function of attracting tourists through habaneras
was successfully fulfilled in Torrevieja. Today it is one of the most overpopulated
summer destinations for visitors not only from Spain but also from all over Europe,
including traditional German and growing Russian contingents.
82 More about festivals of the habanera all over Spain can be found in Gufa
de la habanera in Gines Rosa, Habanera: Canto de Cuba, nostalgia de Totana,
(Totana, 2000), 170-75.
110
opposed to other regions of Spain where they are also popular. The defenders of the
peculiarity of the Catalan habanera usually present two arguments. As opposed to
the polyphony cultivated in other regions, at Costa Brava, trios consisting of a tenor,
a baritone and a bass usually sang habaneras without any musical accompaniment.
The only accompaniment consisted of tapping with the palm of the hand on the table.
The other defining characteristic of the Catalan habanera is the environment of
fishermens taverns, a space that due to historical and social factors presupposed a
purely and exclusively male participation and presence. Being the one and only type
of entertainment available in small towns and a traditional place of encounter for
men, this space can be seen as austere, on the one hand, and as frivolous and maleoriented on the other. The exclusive atmosphere of male encounters generates
certain representations and stereotypes. In the first place, it refers to the
representation of the protagonist of the nostalgic songs, a brave soldier or a sailor
whose life is associated with the sea and overseas travel. The antagonist, is the
Other, the female, specifically a mulatto woman, an eternal object and counterpart
of the masculinist discourse of habaneras cultivated in a tavern environment. Songs
that invoke the years of military service and overseas travel become a window to the
exotic world full of palm trees, sensual mulatto women and brave sailors. The
habanera gives a chance to the listeners and singers to forget for a moment of a
friendly gathering the limitations and sometimes scarce reality of the post-war Spain
and give full freedom to their imagination.
Ill
Surprisingly enough, this intimate style cultivated in small groups by

fishermen of the Emporda region through the years of the civil war and the Franco
dictatorship gave birth to a completely new massive phenomenon of the Catalan
habanera. Since the late 1960s, habaneras become an almost unavoidable and
mandatory part of numerous local festivals that take place in Catalonia in summer on
stages by the beach or at central squares of towns. The intimate style of
interpretation cultivated in fishermens taverns transformed into a massive
entertainment with megawatt amplification and collective waving of white
handkerchiefs by the public during the singing of the virtually obligatory and
emblematic now La bella Lola. During the singing of El meu avi the audience
usually stands up, puts their hands on each other shoulders and sways side to side,
thus reenacting the unity of the nation. The collective participation in the habanera
singing may be compared to the participation in the sardana circle where seemingly
everybody can join. The sardana and the castells, competitions in building human
towers, are considered to be the emblems of Catalan cultural identity for their
inclusiveness, among other features. However, to dance the sardana one should
know its rather complicated rules and be able to follow the rhythm, a task far from
being easy.
The participation in the colles dels castellers, groups that build human
83 See Brandes: By stressing the inclusion of everyone who learns the rales,
the dance is a microcosmic reflection of the general Catalan belief in ethnicity as an
achieved status. However, the sardana also excludes those who neither know nor
follow the detailed rales of the dance (39).
112
towers, requires systematic training. The participation in the singing of habaneras

seems to be an easier task for the masses.
One might ask how did the intimate singing of nostalgic songs by fishermen
transform into the massive cultural phenomenon. The discourse about the habanera
generally maintains that a crucial point for the history of the habanera is the
publication and public presentation of the book Calella de Palafrugell i les havaneres
that took place in 1966. This collection was prepared and published with the funds
of its compilers, Joan Pericot, an architect who spends summers in Calella de
Palafrugell, Ernest Morato, a native of Calella deeply interested in the cultural
traditions of his native town and a singer of habaneras himself, and Frederic Sires, a
musician and author of the habanera La gaviota, one of the most popular today in
Catalonia.84 The authors of this book saw their task in preserving the folklore of
their small town. The presentation of this book turns into a spontaneous cantada,
singing of habaneras. During this memorable night, a suggestion of organizing an
annual event in Calella is enthusiastically accepted, and the year 1967 starts the
tradition of Cantadas of Calella, celebrated for the thirty-fifth time in 2001. The
success of Cantadas of Calella de Palafrugell may be considered as a crucial starting
point for the growth and proliferation of the Catalan habanera as a cultural
84 Sires composes La gaviota in 1926 to his own lyrics in Spanish. This

was the way his generation perceived and interpreted the habanera. In the seventies
it was translated into Catalan and is performed now in both languages. However, the
Catalan variant provoked a harsh reaction on behalf of the defenders of Calella style,
who try to maintain the tradition of the authentic habanera, which means to them
the habanera in Spanish.
113
phenomenon all over Catalonia, even in remote inland areas where they were not
cultivated historically.
However, another important event that happened two decades earlier,
precisely the compilation and publication of the first album of habaneras by Xavier
Montsalvatge, Nestor Lujan and Josep Maria Prim seems to be continuously
overlooked by those who write about the phenomenon of the Catalan habanera. The
motivation of the compilers of Calella de Palafrugell i les havaneres (1966) lay in
their preoccupation that the intrinsic culture of the area would be lost with the
development of a cmcial for Spain social phenomena of tourism that changed the
aspect and social and cultural structure of various regions of the country. Yet a
similar preoccupation generated a similar initiative two decades earlier, in 1948. It
did not trigger an all-national movement as the Cantadas of the sixties did, but one
should not forget the difference in the social situation between 1948 and 1967. In
the forties, with the slow recuperation from the civil war wounds, the well to do
bourgeoisie of big cities start to go to small fishermens villages to spend summer
weekends and vacations. These veraneantes, summer dwellers who own or rent on
an annual basis second residences on the fashionable Costa Brava, cultivate and
maintain their own collections of habaneras in the form of typed or sometimes hand
written songbooks. Their role may be viewed as a role of Mecenas, with their
interest for the folklore of fishermens villages. It so happens that one of those
summer visitors is renowned composer Xavier Montsalvatge, a native of Palafrugell,
who frequently visits the Costa Brava while living in Madrid. The interest and
114
creative energy of Montsalvatgeand of two of his friends with whom he shares
interest and enthusiasm for the habanera, writer Nestor Lujan and artist Josep Maria
Primopens a new stage in the history of the habanera. The luxury edition of the
first Album de habaneras with a sensitive prologue by Nestor Lujan and brilliant and
somewhat frivolous illustrations by Prim is published in 1948 and almost
immediately becomes a bibliographic rarity. In 1964, Montsalvatge publishes the
same habaneras in a collection entitled Habaneras de la Costa Brava. This edition
did not have a prologue or illustrations. The facsimile edition of the first album was
released in 1998 as a collaboration between Fundacio Ernest Morato and the
Generalitat de Catalunya as part of the activities of the Comisio 1898. In his
autobiographical notes, Montsalvatge confesses that habaneras that he heard once in
1945 in Calella de Palafrugell opened to him a whole world of overseas images.
They not only motivated him to notate and publish a collection of the most popular
habaneras on the Costa Brava, but also in a certain way suggested the style of his
Canciones Negras and gave birth to the antillanismo of some of his works (Papeles
71-75).
Montsalvatges collaborators in this project are Nestor Lujan, a writer with
broad interests in popular culture that include among others a history of gastronomy,
and Josep Maria Prim, a brilliant artist and illustrator with an extremely sensitive
perception of the Mediterranean and of his native Emporda, both of which constitute
the predominant subject in his paintings. The contribution of the three refined
gourmets of the habanera who worked on this project, Lujan, Montsalvatge and
115
Prim, is especially valuable if one takes into consideration the historical

circumstances under which the project was undertaken in 1948. As Lujan formulates
it, the project was completed during the days of their lives mas bien opacos y de una
tristeza espesa y agobiadora (vii-viii).
For Lujan, habaneras sung at Costa Brava are a separate genre that finds its
roots in the songs brought from overseas, but which acquired a completely new form
as the fishermen of the Lower Emporda appropriate these songs and sing them in
their own new way. This position that Lujan elegantly argues makes one think of the
continuity of the process of transculturation that the songs related to overseas
experience undergo upon their return to the Costa Brava region. With a very clear
vision of the process of transculturation of a cultural sign, Lujan argues that Catalan
fishermen and workers appropriated the exotic overseas folklore and made it part of
their culture:
Estan completamente transformadas por el genio
popular y hoy son patrimonio intrfnseco de quienes las
recuerdan a su manera y las cantan segun su modo
peculiar de sentirlas. Y siendo cierto que sin nuestros
Pescadores catalanes estas habaneras, enriquecidas por
el romanticismo de la antigua navegacion de altas
velas y por la evocation de una tierra paradisfaca
perdida para siempre no existirfan, la forma mas
autentica de ellas es la que hemos recogido antes de
que se perdiera definitivamente. (x)
Lujan also asserts as one of the factors for the viability of the habanera, in
addition to the memory of coastal fishermen, a certain interested participation on
behalf of summer dwellers of coastal towns, in other words, representatives of
116
affluent bourgeoisie who cultivate the interest in folklore. At the same time, the
concern that the songs will be lost with the growing tourist boom is already present
in Lujans essay at the time:
Porque lo que es evidente es que iban perdiendo de una
manera insensible. Quedaban como una marchita
diversion de las generaciones mas maduras, ahogadas
por el oleaje espumeante de las canciones
estrepitosamente actuales. Pero su encanto es tan
grande que ha vuelto a prender en los ciudadanos que
van en los veranos a la Costa, agotados por la vida
modema mas activa y fosforescente, como una cosa
nueva. Y esta persistencia autoriza su coleccion en un
album, y que de ellas quede memoria. Lo que tiene,
pues, de mas merito este album es este intento de fijar
estas habaneras en su mejor momento, es decir, cuando
ya transformadas hasta una cosa peculiarmente
popular, dentro de un juego musical ampurdanes, estan
a punto de olvidarse. (x)
The objective of the compilers does not seem to go beyond their desire to
capture a certain moment of the existence of a cultural phenomenon that may be
extinguished without a possibility of revival. However, the completion of this
project achieves results that go far beyond what the authors proposed. It not only
helps to preserve songs cultivated as a nostalgic evocation of the exotic past, but
brings habaneras to a new stage of existence: from the oral form of transmission they
acquire a new status of folklore that has a written form. The analogy with
Cancionero de palacio and other collections of Spanish traditional lyrics is
transparent, as these anthologies preserve poetry that already existed for decades or
even centuries in oral tradition. In addition, in the Album de habaneras this
transformation into a new literary existence is enhanced by imaginative illustrations
117
accompanying each of the twenty songs. The pictorial images by Prim make a
statement of imagination directly related to the discourse of the songs that evoke
overseas adventure of the Spanish Empire and create a new tradition of illustrating
the habanera, which will be followed in other collections of habaneras.
In addition to being practically the first compilation of habaneras sung in
Spain ever published,85 the Album de habaneras also generates a pattern, which will
be continuously repeated as new collections of habaneras are published. Songs
collected by Montsalvatge and his companions were presented in the album as a fact
of existing folklore without any reference to authorship of the songs. Though this
pattern may be criticized as a negligence on behalf of the compilers of the album, it
shows how a cultural signifier bom as the result of constant permutations once again
is transformed, now into the folklore of Costa Brava fishermen. In order to defend
themselves against accusations of negligence, Nestor Lujan offers an explanation of
the lack of reference to authors of music and lyrics. According to Lujan, the
compilers of the album saw their task in recovering and notating songs that for
decades belonged to oral folklore and were passed on by fishermen. Fishermen
learned them as they heard them from other cantores. singers, without knowledge or
references of authorship. As in any oral tradition, the melodies and the texts undergo
dramatic changes as they are passed from one generation of singers to the other. In
Lujans words, the authors that initially created these songs would hardly ever
85 Febres mentions that a collection of habaneras that contained 142 songs,

some of which were in Catalan, was published in 1927 ( Aixo es 97-98). However,
this collection cannot be found either in private collections or in libraries.
118
recognize them in Montsalvatges notation of what he heard from Catalan singers in

1948 (x). This observation seems to be exceptionally important for the
understanding of permutations of the habanera. Through the collecting effort of
Montsalvatge, Lujan and Prim, one can see that habaneras by the 1940s become a
form of folklore. They become a new form of popular culture distant from the
cultural habaneras by European composers cultivated at the end of the nineteenth
century. The effort of those who perceived the habanera as a seal of Spanishness at
the turn of the twentieth century seems at this point of the history of the habanera to
be a stylization of the Volksgeist. of the spirit of the nation, represented in the Album
de habaneras through habaneras as they are sung and passed on by fishermen. With
the publication of the Album de habaneras, the foundations of the habanera as a
trademark of Catalan cultural identity start to be laid in a very peculiar way. This
peculiarity consists, on the one hand, in the adaptation and assimilation by the Costa
Brava fishermen of the languid and sensual rhythm of the habanera the way they
perceived any kind of music, which, according to Lujan, is in the rhythm of the
sardana, the only type of music familiar to them. On the other hand, in Catalonia,
where the adherence to language forms the basis of the cultural identity, the story of
the habanera seems to be characterized by a linguistic discrepancy. Habaneras
continue to be sung in Spanish, the language of the military service of some of the
singers and of the exotic tropical paradise that these songs evoke in the imagination
of those who sing and listen to them. For their importance, these two characteristics,
119
the adaptation of the rhythm of the habanera by the singers and the broad audience,
and the linguistic controversy surrounding the songs deserve special attention.
Both, Lujan in his prologue of 1948 and Montsalvatge in his introduction to
the 1998 facsimile edition, mention the immense difficulty of musical notation as
many melodies seemed to combine parts from different songs and were sometimes
completely transformed by their interpreters. This tendency, however, created
surprising effects, in the words of Lujan. Despite all kinds of musical and textual
mixturesone song could combine parts of completely different, both musically and
textually, fragmentsand the fact that the interpreters had no musical proficiency and
did not use any musical instruments, habaneras in Costa Brava never lose their
natural harmony. Lujan sees the specific transformation that habaneras undergo in
the Costa Brava towns in the adaptation by the Catalan fishermen of the Cuban
rhythms through their own feeling a su clara manera de sentir (viii). And this
feeling, according to him, the only way to feel the music in the Lower Emporda area,
is the sardana. Thus the dance and the melody that is claimed by the Catalans to be
one the most significant emblems of their cultural identity seems to play, according
to Lujan, an exceptional role in the transculturation of the exotic tropical rhythms
into the popular songs of fishermens folklore. For Lujan, habaneras evanescentes,
languidas y sensuales, de una sensualidad lactea y extasiada con un tremolo de senos
de mulata, are transformed by the pattern of the sardana, which he characterizes as
concreto, preciso y luminoso (viii).
120
As one can see, the traditional perception of the habanera as a representation

of the stereotypical images of the sensuality of a mulatto woman are explicitly
present in Lujans analysis. At the same time, he clearly sees the mechanism of
transculturation that the habanera undergoes upon return from overseas to the Costa
Brava: El instinto rftmico, antiguo y precioso de las costas mediterraneas, fue
deformando la melodfa dandole rotundidad, restandole fuego aterciopelado y
afirmando en cambio su llamear retorico (viii). Thus the milieu of the tavern seems
to change not only the rhythmical accents of the songs that evoke the blaze of the
tropics, but also their structure, converting them into a rhetorical discourse about the
lost tropical paradise.
The transculturation of the habanera in the Emporda region is not limited to
the melodic adaptation of the habanera under the influence of the autochthonous
austere rhythm of the sardana. Perhaps the linguistic aspect of the transculturation of
the habanera is the most intriguing one. Lujan asserts that the fishermen hardly
understood the lyrics of the songs that they were singing. Their native and most
often only language was Catalan. Spanish, if learned during the military service, was
allegedly since then long forgotten. Lujan asserts that the language of the habanera,
a floral and rebuscado Spanish of the end of the nineteenth century created by
professional masters of the genre was hardly understandable for the Catalan
fishermen: Porque los textos primitivos de estas obras asf musicales como literarios
tenfan un autor no solo culto, sino de oficio cotidiano, casi mecanico, manipulador
de las flores artificiales de la cancion amorosa (ix).
12 1
Lujan confesses that the task of finding the authors of original songs seemed
too boring to him and that he soon, probably too soon, abandoned it, confident that
what he was hearing was a very far approximation to what might have been
originally created (ix-x). However, he mentions that the easiest to find was the name
of Eugenio Alvarez Fuentes as the author of the lyrics and music of the song
Tecla in a different form that is notated in the album (x). Apparently Lujans
sources were not too accurate and he is confused by the authorship of the habanera
Tu by Eduardo Sanchez de Fuentes and Feman Sanchez, who wrote the lyrics to
already existing music in 1894. This argument of his discussion, however, points to
the metamorphosis that the habanera undergoes in the process of transculturation. In
Catalonia, Tecla has been sung for decades with lyrics strikingly different from the
original text by Feman Sanchez, so popular in Cuba during the war of independence.
The juxtaposition of the two texts makes one think of transculturation as a process
that does not end with the formation of the cultures of the New World. It also
suggests a reflection about the role that the habanera plays in Catalan discourse about
Cuba, once commonly referred to as the fifth province of Catalonia, on the other:
Tu
En Cuba
la isla hermosa del ardiente sol,
bajo su cielo azul,
adorable triguena
de todas las flores
la reina eres tu.
Fuego sagrado
guarda tu corazon
y el claro cielo
Tecla,
Tecla
se llamo la mulata que yo
camelaba con sal
De la mismita Habana
la pobre Teclita
era natural.
Recuerdo un dfa
que juntitos los dos
en la manigua
122
su alegria te dio.
Y en tus miradas
ha confundido Dios
de tus ojos la noche, y la luz
de los rayos del sol.
La palma
que en bosque se mece gentil
tu sueno arrullo,
y un beso de la brisa,
al morir de la tarde,
te desperto.
Dulce es la cana,
pero mas lo es tu voz
que la amargura
quita del corazon.
Al contemplarte,
suspira mi laud
bendiciendote,
hermosa sin par
;Ay! porque Cuba eres Tu!
(A Cuban Love Song 2)
nos juramos amor.

Llego el momento
para Espana embarque
y confieso que fui muy cruel
porque alia la deje.
De dalias,
violetas, heliotropo y jazmm,
un camino te hare
de amapolas, camelias,
claveles y rosas
te lo adomare.
De palmo a palmo
pensamientos habran
donde comprenda
que tus pies pisaran.
Sobre un geranio
yo te hare descansar
y en tus manos, mi bien,
te pondre
un ramito de azahar.
(Album 81)
Tu, with its explicit comparison of the nation, isla hermosa del ardiente
sol, with a beautiful woman, adorable triguena, who is the queen of all its
flowers, can be seen as a foundational text in miniature if one takes into
consideration the historical period when it was created and became popular. The
year 1890 when sixteen-year old Sanchez de Fuentes (1874-1944) composes the
musical score is the turbulent time of the continuous war for independence from
Spain in Cuba. The lyrics, according to Tamara Martin, were written in 1894. By
1895 the song becomes universally popular in Cuba among those who fight on both
sides of the war of independence.86 The simile of the island of burning sun with
86 As I mentioned earlier, Carpentier characterizes Tu as the first great

bestseller of Latin American music (America Latina 17). Josep Conangla
123
the beloved/adored woman is transparent and points to the metaphor of motherland

as a beloved woman. The representation of Cuba as an island of burning sun
asserts the self-fashioning of Cuban nation as an independent entity as opposed to the
dominant Spanish Empire. This self-representation is enhanced by the attributes of a
tropical landscape that represent it. The tropes: cielo azul, claro cielo, la palma
que en bosque se mece gentil, el beso de la brisa, dulce es la cana, add to the
unique representation of land, isla hermosa, and culminate in the metaphorical
fusion of the adored woman and land: porque Cuba eres tu.87 These tropes evoke
the verses of the maximum representative of Cuban modernism Jose Marti and of
Jose Maria Heredia, whose poetry, contemporary to Cirilo Villaverdes foundational
novel Cecilia Valdes o La Loma del Angel, represents the assertion of Cuban
nationalism.
Comparing the two texts, one can see that Tecla, with its exuberant
enumeration of flowers, seems to represent one of those rebuscado texts, in the
words of Lujan, that were characteristic of the creations by professional habanera
authors of the end of the nineteenth century. Linares mentions that different versions
characterizes Tu in his book Memorias de mi iuventud en Cuba: Un soldado del

eiercito espanol en la guerra separatista (1895-1898) as conocida, admirada y
cantada por todo el mundo latino culto (217).
87 Tamara Martin retells an anecdote about the title of this habanera. Sanchez
de Fuentes improvised the title Tu when asked by a young lady, what is the title of
the melody that he was playing. The lyrics were composed later by his brother
Feman (23).
124
of the lyrics of Tu existed on the Spanish side (Algunas ideas 12).88 Perhaps
Tecla, notated in 1948 by Montsalvatge and sung with slight variations of the text
in Catalonia until today, is one of those versions popular on the Spanish side. One
can make a connection between Nestor Lujans idea that the fishermen adopted the
songs a su clara manera de sentir, according to their own way of feeling them,
when one looks comparatively at these two habaneras. The title of Tecla refers to
the object of nostalgia explicit in this song. This object is a mulatto woman with a
name popular in Catalonia, Tecla. The protagonist/ narrative voice swore love
with her in the manigua which in this song seems to be an evocation of Cuban
landscape, while for the Cubans it has an explicit connotation of a space of military
combat against the Spanish troops. As many other habaneras sung in Spain, Tecla
evokes nostalgia for the lost tropical paradise through the figure of a desired female,
a mulatto woman from Havana.
The mulatto woman as an addressee or a desired object is the central figure in
the traditional habanera. Habaneras tend to tell a story of a male protagonist, a
soldier or a sailor, of his sentiments, of his deeds and of his nostalgia for the
adventures left behind in an exotic overseas space. Through this nostalgic discourse
the habanera constructs the identity of those who participate in Spains colonial
expansion. The construction of identity always presupposes the presence of the
QO
Linares publishes a slightly different text from the one that I quote, which
is understandable if one takes into consideration oral transmission. See Maria Teresa
Linares, Algunas ideas sobre la habanera, I Trovada de Habaneras: Ponencias
presentadas a la mesa redonda (Mayorga, 6 y 7 de agosto, 1993) 12.
125
opposed Other. The discourse of the traditional habanera virtually always involves
a woman who is of other race and land, due to the historical circumstances of
colonial expansion and war. The convergence of two major ethnic groups in Cuba,
represented by white male immigrants from Europe and black female slaves from
Africa, lead to the formation of new population originated in the colonies, the
mulattoes. Love and desire for the woman left behind in the Caribbean means love
and desire for the native woman, the exotic mulata. Colonialism, as Robert I. Young
stresses, was a machine not only of war and administration, it was also a desiring
machine (98). Sexual desire represented in songs, an exceptionally relevant form of
popular culture, becomes part of the cultural imaginary of nations involved in
colonial expansion.
Desire and nostalgia for a mulatto woman become a relevant feature of the
habanera cultivated in the former colonial empire and contributes to the creation of
the myth of exceptional sexual qualities of mulatto women. This myth bom during
the time of colonial expansion continues its existence into the twenty-first century.
The woman of another land and race as an object of desire is implicitly associated
with the nostalgically desired overseas paradise in the collective imaginary of
nations that participate in the process of colonization. The habanera cultivates this
myth throughout the twentieth century and, as we will see later, gives birth to
narrative and cinematographic representations that reinterpret this myth in the late
twentieth century.
126
An object of desire and lust in the traditional habanera, a mulatto woman is

desired and despised at the same time. This ambiguity of love and condemn, desire
and contempt are a relevant feature of colonial discourse. The origins of the legend
of mulatto women lie in the hybridity that characterizes the formation of the nations
of the New World. The English word mulatto, according to Websters Concise
Dictionary (1997), is of Spanish origin and is derived from the Spanish mulo. As
defined by Diccionario de uso del espanol by Marfa Moliner, mulo is animal
hfbrido, hijo de burro y yegua o de caballo y burra. It seems that the very
etymology of the word associated with animals traditionally perceived as the
representation of stubbornness or stupidity, on the one hand, and a great capacity to
endure hard work on the other, gives the term applied to humans ambivalent
connotations. On the one hand, the mulatto woman for her physical characteristics is
perceived as an incarnation of exotic beauty. At the same time, the racial theories of
the eighteenth and nineteenth century consider her to be inferior to the pure
races.89 Yet, in the ninetenth century Cuba, a number of projects are proposed for
the blanqueamiento. whitening, of the society through the unions of peninsular
89 While discussing the etymology of the term mulatto in English, Robert J.

C. Young mentions that Edward Long, a Jamaican slave-owner who wrote an
influential History of Jamaica in 1774, associated the term with biological
characteristics of a mule, a hybrid incapable of procreating: Some few of them
[Mulattos] have intermarried here with those of their own complexion; but such
matches have generally been defective and barren. They seem in this respect to be
actually of the mule-kind, and not so capable of producing from one another as from
a commerce with a distinct White or Black (qtd. in Young 8).
127
immigrants and black women.90 Even now this policy is reflected in an explicitly
racist language related to ethnicity in Cuba. The adjective adelantado, advanced,
is applied to mulattos with more explicit white features, while atrasado, backward,
applies to those who possess more black features.
In the nineteenth century, the figure of mulata becomes central to Cuban
narrative and theater. The passion and suffering of a young mulatto woman Cecilia
Valdes is the subject of the novel by Cirilo Villaverde Cecilia Valdes o La Loma del
Angel. The protagonists of Cuban popular theater, teatro bufo, in the first half of the
nineteenth century are la mulata del rumbo, el Catalan and el negrito. These three
characters represent three major groups that constitute Criollo society. According to
Moreno Fraginals, el Catalan, will later, with the change in the structure of
immigration, be substituted by el gallego, and represents all the penfnsulares,
immigrants from Spain, while el negrito represents the Criollo population
( Cuba/Espana
221-22). At the same time, la mulata grows into a highly coveted
object and an emblem of sexual desire. This desire, however, for strong racial
prejudice, is inseparable from contempt towards its object. Despised as a race,
however, desired as a sexual legend,91 the Cuban mulatto woman, becomes the
90 See Moreno Fraginals, Cuba/Espana Espana/Cuba. historia comun

(Barcelona, 1998) 230-31.
91 Discussing the origins of the myth of the mulata, Cuban historian Moreno
Fraginals mentions the protagonists of Cuban narrative and folklore Cecilia Valdes,
Rosa la China, Marfa de la O, La Mulata Rosa, La Mulata Marfa, Belen, La Mulata
callejera. He also quotes the Countess of Merlin: Las mulatas, ;ah!, las
mulatas[...]De ellas es la calle (qtd. in Cuba/Espana 219). On the one hand, the
128
center o f the nostalgic discourse of the habanera that arguably represents what
Robert J. Young defines as colonial desire, a covert but insistent obsession with
transgressive, inter-racial sex, hybridity and miscegenation (xii).
The motives of colonial desire and nostalgia for the island of tropical
paradise are explicit in Tecla. The paradisiacal image of Cuba is enhanced by a
rich and somewhat baroque enumeration of flowers, an attribute of lavish tropics:
De dalias, violetas, heliotropo y jazmfn
un camino te hare
de amapolas, camelias,
claveles y rosas te lo adomare.
Some floral images, however, have a strong connection and connotation in
Spain, from where the narrator projects his nostalgic discourse:
Sobre un geranio
yo te hare descansar
y en tus manos, mi bien, te pondre
un ramito de azahar.
The metamorphosis of this song seems to point to the processes of
transculturation that continue in the Old as in the New World. Perhaps more
importantly, it points to the passage from the foundational nationalism,
repeated invocation of sexual qualities of the mulatto woman reinforce the desire for
possessing her, on the other, exclude a possibility of a legal union or socially
accepted relationship with her: La mulata, despreciada como raza, pero deseada
como leyenda sexual, perfecciono sus dotes femeninas e hizo una profesion perfecta
del sexo. No porque fuera diversa de la blanca, sino porque era una forma de
erguirse por encima de la miseria y el desprecio. La vida de soltero de los hombres
repercutio sobre sus costumbres de casado. Y fue habitual y orgullosa demostracion
de virilidad (estamos ante una sociedad profundamente machista) tener la esposa
blanca y la amante mulata en otro barrio (Cuba/Espana 218-19).
129
characteristic of the Cuban poetry of the time when Cuban nationhood is articulated,
to something else that is hard to define but is redolent of imperialist nostalgia.
During the war of independence in Cuba, Tu, with lyrics charged with emotion
that compares the beloved land of burning sun to an adorable triguena who is the
queen of all the flowers, becomes the hymn of those who fight for its independence
from Spain. Catalan version sung in Spanish and imported from Cuba most likely
with those who return after the war, clearly represents the discourse of crying over
what was lost in Cuba, mas se perdio en Cuba, through an evocation of a figure of
a legendary mulatto woman. What is noteworthy, however, is the fact that in Cuba
Tu is forgotten as almost all other habaneras, while Tecla in Catalonia continues
to be part of the repertoire of habanera singers. In recent years, due to research and
publications of Catalan researchers of the habanera, many habanera groups perform
both songs.
Tecla may serve as a starting point to discuss one of the most delicate
issues of the phenomenon of the habanera in Catalonia. Although there is evidence
of existence of habaneras in Catalan as early as in 1868, 92 traditionally, habaneras in
Catalonia were sung in Spanish even by those whose native, and in many cases the
only, language was Catalan. The traditional singing of habanera in Spanish is the
subject of debate and numerous attempts at explaining it. For Lujan, the paradox
consists in the fact that these songs are preserved in the region where Spanish is
92 See Ana Vicens, La primera havanera en catala data de 1868, Diari de

Girona 9 Sept. 1993.
130
hardly spoken, and the little that is spoken has nothing to do with the pompous and
literary language of these songs (xi). Xavier Febres who maintains the viewpoint
that cork industry workers were the major force in the preservation of the habanera,
explains it by the popularity of the zarzuela, performed in Spanish (Dos o tres 8).
For Lujan, the explanation of the linguistic discrepancy between the language spoken
by the singers and the language, in which the songs were sung, lies in the
harmonious sensuality of the songs that prevailed over the lyrics for the fishermen
who sung them:
Pero a la vez, si los Pescadores catalanes cantaban
calidamente era por pura delectacion sonora; las
palabras no las comprendfan apenas. El castellano era
hace medio siglo, lfricamente, un idioma floral, de
invemadero, desmedulado y blando; cuando este
lenguaje llego a la cancion habanera frfvola y ademas
manejada por plumas de oficio, consiguio la filigrana
mas rebuscada. (viii)
Lujan tells an anecdote that will later be reiterated by other authors. One of
the legendary habanera singers of Costa Brava, Pep Gilet, used to sing the first verse
of Tecla with the following words, Tecla se llamo la mulata que yo quemelaba
con sal, instead of, Tecla se llamo la mulata que yo camelaba con sal, as it was
sung by other singers. When Josep Maria Prim mentioned to him that the word
quemelaba had no meaning in any language and that the right word would be
camelaba, Pep replied, jVaya si no! Que me lava con sal; la mulata que me lavaba
con sal (xi). Lujan believes that fishermen felt the melodic sensuality, la
sensualidad sonora, of words but not their meaning. However, these songs continue
1 31
to exist preserved and fashioned by these fishermen whose Spanish was extremely
limited:
No es extrano, pues, que los Pescadores influyeran la
sensualidad sonora de las palabras, pero no su
significado; sea como fuere, ellos han conservado estas
canciones y a traves de ellos, estilizadas por ellos,
llegan hoy a nosotros con un regusto extrano,
nostalgico y salobre. (viii-ix)
The debate about language will continue with the development of habanera
tradition in Catalonia and the creation of new habaneras in Catalan. Before we
discuss these developments, it is necessary to mention that Nestor Lujan formulates
other approaches and ideas that seem to be crucial for the analysis of the habanera
and its place in the construction of Catalan national identity. Lujan makes an
important statement when he sees habaneras as a part of the essential existence of the
Catalans who sing these romantic and declamatory songs with a certain ironical
approach, con una sombra de zumbona sonrisa en los labios (xi). This statement
evokes irony, which as philosopher Ferrater i Mora formulated it, is one of the
components of the so-called fet diferencial, differential fact of the Catalans.93
Together with seny, which may be rendered as a good commonsense, continuitat,
continuity in actions and approaches to achieve objectives, and mesura, taking a
measured, balanced view of things, ironfa describe in idealistic terms what
differentiates the Catalans from the other, which is apparently the Castilian.
93 About irony as a constituting part of Catalan national character see Ferrater

i Mora, Las formas de la vida catalana, (Obras selectas, Vol 1, Madrid, 1967) 26775.
132
Referring apparently to the secular conflict between Catalonia and the domineering
Castilianized state, Ferrater i Mora regards ironfa as a means of confronting the
reality, which was not always favorable for the Catalans:
La ironfa era un modo de afrontar la perplejidad
proponiendose no echarse la cabeza contra cualquier
muro. Si en el fondo de todo estado de crisis humana
hay una especie de desesperacion, puede admitirse que
la ironfa, cualquiera que sea su forma, es un modo de
escapar, o tratar de escapar de esta desesperacion.
(272)
Developing his idea of ironical approach as a part of the differentiating fact of the
nation, Ferrater i Mora believes that ironfa may be a means of combating the bad
effects of crisis and perplexity. In this case, and this is, according to him, the case of
the Catalan national identity, or in his words, Catalan way of living, forma de la
vida Catalana, irony may have a therapeutic effect and help overcome crisis. Thus,
Lujans perception of the ironic approach of the Catalan fishermen towards the songs
that they interpret, is contingent with the structure of Catalan national identity,
continuously stressed by the Catalan ideologists, in which the ironical approach to
life is distinguished as one of the constituting parts of this identity.
Another important issue delineated by Lujan in 1948 is the crucial vitality of
the habanera in Catalonia as live folklore that is part of the cultural identity of the
nation: El gran valor que pueden tener es que seguramente es el unico lugar del
mundo que siguen siendo folklore vivo, donde han conservado una razon vital de
existir (xi). One should bear in mind that he writes it in 1948, when the Franco
regime is trying to eliminate all attempts of associations, which lead to the dispersion
133
of choral societies in Catalonia. The only type of associations tolerated by the

dictatorial regime were the Associations of the Sardanists, seen as innocuous by the
regime aimed at eliminating all traces of the Catalan national identity. These
associations are considered to have played an outstanding role in the preservation of
this identity. Therefore, Lujans perception of the significance of the habanera at the
Costa Brava region is consistent with the theory of symbolic acts of ethnicocultural
affirmation of collective identity of small nations through folkloric acts and massive
festivities, continuously stressed by the ideologists of Catalan national identity.94
The impact of the Album de habaneras on the evolvement of the habanera in
Catalonia is not limited to the insight of Lujans story not aggravated with profound
research, but definitely touched by talent and an intrinsic ability to evaluate a cultural
phenomenon in its totality. This book, and I am talking now about a book as a
physical object and an object of bibliographic value, creates a persistent pattern for
future publications about habaneras, which will be repeated by different compilers
not even once or twice. The already mentioned Calella de Palafrugell i les havaneres
(Palafrugell, 1966), that will be ensued by Las mas bellas habaneras (1979;
Barcelona, 1995) and Quadem dhavaneres, (Girona, 1983) will follow the pattern
94 See Giner: The people of such small advanced stateless nations must
find their collective identity by falling back on the institutions of their civil societies,
as public and state institutions are alien and often hostile to them. This search for a
common identity and strength results also in the conscious participation of the people
in many symbolic acts of ethnicocultural affirmation. In this respect Catalonia must
be one of the very few industrial countries where the progress of technology and
capitalism has not meant the relegation of a vast number of traditional festivities,
dances and ritualistic games of all sorts either to remote rural areas, or to certain
pockets of the popular classes (10).
134
generated by Album de habaneras in many aspects. All of these publications consist

of an explanatory prologue and sometimes commentary to the songs, a collection of
texts and scores, and evocative illustrations. A similar pattern of a prologue and a
collection of musical scores and lyrics is preserved in other publications dedicated to
the habanera, however without any significant visual contribution, though sometimes
QC
with photos of certain personalities or groups of singers.
This allows one to speak
of a certain bibliographic phenomenon generated by the creators of the Album de

habaneras.
This bibliographic form can be examined as an organic fusion of three
aspects: explanatory commentary, notated songs and pictorial images. The lavish
and evocative illustrations by Prim, Martinell, Pericot and Lozoya make one think
that the songs nostalgically evoking desired mulatto women are capable of
generating a new genre of pictorial images that represent a colonial past that seems
to be long lost, but exists, however, in the imagination of new generations that
perceive it both through songs and through pictorial images. Not only Prims
evocative full-color illustrations, but also the general aspect of this book, which
simulates a box of colonial merchandise par excellence, Cuban cigars, evocatively
called Habana, suggests a nostalgia for the long lost tropical paradise (see fig. 2).
95 See Ricardo Lafuente Aguado, La habanera en Torrevieja (Alicante, 1989).

Teresa Perez Daniel, Castilla canta habaneras (Barcelona, 1991). Emilio Temprano,
ed. Habaneras (Madrid, 1996).
KAYIER MOOTSMJvOTGE
JOSEF M .FBtM
BB
mmh
Fig. 2. Book cover. Album de habaneras (Barcelona: Omega, 1998).
136
The cover of Calella de Palafrugell i les havaneres, created by Joan Pericot.,96 with its
light beige color and vertical blue stripes on it, is designed to represent the uniform
of soldiers of the last colonial war lead by Spain in Cuba. The title of the book is
placed in the central vignette thus alluding to a label on a rum bottle, another
traditional colonial merchandise and a consolation for soldiers and sailors on their
long trips. The lyrics of the songs in this book are printed on thin sheets of paper of
different colors, imitating pliegos de cordel. the literature of the illiterate, which
proliferates during the time of the colonial wars. Pericots monochromatic drawings
are intentionally modest in style as opposed to the luxury of the full color
illustrations of the Album de habaneras. However, tropical landscapes, mulatto
women, palm trees and sailors are present here too.
Chronologically next publication, Las mas bellas habaneras, (1979) edited by
Ricard Balil97 evokes those legendary songbooks that notorious habanera fans are
known to keep. This impression is enhanced by the quality of paper on which songs
are printed or more exactly are written in cursive. The paper is intentionally rough
and yellow as of cheap notebooks, or of pulp fiction in its North American analogy.
The texts are accompanied by illustrations, which are also monochromatic, as if the
96 Joan Pericot was an architect to whose talent and professionalism Calella

de Palafrugell owes a great deal of its buildings and to whose advocacy it owes the
preservation of its Mediterranean aspect with buildings that do not exceed the height
of ten meters. In the prologue to the book, Pericot mentions that his father
participated in the Cuban war. (19)
97 The second edition was published in 1995.
137
whole notebook is written in conventional blue ink. The drawings very explicitly
complement the stories told in the charged with sentimentality songs of this
collection. This intentionally monostylistic approach makes these illustrations an
intrinsic and organic part of this publication.
The forth collection of habaneras, Quadem dhavaneres, published in 1983, is
prepared by a group of some of the most respected personalities in the world of the
Catalan habanera. Musical scores are notated by Ricard Viladesau, a composer of
sardanas and habaneras who created some of the most popular new habaneras; the
prologue and commentary to the songs is written by Lluis Racionero, Director of the
Biblioteca Nacional; full-color illustrations are by Josep Martinell, an artist who has
created a whole gallery of images related to habaneras; while Josep Bastons, a
prolific composer and artistic director of the group of habanera Peix Fregit, is
listed as an advisor to this publication initiated by Enric Sabater of Dasa Edicions, a
publishing house that specializes in art books, specifically in Salvador Dali
publications. The world of the habanera on paper is not limited to these lavish
publications. Many habanera groups publish their own songbooks, so that the
audience can sing along.
QO
In recent years, pictorial images are not confined only to
illustrations in the collections of habaneras, but also include posters for major
98 Since 1993, a ticket to the Cantada of Calella de Palafrugell includes a

songbook and a white handkerchief to wave during the singing of an emblematic La
bella Lola always sung as the finale together with El meu avi. I will discuss the
publics participation and, particularly, the waving of the kerchiefs, which may be
seen as an actual reenactment of a cultural myth, in Chapter Three while analyzing
the current habanera phenomenon in Catalonia.
138
habanera events, almanacs with lyrics and pictures, as well as series of postcards
edited by Fundacio Ernst Morato.
The cultivation of the habanera at the Costa Brava region during the first half
of the twentieth century can be perceived as a bridge between the cultural
phenomenon originated at the end of the Spanish Empire and the phenomenon of the
Catalan habanera of the end of the twentieth century explored in this dissertation. As
I mentioned, twenty years after the publication of Album de habaneras, a complete
bibliographic rarity by 1966, the publication of Calella de Palafrugell i les havaneres
and the ensuing celebration of the first massive cantadas in Calella de Palafrugell
may be seen as a starting point for reshaping the world of the habanera in Catalonia.
The compilers of Calella de Palafrugell i les havaneres. which contains thirty songs,
are motivated by the same fear that Montsalvatge, Lujan and Prim in the forties, that
of the disappearance of a cultural sign under the pressure of social changes brought
about with the tourist boom. All the included songs, as in Montsalvatges album, are
in Spanish and are presented as traditional or popular without any mention of
authorship. Redolent of the same air that surrounds the romance, this anonymity
asserts the folkloric character that the habanera acquires at the Costa Brava.
Focusing on the songs sung in one small town, the compilers could not foresee the
consequences of their modest initiative.
The Cantadas of Calella de Palafrugell are notorious for a highly romantic
Mediterranean ambiance for the performing of habaneras. The stage for performers
is placed on the beach rocks surrounded by the sea, part of an exclusive rugged
139
landscape of the Costa Brava.99 The public sits on the beach, on the balconies and
on the roofs of the waterfront houses, or in the fishermens boats located both on the
beach and in the bay. The massive participation of the audience is overwhelming.
Calella, with a winter population of three hundred people, is not prepared to
accommodate thousands of spectators on the first Saturday of August, a traditional
time for summer vacations. Therefore, since 1979 Cantada is celebrated on the first
Saturday of July in order to decrease the flow of spectators. However, the change of
the date does not change the situation. The event continues to attract between thirty
and forty thousand of spectators every summer. The success of the Cantada goes far
beyond the local boundaries of the Emporda region and triggers interest towards the
habanera all over Catalonia.
It should be noted that semi-organized groups of singers existed in small
coastal towns long before 1968. According to Febres, the group Cap de Creus was
formed as early as in 1946 and regularly sang in the restaurants and bars of its native
Cadaques. Though this group never performed outside of Cadaques, they recorded a
long play record in 1979 (Aixo es 90). A trio of fishermen regularly singing in
taverns of LEscala in the forties and in the fifties is described in Josep Plas short
story Aigua de mar. Groups Cavall Bemat and Els Pescadors de LEscala were
formed in 1965. The first record with the habaneras La paloma, La bella Lola,
99 Cala both in Catalan and in Spanish means a small bay or cove. Calella
means a smaller cala. Costa Brava where Calella de Palafrugel is located is famous
for its rugged coastline consisting of small bays.
140
and La cana dulce was released in Palafrugell in 1962,100 four years prior to the
publishing of Calella de Palafrugell i les havaneres (Febres, Aixo es 101).
Perhaps the changes in Spains political and social situation, during the years
of the dictablanda, the last years of the Franco dictatorship, and the tourist boom of
the sixties may be viewed as an important factor that plays a major role in the
evolvement of the habanera as a massive phenomenon in Catalonia. The singing of
fishermens songs that invoke the times long gone seems to fulfill the necessity of a
meaningful entertainment during pleasant summer nights at fashionable sea resorts.
The success and popularity of Calellas Cantada lead to an unprecedented growth of
habanera performers all over Catalonia and, more importantly, to the creation of new
habanera in Catalan. In the eighties and nineties, a tendency to the stability of
performance at numerous habanera events, at festes majors, and simply as part of
nightly entertainment in coastal towns during the summer, reinforced by free
offerings of cremat in small plastic cups usually paid for by municipal authorities,
100 Spanish cinematographers have constantly shown interest for the

habanera. The director Jose Marfa Elorrieta releases his Habanera in 1958. The
protagonist of this film is the daughter of a rich indiano who continues to live in the
Caribbean while his daughter studies in a Catholic school in Spain. Desperate to see
her father and her native Cuba, she escapes from the monastery, dresses in a mans
attire and hides on a ship that sails to Cuba. Of course she finds her love on board
the ship and of course a number of habaneras in zarzuela style are performed all
along this musical film. In 1962, director Alfonso B alcazar releases La bella Lola
with Sara Montiel in the principal role. In this version a la espanola of Une dame
aux camelias, under this title this Franco-Italian-Spanish co-production was released
in France, Sara Montiel performs some of the most popular habaneras, La cana
dulce, La bella Lola and La paloma.
141
converts the singing of habaneras into a second profession and a business for
hundreds of men and some women.
The most relevant feature of the transculturation of the habanera in Catalonia
is the switch to Catalan, as the adherence to the native language represents a crucial
issue for Catalan identity. The use of Catalan as the language not only of everyday
communication, but also as a language of literature represented through poetry,
narrative and drama is continuously stressed by Catalan ideologists as a major pillar
on which Catalan identity is based. The other crucial aspect of this identity is the fet
diferencial, differential fact. These two aspects are reinforced in the collective
imaginary of Catalonia since the time of the Renaixenpa. Therefore, the permutation
of the habanera, now created in Catalan mostly, is of crucial importance for the
understanding of the process of transculturation and of its role in the construction of
Catalan identity. By the beginning of the seventies, only a few years after the first
Cantada (1967) triggered an immense interest in the cultural legacy of the past
represented in the traditional habaneras, the boom of the new habanera and its
overwhelming popularity leads to a conflict between those who defend the traditional
way of singing them in Spanish and the rapidly growing trend of the Catalan
habanera. As I mentioned, habaneras were traditionally sung in Spanish, even so by
people whose primary language was Catalan. The explanation of this long-standing
phenomenon may be sought in the habaneras origin in Cuba and arrival to Catalonia
with the americanos and the soldiers of the colonial wars, as well as in the
142
overwhelming popularity of the zarzuela, which was also performed predominantly

in Spanish.
Some habaneras in Catalan were known and sung long before the current
boom. However, the defenders of the traditional habanera consider that the genre
should be preserved in its historical form, which presupposes, according to Joan
Pericot, three characteristics: rhythm, the Spanish language and amatory subject
(Bassa Camps 63). in an interview published in 1980, Pericot, to prove his point,
compares the habanera to the sardana and considers it to be a disaster if the
sardana were sung in Spanish or any other language but Catalan. He also ridicules
the contemporary trend of the translation of popular habaneras into Catalan,
precisely the Catalan version La Coloma of Iradiers La Paloma. In this context,
the trajectory of the habanera La gaviota, created by Frederic Sires, a collaborator
of Pericot and Morato in the publication of their now famous book and one of the
founders of the acclaimed habanera group Port-Bo, is of special interest. Sires
composed the song in 1928 to his own lyrics in Spanish. Until recent decades it was
sung so by the avis, grandfathers, as the older generation of habanera singers is
called in Catalonia. Currently it is frequently performed in Catalan and is introduced
as an autochthonous Catalan-language habanera under the title La gavina. Pericot
also had a strong opinion on another important aspect of the habanera, that of its
subject, which, according to him, should only be love (Bassa Camp 63). Therefore,
an object of his harsh criticism is the habanera in Catalan Calella de les havaneres,
presented for the first time that year (1980). This habanera seems to represent an
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explicit shift in the subject of habaneras that now tend to express the patriotic
feelings for the native land through the singing about the small motherland, a small
town, a bay or a beach. Calella de Palafrugell, commonly associated with the genre
of the habanera, is represented as a nostalgically desired space in at least four
habaneras created in recent decades. I will discuss them in more detail in Chapter
Three. Interviewed by the same author, Ernest Morato is more tolerant about the
issue of the language, in which habaneras should be sung. He believes that
habaneras should reflect the historical period from which they are inherited and thus
speak of mulatto women and of love, after which he confesses that he prefers to hear
them in Spanish (Bassa Camps 72). Looking back at this debate of the eighties, one
can see that the habanera continues to be a sign related to the memory of the nation
which once constituted an Empire where the sun never set. The revival of the
habanera in Catalonia with its nostalgia for the mulatto woman left behind in the
tropical paradise may be explored as the perpetuation of the myths of colonial times
and a certain nostalgia-for-empire, which, as we will see in Chapters Four and
Five, is explicit in Catalan film and narrative that reinvent the habanera in the late
twentieth century. The bitter comments of two personalities considered today in
Catalonia the driving force behind the revival of the habanera,101 reflect the
undercurrents in the habanera movement initiated by an aspiration of a group of
enthusiasts to preserve the musical phenomenon that may be perceived as a vehicle
101 The Foundation for the development and preservation of the habanera
created by its enthusiasts in 1995 is named after Ernest Morato.
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for the collective memory of the nation. Apparently, the phenomenon created
through their initiative and active participation, was no longer under their control by
1980 and underwent a new metamorphosisyet another transculturation.
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Chapter Three
Transculturations of the Habanera II: The Inventions of Catalonia
Quan el Catala sortia a la mar

els nois de Calella feien un cremat;
mans a la guitarra solien cantar:
Visca Catalunya! Visca el Catala!
(El meu avi, music and lyrics by J. L.
Ortega Monasterio, 1968-1971)
The epigraph to this chapter is taken from a habanera probably familiar to

each and every Catalan. For its mass appeal, El meu avi is often referred to as the
second anthem of Catalonia. This habanera speaks of the Catalans who perished
during the last colonial war of the Spanish Empire. One of the first habaneras
created in Catalan in the sixties, it contains a verse that made it exceptionally
important for the Catalans at the time when Catalan language and culture were still
discriminated against by the Franco dictatorship, Visca Catalunya! Visca el Catala!
El meu avi is important for my discussion as Ortega Monasterio in this
songsketched some subjects that will be massively developed in the new Catalan
habanera. The seventies, even before the democratic changes in Spain after the death
of Franco in 1975, are the time of the proliferation of a completely new type of the
habanera, started with the overwhelming success of El meu avi, composed in 1968
by Ortega Monasterio and presented to the public in 1971. These new habaneras are
characterized not only by a switch to Catalan, the use of which was prohibited for
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decades during the dictatorship, but also by a significant change in the subjects and
themes of the habanera. The subjects of new habaneras have a broad range now.
The historically patriotic El meu avi evokes the participation of Catalans in the
colonial war and at the same time praises the motherland, Catalonia. A significant
number of habaneras assert national and personal identity through the praising of
seafaring professions. The subject of new habaneras may also be love for the small
motherland, the towns of Catalonia. These geographic points of significance are
directly associated with the habanera, which explicitly starts to acquire features of a
sign relevant for Catalan identity in the last decades of the past century.
In Catalonia, the sixties and the seventies are the time of an exceptional
popularity of a song movement known as the Nova Cango Catalana, whose political
repercussions go beyond anyones expectations, in the words of Salvador Giner (62).
This movement of songs charged with political protest starts with the evolvement of
a group of singers and songwriters that call themselves Els Setze Jutges, after a
traditional Catalan tongue twister.102 Having started with translations of songs in the
style of Joan Baez and George Brassens, soon they turn to highly politically charged
texts by Catalan authors. During the last years of the dictatorship and during the
transition from a totalitarian regime to democracy in Spain, the Nova Cango Catalana
102 Johnston explains that the rhyme Setze jutges mengen fenge dun penjat
(Sixteen judges eat the liver of a hangman) emphasizes the phonemes that are not
found in Spanish, and thus makes fun of the inability of Spanish speakers to
pronounce some Catalan sounds. He believes that the irony was likely missed by the
authorities, but not by Catalans (220).
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becomes exceptionally important for the assertion of Catalan identity. For those who
do not express their feelings of protest or do not use a proscribed Catalan language in
public for fear of losing their job or undergoing some other kind of repressions, the
attendance as spectators at concerts gives an opportunity to become a part of protest.
The impact of the Nova Cango movement on the expression of Catalan collective
identity and the uniting effect of the Nova Cango for Catalan opposition during the
last years of the dictatorship are continuously emphasized.
103
The perspective of the
Nova Cango as a phenomenon highly relevant for the collective conscience of the
Catalan nation is contingent with Benedict Andersons perception of poetry, songs
and national anthems as an important marker of collective identity of nations as
imagined communities. As I mentioned, Anderson sees in singing the same songs an
effect of unisonality, which can be perceived as a sign of collective national
identities. In addition to its contribution to the assertion of Catalan identity within
Catalonia, the Nova Cango also helps for an extensive recognition of the Catalan
language and of Catalans outside of Catalonia. According to Giner, the Nova Cango
made the language and its people known, liked, and to some extent, better
understood all over Spain (63). Thirty years later, however, the exceptional
popularity of Els Setze Jutges, Joan Manuel Serrat, Llufs Llach, Raimon, Maria del
103 About the role of the Nova Cango for the promotion of Catalan language
and for the assertion of Catalan national identity see Albert Balcells, Catalan
Nationalism (New York: St. Martins, 1996) 146; Salvador Giner, The Social
Structure of Catalonia (London: Anglo-Catalan Society, 1984) 62-63; Hank
Johnston, Tales of Nationalism: Catalonia, 1939-1979 (New Bmnswick, NJ: Rutgers
UP, 1991) 178-183, 220.
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Mar Bonet in the sixties and in the seventies can be seen as the sign of the time that
terminated with the change of political and social situation. Some of the artists who
started their careers as part of the Nova Cango continue to be active and stage
spectacular shows until now. Perhaps the most active are Maria del Mar Bonet and
Joan Manuel Serrat.104 The Nova Cango fulfills its function of social protest against
cultural repressions and lack of democratic freedoms under the dictatorship and
gradually loses its actuality with the weakening of political and social confrontation
after the transition to democracy in Spain. Thus, Linaress theory about the
functions that are fulfilled by popular songs and music seems to find its confirmation
in the story of the Nova Cango Catalana.
The habanera, however, continues to be an intrinsic part not only of massive
summer entertainment, but, with graduate oblivion of politically charged Nova
Cango and practical disappearance of traditional Catalan songs other than the
danceable sardana, turns into a vehicle of assertion of Catalan cultural identity. In
this chapter, I will explore how new Catalan habaneras assert Catalan nationhood
and identity. Catalan habanera follows the tradition of nostalgic love songs and thus
continues to fulfill the function of emotional refuge for those who sing and listen to
them. It also develops new subjects and a new linguistic form in the vernacular
104 Joan Manuel Serrat, the thirteenth of the sixteen judges, continues to be
perhaps the most prolific and popular author and singer who sings both in Catalan
and in Spanish. Due to his refusal to sing in Spanish in 1968 at the prestigious
Eurovision festival he entered into a prolonged conflict with the Franco regime and
lived in exile in Mexico where he continued his career and gained immense
international popularity.
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language, the adherence to which constitutes a major criteria for Catalan identity.
For its popularity and significance for Catalan cultural identity in recent decades, the
habanera can be compared to the sardana. a major and broadly recognized emblem of
the cultural identity of Catalans.
The current state of the habanera phenomenon in Catalonia can be
characterized as an entity consisting of several components that are organically
intertwined and, as a total, present the whole of the cultural phenomenon that can be
defined as the Catalan habanera. These components are: traditional habaneras in
Spanish; traditional habaneras in Catalan; new habaneras in Catalan; new habaneras
in Spanish; other songs performed by the groups that identify themselves as habanera
singers. Numerically, the largest group is that of new habaneras in Catalan. My own
collection of texts, which I have gathered from songbooks of the Cantada
dHavaneres of Calella de Palafrugell, songbooks edited by habanera performers,
booklets accompanying compact disks, and manuscriptscourtesy of authors Josep
Bastons, Andreu Navarro, Castor Perez Diz and Antonia Vilasincludes over one
hundred thirty texts.
Next in quantity is the repertoire of traditional habaneras in Spanish. Primary
sources for my research are the collections of habaneras Album de habaneras (1948);
Calella de Palafrugell i les havaneres (Palafrugell: Port-Bo, 1966); Las mas bellas
habaneras (1979; Barcelona: Librum, 1995); Ouadem dhavaneres, (Girona: Dasa,
1983); songbooks of Cantada dHavaneres of Calella de Palafrugell, booklets
accompanying compact disks. The total of texts that I analyzed is around eighty.
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Some of these songs, however, may belong to other genres: sardanas, valsets, short
waltzes popular in Catalonia, boleros are traditionally performed by groups that
identify themselves as habanera singers. Thus one can see that the notion of the
habanera has a broader meaning in Catalonia, sometimes identified as canco
marinera. mariners songs. I tried to separate these other genres that are included in
the repertoire of habanera groups into the category of Other. However, it is not
always easy and it is possible that some songs that I treat as the habanera may strictly
belong to other musical genres. As I see my task not in strict musicological analysis,
but in the analysis from the perspective of placement of a cultural phenomenon
within its historical and sociological context, I am interested in the texts and in the
discourse that they produce. The group of Other includes sardanas, ballades,
boleros, corrandessatirical songs similar to coupletand other songs. It should be
noted that within the sardana genre there is a subdivision into long and short
sardanas, as well as into those that are dance only or song only.
Two smaller groups are new habaneras in Spanish and traditional habaneras
in Catalan. By traditional in Catalan I define those that were known and sung in
Catalonia long before the boom of the seventies. This group is the most difficult to
define, as there is very little information about it. Febres mentions a collection of
habaneras published in 1927 that contained various habaneras in Catalan, however
this collection is lost and is not available (Aixo es fhavanera 97-98).
My collection does not pretend to be exhaustive. I am well aware that there
are many habaneras that I do not know or do not analyze in this work. As of
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September 2001, the online catalogue of Biblioteca de Catalunya contained three
hundred fifty two titles of compact disks by Catalan groups that sing habaneras. I
tried to select the most frequently performed habaneras basing my choice on the
programs of the Cantada dHavaneres of Calella de Palafrugell that are available
starting from the year 1993 through 2001, and on the discography of groups of the
habanera Port-Bo, Peix Fregit, LEspingari, La Gavina, Mar Endins, Alba, Cavall
Bemat, Els Pirates, Els Pescadors de lEscala, a compact disk of Mostra de
lHavanera Catalana de Palamos. My selection of discography is a small part of
what is available at Catalan marketplace currently. The proliferation of groups and
songs is so significant that it is probably unrealistic to try to compile an exhaustive
list. The recent catalogue of habanera groups compiled and edited by Fundacio
Ernest Morato,105 without date, includes fifty-five groups of habanera singers. I tried
to analyze the most popular songs based on the frequency of their occurrence in
songbooks.106
105 Fundacio Ernest Morato was created in Palafrugell in 1994. It sees its
goal in gathering documentation and materials about the habanera and promote
investigation of the habanera that will eventually lead to the creation of the museum
of the habanera (Cataleg 10).
106 As an example of a variety in the habanera development and of the
affirmation of the significance of the habanera for the collective conscience of the
nation one may look at the compact disk Si vius a Catalunya (1997), recorded by a
childrens group Espineta. This group of children not older than fifteen, judging by
their photo, sings habaneras that were apparently written for them. On the photo in
the booklet accompanying this disk, six teenagers, four girls and two boys dressed in
stylized sailors striped tee shirts, are sitting around a model of a sail ship. The front
page of the booklet contains a painting of a maritime landscape recognizably of the
Costa Brava, with its rocks, small bays and sailboats. The habaneras recorded on
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While analyzing the songs I tried to select the most frequently performed,
most popular and therefore probably the most paradigmatic habaneras. If one looks
at the programs of Cantada dHavaneres of Calella de Palafrugell from 1993 to 2001
one can see that there is a repeated pattern of the finale of Cantada when all the
participating groups sing together two habaneras, La bella Lola and El meu avi.
The first one is a traditional habanera in Spanish, notated by Montsalvatge in the
Album de habaneras ( 1948); the second one, as I already mentioned, was created by
Jose Luis Ortega Monasterio in 1968 and was sung for the first time in public at the
Cantada dHavaneres of Calella de Palafrugell in 1971. These two habaneras seem
to reunite the most characteristic features of two major trends in the current Catalan
habanera that can be defined as Traditional Habanera in Spanish and New
Habanera in Catalan. Therefore it seems reasonable to center my analysis of the
phenomenon of Catalan habanera around these two songs, each of which seems to
become a cultural sign whose significance goes far beyond their esthetical value.
La bella Lola contains the characteristics that distinguish and define the
traditional genre. It is performed in the classical for the habanera two four time, the
lyrics are in Spanish, and the subject revolves around the encounter with a woman
left behind in an overseas port. In addition to these characteristics, one can
distinguish other features relevant for the genre of the traditional habanera. These
features are the predominance of the masculinist discourse, on the one hand, and the
this disc are dedicated to the sea, Catalonia, Penedes, one of the geographic regions
of Catalonia, Barcelona. This disc may be viewed as a clear-cut attempt at asserting
the maritime identity of the nation through the habanera performed by teenagers.
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ability to tell, in a concise form, a story, with which both the performers and the
audience identify themselves, on the other. The narrative voice in the traditional
habanera is almost exclusively masculine and the figure of a woman represents an
object of love or desire.
In an attempt to classify the traditional habanera one may probably organize
them in groups according to the subject of their discourse, which most frequently
involves the relationship with a female. The largest group, approximately thirty-five
habaneras in my analysis, is that of habaneras where the narrative voice asks the
woman for love. The other large group of twenty-five habaneras tells a story of love,
separation or subjects related to military service or overseas travel. Significantly
smaller is the group of seven habaneras that revolve around a Cuban theme of
negritos, Afro-Cubans, and represent their speech. The origin of these habaneras is
related to the Cuban zarzuela of the end of the nineteenth century.
The woman in the traditional habanera may be an object of description, a
protagonist of a story or an addressee. In all these situations, she may be addressed
in a variety of ways that frequently reflect racial characteristics and almost always
appraise the beauty of the object of love or desire: mulata linda, mujer celestial,
joven bella, triguena, linda habanera del alma mfa, prenda querida, negrita
muy zalamera, nina hermosa angelical, encantadora criatura, criollita del
alma, la cubanita, Lola dulce prenda, Colombiana, cotorrita del alma,
cubanita preciosa, primorosa hermosura, linda mulata, mulata angelical,
cubana de mi ilusion, ingrata mal pagadora, una nina hermosa da gusto y
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placer, nena, nenita del alma, negra, nina hechicera, nina pimsima, mi
bella aurora, Chiquita, mi dulce amor, amada del corazon, la reina de mi
querer, la reina del placer, la hermosura del bien, la rosa sin color, las ninas
de medio color, vida mfa, consuelo de mi querer, hermosfsima mujer,
mulata hechicera, nina bonita.
Habaneras with female narrative voice, though, as I mentioned, they existed
in Cuban tradition and were practically completely lost with the loss of the genre
there, were not performed until recently in Catalonia. In recent years, some women
singers include in their repertoire habaneras Yo soy guajira, A mi no me gusta el
coco, Vivir en La Habana. These habaneras were recovered by Marfa Teresa
Linares in Cuba in the 1940s.107 Linares transcribed some habaneras that she heard
from ancianas. older women, in which the narrative voice is explicitly feminine
(www.arrakis.es/-miguelhc/). They were first recorded by Liuba Marfa Hevia, a
Cuban singer and author on a compact disc, entitled Habaneras en el tiempo (1995).
These habaneras, however, are performed in Catalonia by a small circle of singers
only. The habanera Veinte anos by Marfa Teresa Vera, a Cuban author and singer
(1895-1965), is probably the most well known one and might be considered a
representation of a feminine discourse of love. However, for the ambiguity of its
narrative voice, it is now often performed by male singers or groups of the habanera.
In an interesting twist of the history of this habanera it was translated into Catalan by
107 Sanchez de Fuentes quotes Yo soy guajira in Vieios ritmos cubanos: La

letra en nuestras canciones (Habana, 1937) 18.
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Andreu Navarro as a tribute to the late Narcisa Oliver, poet and author of lyrics of
some of the most poetic new habaneras in Catalan, and is sung now both in Catalan
and in Spanish. The dialogue of the two voices is a very rare case either, the
females part in most habaneras is transmitted through indirect representation by the
male protagonist, who in most cases possesses the predominant voice, that of the
narrator.
The stories told in traditional habaneras may represent the separation or the
reunification of the narrator with the adored or desired woman, frequently of other
race, mulata; may represent the farewell to the mother country that is either Cuba or
Spain; or may tell a story of events that take place in the exotic overseas
environment. The separation and the farewell are frequently imposed on the
protagonist due to military service and thus are beyond his control, as in the famous
habanera Adios mi peninsula hermosa:
Adios mi peninsula hermosa:
adios que el deber me llama.
Adios que me voy a La Habana,
a luchar, a luchar por la nation. (Mar endins
121).
Sometimes, the farewell is to the beloved Cuba that is directly associated
with the physical existence of a desired woman:
Cuba tierra donde naci,
bajo tu hermoso sol,
playas donde yo aspire,
los perfumes de amor,
de una hermosa mujer.
Adios, Cuba querida,
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son tus playas de plata,

en tus olas se retrata,
la imagen de mi amor. (XXXII Cantada 6)
In this strophe, as in many other strophes of traditional habaneras, Cuba, with
its silver beaches, is associated with the representation of love. The two strophes
quoted above are notated in Montsalvatges Album as the habanera entitled La perla
de Cuba (29). However, in the songbook of Cantada dHavaneres of Calella de
Palafrugell (1998) one finds a longer version of this habanera entitled Adios, Cuba
querida presented by the group El Taper. This version contains two above
mentioned strophes plus a story, in which the encounter with land, the return to a
port is associated with the figure of a woman who represents this land:
Tres dfas y tres noches cruzando el mar,
hemos llegado a tiempo para Ultramar
yo de placer lloraba, lloraba de placer
encuentro a una Americana (sic)
que de mi se enamoro
y al verla tan hechicera
le dije no llores, no.
Linda habanera del alma mfa
ven a mis brazos con alegrfa
ven a mis brazos con ilusion. (XXXH Cantada 6)
Alegrfa, that can be rendered in English as ecstasy and pleasure, and ilusion,
which presupposes eagerness, excitement and hopeful anticipation, are perhaps the
notions broadly conveyed in the habanera and constitute the core of their liveliness
and viability. The habanera La bella Lola explicitly represents these features: it
tells the story of a sailor or a soldier at war and of his reunification with the desired
woman in an exotic port. This encounter is seen through his eyes and told in his
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language. The major emotion conveyed by this song is the pleasure associated with
the encounter with the female. The female is an object of description and desire, and
also an addressee in some versions of this habanera. The textual analysis of this, and
of many other traditional habaneras, may be difficult for reasons related to the oral
transmission of habaneras. Due to oral transmission and linguistic problem that
many Catalan singers of the habanera experienced with lyrics in Spanish, the
language that they did not speak normally, there exist many different variations of
texts. Sometimes in towns such as Palamos, Calella de Palafrugell and Begur, that
are located only minutes apart by the twenty first century means of transportation,
the same songs are sung with slight or significant textual differences. La bella
Lola can be explored as an example of such differences. Generally, and perhaps.
due to the notation by Montsalvatge, the first strophe is sung as follows:
Despues de un ano de no ver tierra
porque la guerra me lo impidio,
me fui al puerto donde se hallaba
la que adoraba mi corazon.
The first strophe offers an explanation of events that is brief and transparent
to anybody familiar with Spanish history. The mention of the war reminds the
audience of the participation in Spanish colonial wars at the end of the nineteenth
century. War definitely is an obstacle, as it deprives the protagonist of an
opportunity to see not only his beloved woman, but also firm land for a year. The
hyperbole of not being able to see the land and the beloved woman creates the effect
of the unjustified suffering of the protagonist, which invokes numerous victims of
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the last colonial war conducted by the Spanish officials up to the last man and the
last peseta.
The refrain of this habanera alludes to the sensual enjoyment and pleasure of
the long-anticipated encounter. The first instant of the greeting on behalf of Lola
with her emblematic today for Catalonia kerchief, brings the sailor pleasure, perhaps
mixed with vanity as other sailors can observe him and Lola together. The sailors
pleasure is collectively embraced today in Catalonia when the public participates in
the performance of this song massively waving white handkerchiefs during the
singing of the refrain, thus actually reenacting the cultural myth each time when this
habanera is performed. The pleasure achieves its culmination when the woman
approaches and embraces the protagonist. The trope of maximum pleasure is
enhanced by the hyperbolic metaphor of a death of love when the narrative voice/
protagonist believes that he dies of pleasure in the womans arms, which evokes
another trope frequent in Spanish poetry, that of morir de amor, to die of love:
[Ay! que placer sentfa yo,
cuando en la playa
saco el panuelo y me saludo.
Luego despues
se vino a mf
me dio un abrazo,
y en aquel lazo cref morir.
The refrain in Montsalvatges transcription is followed by the second strophe:
Cuando en la playa la bella Lola,
su larga cola luciendo va
los marineros se vuelven locos
y hasta el piloto pierde el compas.
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In some versions of this song, the second and the first strophes are
interchanged. As one can see, in the second strophe the narrator in the first person
disappears and the story becomes more universal and loses the emotional quality of a
personal narrative. However, it acquires universality that can be projected on other
males, who become insane because of Lolas beauty, while she walks on the beach
graciously showing the long tail of her dress. The love insanity of the sailors
achieves its culmination in the fact that even the pilot loses direction. The
metaphor of pilot and direction points to the maritime oriented language and
mentality of those for whom the song was once created and by whom it was sung
and preserved. At the same time, the beauty and gracefulness of Lola must be
exceptional or the imagination of the sailors frivolous, as most women will know
that walking graciously with a larga cola, long dress tail, on the beach is not at all
easy. One can suppose that the text might have undergone changes as it was
transmitted from one singer to another, especially taking into consideration that for
many singers Spanish was not the language that they used in everyday life. In
Totana, Murcia, where habaneras seem to be a prevalently womens domain,108 the
108 About the singing of habaneras in Totana, Murcia, by female groups while
working on packing the fruit, the major export merchandise of this traditionally
agricultural area, see Gines Rosa, Habanera: Canto de Cuba, nostalgia de Totana
(Totana, 2000) 83-93.
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second verse of this strophe is sung as follows: su lindo talle luciendo va, showing
off her beautiful figure (Rosa 218).109
In Montsalvatges version there are only two strophes. However, currently
La bella Lola is usually sung with three strophes. This third strophe exists in
different versions according to different sources. I quote these written versions in
the chronological order of publication available to me. The first one is from Las mas
bell as habaneras (1979), a collection by Ricard Balil, which is frequently fiercely
criticized by habanera singers for inaccuracy both of the lyrics and of the musical
score in the book compiled by him. Balil argues that he publishes songs as he
learned them orally from older generation of singers, antiguos cantaires (3).
Balil believes that there are as many variants as places where habaneras are sung,
and they were learned through oral transmission: las canciones se aprendfan de
ofdo, y las letras de memoria (3). Therefore, he believes that in many cases it is
practically impossible to decipher the meaning of a verse or even of some verses in a
strophe. He attributes these differences to the fact that Catalan-speaking singers had
great difficulty in communicating in Spanish, the language in which all the original
habaneras were written (3). Here is the third strophe in his transcription:
La cubanita lloraba triste,
de veras sola y en alta mar,
y el marinero la consolaba:
no llores Lola no te has de ahogar. (92)
109 Curiously, the person who first pointed this variant to me was Antonia
Vilas, perhaps the most active at present woman singer, author of habaneras and
organizer of the annual festival Barceloneta: Cara al Mar in Barcelona.
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In BaliPs version the sailor consoles Lola on board of a ship where she is, in
fact, alone at open sea, which contradicts the logic: if he consoles her, she is not
alone, she is with the sailor. One might suppose that she is crying because she is
abandoning her native Cuba and therefore she feels lonely. It should be noted that
the narrative voice is also in the third person in this strophe. The version that is
reprinted in the songbooks of Cantada dHavaneres from 1993 through 1999 differs
from Balils only in one word. Instead of de veras, truly, in fact, it says de
verse, seeing herself, which for the similarity in sonority does not change the
rhythm and is irrelevant for the meaning. However, in the 2000 version the editors
of the songbook changed the order of strophes starting with the explanatory strophe
about Lolas effect on the sailors, followed by the refrain, and then comes the story
of the happy reunification of the narrator-protagonist and Lola. The third strophe
seems to be a logical continuation as the sailor is bringing Lola with him, probably
back to Spain. There also exists a version where the sailors who console Lola are in
the plural, which perhaps invites the collective participation into the process of
consoling the beautiful Lola (Recull dHavaneres n.pag.).
As one can see, all the above-mentioned variants are similar with a very
subtle difference. There exists another variation as old as the world, in the words
of the owner of the tavern La bella Lola of Calella de Palafrugell. The tavern takes
its name after the song and the owner is diligently cultivating the image of the shrine
of the habanera. The walls of La bella Lola are covered with photos of singings of
habaneras; the lyrics of habaneras are printed on place mates; the owner, who hires
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habanera singers on a regular basis to attract customers to his tavern and sometimes
sings with them when all the drinks are already served by three in the morning, has a
small library of books about the habanera that are available for the patrons. This
tavern and its image of the shrine of the habanera is the primary tourist attraction of
this coastal town in addition to the annual Cantada dHavaneres.110 A version of la
bella Lola is hanging on the wall in this tavern. It is an original poster created by
Pilarfn Bayes, an artist well known in Catalonia for her illustrations to songs111 and
childrens books. The last strophe in this version is as follows:
Cuando la Lola tuvo su nino
y aquel panchito se le murio
el marinero la consolaba
no llores, Lola, yo te hare dos.
This version perhaps responds to the ironic attitude of the fishermen who
sang habaneras with what Nestor Lujan called una especie de zumbona sonrisa en
los labios. Of course they sang it in the tavern that did not bear the fancy name La
bella Lola and did not have a picture of a girl waving a white kerchief on its front
110 There is a newer similar institution, Pepa Caneja, in the neighboring port
of Palamos, site of annual Mostra dHavanera Catalana where habaneras are also
regularly performed as part of the tourist attraction. The analogy with tourist places
in Andalusia where one may hear and see flamenco performances, an established
sign of Spanishness, is transparent.
111
Together with Andreu Navarro and Maria Angels Teruel, Pilarfn Bayes
prepared an unpublished booklet Havaneres.. .i folklore mariner for the participation
of the group of habaneras lEspingari in the week of Catalan culture in Caracas,
Venezuela, in 1995. This poster is reproduced in this booklet. In the Biblioteca de
Catalunya, one may see a poster with the text of the Catalan national anthem Els
Segadors with her ironic illustration.
163
sign aimed at attracting tourists. In accordance with tradition and normal practice,
the original tavern located in this space, Ca Raquel, bore the name of its owner, now
legendary Raquel, who is said to have known all the habaneras by heart. A tavern
was not a place for women, however it was maintained by a woman who inherited it
from her father. Perhaps in this cultural and social condition lie the roots of Ernest
Moratos conviction reiterated until today by some significant personalities in the
world of the habanera,112 les dones no he pinten res, women have nothing to do in
the world of the habanera (Bassa Camps 70). To the honor of Paco, the owner of the
tavern, it should be said that Raquels portrait occupies a central place among the
exaggerated photo gallery of friends of the habanera on the walls of his tavern, which
serve to create the ambiance and the image of the place and to attract the tourists. As
with the flamenco in flamenco bars in Andalusia, the habanera is performed in
taverns and casinos in Catalonia regularly. In the Introduction, I mentioned an
announcement that invites the public to mariners nights in the casino of Barcelona
with habaneras and cremat. The advertisement in La Vanguardia starts with a
periphrasis of a verse from El meu avi. The regular singing of habaneras by hired
habanera singers in taverns and restaurants of todays Catalonia represents another
reenactment of a cultural myth. It is the myth of habanera singing at the Costa
Brava. The nostalgic songs evoking the times of the lost empire that are sung during
112 In a recent interview, in July of 2001, Ortega Monasterio, when asked

about different styles of performing habaneras that exist today in Catalonia, agrees to
the existence of many different ways of performing. However, he explicitly speaks
against the incorporation of female voices into the singing of habaneras and literally
reiterates the words by Morato (Punt. 1 July 2001, 31).
164
the summer in the taverns and restaurants of fashionable resorts seem to represent the
nostalgia for the times long gone when the beaches were not crowded, the problem
of parking did not exist and the fishermen sang the songs for few educated fans that
would come from the big cities during the summer.
On Pacos place mates one finds three more habaneras with the name Lola in
the title and another habanera, entitled La Pauleta. This habanera evokes La bella
Lola as a tavern. Two of the habaneras in Spanish, jAy Lola! and Lola dulce
prenda, are traditional habaneras referred to as popular in song books (Mar endins
24). Lola la tavemera, with lyrics in Catalan by Carles Casanovas and music by
Josep Bastons, and La Pauleta, with lyrics that present a mixture of both Spanish
and Catalan (seemingly anonymous), can be classified as New Habaneras in
Catalan. The juxtaposition of jAy Lola! and of Lola dulce prenda may perhaps
show their relevant features:
'Lola dulce prenda
iAy Lola!
[Ay! Lola dulce prenda

Oh! Dulce encanto mfo
jAy! Lola en ti conffo
conffo hasta el morir.
Ay Lola, si tu me quieres
voy a comprarte (bis)
una barca con velas
Y con sus remos para pasearte.
jAy! Lola, por ti yo padezco

y mil veces me has despreciado
yo que siempre te he jurado
que mil veces te amare.
Juntos iremos al mar

y gozaremos los dos
tu cuidaras de la vela
Yo cuidare del timon.
No me olvides, prenda querida

que mis cantos son amores
No me olvides, que son flores
Las delicias del amor.
Y si la mar se alborota
no temas Lola, no temas Lola,
Tu eres la preferida
Y la mas hermosa entre las olas.
165
Un abrazo, Lola, por Dios
no me lo vayas a negar
que ahora siento en mi pecho
el anhelo de poderte amar
yo sin tu amor,
resistir no puedo mas
si me lo niegas mi verdugo seras.
Adios angel de mi vida
adios, corazon de amor
que mi pecho ya no puede
resisitir tanto dolor.
(La bella Lola)
Vamonos a la mar, vamonos

con su dulce vaiven.
vamos pronto mi bien

Que la luna en su claro fulgor...
y estrechandote entre mis brazos
te cantare siempre mi canto
de amor.
Mi canto, si...Si del amor.
(Mar endins 24)
If La bella Lola belongs to the narrative habaneras, these two songs do

not seem to have an explicit narrative element. However, in both, the protagonist in
the first person is begging his desired woman for love. These songs may belong to
the so-called songs de rondalla, serenades, with the whole arsenal of love petitions
and pledges, intertwined with threats of death if love is negated, in which the desired
object may sometimes be called verdugo. executioner, as in Lola dulce prenda or
ingrata mal pagadora as in the habanera of the same title (Balil 81). The ending of
Lola dulce prenda represents another element common for many traditional
habaneras, that of a farewell. In some habaneras, a farewell may be a consequence
of the military obligation, while in this habanera it seems that the narrative voice
loses hope of mutual love and therefore abandons the object of love that has
despised him a thousand times. The leitmotiv of this habanera is perhaps the
perfect rhyming in Spanish of the words amor, love, and dolor, pain.
166
Ay Lola adds to the elements that the other two habaneras have, a strong
symbolism and a representation of the sea. This element is perhaps as relevant for
the habanera discourse as a female. If Lola, that rhymes with ola, wave, agrees to
love the protagonist/narrator, he will buy her a sailboat in which they will sail and
love each other while he will be singing his love song to her. These three songs
seem to represent the quintessence of the traditional habanera with their discourse of
love towards a mulatto woman left behind in an abandoned port and an offer of love
on a boat in the open sea. A boat and open sea are a recurrent motif in the habanera,
however, love spaces are not limited to this attribute of maritime culture but, as an
evocation of overseas existence, may include such exotically sounding spaces as
manigua, manigual,
11 T
or platanar, that refer the action to the evoked tropical space.
The exotic tropical space may be accompanied by such attributes as a hammock, as

in the habanera La hamaca, or elements of tropical flora and fauna, cotorrita, and
lorito, both of which can be rendered in English as parrot,114 and that metaphorically
represent the relationship of human love and desire:
Cotorrita del alma
Le decfa el lorito
Quiereme un poquito, ay, ay, ay
Que me muero de amor. (Album 21)
113 As I mentioned, manigua has an explicit military connotation in Cuba due

to the evocation of the war for Cuban independence.
114 The New Velazquez Spanish and English Dictionary (1999) under number
five with the note (Mex.) registers the meaning whore.
167
In La hamaca, in addition to platanar and hamaca, one finds another

linguistic indicator of American space, el sinsonte, the mocking-bird:
Tengo una hamaca tendida a la orillita del mar
y mi caballo ensillado en medio del platanar.
Sombra me da el monte, brisa, fruto y flor,
trinos el sinsonte pero nadie amor.
This song represents the pattern of habaneras with a narrator who is suffering
because of not responded love and is looking for another love that will not make him
suffer:
Yengo, vengo por senda perdida,
buscando un nuevo querer,
y un nuevo amor en mi vida
que no me haga padecer,
que no me haga padecer.
Ingrata mal pagadora that I already mentioned interprets the same subject
of a farewell to a desired woman, however, with repentance and accusation of the
object of desire of being cruel and ungrateful:
Ingrata mal pagadora,
y de malos sentimientos,
el afan que me adevora,
es el arrepentimiento.
Ay si sf, Ay no no,
es el arrepentimiento,
de haberte amado hasta ahora,
de haberte amado hasta ahora,
Donde estan los juramentos
que me hicistes (sic) una tarde,
se los ha llevado el viento,
de una forma cobarde,
Adios que me voy llorando,
168
me voy llorando y me alejo,
aunque no te vuelva a ver,
con la esperanza me quedo.
(Balil 81)
In these two habaneras the protagonist, though full of disillusion, does not
lose hope of reciprocal love and, in La hamaca, promises to bring his beloved
woman to his hammock and love her there:
Guardare tu imagen muy dentro de mf,
prueba del carino que siento por ti.
Y si un dfa vuelves, cuando a mi lado estes,
te llevare a mi hamaca tendida
y alia te amare, y alia te amare. (XXXIII Cantada 14)
The promises of love alongside with transparent petitions of love make
habaneras explicitly and sincerely erotic:
Vente, vente, y gozaremos,
las delicias, ay del amor
viviremos los dos felices
bajo este sol abrasador, abrasador. (Balil 74)
The pleasure of love continues to prevail and be one of the main subjects of
the habanera:
La dije asf, cuando mfa seras,
muy amante y fiel
me satisfaras, me satisfaras.
Cuando mfa seras
los dos viviremos,
cuando mfa seras
los dos gozaremos. (XXXIII Cantada 23)
This pleasure may, on the one hand, contain the feeling of guilt, on the other,
sometimes turns into the maximum expressions of masculinist discourse, as in the
habanera En un lago de inmensa extension. Certain voyeuristic pleasure when the
169
protagonist narrator watches through the foliage una rubia, a blonde, while she is
swimming in the lake, and enjoys seeing su lindo talle, her beautiful figurean
evocation of La bella Lolais followed by an action when he not only kisses her,
but also leaves her without respiration, which sounds as an overwhelming triumph
of masculinist discourse:
En un lago de inmensa extension,
que ninguno lo puede igualar,
una tarde a la puesta del sol,
una rubia se vino a banar.
Tu mirar mata, linda mulata, mata de amor.
por Dios te imploro, rico tesoro, dilo (sic) por Dios.
Yo la vi, entre el follaje
yo la mire con largo afan,
pero al ver su lindo talle,
la mire, la bese, la deje sin respirar. (Balil 77)
Another example of an explicitly erotic discourse is the habanera La cana
dulce where a sad and ready to cry protagonist at a sea shore meets a mulatto
woman who shows to him her delantal, apron:
Estando yo una manana
triste y lloroso mirando el mar
me encontre con una mulata
que me mostraba su delantal.
Quiereme nina, quiereme nina, quiereme siempre,
quiereme tanto, quiereme tanto, como te quiero,
y a cambio de eso, yo te dare...
La cana dulce, la cana dulce,
la cana dulce y el buen cafe, (bis)
Sus ojos eran azules
como las olas del mar de amor
y su cinturita curvada
170
como la cana del pescador.

Quiereme nina, quiereme nina, quiereme siempre,
quiereme tanto, quiereme tanto, como te quiero,
ay mulatita, ven a la mar...
Que am i me gusta, que a mi me encanta,
que a mi me gusta tu delantal.
There is hardly any doubt that an apron, delantal, may be a part of an attire of
a mulatto woman from colonial Havana. The etymology of the Spanish word is
derived from delante, in front of. My search of a hidden meaning of this word in
various dictionaries did not bring any other results than those similar to the definition
of delantal in Diccionario de uso del espanol by Marfa Moliner, prenda de vestir
que se coloca por delante del cuerpo, encima de los otros vestidos para evitar que se
manchen estos.
However, if one looks at the illustrations to this song by Josep M. Prim in
Album de habaneras (see fig. 3), and by Josep Martinell in Ouadem dhavaneres
(1983)both books lavishly illustratedone sees that these artists emphasize not so
much the attire, but the body of the mulatto woman. In the frivolous illustration by
Prim the mulatto woman is completely naked, and delantal implicitly stands for the
front part of her body. In Martinells somewhat grotesque interpretation, there is a
piece of cloth that may be perceived as an apron. However, it covers the lower part
of the body of the otherwise naked mulatto woman. Llufs Racionero, seemingly
convinced of the erotic connotations of the images created by the habanera, also
searches for a hidden meaning of delantal.
171
Fig. 3. Josep Maria Prim, La cana dulce. Album de habaneras (Barcelona: Omega,
1998) 88.
172
Yet his search does not bring any results either. In his commentary to the habanera
jAy Lola!, which I discussed above, Racionero ironically suggests that the
followers of Freud would not have any doubt about the sexual symbolism of such
tropes as vela and timon present in this habanera and recurrent in the traditional
habanera:
La simbologfa sexual y erotica esta clarfsima como
demostrara facilmente cualquier freudiano y si alguien
le replica que no esta explfcito que asf sea, contestara
que es asf y quienes no lo reconocen es porque, aunque
subconscientemente saben que es verdad,
conscientemente no pueden admitirlo. El sistema de
Freud, como se ve, no falla, ni siquiera en la
interpretacion de las habaneras. (280)
Though I do not pretend to apply Freudian analysis to the exploration of the
habanera, one cannot deny strong erotic connotations explicit in the traditional
habanera. In the second strophe of La cana dulce, the narrator discusses the beauty
of the mulata comparing her slim figure to a fishermens rod, a simile that the
audience easily relates to. In the repeated refrain, he explicitly asks her to love him
in exchange for sugar cane and good coffee. The musical film La bella Lola
(1962), where Sara Montiel, the star of Spanish musical theatre and film, interprets
this song in a highly sensual and insinuative manner, may be viewed as a reenaction
of these tropes in the language of musical cinematography. In this Spanish style
interpretation of Une dame aux camellias, Montiel plays a cabaret diva and first
appears on stage performing precisely La cana dulce. Her sensual interpretation of
this song triggers the interest and passion on behalf of the protagonist who starts to
173
seek her love. In the dialogue of the protagonists friends, Montiel is addressed as
mulata. The guilty pleasure of seeking love of a mulatto woman is a reiterated
pattern in the traditional habanera. It is transparently represented in the habanera
La reina del placer:
Me voy a Ultramar
que es punto mejor
allf nacen las ninas de medio color
que tienen unos ojos para enamorar
que con su mirada te matan de amor.
En Cuba esta la reina del placer
la hermosura del bien, la rosa sin color,
que con su mirar me late el corazon.
A nadie como a ti
iA y! en el mundo amare.
Cuando a puerto de mar en Cuba pise
vi a una mulata que con su mirar en triste sonrisa
me dio a comprender que en ella existfa
el mas rudo penar.
Ven hacia mi, amada del corazon,
tu eres la mujer que engendro mi pasion
que con su mirar me late el corazon,
Virgen de la Merced
jAy! quien te adora soy yo. (Album 33)
Mulatita may be not only an addressee of passion and desire, but also the
subject of a narrative that nurtures the imagination of the audience on long winter
nights in fishermens taverns. The habanera Alla en La Habana tells a story of a
mulatto woman who cheats on her husband not even once, but twice. In the first
strophe, mulata falls in love with a white man who seemingly accepts her love. A
deceived husband who wants to be revenged appears when the couple is ready to
174
swear eternal love. However, at the point of killing the lovers with his machete, he
stops, looks at them and walks away. The refrain of the song evokes the sensual
pleasure of the kisses of a mulatto woman that are tan dulces en La Habana. The
refrain also says that things that happen in Havana are the same that happen here, in
Spain. However, the song is not over, as in the second strophe the mulatto woman
referred to as one that betrayed her husband, falls in love again, this time with a
sailor.115 The deceived husband who is already suspicious waits for them in the bay
and wants to throw them into water when he sees them kissing. Suddenly he
remembers that his negrita cannot swim, so he stops for a moment, looks at the
lovers and walks away. On the one hand, this long story can only be perceived as an
ironic account of things that may happen both at home and overseas. On the other,
the protagonist of this story explicitly is the black male, el negrito, whose actions
are represented as noble and understandable as he walks away on his cheating spouse
instead of killing her and her lovers. Thus this habanera establishes a certain male
solidarity between the singers, their audience and el negrito, the cheated husband,
against the other, the mulatto woman. The figures of the white man and of the
sailor in this song seem only to serve as an instrument to show the unfaithfulness of
the mulata, desired and contemned at the same time. Perhaps this song recreates as
no other the myth of the mulatto woman associated with colonial Cuba where mulata
115 The Spanish verb applied to the mulatto woman in this strophe,
encapricharse, may be rendered in English as to fancy or to become somewhat
enamoured, according to The New Velazquez Spanish and English Dictionary.
175
was perceived as a supreme sexual animal, who was not even expected to be
faithful, in the words of Moreno Fraginals (Cuba/Espana 218).
However, the present-day representation of this song makes one think of its
far deeper effect on the collective imaginary of Catalonia than the nostalgia for the
times long-gone of the massive travel to Cuba. Structurally, this song recreates a
dialogue of interested listeners with the repeated after each refrain verse, digame
usted lo que paso, tell me what happened. Thus it suggests an interested
participation of the audience in the performance. This interested participation of the
audience in the singing of habaneras with strong narrative element is the subject of a
painting by Josep Puig (see fig. 4). This painting, entitled Alla en La Habana.
recreates the environment of a tavern where a group of eight males are listening
attentively to a song sung by one of them.116 A representation of the tavern
environment is enhanced by the fumes of the emblematic cremat that the men in this
picture are drinking. This painting may be viewed as a recreation of the myth of
mulata through the singing of nostalgic songs and underscores the significance of
this singing for Catalans. At the same time, it may be perceived as an ironic outlook
at what has been asserted as a peculiar Catalan style of habanera singing.
116 A reproduction of this painting is part of a series of postcards dedicated to

habaneras issued by Fundacio Ernest Morato with the collaboration of Caixa
dEstalvis Laietana in 1998. These postcards represent material to reflect about the
impact of the habanera for Catalan cultural imagination.
176
Fig. 4. Josep Puig. Alla en La Habana. (Palafrugell: Fundacio Ernest Morato,

1998).
The discourse about the habanera in Catalonia maintains as a relevant feature

of the Catalan habanera the fact that the songs were preserved in the intimate
environment of fishermens taverns. We have seen that currently there is a nostalgic
tendency in the Costa Brava towns and in Barcelona at recreating this environment in
bars and taverns that promote habanera singing as part of the tourist attraction and
entertainment. Thus the singing of habaneras in Catalonia actually represents a
certain nostalgia for the times when habaneras were sung in the intimate
environmentpurely masculineof the tavern as opposed to the massive cantadas on
177
the beaches and squares of cities and towns. This nostalgia is represented in songs,
paintings, film and narrative that we will explore later.
Though the mulatto woman is the most frequent character in the habanera,
some traditional habaneras may evoke the woman of Spain. However, sometimes
she is also placed into exotic overseas ports. In the habanera La catalana, the
Catalan woman is placed overseas, which enhances an exotic flair of this habanera.
In this habanera, catalana is interchanged with habanera in its original meaning,
that of a woman from Havana:
Alla en la Habana, como en Tampico,
en Puerto Rico y en Veracruz,
la mas bonita, la mas gal ana,
la catalana que adoro yo.
Sus trenzas no tienen fin,
sus ojos luceros son,
sus dientes puro marfil,
su boquita es un pinon.
jAy que placer,
quien fuera dueno y marido de esta mujer!
iAy que placer,
quien no haya visto habanera que venga a ver!
(Album 69)
The description of the unsurpassed attractiveness of the catalana who is
placed simultaneously in various exotically sounding overseas ports, leads the
narrator to speculate about the pleasure of being master and husband of this
woman. Thus this song can perhaps be described as an apotheosis of masculinist
178
and machista discourse with its explicitly expressed desire and pleasure to be dueno
y marido, master and husband, of this woman.
Racionero mentions that the legendary singers of habaneras of the forties and
fifties, Abelardo, el Nino and IHermos, used to finish their singing with a
characteristic phrase, I com aquesta, mil, And a thousand like this one, referring
to the proliferation of songs sung by the fishermen (18). With the growth of new
habaneras in Catalonia, the subject of love and woman is further developed in the
Catalan habanera, and I will soon discuss some post modem interpretations of the
familiar subject through songs created recently in Catalan. However, recent
development in the story of the habanera in Catalonia is not confined only to the
recreation of familiar and traditional subjects in new habaneras. Highly erotically
charged habaneras, La bella Lola, La cana dulce, Una tarde paseaba, have
proved to exercise a significant influence on other forms of popular culture. One can
observe a link between the popularity of these songs, with the explicit colonial
desire, and other cultural signs that have been flourishing after the end of the Franco
dictatorship. Some of these cultural signs seem to be a venue that serves to reaffirm
Catalan cultural values. Among such newly created rites that assert autochthonous
cultural values and identities of heterogeneous Spain as opposed to Francos idea of
a unique nationalist state, is the creation of gegants, giants, huge figurines
maneuvered from the inside. These figurines usually form a couple, which
represents a town, a city or a district, as in some districts of Barcelona, during annual
processions of festas majors at which they perform their dance. In the coastal
179
community of Vilassar de Mar, Barcelona, this couple is formed by a figure of a

legendary captain nicknamed El Pigat, The Freckled, and his beloved mulatto
woman La Lucfa (see fig. 5).
Iff
Fig. 5. The giants El Pigat and La Lucfa, Vilassar de Mar. Photo courtesy of
Mayors Office, Vilassar de Mar, Barcelona. June 24, 1998.
Though historically the roots of the creation of giants can be traced back to
medieval Corpus Christi processions, Vilassar de Mar, a coastal town with 250 yearold history, never had a pair of giants. The giants were created in 1998 as an
initiative of AVAL, Asociacio Vilassanesa dActivitats de Lleure, an association that

sees its objective in reinforcement, promotion, participation and divulgation of all
kinds of activities of popular, traditional and festival culture of their country (Fors 1).
During the annual procession on the day of St. John, the patron of the town, El Pigat
and La Lucia perform their dance to the music of a habanera composed for them.
The models for these figures are a legendary captain and americano bom in Vilassar
de Mar, Pere Mas i Roig and his mulatto mistress Lucia. According to Fors, a legend
about El Pigat who kidnapped the daughter of a Viceroy governor of an island in the
Antillean and brought her back to his native town was popular in Vilassar de Mar for
decades (Fors 3). This urban legend is the basis for a story created by the
members of AVAL and offered to the public and to the students of elementary
schools of the town in order to explain to them why these two figures were chosen
for the giants (Fors 3). An existing portrait of Pere Mas i Roig was used for the
creation of the figure of El Pigat, with the consent of his descendents living in town.
The figure of La Lucfa seems to be a pure play of imagination. Recently, Pere Mas i
Roig has received more attention on behalf of Catalan mass media. During the
summer of 2001, the Catalan network TV-3, produced a three-part documentary
entitled Retrats dindians which explores the legacy of americanos in Catalonia.
El Pigat is represented in this documentary as a significant figure. This documentary
shows richly decorated houses of americanos and offers interviews with some of
their living heirs, among whom is one of the descendents of Mas i Roig. He
acknowledges that his great grandfathers fortune was partially created due to the
181
participation in the slave trade in the late 1860s. As I mentioned earlier, the
activities of Mas i Roig and his failed attempt to bring slaves from Africa with his
steamship just before the Glorious Revolution of Spain in 1868 are described in
Arturo Masrieras book Oliendo a brea published in 1926.117
The dance of the giants of Vilassar de Mar is performed to the music written
specifically for this couple of giants in the rhythm of the habanera and interpreted by
the group of habanera singers of the town. El Pigat y La Lucfa are not the only
giants dancing to the music of the habanera. Navarro mentions a few occasions of
the dances of giants to the music of the habanera. In Badalona, a community with
strong maritime tradition, the couple of giants la Maria i 1Anastasia perform a
complicated dance to the music in the rhythm of the habanera, written specifically
for them. According to Navarro, sometimes the giants dance to the music of La
bella Lola (LHavanera 154-56).
The impact of the traditional habanera on the collective imagination of the
nation is not limited to the creation of the new cultural forms, such as the dances of
the giants to the music of the habanera. New times bring along new songs. These
new songs follow the tradition, on the one hand, and at the same time evolve in a
new linguistic form, in Catalan. Some new Catalan habaneras follow the tradition of
the discourse of love and desire for a female, frequently a mulata. while some may
be viewed as an auto-reflection and parody of the stereotypes of the habanera. A
117 Also about El Pigat see Josep Fradera, Catalunya i Cuba en el segle XIX:
el comerg desclaus, LAvene 75 (1984) 44.
182
tradition of praising the attractiveness of mulatto women and the pleasures of

possessing them is transparent in the habanera Mulata antillana by Bepes:
Mulata antillana,
mulata de sal,
mulata galana
de tota F Havana
la flor que mes val.
Mulata embrunida
de pell de setf,
mulata florida
que omplenes la vida
i em mates a mi. (Courtesy of J. Bastons)
Some new Catalan habaneras, however, tend to represent the features that can
be explored as a self-indulging parody and sometimes an auto-reflection. Thus,
Lola la tavemera, follows the tradition of the masculinist discourse of traditional
habaneras in Spanish with the predominant masculine voice and a woman as the
subject and addressee of the discourse. However, this habanera adds to the
traditional discourse a self-indulging parody through a detailed description of
explicitly masculinist virtues of the protagonist, who is mariner jove, tibat i fort/
amb fulard negre lligat al coll/ alt, roda-soques, perdonavides i adulador. The
young, arrogant and powerful sailor enters the tavern and asks Lola to run and
bring him a glass of wine while he will be singing his song to her. The refrain
describes Lola with linguistic means that may be perceived as an opposite to the
romantic and flowery, in the words of Lujan, linguistic means of the traditional
habanera. Whatever hints about the attractiveness of a mulatto woman and her
beautiful figure, lindo talle, were hidden behind the descriptions of flowers and
183
allusions to exotic tropical fruit in the traditional habanera, aimed at encouraging the
imagination of singers and listeners, is now expressed freely naming the parts of the
womans body in a plain and straightforward language:
Corre Lola, posam un got de vi
i et cantare una canjo.
I mentre li canta una havanera amb la guitarra
ella mou el cul, balanceja els pits, xiscla una rialla
i mirant coqueta, pica lullet al noi de Calella
gronxolant el cos, marcant el compas daquella havanera.
The encounter between Lola and the sailor is directly associated with the
habanera as a means of communication between the male and Lola. At the same
time, the second strophe of this habanera can be perceived as a post modem
evocation of motives and themes present in the traditional habanera. The traditional
discourse in the first person singular addresses mulateta bella, beautiful mulatto
woman, and tells her explicitly how her body ignites him, the sailor, who will love
her until the end of his days if she wants to be his. In response to this offer, the
beautiful Lola llen5a el davantal, casts her apron, perhaps an evocation of the
delantal of the habanera La cana dulce, and dances gracefully for her lover. One
can see that straightforward linguistic means chosen by the author parody the
romantic and evasive language of the traditional habanera:
El teu cos mencen, el teu cos em pot, mulateta bella,
jo testimare fins la fi del temps, si tu vols ser meva
i la bella Lola llenga el davantal
mans a la cintura, balla amb soltura, pel seu amant.
In addition to an indirect evocation of the traditional habanera through
linguistic means, this song through its subject makes a direct allusion to the
184
traditional habanera, a song originated in Cuba, with its paradigmatic elements, a

mulatto woman and the sea:
Quan arriba el vespre la tavemera encisadora
espera al gal ant que com cada nit 1ha denamorar
amb la guitarra i un got de vi,
cantara alegre tota la nit,
cangons de Cuba, cants de mulates i blau mari.
This habanera is performed together with El meu avi as the finale of the
annual Mostra de 1Havanera Catalana in Palamos. Thus it tends to represent a
Catalan analogue of La bella Lola that can be looked at as a paradigmatic
representation of the traditional habanera. The story of Mostra de 1Havanera
Catalana in Palamos, a highly acclaimed annual event, in itself presents an
opportunity to reflect about the permutation of the habanera as an emblem of Catalan
identity. Started as a Festival de Cango Marinera de Palamos in 1972, it transformed
into the Mostra de 1Havanera Antiga by 1982, and since 1984 is celebrated annually
as Mostra de THavanera Catalana de Palamos. The change of the title of this highly
reputed event explicitly reflects the transformation that the habanera undergoes in
Catalonia. The representation of the Catalan habanera as sung exclusively in Catalan
takes place at the time when Spain and Catalonia are in the process of the transition
triggered by the changes after the death of Franco. Catalan self-assertion may also
be seen through a prism of European integration and further globalization as
Catalonia continues its secular attempts at self-representation as a part of a
globalized European community rather than a region overshadowed by its
Castilianized host state. Mostra de 1Havanera Catalana de Palamos, which only
185
accepts habaneras in Catalan, may be viewed as an attempt at representing the

habanera as an autochthons cultural sign that is an intrinsic part of Catalan cultural
identity.
The habanera La Pauleta, also printed on the place mates of the tavern La
bella Lola, can be explored as another example of evolvement of the habanera in
Catalonia as a permutable and multilingual cultural sign. This song represents a
parody of the habanera through various means. The male protagonist of this
habanera is begging Pauleta to open the door for him as he comes home sober and
dying to get to sleep in the middle of the night. Thus the romantic relationship
of the couples of traditional habaneras where the masculine voice is frequently
begging the desired woman for love is inverted into a trivial relationship of a
drunken husband and a stubborn wife who wants to punish him. The male
protagonist who comes home in the middle of the night demands that Pauleta gets up
and opens the door for him because it is cold in the street, while she refuses to listen
to him and prefers to stay in her bed where it is very warm:
Arri Pauleta, obrem la porta
que vengo ebrio i mort de son
i en traigo un frfo que me las pelo
i tengo miedo dagafar el son.
In contrast to the traditional habanera, this habanera represents a dialogue
between the masculine and the feminine voice, in which the feminine voice is equal
to the masculine:
Ni menos te escucho ni menos te oigo
se esta muy caliente dentto del Hit
186
i si tu esperes que baixi a obrir-te
estaras en la calle tota la nit.
The last strophe of the song represents the inner monologue of the desperate
protagonist to whom Pauleta does not open the door. It is in Catalan and evokes the
tavern La Bella Lola118 where the protagonist threatens to go to fer el ressopo,
have supper, with the last mil pessetones that he has left on him:
Pitos i flautes bombes i trastos
per mes que em gratis tu no em fots por
que encara em queden mil pessetones
per anar a la Bella Lola a fer el ressopo.
The inversion of the traditional subject and of the traditional roles of the
habanera creates the grotesque effect of this habanera. This effect is enhanced by the
mixture of Catalan and Spanish, in which the dialogue is conducted. This mixture
makes one think that this habanera represents an auto-reflection and auto-parody of
the genre of the habanera. As one can see, new Catalan habanera continues the
tradition of the love subject and gives it a new twist perhaps contingent with the
assertion of irony as part of the differential fact of the Catalans.
Habaneras discussed above show that the new Catalan habanera not only
follows the tradition of songs that represent love and desire, but also may be seen as
a self-reflective genre. New Catalan habanera may include the self-indulging parody
of the genre, as do the habanera Lola la tavemera and La Pauleta, or may reflect
on the genre and its impact on the collective cultural imagination. Thus habaneras
118 In the version printed on the place mates of the Palamos tavern Pepa
Caneja, La Bella Lola is substituted by La Pepa, the nickname of this tavern.
187
with lyrics by Gloria Cruz, Temps perdut, Amagada en el far, Vestida de nit,
continue to develop the subject of the lost love and of the nostalgia for it. Yet they
also reflect on the memory of the nation that is directly associated with seafaring
songs:
A la vora de la mar
he tomat a poc a poc,
tot seguint el crit del temps,
que semporta el meu record.
Un record pie de cangons,
de perfumes i free damor
dun amor potser perdut
a les aigiies del meu port. (XXXIV Cantada 7)
The habanera Vestida de nit, lyrics by Gloria Cruz and music by Castor
Perez, can be explored as a sensitive reflection about the quintessence of the
habanera as a genre. A distinguished artist, Cruz fills her lyrics with pictorial
images. Some of these images are frequently used and abused in habaneras,
however, Cruz offers a non-trivial perspective of what makes the habanera the
beloved genre for a century and a half. Her perspective is visual and auditory at the
same time:
Pinto les notes duna havanera
blava com laigua dun mar antic.
Blanca descuma, dolga com laire,
gris de gavina, daurada dimatges,
vestida de nit.
As an artist and a poet she is looking for means of expression; as a sensitive
personality she is absorbed by the nature that surrounds her:
188
Miro el paisatge, cerco paraules
que omplin els versos sense neguit.
Els pins mabracen, sento com callen.
El vent semporta tot lhoritzo.
The refrain of this habanera with its search for the images of the past
represents the quintessence of the habanera not only through the evocation of the
world long gone with its nostalgia, love and calmness, but also through the implicit
nostalgia for this world. Thus this habanera represents a certain nostalgia for
nostalgia. This nostalgic mood is created through familiar tropes, reiterated in the
traditional habanera: the moon, fire and rum, palm trees and sea shells. In this
habanera they invoke the milieu that is associated in the collective cultural
imagination with the singing of habaneras:
Si pogues fer-me escata
i amagar-me a la platja
per sentir sons i tardes
del passat,
daquell mon denyoranga,
amor i calma,
perfumat de lluna, foe i rom.
Si pogues enfilar-me
a lonada mes alta,
i guamir de palmeres
el record,
escampant amb canyella
totes les cales,
i amb petxines, fer-los un bressol.
A refined and sophisticated picture of the habanera as a genre with its major
themes is envisioned in the last strophe. At the same time, it reinforces the maritime
identity of the protagonists of the songs represented in this habanera and gives tribute
189
to the protagonists of habaneras as princes of fishing nets, heroes of tempests,

friends of good times:
Els veils em parlen plens de tendresa
dhores viscudes amb emocio.
Joves encara, forts i valents,
pnnceps de xarxa, herois de tempesta,
amics del bon temps.
Els ulls inventen noves histories,
vaixells que tomen dun lloc de sol.
Porten tonades enamorades,
Dones i patria, veles i flors. (Canco de tavema n.p.)
Thus one can perceive this habanera as a reflection about the genre, its
themes, its protagonists and even its role in the self-representation of the nation. The
sea and its attributes continue to be a major theme in the habanera that becomes truly
a seafaring song in Catalonia. Even in the habaneras that concentrate on love
relationship, the image of the sea is virtually always present and sometimes
prevalent. Therefore, seafaring metaphors are abundant in the habanera. In the
habanera El pensament, lyrics by Narcisa Oliver, love and sea are inseparable, and
the protagonist /narrator wants to be a seagull to make happier the life of the beloved
person:
Si quan mires la mar tos ulls brillen,
si ets felif de contemplar la mar,
jo voldria tan sols esser gavina
i ta vida un instant alegrar. (XXXI Cantada 9)
In Solitud, anonymous habanera interpreted by group Cavall Bemat, love is
inseparable from the sea:
190
Quan avui he vingut a la platja

i no the vist
mhe quedat mirant les onades
amb el cor trist.
Mhe quedat mirant la mar blava
i l infinit
i he somniat que tu mestimaves
com jo testim. (XXIX Cantada 11)
Habaneras explored above show that the new Catalan habanera develops the
tradition and gives it a new perspective. Catalonia assimilates the tradition of the
habanera, a seafaring song with nostalgia for the lost tropical paradise represented by
the attractiveness of mulatto women and the pleasure of desiring and possessing her.
This assimilation leads to the creation of new habaneras. New habaneras in Catalan
are created in the same musical tradition of a binary rhythm easy to follow and sing
along. Some of these new habaneras follow the tradition of love songs with the
woman as an object of desire adding sometimes an ironic outlook at the traditional
songs. The development of the genre, however, is not confined to the creation of
habaneras similar in subject to the traditional ones. New Catalan habaneras develop
new subjects.
In the Introduction, I quoted an announcement from the Barcelona newspaper
La Vanguardia that invites the public to the Barcelona Casino for a night of dinner,
habanera singing and cremat and starts with a periphrasis of a verse of the habanera
El meu avi. In recent decades, El meu avi becomes as significant for the
Catalans as their national anthem Els segadors. El meu avi is sung virtually by
every habanera group in Catalonia and there is hardly any cantada since 1971, when
191
it was first performed in public at Cantada dHavaneres of Calella de Palafragell,
which does not include this habanera. The author of El meu avi is Jose Luis
Ortega Monasterio,119 whose name and his most famous habanera have become
emblematic in Catalonia. In 1990, the City Hall of Platja dAro, a coastal
co m munity where Ortega Monasterio resides during the summer, installed a bronze
monument to him and to the habanera El meu avi, work of the Madrid sculptor
Jose Niebla.
The presentation of El meu avi in 1971 may be viewed as a new page in the
history of the Catalan habanera. The song that tells a story of sailors who perish
during the war in Cuba because of the Americans, has exceptional consequences
119 Bom in 1918 in Motriko, the province of Vizcaya in the Basque country,
Ortega Monasterio became an orphan at the age of eight and moved to Girona to live
with his maternal grandparents. His grandfather at the time was a retired infantry
colonel who had participated in the Cuban war. The family had a strong military
tradition, and, in 1942, Ortega Monasterio joins a military academy in Zaragoza. He
will remain with the army until 1976 when he retires as teniente coronel after having
spent some time in jail accused of the participation in the Union Democratica
Militar. In addition to the tradition of military service, his family had another long
standing tradition, that of musical dedication. Ortega Monasterios father played the
flute, while his granduncle on his mothers side was a well-known violinist and a
teacher of Pau Casals. He starts to study music at the age of ten and in 1941 joins
the quartet Los gringos of Girona. Upon retiring he dedicates himself completely
to music, composition and performing of habaneras and other songs that he defines
as mariners songs and folklore. In 1965 he creates the group Cavall Bemat with
which he actively performed until recently. Ortega Monasterio does not only
compose habaneras, but is even more prolific in other genres: ballads, mariners
songs and valsets, a form of waltzes popular in Catalonia. He is the author of the
anthem of Aragon. His most famous creation by all accounts is El meu avi.
(Biographic data about Ortega Monasterio is based on Jordi Soler, Josep Llufs
Ortega Monasterio, Punt [Girona], 1 July 2001, 28-31, and on an article about him
in Castor Perez Diz, Andreu Navarro, M. Teresa Linares, i Mima Guerra Sierra,
LHavanera: Un cant popular. Tarragona: El Medol, 1995, 114-15.)
192
for the development of the genre of the habanera in Catalonia. It makes its
significant contribution to the self-fashioning of Catalonia as a maritime community
with strong historical links with overseas. On the one hand, El meu avi follows the
tradition of the narrative habaneras of the wartime such as Adios mi peninsula
hermosa, El adios del soldado, El Catalan. On the other, it differed
significantly from the traditional habaneras being practically one of the first
habaneras that spoke of the war in Catalan. It also told a story that had a precise
local connection: the protagonists of this habanera were from Calella de
Palafrugell, an exact location that gave the audience and the singers a chance to
identify themselves with the imagined past and with the small motherland. At the
time of the creation and the first public singing of this habanera, Calella de
Palafrugell was becoming more and more popular every year with its newly
established tradition of cantadas of habaneras started in 1967.
Ortega Monasterio dedicates the song to the memory of his grandfather who
participated in the Cuban war. The song tells the story of my grandfather and of
fourteen sailors from Calella de Palafrugell who during the colonial war are sent to
Cuba on board of a ship with the symbolic name El Catala. The song starts with an
introductory triple invocation el meu avi, thus tuning the audience into a mood
suggestive of memory and reminiscences. The vocative el meu avi also gives a
very personal note to what will be told later in the lyrics. The warm and caring el
meu avi, my grandpa, is intended to create a feeling of close connection between
the new generation of the Catalans and the history of the nation. The family
193
connection makes it easier for the audience to identify themselves with the past of
the nation and thus enhances collective memory. The grandpa and the sailors did not
return. They were killed on the deck of the ship by Americans, who are explicitly to
blame for it, tingueren la culpa els americans. One should keep in mind the
European anti-Americanism at the time of the creation of this song. The last years of
the Franco dictatorship are also a crucial time for the renewed assertion of Catalan
identity heated by the Nova Cango movement. Ortega Monasterio seems to be very
attentive to the needs of the moment and instrumental in using the feelings of his
audience. The name of the ship on which the protagonists go to Cuba acquires
highly emblematic significance for Catalans. El Catala is, of course, the best ship of
overseas fleet. The sailors of Calella de Palafrugell, killed because of the
Americans, represent the victimizing of Catalonia that suffers now not only from the
Castilianized state, but also from the Americans. At the same time, through the
connection of the protagonists to a small town, El meu avi enhances the
significance of the small motherland and thus asserts familiar values of Catalan
nationhood and identity.
In its structure, this habanera is closer to a ballade or a heroic romance with
its longer verse. However, rhythmically it falls into the beloved by the audience and
by the singers pattern of the habanera, which definitely adds to its success.
Composed in Catalan, it contains two words in Spanish, probably used so to maintain
the rhythm or to remind the public that the language mostly spoken at war was
Spanish, a bordo, and barco:
El meu a v i... El meu a v i... El meu a v i...

El meu avi va anar a Cuba, a bordo del Catala,
el millor barco de Guerra de la flota dultramar.
El timoner i el nostramo i catorze mariners,
eren nascuts a Calella de Palafrugell.
The refrain of the song evokes both the tradition of singing in Calella de
Palafrugell and the emblematic cremat that accompanies the singing. Thus Ortega
Monasterio, probably also for the first time in the habanera history, creates a self
reflexive habanera, a habanera that acknowledges the habanera tradition as part of
the local identity. We have already seen that this idea was later developed in the
habaneras by other authors. However, and most importantly both at the time of its
creation and into the decades of its popularity that seems everlasting, El meu avi
contains an exclusively significant line, Visca Catalunya! Visca el Catala!, Long
live Catalonia! Long live the Catalan!, which makes this song emblematic for
Catalonia. These words that apparently escaped the attention of the censorship
converted El meu avi into an emblem of identity unanimously embraced by the
nation. Behind the name of the ship El Catala both the performers and the audience
perceived a second meaning with a transparent allusion to the vernacular language
with all its significance for Catalan identity. Needless to say how important were
these words during the last years of the Franco dictatorship obstinately aimed at
eradicating the language and all traces of national culture and identity:
Quan el Catala sortia a la mar
els nois de Calella feien un cremat;
mans a la guitarra solien cantar:
Visca Catalunya! Visca el Catala!
195
Though collectively embraced by the audience for its political meaning and
perhaps because of its overwhelming success, El meu avi, however, is criticized by
those who see their task in the preservation of the genre of the habanera as part of the
traditional seafaring folklore. With the popularity of this song, the habanera
phenomenon in Catalonia enters into a new stage of debate and controversy
concerning the language, in which the habanera should be sung and what subjects it
should reflect. The purists of the habanera genre criticize Ortega Monasterio and his
creation and defend the thesis that the authentic habanera should be sung in Spanish
and have as a subject a love story. The detractors of El meu avi accuse Ortega
Monasterio of falsifying history as the events described in his song never took place
and his grandfather died much later than the war was over. T' e absence of
hv storical records of a ship named El Catalan during the colonial war is offered as a
major argument against Ortega Monasterio in the debate that takes place in the
media. In response to these accusations, Ortega Monasterio offers a verisimilar
story of the ship Montserrat, allegedly known by the popular nickname El Catalan.
He continuously reiterates that the story of this ship inspired him to compose the
habanera that he dedicates to the memory of his grandfather. Montserrat that
belonged to the Transatlantic Company allegedly entered several times the waters of
Cuba during the last colonial war. Under the command of captain Manuel
Deschamps Martinez, it brought a load of bandages and medicines for the fighting
city of Matanzas getting through the blockade imposed by the American Navy.
196
0
Ortega Monasterio repeatedly tells this story in various publications I "
in order to
defend himself from accusations. The controversy surrounding this habanera

confirms that the audience naively wants to believe in the verisimilitude of the
stories told in the habanera. This concept is widely represented in the discourse
about the habanera. Thus, Navarro believes that the popularity of the habanera can
be explained through its relationship with the reality and the reflection of everyday
life in the habanera, son reflex del nostre viure quotidia fL Havanera 142).
Curiously, neither the detractors of El meu avi, nor Ortega Monasterio, in
answer to the accusations of the falsification of history, ever mention the habanera
El Catalan notated in Montsalvatges Album de habaneras in 1948. This
traditional habanera in Spanish tells the story of a ship that bears the name El Catalan
and fights for what was considered at the time of colonial wars to be the future of
everybody in Spain, in the words of Guillermo Dfaz-Plaja: 121
El Catalan
A servir a la Patria, mamita mfa,
Pronto me llamaran.
Soy marino del buque,
Del buque El Catalan.
Adios mi bien,
120 See G. Soler Summers, De militar umedo a cantor de habaneras,

Diario de Menorca, September 16, 1986, 4; J. Ortega Monasterio, El Catalan, Diari
de Girona, 6 September 1993, 4; Castor Perez Diz, Andreu Navarro, M. Teresa
Linares, i Mima Guerra Sierra, LHavanera: Un cant popular, Tarragona: El Medol,
1995,114-15.
121 See Guillermo Diaz-Plaja, Oyendo cantar habaneras, La Vanguardia, 16
September 1980, 6.
197
Yo voy a marchar a las Carolinas
De punto alia.
Y si tu vienes,
Contemplaras los canoneros, los torpederos,
los buques guerreros
que allf veras.
Y al llegar en aquellos mares
Nos tocara gritar
El grito de jViva Espana!
Aquf esta, aquf esta El Catalan. (Album de habaneras 7)
Thus one cultural sign creates another. The emblematic value of a ship
named El Catalan for the make-up of Catalonia as a maritime community can hardly
be disputed. In the late twentieth century, the creators of the film Havanera 1820,
which reinvents the story of the participation of the Catalans in colonial expansion,
also give the name El Catalan to a ship that in their work is not only a place of action
but also an instrument of action and perhaps a character.
The significance of El meu avi for the cultural imagination of Catalonia is
not limited, however, to the hidden meaning behind the name of the ship and to the
patriotic discourse towards the motherland. This habanera significantly contributes
to the reinvention of the past. Paradoxically, Ortega Monasterios story of the
participation of sailors on board the ship Montserrat, allegedly nicknamed El
Catalan, invented in defense of his habanera, becomes a subject of exploration,
newspaper articles and museum exhibits. A picture of the ship and a portrait of its
captain Manuel Deschamps found in the Museu Mantim of Barcelona are repeatedly
reprinted. Intended to prove Navarros thesis of the habanera as a reflection of
everyday life, a portrait of Manuel Deschamps, with an inscription on it, Manuel
198
Deschamps, Capitan del Montserrat, El Catalan, Guerra de Cuba. Ano 1898,
illustrates the story of El meu avi in the book LHavanera: Un cant popular (144).
On the same page, one can also see a painting representing the ship Montserrat by J.
Cequiel with an explanatory note that it was popularly known as El Catalan. Thus
the reinvention of the past triggered by this habanera continues. El meu avi, for its
subject that appeals to the sensitivity of the audience towards the past and for its
intimate intonation that pretends to tell a story of a family that is part of the nation,
creates its own myth of the nation and of its heroic deeds.
El meu avi is ensued by the creation of other habaneras that develop and
refigure the impact of the historic events of the last colonial war in different ways.
A. J. Carrau creates the habanera entitled La meva avia, My grandma. This long
and detailed story with a transparent allusion to El meu avi in its title and in the
first verse, Quan per anar a fer la guerra a Cuba, el meu avi va embarcar, retells the
life story of a woman, the wife of a sailor who embarked for Cuba and the
grandmother of the narrator. She is left behind in Catalonia waiting for her husband
to return from the war and has to struggle at home and confront difficulties, tambe
lluitava aquf lavia i passava grans afanys. The woman left behind on land is a
traditional motif for the habanera. Yet in this habanera this motif acquires new traits.
When the grandma is told that the Catalans, will not return, she remembers the words
that her husband said to her before he left for Cuba and they become his legacy now:
En els teus fills i els teus nets, tu els hi has densenyar,
les quatre regies primeres per a ser un bon catala.
Que sha destimar la llengua, que sha destimar la liar,
199
que sha destimar la terra, que sha destimar la mar.

(XXXII Cantada 4)
The song emphasizes that the protagonist, grandma, carries the love for the
grandfather who perished in the war in Cuba throughout her long life. It also clearly
identifies the major values of the nation, such as love for language, home, native land
and the sea, which are necessary to be a good Catalan. The reiterated
representation of the sea and love for it reassert Catalonia as a maritime community.
Grandma becomes the bearer of national and cultural values who passes them down
to the new generations:
Lavia va morir molt gran, fins els besnets va ensenyar,
les quatre regies primeres per esser un bon catala:
Que sha destimar la llengua, que sha destimar la liar,
que sha destimar la terra, que sha destimar la mar.
The assertion of grandfathers legacy and of the participation of Catalans in
colonial wars is not limited to these two habaneras. In the Library of Catalonia one
can find a booklet entitled Lavi Quim no va anar a Cuba: Havanera, lyrics by
Francesc A. Picas, music by Paco Viciana. It contains lyrics and music of two songs,
the first one identified by the author as havanera-sardana pacifista, entitled Lavi
Quim no va anar a Cuba, and the second one, a sardana Es Montserrat. The
pacifist habanera-sardana seems to represent a unique hybrid that makes one again
think of the transculturation as an ongoing process. The front page of this booklet
contains a romantic picture that represents a face of a handsome young man. This
face is partly covered by sea waves with two sailing boats struggling with the
200
waves.122 The booklet also contains a short essay, entitled La historia de Cuba en
una havanera, on the back cover. In this brief essay, the author explains that Lavi
Quim, grandpa Quim, is a real person and the maternal grandfather of the author.
Bom in 1869, he refuses to be recruited to go to the war in 1898 and hides in the
Pyrenees. He becomes a shepherd and this job lets him contemplate the nature and
create pictures of this beautiful part of Catalonia. The author explains that the
habanera Lavi Quim no va anar a Cuba, dedicated to the memory of grandfather
Quim, pretends to give tribute to those who refuse to collaborate with the colonial
politics of the Spains imperial machine. The author speculates that if the sailors of
Palafrugell followed the example of grandfather Quim, they would not have died in
the Caribbean on deck of their ship. Thus this habanera enters into a dialogue with
El meu avi. The song evokes the historical events of colonial war and the
relationship between Cuba, Catalonia and Spain, and calls on the Catalans to say
no to the war:
Lavi Quim no va anar a Cuba,
Cuba es terra de valents.
No volen ser mes dEspanya.
Volen fer-se independents.
Que sens ha perdut a Cuba?
Per que hi hem de dar la sang?
No us mogueu, no, fills del poble!
Digueu que no, Catalans!
Lavi Quim no va anar a Cuba.
No volgue fer-hi el soldat.
Cuba es una terra lliure.
Te dret a la Llibertat!
122 Illustration by Isaac Bosch.
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This habanera-sardana pacifista not only acknowledges the right of the
Cubans for their independence and asserts pacifist ideals, but it also calls on the
Catalans to create an opposition to the clan of Madrid following the tradition of
opposing Catalonia to the central government. This opposition seems to be a
representation of the secular conflict between Catalonia and the central government.
Catalonia is represented through its traditional emblems, the sea, the mountains, and
a rose. The rose is a Catalan symbol associated with the day of Saint George, the
patron of Catalonia. In this context it may also be perceived as a symbol of peace:
No us embarqueu cap a Cuba,
Que hi vagi el clan de Madrid
Nosaltres, mar i muntanya,
I una rosa al mig del pit!
The lyrics of this song not only invoke the historical events, but also make a
transparent allusion to El meu avi, a cultural signifier already deeply uprooted in
the collective imaginary. In its own way, it continues to create the mythology of the
past and elaborates on what actually is the mythology, as one cannot perceive El
meu avi other than a fictional reinvention of the past. The story of Lavi Quim
seemingly represents an opposition to the story of El meu avi. However, by this
opposition it enhances the myth of the sailors from Calella de Palafrugell created by
Ortega Monasterio. Though seemingly opposed to El meu avi, Lavi Quim
reiterates the slogan that made so significant the habanera El meu avi. Slightly
changed, Visca, sempre, Catalunya, it is now enhanced by a religious formula, i
el bon Deu que ens 1ha donat. Thus, in addition to the interplay with El meu avi,
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Lavi Quim adds new motifs to the assertion of Catalan identity. It evokes the
senyera, Catalan flag, and the mountain Montserrat, a geographic and religious
symbol of Catalonia,123 and thus underscores established national emblems:
Lavi Quim no va anar a Cuba,
Prefer! ser desertor.
Qui deserta de la guerra,
Porta la pau en el cor.
Pau aqu! i pau a Cuba!
Pau, progres i llibertat!
Aixequem-ne una senyera,
al bell cim de Montserrat.
Visca, sempre, Catalunya,
i el bon Deu que ens lha donat.
This habanera also evokes another mass appealing habanera by Ortega
Monasterio El cano de Palamos. It is explicitly pacifist and perhaps has more in
common with the songs of protest than with the genre of the habanera, though it is
identified as the habanera and happens to be a very popular one. The first strophe of
this habanera describes the old cannon located in the port of Palamos, an important
port of the Costa Brava region and the site of the annual Mostra de lHavanera
Catalana. The narrator is glad that for many years the mouth of this cannon produces
only the memories of the times of war when the people of Emporda, Selva and
Valles killed themselves for nothing. In the third strophe he calls on all the cannons
and people of the world to listen to the voice of the cannon of Palamos and do not
123 Montserrat hosts the most prominent religious center of Catalonia, a

monastery and a sanctuary of the major Catalan religious relic, the Virgin of
Montserrat. This religious center played an exceptional role in the organization of
the silent protest of the Catalans against the Franco dictatorship.
203
have more wars, bombs or fire. The final strophe calls for peace all over the world
and evokes the rose of Jericho as a symbol of peace:
Si els canons de tot el mon
fossin com el veil cano
que tranquil esta dormint,
blancs i negres dintre el pit
portarien una flor,
La Rosa de Jerico. (Mar endins 75)
Thus, in the seventies and in the eighties, the habanera in Catalonia acquires
new subjects and may well respond to the ideological necessities of the moment.
Among the long-standing subjects of the habanera is the evocation of Catalan
immigration to the Caribbean. It is represented in the newly created habaneras and
in those that can be explored as the legacy of the Modemisme. A well-known and
emblematic song, composed in the early 1890s by Amadeu Vives to the lyrics by
Jacint Verdaguer, LEmigrant, is frequently performed by habanera groups.
Verdaguer (1845-1902), a major figure in Catalan poetry of the nineteenth century,
served as a chaplain on the ships of the Transatlantic Company, property of Antonio
Lopez, and crossed the Atlantic several times. LEmigrant represents the nostalgia
for the dolga Catalunya, patria del meu cor. The farewell to the native land, which
embraces brothers and parents, a metaphor that stands for the whole nation, the
woods, rivers and the Pyrenees is followed by the statement that the narrator will
suffer far from his native land and will return to it where he wants to die: Dola
Catalunya / Patria del meu cor quant de tu sallunya / denyoranqa es mor. This
poetry may be viewed as a representation of the general perception of emigration as
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suffering and sacrifice far from the native land. A return to the native land with
fortune that allows to live comfortably and be buried at home, the fate of the
legendary americanos. is also reflected in this poem by Verdaguer. Certainly,
Verdaguer does not speak of material fortune, however, an elevation in economic
and social status was the main driving force behind immigration at the time of the
creation of this verse:
Oh, mariners! El vent que men desterra
que em fa sofrir!
Estic malalt; mes ai! Tomeu-me a terra
que hi vull morir. (Mar endins 56)
Another poetry by Verdaguer Lluny de ma terra, also relatd to the subject
of immigration, was recently converted into a song by Josep Bastons, a prolific
habanera composer and artistic director of the group Peix Fregit. This poetry by
Verdaguer tells a story of a sailor or immigrant who arrives in Cuba and finds
himself on the beach on its Eastern side, the side that looks towards Spain. This
poetry may be seen as a representation of the essence of the maritime culture. In the
second strophe the protagonist narrator sees a ship where the sailors are singing a
beautiful habanera. Curiously, when Verdaguer creates his poetry in the late 1890s,
he already sees the singing of the habanera as a sign that makes the sailors closer to
their native land: Cantau, mariners, cantau, / no sou com jo, lluny de la patria!
(Mar endins 40). New habaneras, Adeu Calella by Joan Lara i Nieto and Lavi
emigrant by Josep M. Cao and Francesc Salse, continue to develop the subject of
emigration. Adeu Calella directly alludes to the small motherland, two
Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
205
neighboring towns Calella and Llafranc, to which the protagonist narrator says his
farewell. The small motherland is also associated with the beloved woman to whom
he promises to return after seeking fortune overseas:
Men vaig a cercar la fortuna a Ultramar.
Amor, per penyora et dono el meu cor.
En tu sempre mes pensare,
i el dia que tomi jo testimare. (Mar endins 59)
The song reiterates the story of an immigrant who works hard in Havana
saving his money in anticipation of a return to Catalonia and marriage to his beloved
Montserrat. However, his mothers letter tells him that Montserrat is married. The
last strophe of this song reinterprets in a certain way Verdaguers ending of
LEmigrant. Verdaguers protagonist declares that he is sick and wants to return
to his motherland where he wants to die. The protagonist of the song by Joan Lara i
Nieto also is sick and regrets that he is going to die far away from his native home.
Lara i Nieto goes further in the use of national symbols: the protagonist/ narrator
proclaims that he wants to be buried with the senyera. national flag, as he is Catalan.
The juxtaposition of the last strophes of both songs perhaps makes clearer the
intertextuality between them:
LEmigrant
Oh, mariners! El vent que men desterra
que em fa sofrir!
Estic malalt; mes, ai! Tomeu-me a terra
que hi vull morir. (Mar endins 56)
Adeu Calella
Quina tristesa, estic malalt,
206
sento morir-me lluny del meu casal.

Que menvolcallin, en dur-me a fossar,
amb una senyera, jo soc catala. (Mar endins
59)
LAvi emigrant tells a story in the first person of an emigrant who spends
years seeking for fortune and adventures overseas. Now old, tired and
melancholic he is willing to return to his native land in order to speak his language
and wave proudly his flag, la senyera. The Catalan language and the senyera are not
the only symbols of national identity recognized in this song. The narrator
protagonist wants to return to Catalonia, his land, to hear habaneras and to dance the
sardana again. Thus the habanera occupies a place similar to other emblems of
national identity in this song identified as the habanera by its authors. The tautology
in my text is inevitable, as this habanera represents another example of Catalan
habaneras that are self-reflexive and identify the habanera as an emblem of Catalan
cultural identity. In addition to identifying the habanera as an emblem of cultural
identity, this habanera explicitly represents patriotic motifs:
Catalunya, patria meva
i dels meus avantpassats
qui tabandoni per sempre
ben segur tenyorara.
Catalunya, patria meva
i de tots els Catalans
gent i terra com aquesta
enlloc del mon no he trobat. (Mar endins 93)
Some habaneras explore the issue of overseas travel from the perspective
propagated in recent decades through studies about Catalan immigration to Cuba,
film and narrative that represent Catalan immigration to the Caribbean. These works
207
reinforce the idea that Catalan immigration was traditionally perceived as a

temporary condition in the life of the young men who go overseas, in most cases to
Cuba, to make a fortune and then return to their native land, dolpa Catalunya, in
the words of Jacint Verdaguer. The idea of an almost mandatory return of
immigrants and of finding the paradise at home is reinforced in some new habaneras.
They praise the motherland and reaffirm nationalistic values through the love for the
Catalan language, family values, native land and the sea, thereby contributing to the
self-assertion of Catalonia as a maritime community. La ciutat cremada, the
habanera and the theme of the feature film with the same title124 represents this idea
explicitly:
Mulata meva, no tomare
a cantar lhavanera
dels teus ulls presoner.
A Catalunya em quedare:
Perque en retomar a aquesta terra
oblido la pena, retrobo al meu cor;
perque a la bella patria nostrada
terra catalana retrobo lamor. (XXXIII Cantada 8)
The habanera Ones duarades by Quim Xena implicitly represents the idea
of the return to the motherland, to the native port:
Ones duarades terres de sol
1241 will discuss this habanera in the context of the impact of the film La
ciutat cremada (1976), by director Antoni Ribas, in Chapters Four and Five. The
premiere of the film La ciutat cremada in 1976 was perceived by the broad Catalan
audience as a reinvention of Catalan historical identity. It explores the turbulent
years between the end of colonial war in Cuba and the tragic events of 1909 in
Barcelona, known as the Tragic Week, when convents and churches were burnt in an
explosion of uncontrolled protest of the masses triggered by the protest against the
participation in a war in Morocco.
208
platges Uunyanes del meu record,

i sempre penso de tomar a port
al meu port.
I se que quan hi tomare
haura passat ja tant de temps,
voldre encara retrobar
aquells indrets tan bells. (XXX Cantada 5)
The assertion of love for the motherland through praising of small towns or
areas of Catalonia becomes a significant subject in the new Catalan habanera.
Perhaps due to its reputation related to the preservation of the habanera in Catalonia,
Calella de Palafrugell happens to be among the most popular towns sung about in
new habaneras. At least four habaneras, Trobada a Calella by Antonia Vilas,
Calella by Lluis M. Nubiola, Calella hivemal by Pure,125 Calella de les
havaneres126 are dedicated to this town. Perhaps a most representative one is
Calella de les havaneres, with lyrics by Jaume Pol Girbal and music by Josep
Bastons. At first sight, this habanera conveys the message that traditional symbols
and values associated with overseas travel, such as the sea, sailboats, and habaneras,
are present here, at home:
Calella de les havaneres,
Calella dels pins i la mar,
Calella de barques i veles,
Calella encesa de cremats,
Calella de les havaneres,
125 No more information is available about the author. Source: XXVIII

Cantada dhavaneres: Calella de Palafrugell Costa Brava: Patronat Municipal de
Turisme de Palafrugell, 1994.
126 The text of this song is courtesy of Josep Bastons.
209
Calella den Blau i IHermos,127

Calella dels vents i les voltes,
Calella, guardem en redos.
The idea of remaining in the motherland as opposed to looking for fortune
and happiness overseas seems to be prevalent in this habanera. The protagonist does
not need to look for an Eldorado because he already found it at home:
No cal anar a 1Havana
perque jo 1Havana
la tine al costat,
no cal trobar Eldorado,
perque jo Eldorado
ja el tine ben trobat.
However, through the denial of the necessity of going to Havana, this
habanera reinforces the impact of overseas travel and the significance of Havana as a
place of the creation of fortunes, an idea deeply uprooted in the collective imaginary.
Another relevant feature of this habanera consists in the projection of the nostalgia
associated in the traditional habanera with the Pearl of the Antilles on Calella that
seems to fulfill now the function of an object of nostalgia. In an interesting twist,
Calella is compared to Havana, and is called by the narrator my Havana, new
Havana of the Emporda. For decades, Havana fulfilled the function of an emotional
refuge in the cultural imagination of Spaniards. This habanera inverts the motives of
nostalgia for the lost overseas paradise and projects them on the native land:
Calella blanca, Calella fina
tens la gavina prop del finestro;
i un cementiri color de lliri
127 Blau and Hermos are legendary singers of habaneras of the forties and the
fifties mentioned in short stories by Josep Pla.
210
i gent que canta i viu de debo.
Que no em busquin a F Havana,
que la meva Havana,
que la meva Havana,
es aquest raco.
Nostalgia for Calella sounds in another habanera, Calella:
Testimo Calella,
amiga de tots
tu sempre ets oberta
i ho ets de debo
per terra i per mar
jo penso tomar.
Tenyoro Calella
amb ansies molt grans (XXXII Cantada 7).
Barceloneta, an area of Barcelona adjacent to its port and traditionally
considered to be the place where people professionally connected to seafaring jobs
reside, is the subject of at least two habaneras, Barceloneta estimada by Antonia
Vilas and Cant a la Barceloneta by Francesc Salse. Both, Vilas and Salse, are not
only authors and singers of habaneras, who have co-authored some of them, but also
are promoters and organizers of the annual habanera festival Barcelona: Cara al mar.
For more than fifteen years now, this event takes place on the last weekend of June.
Two habaneras about Barceloneta seem to fulfill the necessity of praising the space
where the festival takes place and thus satisfy the need of the participating audience,
most of whom are typically the residents of the area. This need is transparent in
Cant a la Barceloneta:
Es a tu Barceloneta
a qui avui jo vull cantar,
perque estimes lhavanera
perque fas olor de mar. [...]
211
Si tendinses pels careers
ja no podras oblidar
una gent tan marinera
que ens aculla a tots plegats. (Salse 45).
Habaneras are dedicated to various small towns: Cabrera de Mar, Tossa,
Tamariu, Cala Montgo, the latter is a picturesque bay on the rugged Costa Brava.
The singing of the habanera is frequently mentioned in these local habaneras, thus
associating a cultural sign with the small motherland:
De la platja The vist arribar,
i amb silenci dun mat! destiu,
he sentit els mariners cantar
una havanera a Tamariu. (Mar endins 107)
A habanera dedicated to Maresme, area to the north of Barcelona on the
coast, a traditional region if fishermen and sailors, explicitly states that narrators/
protagonists sing in the habanera about their native land with its sea and mountains:
Als pobles del Maresme venim
disposats a cantar
amb aires dhavanera
lencis daquesta terra
que te muntanya i mar.
Through this song one can see that the habanera acquires the status of a
marker of cultural identity equal to such traditional symbol as sardana:
Aplecs de sardanas de renom,
tambe aquf al Maresme hi trobarem
ports de mar, pins i ginesta
tonades dhavanera com la que ara us cantem. (XXVIII
Cantada 6)
In another song dedicated to Maresme, identified however as valset mariner,
sailors short waltz, by F. Suner, the subject of love for the native land is associated
212
with a small town, Malgrat de Mar. The maritime identity of both, the space and the
people living there, is explicitly represented in this song, that pretends to be 1himne
catala, and ends with the slogan, Visca el poble catala:
Dels elegants mariners
sentireu entonar,
amb veu molt clara i potent
lhimne catala.
Donant-nos somrient
la mes cordial benvinguda,
records que mai no podreu oblidar
del pafs catala.
Visca el poble catala. (Mar endins 39)
Catalan habaneras assert the values of Catalan identity through broadly
recognized emblems of this identity, such as the sardana. Frequently one finds the
habanera as a counterpart to the sardana. Catalans de la costa, the habanera by
Francesc Salse, may be seen as an example of self-representation as a maritime
community through the relationship between generations. The protagonist recalls
with nostalgia that his father taught him all the secrets of the sea. This passing
over of the seafaring profession as an assertion of a maritime identity is enhanced by
memories of singing habaneras and sailors waltzes. The song explicitly asserts
maritime identity in its repeated refrain:
Som Catalans de la costa
i no podem pas passar sense el mar
estimem la nostra patria
perque he portem dintre el cor.
The sailors songs occupy a significant space in the definition of this identity
as they convey the memory about the past:
213
Les cangons mariners

tothom les vol cantar
perque sovint ens porten
records daquells temps passats. (Mar endins 61)
The perception of the habanera as an emblem of Catalan nation is even more
explicit in the habanera by Vilas La mar i la patria. This habanera tells a story of
three generations of fishermen, with the patriarch represented as the head of the
family and of the crew. In this song, the sailors merrily sing the habanera what
makes it clear that they are Catalans:
I mentre feinegen, la mar juganera
bressola la barca i els seus tripulants
entonen alegres un cant dhavanera
que deixa entreveure que son Catalans. (Mar endins 70)
Thus in this habanera, the habanera is appropriated as a seal that distinguishes
the Catalan national identity. It would be useful to remember, as I discussed earlier,
that the habanera continues to be popular in other regions of Spain where annual
habanera festivals are also celebrated.
The habaneras by Antonia Vilas continue to assert Catalan maritime identity
and at the same time to create the legend of the Catalan fishermen who sing
habaneras while working at sea.128 Vilas makes her contribution to the selffashioning of Catalonia as a maritime community through her numerous habaneras
128 Perez Diz, while discussing the functions of the habanera as the song of
work and leisure mentions that his informant, the honorary Alcalde de Mar of
Calella, a title granted to the senior, retired fisherman of the town, denied that
fishermen sang at sea while working, a legend that started to be developed with
Lujans prologue. According to him, seafaring job is too hard and tiresome to sing
habaneras (46).
214
dedicated to the subject of hard working Catalan sailors and fishermen. Patriotic
motifs of love for Catalonia in her habaneras are enhanced through reiterated
employment of such broadly recognized emblems of Catalan national identity as the
sardana. and the national anthem, Els segadors. The seafaring values of the nation
are emphasized through seafaring professions:
El mar i la nostra patria
es que motiva nostres cors.
Nostra patria es Catalunya
centre dels nostres amors;
nostra dansa es la sardana,
nostre cant Els Segadors,
nostra costa catalana
bressol de braus pescadors (Mar endins 70).
In another habanera Sortim a la mar, Vilas represents brave fishermen who
sing the habanera while working at sea. Once again the habanera is represented as
an equal to the senyera, Catalan national flag, and to Els segadors:
Sortim a la mar, sortim
que avui ens bufa bon vent,
i mentre que anem opmlint
les xerxes de peix dargent,
cantem amb amor, cantem
una havanera cantem.
Com fa vibrar la Senyera
o be el Cant dels segadors
aixf senten 1havanera
dins el cor, els pescadors. (Mar endins 41)
The assertion of the identity of hard-working fishermen continues through
other habaneras by Antonia Vilas, Josep Maria Cao, Josep Anton Pujol Botifoll,
Joaquim Oliveres:
215
Pescador que vas al mar

rep la meva admiracio
per jugar-te cada dia
tu la vida sense por.
Mariner, brau pescador
tingues cuidado
que el mar te bromes
i no te perdo. (XXXV Cantada 13)
In this song, tribute is given to the wife who is waiting for the return of the
fisherman on the shore watching the sea and always calm, conservant sempre la
calma. In El cant del mar, lyrics by Antonia Vilas and music by Salvador Dabau,
the old fisherman who does not go out to sea any more feels nostalgia for the sea and
for the years that he spent out there:
I sense esma, ni rumb ni nord
caminant a la deriva
un veil es passeja pel port,
creu sentir que el mar el crida
i recorda el veil pescador
aquelles hores per ell viscudes
quan ell nerajove i fort,
Les tempestes per ell venudes. (Mar endins 101)
In Mare vull ser pescador, Antonia Vilas tells the story of a mother who is
begging her son to become a priest and is praying to the Virgin of Carmen, the
patroness of fishermen and sailors, that her son does not follow the profession of her
late husband who disappeared at sea. However, the son wants to continue the family
tradition. Thus the maritime identity of the nation continues to be reinforced:
Mare, vull ser pescador
no mho privis, dolga mare.
Ja se amb quanta buidor
et deixa la mort del pare.
216
Mare, vull ser pescador,

vull ser pescador i no frare,
que soc fill de pescador
i malgrat el teu dolor
jo tine les venes saladas...(Mar endins 20)
No sere mai pescador, lyrics by Josep Maria Cao and music by Francesc
Salse, tells a story of two children who are waiting on the seashore for their
fisherman father to return. The anxiety and fear in front of the perils of the sea and
of the seafaring profession make the son state that he does not want to follow his
fathers profession because he does not want his children to experience the same fear
he is experiencing for his father.
The sea as an object of nostalgia of an old fisherman is represented in the
habanera Veil pescador by Josep Anton Pujol Botifoll. The protagonist of this
habanera, an old fisherman, passes his love for the sea to a young child. Thus a
link between generations is asserted, on the one hand, and the maritime oriented
identity is reinforced, on the other:
I si Deu vol, petit infant
un jom hi tomare
menjant la pols del veil camf
sempre mirant a Test.
Mirant al mar, on vaig pescar tants anys.
Menyorare o plorare, o potser cantare.
El mar es bo, el mar es blau,
el mar es calma i es temporal. (Mar endins 22)
The habanera El veil i el mar by Vilas goes far beyond in the identification
of personality and the sea. The protagonist, an old man, el veil avi, undertakes his
last voyage to the sea with a clear intention to be buried there:
217
Grades atnic pel consell,

mes si cerco al mar consol
es perque avui aquest veil
vol emprendre el darrer vol. (Mar endins 53)
The habanera Vine amb mi a navegar, lyrics by Josep Maria Cao and music
by Francesc Salse, gives a new and unexpected feminist twist to the subject of a
hard and severe seafaring profession. In this habanera, the woman is invited to
navigate together with the man. The song seems to contradict the long established
convention that the sea is a masculine domain and that a woman is confined to
waiting on the shore. However, it is the conviction of the narrator who remains to be
the masculine voice, that the sea does not distinguish between a man and a woman,
therefore the woman is invited to join him:
Vine amb mi, no tinguis por.
Agafa un rem i laltre jo.
Tensenyare, si es el que vols,
a navegar, soc pescador.
I si tagrada un altre dia hi tomarem,
posant les veles, tu al timo i no calen rems.
I sense pressa, amb la constancia tadonaras
que igual que un home tambe una dona pot navegar.
(Mar endins 89)
In Vela llatina, lyrics by Anna Brunet and music by Josep Bastons, the
protagonist also invites his beloved one to navigate in the sea and search for a
dream island.
Navegarem sota el sol i les estrelles,
junts solcarem per la immensitat del mar,
lliscant damunt clares i transparents aigiies,
que en son mirall de bells boscos de corail.
Penyassegats guaitaran la nostra passa,
218
de nits els fars guairan el nostre rumb,

fins arribar a lilla dels nostres somnis
on 1amor te d algues i pins el perfum. (Vela llatina n.p.)
The Catalan habanera is a new genre bom in the process of transculturation
that continues as cultural signs of go and return continue their transatlantic
journeys. The cultural legacy of the generations that were directly involved in the
colonial relationship with Cuba and Puerto Rico was preserved at the Costa Brava
region of Catalonia where nostalgic habaneras were initially transformed under the
influence of the autochthonous melody and rhythm of the sardana. The proliferation
of the new genre of the Catalan habanera created in the old tradition that can be
traced back to the time of massive Catalan immigration to Cuba and to the
participation in the colonial wars lead by Spain coincides with political changes in
the region in the last years of the Franco dictatorship and during the decades of
democratic transition in Spain. The new Catalan habanera acquires the features that
assert values traditionally represented as relevant for Catalan cultural identity based
on its adherence to language and cultural traditions. Catalonia continuously self
represents itself as a maritime community. The habanera, a by-product of the
massive immigration of Spaniards to Cuba, has a sailor or a soldier as a protagonist
and tells a story of a nostalgic desire for the lost tropical paradise with a mulatto
woman waiting in a far-away port. The recurrent images of the habanera such as a
mulatto woman as an object of desire, a ship and the sea as the space of action, and
an emblem that brings prosperity to the hard-working nation serve the need for a
self-fashioning of the nation with a long standing tradition of seafaring professions.
219
During the last years of the Franco dictatorship, the so-called dictablanda, and
during the period of the transition from the dictatorship to a new democratic state
that recognizes cultural diversity in Spain, the habanera, assimilated and
appropriated by the Catalans in the process of transculturation, becomes a cultural
sign relevant for Catalan identity and comparable for its significance to the sardana,
a broadly recognized emblem of Catalan identity.
220
Chapter Four
The Habanera in Catalan Film: Desires of an Empire
In 1992 Spain and Catalonia, as part of a larger state, pompously celebrate

five hundred years of the so-called Discovery of the New World. Seville,129 for her
importance in the initial Discovery and in the subsequent colonization, is chosen for
the celebration of the World Fair, while Barcelona, where the Catholic Kings
Ferdinand and Isabella receive Columbus after his first trip to the Indies, hosts the
Summer Olympic games. At the time of these celebrations, an independent company
IMATCO in collaboration with TV-3, the Catalan network; Ministerio de Cultura,
Instituto de Cine; Generalitat de Catalunya; Comisio America i Catalunya 1992
produce and release (1993) the film Havanera 1820 directed by Antoni Verdaguer.
First created as a TV miniseries consisting of four fifty-minutes parts, it is later
released in a shorter, one hundred twenty minutes, version as a feature film and a
video. This film may be perceived as a first attempt at representing Catalan
involvement in Cuba in the language of cinema. The evocation of the musical genre
in the title of the film suggests a closer look at the employment of the habanera in
this and in some other productions of Catalan cinema, a crucial space for a national
129 Columbuss first journey starts in the adjacent to Seville port of Palos.
Later, for its convenient strategic position on the Guadalquivir river, Seville becomes
the administrative center of overseas provinces and the treasury of precious metals
that arrive from overseas.
221
imaginary. In this chapter, I will explore how the recreation of the habanera in
Havanera 1820 (1993, dir. Antoni Verdaguer) and in La ciutat cremada (1976, dir.
Antoni Ribas) contributes to the project of Catalan national cinema and Catalan
identity.
Havanera 1820 starts with a prologue130 that announces the appointment of
Captain Richardson of the British Royal Marine to Havana. His mission is to
oversee that the Treaty of 1817131 is observed and that the illegal trafficking of
Africans is stopped. This prologue is followed by a scene in an African village
where the villagers reunited around a ceremonial fire are performing a ritual in order
to protect themselves against the men of clear skin. The clear skin men appear
immediately as a group of Hollywood-like Arabs who attack the village and put it on
fire. The villagers, with their primitive wooden arms, surrender to the violence
exercised by well-armed Arabs on horseback and become prisoners. Thus the film
opens with violence and fire as its symbol. As we will see later, fire and violence
that become part of the liberation of the female protagonists of the film will encircle
it in the epilogue.
130 As I mentioned, the film exists in two versions: a TV miniseries of one

hundred eighty minutes and a one hundred twenty minutes video variant. In the
shortened variant, this prologue is inserted in the middle of the narrative. I will
follow in my discussion of the film the printed version of the script that corresponds
to the TV miniseries, a more complete version.
131 On September 22, 1817 Spain and Great Britain signed a treaty, which
established a transition period until 1820 when slave trade and traffic were definitely
prohibited.
222
The prologue that defines the anti-slavery theme and the subject of this
adventurous melodrama is followed by a languid narrative of the preparations of a
Catalan ship to sail to Cuba from Canet de Mar, a small port in Barcelona area. The
ship bears an emblematic name El Catalan and has a usual cargo of Catalan
merchandise for export. On this trip, however, it has a special passenger on board.
The female protagonist, Amelia Roig (Aitana Sanchez-Gijon), niece of one of the
owners of the ship and of the naviliera, a shipping company, is leaving Canet for
Cuba in order to join her husband. Her marriage to a prosperous Catalan immigrant
whom she never met before is arranged by her uncle Francesc Valeri. Her
companion on this trip is Alfons Rovira, the son of the other owner of the naviliera,
Joan Rovira. Alfons is her friend and also happens to be the best friend of her
husband who had left Catalonia years earlier and is now the owner of one of the
biggest fortunes in Cuba. Thus the exposition of the film represents a scenario
many times reiterated in discourse related to the participation of Catalans in Cuban
colonial enterprise. Contingent with this discourse, the film represents Catalan
immigration in the form of commercial diaspora based on close family or friendship
contacts. Slave trade is perceived as a part of normal commercial practice, while
prearranged marriages for the sake of capitalization are an accepted part of the socioeconomical structure of the growing Catalan capitalist society.
Francesc Valeri, Alfons Rovira and Ton Massana, Amelias arranged
husband, are members of a secret agreement to divert the route of El Catalan to the
coast of Africa. There El Catalan will take on board a cargo of Africans who will
become slaves upon arrival to Cuba where they are anxiously expected by Massana
and other owners of sugar mills, the basis for flourishing Cuban economy. The
complicity of her uncle, of her friend and of her husband is not the only revelation
that Amelia confronts on board of the ship and upon arrival to Havana. The
encounter with her husband in Cuba brings her disillusion on top of the anxiety that
she experiences during her voyage to the unknown, her anticipated life in Cuba as a
woman married to a man whom she had never met. Her husband Ton Massana,
handsome, young and sexually active successful Catalan immigrant, is tormented by
contradictory feelings. He is attracted to Amelia, however, his passion for his
mulatto slave, Consuelo, a relationship that he is not even trying to conceal from his
wife, prevails and prevents him from a relationship with Amelia. When Amelia
finds out that he continues his sexual relationship with Consuelo and confronts him,
Massana explains to her that their marriage and Amelia herself are nothing else but a
warranty of a commercial agreement. Indignant, Amelia decides to fight for her
freedom against the marriage imposed on her by the traditional paternalistic family
structure. Thus the film in its apparently progressive discourse undermines the
discourse of the objectification of a female character recurrent in the traditional
habanera. The seemingly feminist discourse of Havanera 1820 transforms Amelia
into the protagonist, who decides to protect herself and fight for her freedom. Her
personal struggle against her imposed husband Ton Massana and the complicity of
other powerful male figures, her uncle Francesc Valeri and her friend Alfons Rovira,
will achieve as a by-product the liberation of the slaves. Amelia becomes the
224
protagonist and enunciator of the anti-slavery discourse of the film that presumably
responds to the feminist codes. The apparent progressiveness of this discourse is
enhanced through the union between Amelia and her rival, the mulatto lover of her
husband, Consuelo. The white mistress domesticates and attracts the mulatto slave
to her side, though Consuelo (Ikay Romay) does not seem to understand Amelias
reasons aimed at destroying their common enemy Massana. The union of these two
female figures will destroy Massana. Amelia denounces Massanas dirty business of
slave trafficking to Captain Richardson and subtly encourages Consuelo to kill
Massana. In the finale, both women become free from the despotic
husband/owner/lover whom Consuelo kills on board of El Catalan. The slaves that
arrive with the last trip of the negrero ship are also freed due to the heroic effort of
Consuelo who sets them free by unlocking them. El Catalan is set on fire while
Consuelo is struggling with Massana before she stabs him. The ship bums with two
most ruthless negreros, Massana and his accomplice nicknamed Cremat, (Burnt).
(Cremat is marked by a characteristic birthmark on his face, what can also be read as
a prefiguration of the destiny of the villains of the film.) The purifying fire that
opened the film in a ritual ceremony asking the African gods for protection encircles
it through the emblematic burning of El Catalan.
The advertisers of Havanera 1820 explicitly underline their desire to present
this great melodramatic adventure as part of European rethinking of colonial
history. At the time of the release of Havanera 1820, which coincides with the
celebration of the encounter of the Old and New World, Catalonia continues its
225
efforts at self-representation as part of a globalized international and, particularly,

European community. The presentation of the film by its producer Carles Jover in
the films colorful promotion booklet may be perceived as a reiteration of this effort:
There is nothing more European than the revision of a
period in which the great Western nations lived their
contradiction between slavery and liberalism, between
tradition and industrial progress, between politics and
economics. There is nothing more modem in the
united Europe of the nineties than to recreate the basis
of its relations with the Third World. (Havanera 1820
promotional booklet n.p.)
These words explicitly identifying Catalonia with the great Western nations
are articulated when the effort at representing Catalonia as part of a modernized
European community was underscored during the celebration of 1992 Olympics in
Barcelona. Through a significant political effort and negotiation, the goal of
integrating Catalonia into a new Europe was to a certain extent successfully achieved
as Catalonia was represented as part of heterogeneous Spain, on the one hand, and as
a member of a broader European community, on the other.
1^9
The position of the
producer of Havanera 1820 quoted above clearly manifests the intention to represent
Catalonia in its historical relationship with the colonies as part of a global
European community. This discourse is contingent with a centuries-long opposition
to the Spanish state against whose dominion Catalonia has revolted so many times in
132 The role of the Barcelona Olympic games in a further integration of

Catalonia into a viable Spanish state and in the manifestation of Catalan nationalism
through a major international event is analyzed in John Hargreaves, Freedom For
Catalonia? Catalan Nationalism, Spanish Identity and the Barcelona Olympic Games
(Cambridge, 2000).
226
history. The release of Havanera 1820. a filmic narrative seemingly aimed at a

universal condemn of slavery, may be viewed as an attempt at Catalonias self
representation as a European nation that participates in the Western colonial
enterprise as an equal to real colonial empires, such as Great Britain, France,
Spain, Belgium or Russia. As a film production with a historically defined referent
that invokes the formation of Western colonial empires, Havanera 1820 allows one
to explore cinematographic modes of construction of Catalan nation and identity
through discourse related to Catalonias colonial and perhaps imperial enterprise.
Though this ambitious project seemingly is aimed at subverting traditional discourse
related to the activities of Catalans in Cuba, the lavishness of production and the
reiteration of gender and race stereotypes inscribe this adventurous melodrama
into the category of recent film productions characterized by a certain nostalgia-forempire in the words of Ella Shohat.133 This nostalgia-for-empire together with
the recreation of the subjects and motifs of the habanera in film may be explored as
foundational for the project of Catalan national cinema, a powerful instrument for
the construction of a national identity.
One might ask, however, if it is plausible to speak of Catalan cinema as of a
national cinema. In the essay Catalan Cinema: Historical Experience and
Cinematic Practice (1991), Marvin DLugo calls it something like a national
133 Discussing nostalgia-for-empire in Havanera 1820, 1 will draw on

Shohats article Gender and Culture of Empire: Toward a Feminist Ethnography of
the Cinema, Quarterly Review of Film and Video 13 (1991): 45-84.
227
cinema (133). D Lugo draws on Philip Rosens conceptualization of a national

cinema that presupposes three pivotal concepts of a national cinema:
(1) not just a conceptualization of textuality, but one
which describes how a large number of superficially
differentiated texts can be associated in a regularized,
relatively limited intertextuality in order to form a
coherency, a national cinema; (2) a
conceptualization of a nation as a kind of minimally
coherent entity which it makes sense to analyze in
relation with (1); (3) some conception of what is
traditionally called history or historiography. (qtd.
in Catalan Cinema 145-46)
For D Lugo, Catalan cinema is marked by a pattern of conceptualizations
shared cultural-historical traditions and textual coherencies across a significant body
of different filmic texts over timethat in other contexts would lead us to consider it
as a national cinema (133). He further develops this idea emphasizing the
deployment of certain issues of history into a chain of discursive practices that
inscribe the historical trace of Catalan identity into the enunciative stmcture of the
variety of films (133). Drawing on this conceptualization of a national cinema, I
will explore in this chapter how two Catalan film productions that evolve around
crucial historical issues, La ciutat cremada (1976) by Antoni Ribas and Havanera
1820 (1993) by Antoni Verdaguer, incorporate the habanera into their discourse and
how they can be inscribed into the body of Catalan national cinema.
Released during the critical period for the history of Spain and Catalonia, the
time of the transition from the dictatorship to a new heterogeneous Spain, Antoni
Ribass multilayered cinematographic fresco La ciutat cremada (1976) may be
228
viewed as the first attempt at representing Catalan history in film. The film evolves
around the life of a Barcelona family during the turbulent years between 1899, after
the disastrous defeat of Spain in the Cuban war, and the Tragic Week in Barcelona in
1909. Ribass film becomes an overwhelming box office success and is perceived
by many as an assertion of Catalan historical identity and an unprecedented step for
Catalan filmmaking. It is perhaps the first film production of this scale released in
Catalan language, and the crew, with the exception of the director of cinematography
Teo Escamilla, is self-sufficiently Catalan, in the words of Rob Stone (114).
The sound track of this multilayered period drama opens with a habanera
performed by a choir and orchestra. This habanera, known now as La ciutat
cremada, was created for La ciutat cremada by a prolific cinema composer Manuel
Vails i Gorina (1920-1984) as the main theme of the sound track of the film. Years
after the release of the film it continues its life as a popular habanera frequently
performed and published in Catalan,134 although originally in the film the first part of
it is performed in Spanish with a subsequent switch to Catalan. The story of La
ciutat cremada, which continues its life independently as a popular song, may be
compared perhaps to the story of the habanera Yo te dire, originally created for
Los ultimos de Filipinas (1945, director Antonio Roman), a notorious Francoist
134 Catalan version is published in XXXIII Cantada dhavaneres: Calella de

Palafrugell, (Costa Brava, 1999) 8. The original version with the first part in Spanish
and the second part in Catalan can be found in Xavier Febres, Les havaneres, el cant
dun mar, (Girona, 1986) 12.
229
postwar nation-building project, in the words of Roland Tolentino.
Yo te
dire, for its melodic appeal and nostalgic lyrics, is among the most popular and
frequently performed habaneras currently. In the film for which it was created, it is
sung by the only female character employed in this film, a Filipino woman who is in
love with a Spanish officer. The latter, though attracted to her, rejects their union
realizing the impossibility of it.
I already discussed the unprecedented significance of La ciutat cremada for
the assertion of Catalan nationalistic values at the time of the transition from the
dictatorship to a heterogeneous democratic state in Spain. Below I will explore its
relevance in the context of the impact that Ribass cinematographic saga plays in the
cultural imaginary of Catalonia. In Chapter Five, I will once again turn to this
habanera as, in the last decade of the twentieth century, it becomes the leitmotif of
the novel En el mar de les Antilles (1999) by Manel Alonso i Catala. The habanera
La ciutat cremada seems to represent explicitly the complex phenomenon of the
Catalan habanera explored in this dissertation. This new habanera specifically
created for a film with a strong historical referent invokes the traditional subject of
popular habaneras-participation in the war in Cubaand in this function may be
explored as a simulacrum of the traditional habanera that acquires the status of a
recognized emblem of Catalan identity by the 1970s. As it sounds in the opening
135 For an analysis of Los ultimos de Filipinas as a project of the Francoist

nationalist propaganda see Roland B. Tolentino, Nations, Nationalisms, and Los
ultimos de Filipinas: An Imperialist Desire for Colonialist Nostalgia, in Refiguring
Spain: Cinema/ Media/ Representation. Ed. Marsha Kinder (Durham, 1997) 133-53.
230
sequences of the film when the protagonist returns to Barcelona in May of 1899 after
thhee years of military service in Cuba, it becomes the leitmotif of a cinematographic
narrative with a precise historical referent. As I mentioned, the story of a Barcelona
middle class family is explored amongst turbulent events of the first decade of the
twentieth century. The representation of these events and of numerous historical
personalities allows one to speak of Ribass film as perhaps of the first step in the
reinvention of Catalan history through cinematography. The employment of the
habanera in this work is indicative of the transculturation and ambivalence of the
habanera in Catalonia. The first strophe that opens the film is sung in Spanish in the
otherwise Catalan language film. One can explore this sign as an evocation of the
traditional genre, on the one hand, and as a conscious and explicit switch to the
vernacular language with all its significance for Catalan identity, on the other. The
new habanera that sounds in La ciutat cremada bears all the paradigmatic traits of the
traditional habanera: in the first strophe it describes the voluptuous attractiveness of
a mulatto woman who is left behind by the male protagonist in Cuba. It should be
noted that Cuba is characteristically preceded by the possessive pronoun mi,
which makes one recall a popular perception of Cuba as the fifth province of
Catalonia. The description of the attractiveness of the mulata evokes the language
of traditional habaneras, perhaps comparable to the lavishness of Tecla:
En mi Cuba me espera
una mulata gentil,
de labios rojos de fresa,
de dientes de puro marfil.
Sus ojos son dos luceros,
231
su nuca perfume de abril.

Ay mulatita querida,
escucha el triste son
que te canta mi vida
un soldado espanol.
However, the second strophe of the song offers a switch to Catalan language
and a switch in subject. The protagonist, so far represented as a Spanish soldier,
becomes an explicit Catalan patriot who is leaving Cuba for good and will not return
to his mulata, neither will he sing her a habanera. The mention of the habanera as
a signifier of a relationship between a white man and a mulatto woman in this song is
perhaps the first attempt at a self-reflective discourse concerned with the relevance
of the habanera for Catalan identity. The protagonist narrator of the habanera,
likewise the protagonist of the film, returns to his native Catalonia to find his heart
and love there:
a cantar 1havanera
terra catalana retrobo 1amor. (XXXIII Cantada 8)
Thus this creation of the time of the renewed assertion of Catalan identity
after the death of Franco becomes a paradigmatic representation of the phenomenon
of Catalan habanera with its switch to Catalan and the change of the subject from the
traditional nostalgia for the lost tropical paradise to the assertion of Catalan
nationalistic spirit. This habanera becomes a leitmotif and an intrinsic part of a film
232
production, which, as Marvin D Lugo argues, can be viewed as a representation of

Catalan nationalistic spirit and the solidarity of Catalans in freeing themselves from
the political and cultural yoke of Castilian hegemony (Catalan Cinema 140). La
ciutat cremada may also be viewed as a significant contribution to the project of
Catalan national cinema. In the words of Jaume Martf-Olivella, Ribass epic
became a clear indication of a possible way for Catalan cinema, that of the filmic
reconstructions of specially significant historical moments (150).
In his essay Catalan Cine-Lit: A Critical Overview (1992), Martf-Olivella
poses a question similar to that asked by D Lugo, if Catalan cinema can be perceived
as a signifier of a national identity. Drawing on the ideas of Joan M. Minguet i
Batllori, Martf-Olivella discusses three relevant components of a national cinema:
specific filmic elements, which he deciphers as a combination of style, genre and
rhythm; the use of the national language, which continues to be a debatable
question in Catalonia as the two languages, Catalan and Spanish, continue to live
side by side in the reality of Catalonia;136 and perhaps the most relevant factor, a
reference to autochthonous culture in the words of Minguet (150-151). According
to Martf-Olivella, the allegiance to a cultural paradigmeven from a profound
criticism of such paradigm allows to speak of a film as of a national signifier (151).
136 Since 1982, the promotion of Catalan film has been one of the clear-cut
priorities of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Catalan regional government, which offers
substantial financial support to films that are produced in Catalan (Martf-Olivella
147).
233
Antoni Verdaguers Havanera 1820, conceived as a recreation of the habanera,
1X I
an
established paradigm of Catalan autochthonous culture, represents a privileged space

for exploration of the role that criticism and subversion of a cultural paradigm may
play in the project of a national cinema and in the reinforcement of a national
identity. Verdaguers ambitious project may be viewed as a contribution to the
project of Catalan national cinema and to the assertion of the nationalistic spirit as it
recreates specially significant historical moments, on the one hand, and as it
incorporates the habanera, a cultural signifier charged with colonial desire and, as I
will argue, nostalgia-for-empire, on the other.
As I mentioned above, both DLugo and Martf-Olivella recognize historical
referent as foundational for Catalan national cinema. The historical referent,
however, is not the single relevant characteristic that allows one to explore a film in
conjunction with its significance for the development of a national cinema. MartfOlivella, in the already quoted essay, suggests that literary adaptations may become a
possible way of development for Catalan national cinema. As an example of it, he
discusses Antoni Verdaguers La Teranyina (The Cobweb, 1990), a cinematographic
adaptation of a highly acclaimed novel by Jaume Cabre. Insisting on the value of
literary adaptations for the project of Catalan national cinema, he inscribes La
Teranyina, filmed before Havanera 1820, into the context of Catalan national
cinema. According to Martf-Olivella, this adaptation of a popular novel may be
137 In the words of Antoni Verdaguer, the film was conceived as a pseudo
habanera. (Verdaguer in an interview to the author, July, 1999.)
234
perceived as an example of cinema of national signifier since it contains the three

basic factors described by Joan Minguet: filmic identity, national language and
specific cultural referent (163). For Martf-Olivella, La Teranyina becomes a
signifier of if not of the birth of the nation, at least, the birth of a historical fiction:
the fiction of/in Catalan cinema (166). The significance of La Teranyina as an
adaptation of fiction for the project of Catalan cinema and Catalan identity is
relevant for our discussion of Havanera 1820 for various reasons. La Teranyina is
Verdaguers second long feature film which he directed after LEscot. also a literary
adaptation of the novel Amorrada al Pilo by Maria Jaen. The highly acclaimed novel
by Jaume Cabre was converted into the script, which combines the elements of a
meticulous historical recreation of the period with family melodrama and political
thriller, by a creative team that comprised the author of the novel Jaume Cabre,
Verdaguer himself and two other prominent Catalan literary personalities of the same
generation, Jaume Fuster and Vicen? Villatoro.138 The collaboration of these four
authors who share literary and aesthetic interests not only brings to the screen a
highly ambitious project of La Teranyina. but also generates, among other projects,
Havanera 1820. an adventurous melodrama with a clear-cut historical referent.
Though Havanera 1820 is not an adaptation of an existing literary work, I argue that
it may be explored as a national signifier as it represents a perhaps more complicated
enterprise. Drawing on the models of Catalan national cinema proposed by D Lugo
138 In 1998 Villatoro becomes the Commissary of the exposition Escolta

Espanva: Catalunya i la crisis del 98 organized by Museu dHistoria de Catalunya.
235
and Martf-Olivella, I argue that Havanera 1820 may be explored as a contribution to
the project of Catalan national cinema, and, in a broader context, to the continuous
project of assertion of Catalan identity through cinematography, for three reasons: a
strong historical referent, a new model of relationship with printed fiction, and an
assertion of Catalan nationhood and identity through the representation of Catalan
colonial and arguably imperial enterprise.
The project of the artistic team Cabre-Fuster-Verdaguer-Villatoro consisted
in creating a script in the form of an adventurous melodrama appealing to a broad
range of viewers. At the same time, particular attention, as it becomes the
trademark of this creative team, is given to the recreation and representation of the
historical background or referent. Thus this film, likewise La Teranyina some
years earlier, represents an attempt at combining popular cinematographic forms
with meticulous representation of a historical ambiance. However, unlike La
Teranyina based on an already existing novel, Havanera 1820 represents a perhaps
unprecedented and rare attempt for Spanish or Catalan cinema at generating printed
fiction based on a film production. The post productional publication of the script of
the film in a hybrid literary form, an interface of literary and filmic production,
subtitled literary adaptation of the cinematographic script,139 allows one to explore
this film as an original and evolving form of a national cinematographic practice.
Havanera, published for Sant Jordi of 1993, Catalan national holiday associated with
139 Jaume Cabre, Jaume Fuster, Antoni Verdaguer, i Viceng Villatoro,

Havanera: Adaptacio literaria del guio cinematografic a carrec de Jaume Fuster
(Barcelona, 1993).
236
book fairs,140 exists as independent fiction, though perhaps with a strong visual
referent as the television miniseries is frequently rerun by Catalan TV. This model
of relationship between a cinematographic and a literary narrative is more typical for
the Hollywood model with Star Wars as a paradigmatic example. As Marsha Kinder
argues referring to an earlier period of development of regional cinematographies
(Basque and Catalan) in the context of a bigger Spanish cinema, Hollywood has
played the paradoxical role of an alternative ideological center that both challenged
and mirrored the monolithic nature of Francoist domination (Micro and Macro
Regionalism 131). Drawing on the paradoxical role of Hollywood for Catalan
cinema one might explore the publication of Havanera as an adaptation of a
Hollywood model that, nevertheless, serves the project of Catalan cinema and
identity.
My major task, however, consists in exploring the discourse that this film
produces while focusing on the overseas adventure of Catalonia. I argue that
through the emphasis that Havanera 1820 places on the participation of Catalans in
the colonial enterprise in Cuba it contributes to the project of the self-fashioning of
Catalonia as a European nation. This film may be analyzed in the light of the recent
cinematographic tendency of the so-called nostalgia-for-empire that embraces A
Passage to India (1984) by David Lean, Indochine (1992) by Regis Wargnier and
140 Since the turn of the twentieth century, April 23, Festa de Sant Jordi (Saint
Georges Day), is associated in Catalonia with book sales as it became a tradition to
give a rose to a woman and a book to a man on this day. (Now the tradition is
mixed). In accordance with demand, book fairs are celebrated all over Catalonia. In
1995, UNESCO proclaimed April 23 World Book and Copyright Day.
237
experimental films by Marguerite Duras (1914-1996).141 As Shohat argues, this kind

of cinematic narrative foregrounds a female protagonist, presumably appealing to
feminist codes, while reproducing colonialist narrative and cinematic power
arrangements (64). Seemingly aimed at subverting established power arrangements
through its female protagonists, Havanera 1820 for its lavish recreation of colonial
life and a traditional approach to gender and race power relationship may be viewed
as part of this tendency. Through the representation of the Catalan colonial
enterprise in Cuba, Havanera 1820 helps create an imaginary empire that Catalonia
never possessed and, in this way, contributes to the project of Catalan nationalism.
Deprived of power and domination that it exercised in the Mediterranean in the late
Middle Ages, Catalonia remains in a subdued position to Spains centralized power
for centuries. Catalonias strive at asserting its identity as a nation equal to other
European nations may be explored through the nostalgia-for-empire implicit in this
film production, the very title of which invokes a colonial space historically viewed
by many as the fifth province of Catalonia. Since the nineteenth century, Cuba
becomes in the cultural imaginary of Catalonia a signifier of an imagined Catalan
dominion overseas, a simulacrum of an empire that Catalonia never possessed, but
141 For an analysis of Marguerite Durass filmic narrative see C. A.

Holmlund, Displacing Limits of Difference: Gender, Race and Colonialism in
Edward Said and Homi Bhabhas Theoretical Models and Marguerite Durass
Experimental Films, Quarterly Review of Film and Video 13 (1991): 1-22.
Holmlund argues that Durass narrative, despite its oblique critiques of British India
and despite its reworkings of how otherness and identity are seen and heard, are
permeated by nostalgia for colonial society (10-11).
238
which may perhaps be compared to the cherished by Catalans historical power in the
Mediterranean in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.
The plot of the film evolves around the subject that has been in the center of
attention in Catalan cultural imaginary for the last two centuries, namely the
involvement of Catalans in the commerce with Cuba. The film represents a
commercial enterprise of the Catalans from Canet de Mar, a port near Barcelona,
who in the early nineteenth century actively develop trade with Cuba. The
representation of this commercial enterprise seems to be contingent with the
historical discourse of the late twentieth century related to the contacts between
Catalonia and Spains overseas colonies. After the publication of Jordi Maluquer de
Motess article La burguesfa catalana i la esclavitud colonial: modes de produccio i
practica polftica,142 the participation of Catalans in commercial relations with Cuba
and Puerto Rico becomes the subject of an active discussion. This article opens the
door to investigation and research of the subject at the time of the end of the Franco
dictatorship. With the revival of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Catalan regional
government, Catalan involvement in Cuba during the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries receives particular attention through the Generalitat sponsored conferences
and publications, such as Jomades dEstudis Catalanos-Americans, among others,
celebrated regularly from 1985 through 1993. Among the topics of research is the
triangular trade practiced by small Catalan shipping companies from the coastal
towns that normally exported Catalan productsdry fruit, alcohol, textilesto Cuba
142 Recerques 3 (1974): 83-136.
239
and imported colonial merchandise such as sugar and tobacco. The astronomical
profits from slave trade inseparable from the development of Cuban sugar industry
becomes, in the first half of the nineteenth century, a profitable business for many
small companies. Not only well known tycoons of colonial trade, Antonio Lopez y
Lopez, Francesc Marti, or Jose Xifre i Casas, but also a significant number of
relatively modest enterprises profit from slave trade which continues to be regarded
as part of everyday business considered legitimate in Spain until the second half of
the nineteenth century. The growing indignation of the liberal circles, however,
makes Spain in 1817 sign a treaty with Great Britain, according to which the import
of slaves from Africa should be stopped in 1820. This historical background serves
as a starting point for the cinematographic narrative of Havanera 1820. The action of
the film is set precisely, as one can see from its title,143 in this chronological period.
In a cinematographic language of an adventurous melodrama appealing to broad
masses of spectators, the film concentrates on the activities of the Catalans involved
in the infamous triangular trade between Catalonia, the African coast and Cuba.
Thus the film for the first time in Catalan or Spanish cinematography openly
discusses and reveals the delicate question of the participation in inhuman but highly
profitable slave trade. Positing the subject of Catalan involvement in the center of its
143 In his interview to the author (July, 1999), Verdaguer mentioned that the
initial title was Havanera. The date referent was added to distinguish the film for
cataloguing purposes from Habanera by Jose Maria Elorrieta released in 1958
(Spain). International Movie Database (www.us.idmb.com) lists LHabanera (1900)
France, Dir. Alice Guy; La Habanera (1937) Germany, Dir. Douglas Sirk; Habanera
(1984) Cuba, Dir. Pastor Vega.
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narrative, the film fulfills a dual subversive function. On the one hand, it questions
the myth of americanos or indianos persistent in the cultural imaginary of Catalonia.
On the other, it renegotiates the construction of Catalan national identity that for
centuries has been based on the opposition to the Other, the Castilian, with its
black legend of extermination of indigenous peoples and slavery. For centuries,
Catalonia tried to build its cultural identity on the grounds of self-fashioning as the
nation of hard-working, rational and industrious laborers as opposed to the Castilian
Other who misuses and abuses the colonized world. Havanera 1820. however,
shifts the accents of the identity construction and undermines the legend of hard
working immigrants showing the protagonists of the film as ruthless and
unscrupulous negreros, slave trafickers.
The mythology related to immigration to Cuba and the successful
immigrants, denominated americanos or indianos, originates as early as the massive
immigration and return of those who decide to seek fortune overseas, fer les
Ameriques. It is reinforced through various cultural means. Among these means
are such artifacts of material culture, as museums, villas, and monuments in Catalan
cities and towns. The notorious Column, a monument to Columbus on the
maritime promenade of Barcelona with the figure of Columbus on top of it pointing
his finger towards the Americas is located only a couple of blocks away from the
monument to Antonio Lopez y Lopez, an exemplary americano whose initial
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capital was accumulated in Cuba through commerce that involved slave traffic.144
The americanos are in the center of attention of Catalan historical and sociological
discourse of the post-Franco decades. Havanera 1820 is perhaps the most significant
attempt at reshaping this discourse through cinematographic means of the late
twentieth century.
The brief summary of the plot of the miniseries, with which I started this
chapter, does not cover all the lines of this adventurous melodrama. I tried to
delineate major discursive traits of this work to show how Havanera 1820 reshapes
the established legend of Catalan involvement in colonial enterprise. This legend
is undermined in Havanera 1820 through various discursive means. Among these
relevant means one may mention the employment of the ship with the emblematic
name El Catalan as a place of action and as an instrument of violence and oppression
at the same time. The name of the ship, El Catalan, may be perceived as an
emblematic cultural signifier of a nation that is continuously self-fashioning itself as
144 The story of this monument is as controversial as the story of Lopez y

Lopez himself. By the end of his life, Lopez y Lopez, who received the title of
Marques de Comillas for his financial and economic activities, is the owner of one of
the most prominent fortunes in Spain, which among other properties includes the
Transatlantic Company that transported Spanish troops to the Caribbean during the
years of colonial war. Acknowledged and praised as one of the financial geniuses of
his time, Lopez y Lopez is the addressee of Jacint Verdaguers LAtlantida (1876).
The monument that was erected after a fundraising campaign initiated by Lopezs
family provokes wreath and indignation in the liberal circles. It is removed during
the years of the Republic, however, the Franco regime returns it to its position at one
of Barcelona squares not far from the Porticos de Xifre, a majestic building
financed by another notorious negrero Jose Xifre i Casas, where it remains at present
as a monument to Spains colonial enterprise and to the prosperity of Catalonia based
on the profits from this enterprise.
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a maritime community. Long shots of the exterior of El Catalan and crucial scenes
that take place in its interior emphasize its role as a vehicle that brings suffering to
the female protagonist Amelia Roig, as well as a to broader protagonist delineated in
the narrative, all victims of slavery. The burning and therefore the destruction of an
established emblem of Catalan identity can be read as a challenge to Catalan
mythology associated with colonial and imperial expansion. One may recall that the
protagonists of the emblematic for Catalonia habanera El meu avi perish on board
of the ship that bears the name El Catalan.145
Not only the fate of El Catalan challenges established stereotypes and the
mythology of americanos or indianos deeply uprooted in the cultural imaginary of
Catalonia. The stories of two main male characters, Ton Massana and Francesc
Valeri, undermine the romantic flair that surrounds in Catalonia the figures of those
who gained prosperity overseas. The story of Francesc Valeri invokes a reflection
on the place that Catalonia occupies among the colonial empires of the nineteenth
century. The mastermind of the slave operations, Valeri may be perceived as a
figure that represents Catalonias strive to become an equal to major imperialist
powers. A member of a Masonic lodge and a liberal who speaks of the ideals of the
French Revolution, Valeri at the same time unscrupulously entices his companions
into the dirty business of negreros. Financial prosperity and economic and technical
145 In Chapter Three we explored the emblematic significance of this name

for a ship in the notorious El meu avi. The origin of this signifier of cultural
identity may be traced back to a traditional habanera in Spanish entitled in
Montsalvatges Album El Catalan.
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progress become a fetish desired at any cost. Slave trafficking will allow him to
fulfill his dreamthrough acquiring steam ships, a signifier of progress,convert
Catalonia into a prominent maritime power, an invocation of the historically lost
domination in the Mediterranean. Challenging the foundations of the traditional
paternalist societyhe lives in a free union with a French woman Ivonne Duchamp, a
courtesan-like character,Valeris figure may be read as Catalonias desire to belong
to Europe, on the one hand, and a homage to a continuous rivalry between France
and Spain for the dominion over Catalonia, on the other. Valeris enterprise,
however, is ruined, he is broke and his desires unfulfilled. Thus the financial, moral
and social failure of one of the organizers of a Catalan colonial enterprise
undermines the myth of the prosperity associated with commercial relationship with
Cuba.
The fate and the figure of his commercial partner, Ton Massana, seemingly
an exemplary and prosperous americano. may also be explored as the subversion of
the americano legend though in a more complex way. At first glance, Massanas
direct involvement in colonizing actions both through bringing slaves to Cuba and
through pursuing a slave uprising are aimed at undermining the romantic flair of the
legend of americanos. Massana, a successful Catalan immigrant, is an avid owner of
slaves, colonized land, women. This aggressive colonizing figure, which is in the
center of the cinematographic narrative, might be read as a direct subversion of the
established mythology of Catalan immigration. However, though the theme of the
film is explicitly anti-slavery and its discourse seemingly directed at subverting the
established americano legend, its lavish cinematography and certain romantization of

the figure of Massana suggests a reflection about a more traditional discourse.
Charismatically attractive Massana (Abel Folk) lives in a luxurious mansion
furnished with precious caoba furniture and works of art. The camera indulges in
recreating paradisiacal Cuban landscapes and lavish colonial interiors. The
voluptuous recreation of the historical ambiance is achieved through filming on site
in the historical buildings in Catalonia, among which are museums of Romantic
Period of Sitges and Vilanova associated with the prosperity of returning
immigrants, and in the Cuban province of Las Villas, an area denominated Valle de
los Ingenios (Valley of Sugar Mills), historically associated with the boom of
Cuban sugar industry. The picturesque landscapes of Cuba and elegant interiors
furnished with established signifiers of colonial luxury invoke Baudelaires
perception of overseas exotism: La, tout nest quordre et beaute, luxe, calme et
volupte (72). Colonial gaze is enhanced through framing crucial scenes, such as
highly erotic scenes between Massana and his mulatto slave/mistress Consuelo, into
spaces limited either by window or door frames, oras in the scene of dramatically
charged confrontation between Amelia and Massanathe setting invokes nineteenth
century lithographs of colonial life, with two little mulatto children playing on the
floor as an explicit signifier of colonial authority of the white man. The visual
pleasure of luxurious colonial life is enhanced by an outstanding original musical
score, in which the composer Carles Cases masterfully recreates the quintessence of
the habanera giving a new life to the traditional genre.
245
The figure of Ton Massana explicitly represents the relationship of power and
authority towards two major female figures, his young mulatto mistress Consuelo
and his wife by paternalistic arrangement, Amelia Roig. A highly eroticized
relationship with Consuelo and the attitude of possessiveness towards Amelia
reiterate common stereotypes persistent in the collective imaginary. However, in this
postmodernist habanera of the late twentieth century, the balance of power is shifted
and the argument evolves around the revolt of the two traditionally marginalized
figures against a traditional representation of masculine power. In the finale, the
americano myth of wealth and prosperity is subverted as Massana is avenged by the
union of two women, who, in spite of their racial and social difference, unite to fight
a common male enemy. Thus at first glance, the narrative of Havanera 1820 may be
read as a progressive feminist subversion of the paternalist mythology of americanos
reinforced through the masculinist discourse of the habanera uprooted in the national
cultural imaginary. Nevertheless, the distribution of race and gender roles in this
habanera of the late twentieth century points to its kinship with a more traditional
discourse. Though the film apparently foregrounds the union of two traditionally
marginalized figures, the representation of the relationship between a white male and
a mulatto female, traditionally fetishised as an object of lust and desire, suggests a
comparison with a more traditional discourse of colonial desire echoed in the
musical genre of the habanera.
Through a highly erotically charged relationship between Massana and
Consuelo, Havanera 1820 seems to recreate the paradigmatic relationship between
246
the white man and a mulatto woman, which invokes colonial desire. Intrinsic to
the traditional habanera, colonial desire is inseparable from the americano legend.
In the traditional habanera, the mulatto woman is the desired and alienated Other,
an object of passion, lust, desire and contempt at the same time. The idealization of
the sexual qualities of the mulatto woman emerges and grows in the process of
conquest and colonization. The ambivalence of desire and simultaneous rejection of
a female of other race and land is a dominant motif in the discourse related to the
relationship between the white male, the protagonist of colonial and postcolonial
fiction, and a native female, an object of desire and lust. The mythology of the
mulatto woman as an object of sexual desire continues its journey into the cultural
imaginary of the late twentieth century through the representation in nostalgic songs
evoking the lost tropical paradise; the zarzuela, Spanish autochthonous musical
theater; film; fiction and non-fiction on both sides of the Atlantic.
Recent publications that try to represent Catalans as the protagonists of
Spanish colonial expansion do not miss an opportunity to reinforce the discourse
related to the inseparable relationships of gender and race in the colonies. Thus a
collection of articles characteristically entitled El besavi va anar a Cuba an allusion
to the habanera El meu aviand dedicated to the activities of Catalans in Cuba,
repeatedly and indulgently quotes a popular saying allegedly bom in the Cuban
popular theater in the nineteenth century, el millor invent dels Catalans a Cuba va
ser la mulata (46) thus making homage to the masculinist discourse of the past.
Seemingly critical, however implicitly aimed at marginalizing the female figure,
247
discourse related to the relationship between Catalans and mulatto women is

continuously reinforced through fiction and non-fiction. Various publications
starting with the notorious work by Carlos Marti Los catalanes en America: (Cuba)
(1920), relate anecdotes about distinguished Catalans who prospered in Cuba and,
among other subjects, discuss their relationship with mulatto women. Among these
stories, one usually finds the anecdote about Francesc Panxo Marti, a Catalan bom
in Barcelona in 1786, who, by the 1850s, creates one of the most prominent fortunes
in Cuba through contraband and slave trade. Marti remains in Cuba until the end of
his days in 1866 and, among other enterprises, sponsors the construction of the most
prominent theater of Havana, Gran Teatro Tacon, named after the Captain General
Tacon, known now as Teatro Garcia Lorca. A legendary figure and one of the
characters described by Alvaro de la Iglesia in Tradiciones cubanas, Francesc Marti,
according to Carlos Martis account, lived for many years with a mulatto woman of
legendary beauty, Tomasa, who gave birth to their children whom he recognized as
legitimate inheritors of his immense fortune. With an air of admiration at the
wittiness of Pancho Marti, Carlos Marti describes him as a personality who continues
to be notorious in Cuba long after his death:
De el se citan dichos, modismos, cualidades, rasgos,
frases, y en Cuba aun actualmente se le cita gran
numero de veces al dfa, y los modismos siempre van
anticipados de Como decfa Pancho Marti. Suya es la
frase de Si te portas bien, te casaras con la hija de
Pancho Marti, pero si te portas mal, sera con la negra
Tomasa. (179)
248
This anecdote that explicitly combines both racial and masculinist prejudice is
reiterated in recent publications (El besavi va anar a Cuba 47). Another repeated
story is the story of activities of the archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, the Catalan
Antoni Maria Claret, who arrives in Cuba in 1852. He is disgusted with the
questionable morals of the immigrants who openly live with mulatto women without
church sanctioned union and tries to impose strict moral boundaries on the frivolous
lifestyle in the colony. In the already quoted collection El besavi va anar a Cuba,
one finds a curious document illustrating the lack of morals in the colonies. In a
letter to the Captain General of the island, Claret describes the morally questionable
lifestyle of the colony as he finds it:
Els propietaris de negres viuen com besties, ells
mateixos assenyalen lesclau a lesclava, aixi com el
cavall a leuga, i de vegades, ells mateixos i els seus
germans i fills copulen amb las seves esclaves negres i
aquests, per descomptat, son enemies de missions,
religio i moralitat. De tots ells els mes dolents son els
que han vungut dEspanya i singularment els Catalans
son dolentfssims, son pessims, mai no confessen ni
combreguen ni escolten rnissa, tots o viuen en
concubinat o tenen relacions il-lfcites amb mulates i
negres i no aprecien cap altre Deu que no sigui
l interes. (qtd. in El besavi va anar a Cuba 30)
Clarets activities aimed at establishing legal unions between the men from
Spain and Cuban women, provoke his adversaries at an attempt at his life which
leaves him with a scar on his face for the rest of his life. In the same book, Cesar
Yanez quotes another curious story about Claret that gives light on the state of the
moral in the colony: Larquebispe es presenta a una casa i commina el propietari a
249
passar pel sacrament la relacio que mante amb una mulata, i aquest apareix amb tres
noies i li pregunta: Exactament amb quina prefereix que em casi? (31).
Havanera 1820 with a mulatto protagonist who finds her voice and identity
and destroys the dominant male figure seemingly undermines the traditional gender
and race discourse related to Catalan activities in the desired and beloved colony.
However, a highly erotisized and somewhat voyeuristic gaze, frequently through
window and door frames or behind transparent curtains, at the relationship between
Consuelo and Massana, enhanced by a voluptuous musical score that evokes the
music of the traditional habanera,146 converts the representation of this relationship
into a sublimation of colonial desire, defined by Robert J. Young as a covert, but
insistent obsession with inter-racial sex, hybridity and miscegenation (xii) a trait
that is intrinsic to the traditional habanera.
The sublimation of colonial desire through a rather traditional
representation of the relationship between the white man and a mulatto woman is
combined in Havanera 1820 with the complex relationship of desire and disdain that
characterize the confrontation between Massana and Amelia. Amelia revolts against
the collective complicity of the masculine power imposed on her by the agreement
between her uncle Francesc Valeri and Ton Massana, and the participation of her
friend Alfons Rovira. The latter, being in love with Amelia, obediently fulfills the
function of a chaperone accompanying Amelia on her trip to join her arranged
146 The original musical score by composer Carles Cases won the 1993
Award of the Circulo de Escritores Cinematograficos de Espana (C.E.C.)
husband and finally betrays her. For Alfons, male solidarity prevails over his
feelings. Amelias revolt against male possessiveness is seemingly appealing to
feminist cinematographic codes. However, the discourse of Havanera 1820 remains
traditional and paternalistic in as much as the white female protagonist Amelia Roig
assumes the white womans burden, (Ella Shohat), in freeing the slaves and in
patronizing and giving orders to the mulatto woman whose position remains
traditionally marginalized. Amelia, whose figure in the terms of a national allegory
may be read as the representation of the mother-country, Catalonia, remains in the
position of power and authority towards the figure of Consuelo who represents the
colonized land. A female slave abused by her owner/lover and ostracized by her
fellow slaves, Consuelo, who does not understand her white mistresss motives,
becomes an instrument in Amelias personal struggle for her liberation from the
marriage imposed on her by the paternalistic society. The mulatto woman remains in
a subdued position following the lead of the liberal white woman. Thus Havanera
1820, with its nostalgic gaze at the lavishness of colonial life and its female
protagonists presumably appealing to feminist codes, reinvents traditional power
arrangements. The focus on the colonial enterprise, with the foregrounding of the
liberal white female figure and the subdued position of the mulatto woman who
represents the colonized land, inscribes this cinematographic narrative with a precise
historical referent into a recent tendency of nostalgia-for-empire characteristic of
the Western cinema of the late twentieth century.
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The nostalgic focus on Catalan colonial activities in Cuba perceived through

the beauty and lavishness of carefully recreated colonial reality may be explored as
a Catalan claim at its inscription into a European model of a relationship with the
colonial world. As a small nation with a strong feeling of national identity,
Catalonia for centuries is confined to a marginalized position within the Spanish
state. At the end of the twentieth century, with the post-Franco acceptance of the
signifiers of its national and cultural identity within the heterogeneous Spain,
nostalgia-for-empire becomes a part of Catalonias self-fashioning as a community,
which, though it officially did not have colonies, participated in the Western-world
colonial enterprise. Through a nostalgia for an empire that Catalonia never
possessed, Havanera 1820 asserts the identity of Catalonia as a European nation that
has its own colonial and imperial enterprise in the nineteenth century not
overshadowed by the Castilianized center.
The habanera, a multifaceted cultural sign, is adopted by Catalan cinema as a
leitmotif and an underlying grid for cinematographic projectsAntoni Ribass La
ciutat cremada (1976) and Antoni Verdaguers Havanera 1820 (1993)concerned
with the issues crucial for the construction of Catalan nation and identity. Through a
specific historical referent, an unusual model of relationship with printed fiction
(Havanera 1820), a cinematographic language that combines elements of
adventurous melodrama with historical narrative, and most importantly through the
discourse that reinvents Catalonia as a nation directly involved in colonial enterprise,
the cinematographic habanera of the last decade of the twentieth century contributes
252
to the project of Catalan national cinema and to the postmodernist construction of the
Catalan nation.
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Chapter Five
The Habanera in Catalan Fiction: An Empires Residues
^Sabes una cosa? Tanto escuchar habaneras

en la playa todos los veranos y ahora estoy
viendo lo que hay detras, lo que callan esas
canciones, las historias que olvidan....
(Dalmau 131)
The epigraph to this chapter is taken from the novel Habanera by Angeles
Dalmau published in 1999. It seems appropriate to start this chapter with reflections
about the habanera in a contemporary novel, as I intend now to explore how the
narrative elements of the habanera become a grid underlying fiction of the late
twentieth century. In this chapter, I will focus on two novels, En el mar de les
Antilles (1998) by Manel Alonso i Catala, and Habanera: El reencuentro con un
oculto pasado antillano (1999) by Angeles Dalmau, which, in my opinion, may be
perceived as the reinvention of discourse articulated by the habanera in its traditional
and new forms. The employment of the habanera as an underlying grid for the
narrative concerned with recent Catalan history is not confined to these two novels.
Julio Ortegas novel Habanera (Bitzoc, 1999) wins VII Premio de Novela Breve Juan
March Cencillo in the year when it is published. The novel by a renowned literary
critic and essayist, bom in Peru and currently working in the United States, however,
may be perceived as an outsiders perspective of Catalonia. In fact, the narrator of
Ortegas novel is a Mexican through whose eyes the reader perceives the story of a
254
Catalan family during the seventies, the time of the transition after the death of
Franco. Therefore, I will concentrate on two novels by Catalan bom authors, who as
teenagers upon Francos death, are raised during the decades when the habanera
assumes the significance of a cultural emblem in Catalonia. Angeles Dalmau was
bom in Barcelona in 1960 in a family of Catalan immigrants who returned from
Cuba after the Civil War in Spain. Habanera is her first novel. Manel Alonso i
Catala was bom in Pugol in 1962. He has published poetry, essays, short stories and
literary criticism. En el mar de les Antilles is his first novel also.
Throughout this dissertation, I explore how the habanera functions as a
multifaceted and ambivalent cultural sign, which in different historical circumstances
may be perceived as a representation of cultural identities of nations involved in
transatlantic dialogue. Thus, the habanera Tu, created during the turbulent years of
Cuban fight for its independence from Spain, may be viewed as a foundational text
in miniature for the Cuban national identity. While during almost the same historical
period in the late nineteenth century the habanera was broadly perceived as a sign of
Spanishness throughout the world and was exploited so by European composers
starting with Georges Bizet. At the time of the transition to democracy in Spain after
the end of the Franco dictatorship, the habanera, with its discourse related to
overseas expansion, becomes a significant emblem for Catalan cultural identity and a
vehicle of recuperation of Catalan nationalism. This discourse is concerned with the
participation of Catalans in overseas travel in search of fortune and subsequent social
promotion, on the one hand, and the victimization incurred by involuntary
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participation in Spains colonial wars, on the other. In the collective imagination of

the nineteenth century, fer les Ameriques is an equivalent of becoming wealthy.
Those who return home with fortunes are, therefore, called americanos or
indianos. The aura of legend that surrounds their wealth related to Cuba, and their
charitable work upon their return to their homeland, is enhanced until today through
abundant examples of material culture, such as private and public buildings, urban
projects, monuments, and mausoleums. In communities with historically strong
maritime and currently tourist orientation, one can visit museums that recreate the
life of wealthy immigrants who return to their native land after years spent in Cuba
or Puerto Ricoas the Museo del mundo indiano in Lloret de Maror, in Sitges,
follow a guided tourist route to see the mansions that belonged to the americanos.
Another aspect of overseas connection is the destiny and the sacrifice of
soldiers that participate in the war led by Spain in Cuba in order to preserve the
remnants of an empire where once the sun never set. In this context, habaneras
with a soldier or sailor as the protagonist, are perceived in the collective imaginary as
a sign of the time of colonial wars. One may recall here that the cover design of the
notorious collection of habaneras, Calella de Palafrugell i les havaneres, evokes the
fabric used for soldiers uniforms at the end of the century. Both aspects of the
fantasies about overseas connection, represented through various cultural vehicles,
have a male figure as the protagonist ann are virtually always concerned with the
figure of the female Other. The female figure that represents the land of
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opportunities and hopes is frequently mulata, a woman of another race and from
another land.
One may ask what connection is there between popular songs and novels that
evoke them in their titles. In this chapter, I will explore how the habanera is
reinvented and, in its turn, reinvents Catalan identity through contemporary popular
novels, published at the time when Spain and Catalonia are rethinking the impact of
the disaster associated with the end of Spanish colonial empire in 1898. As I already
mentioned, Catalonia consistently represents itself as a maritime community deeply
connected to Spains colonial enterprise in its own right. Cuba is Catalonias fifth
province was once a common saying among Catalans. Therefore, two recent novels
concerned with the participation of Catalans in Spains overseas enterprise may be
explored as a space where one can view a reinvention of popular discourse from the
perspective of the late twentieth century. One can argue that the novels explored in
this chapter are responsive to the discourse created through the habanera and
continue to assert Catalan identity through employing the traits of the song genre in
the narrative. By entering into an intertextual dialogue with the subjects and themes
of the traditional and new Catalan habanera, these two novels flesh out the schematic
representations of the lost tropical paradise intrinsic to the habanera and reveal in the
language of the late twentieth century the meanings hidden behind familiar signs
reiterated in popular songs.
As one can see, the title of Dalmaus novel is a direct invocation of the song
genre, while anybody familiar with Catalan popular culture will easily recognize a
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verse from the emblematic habanera El meu avi in the title of the novel by Manel
Alonso. Both authors dedicate their novels to the memory of their fathers. As I
mentioned, Angeles Dalmau is introduced on the back cover of her novel as a
descendant of a family of Catalan immigrants who returned from Cuba after the Civil
War, while the protagonist of the novel En el mar de les Antilles shares his last name
with the authors father (Amigo). These details suggest if not an autobiographic, at
least a very intimate relationship between the authors and the protagonists of their
narrative. Though seemingly different in their subject, time setting and perspective,
even written in different languages, these two novels, each in its own way, may be
viewed as an attempt at challenging traditional discourse related to Catalan overseas
connection.
The novel En el mar de les Antilles is published in Catalan by an author
whose last name contains an emblematic reference to his nation, Catala. Focused on
one of the most controversial periods of Spains history, the years of the last colonial
war lost by the Spanish empire, En el mar de les Antilles foregrounds the
participation of Catalans in the conflict, yet as we will see later, it offers a new
perspective of the familiar discourse about the sacrifice of the war. Collective
memory and nostalgia for the tropical paradise explicit in the habanera are focused
on two perhaps most alluring subjects, that of the sexual pleasure associated with the
Cuban native mulatto woman and that of the victimization of soldiers and sailors
who participate in the war against their will, and thus are opposed to the decisions of
the central government. In previous chapters, I explored how the invocation of the
258
voluptuousness of a mulatto woman, an emblem of the lost tropical paradise, points

to what may be called nostalgia for an imaginary empire, which Catalonia never
possessed, but, which, however, makes its contribution to the assertion of Catalan
identity. The novel En el mar de les Antilles gives a new twist to this nostalgia from
the perspective of the late twentieth century. One may argue that it challenges both
subjects, those of the mulata legend and of the heroic sacrifice of the Catalans. On
the one hand, it reiterates the discourse of the traditional habanera focusing on a love
affair between the protagonist, a soldier from Valencia, and a mulatto woman from
Havana. On the other, by placing the protagonist at the center of a military crime,
which culminates in the explosion of the battleship Maine, it subverts the popular
discourse of heroic sacrifice of Spanish and Catalan soldiers and sailors during the
meaningless war.
The action of the novel takes place in Cuba, a space once again as beloved
here as in the traditional habanera. The time of action are the years of the last
colonial war led in Cuba by the Spanish empire, which is desperately trying to
preserve its last colonies hasta el ultimo hombre y la ultima peseta. Similar to
many traditional habaneras of the time of Cuban wars, where a soldier or a sailor is
the central figure, the central figure of En el mar de les Antilles is also a soldier
drafted from his native Valencia region, one of the Pai'sos Catalans, historically
claimed as Catalan-speaking areas. Drafted into the army, Josep Amigo, an illiterate
day laborer, is separated from his wife and two children, a scenario familiar to
thousands of families all over Spain and many times reiterated in the habanera. It
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will be appropriate here to recall some of the habaneras that speak of the involuntary
soldiers of the empire:
A servir a la Patria, mamita mfa,
pronto me llamaran.
Soy marino del buque,
del buque El Catalan. (Album 53)
Even more explicitly the fate of soldiers is described in a famous habanera
Adios mi peninsula hermosa:
i Adios mi peninsula hermosa!
Adios que el deber me llama,
Adios que me voy a la Habana,
a luchar, a luchar por la nation.
Y desde alii, jamas olvidare
a la prenda querida que en Espana deje,
si acaso vuelvo, Dios sera testigo,
que tu marido, juro, yo he de ser.
Si muero alii, madre consuelate,
que si un dia he luchado fue por obligation.
Y ante el sepulcro, arrodillada,
madre adorada, rezame una oration. (Havaneres per
Cuba n.p.)
In agreement with the narrative voice of these habaneras, the soldier Amigo
comes to Cuba por obligation with the troops lead by the General Yaleriano
Weyler in February of 1896 to fight for retaining Cuba within the empire, a cause
considered to be the common struggle for the whole nation, which at the time
includes Cubans as well as Catalans:
Amigo, el llaurador Pep el de Tos, no volia ser soldat i,
si no hi haguera hagut un ocea tan ample pel mig en
aquell moment, shaguera algat i se nhaguera tomat a
casa caminant amb les mans buides i amb el cor pie
260
dalegria pel reencontre amb la seua terra, amb la seua

gent i amb la seua vida. (53)
We first meet the protagonist two years after he starts his military service in
Cuba. The events of these two years in Cuba, crucial for the formation of the
identity of Amigo, are revealed in a series of flashbacks of his memory. During the
military service in Cuba, the illiterate laborer from Valencia region, nicknamed Pep
el de Tos, is transformed into Josep Amigo, a ruthless soldier of the empire, who
will, for the sake of money, commit a military crime, namely will directly participate
in the explosion of the battleship Maine. The novel seems to be conceived as a story
of the protagonists coming of age, which takes place during his military service in
Cuba. The transformation of identity of the protagonist is impacted by his encounter
with three personalities that play a crucial part in the plot of the novel and in
Amigos transformation. These are the corporal Ramon Calls, an ex-student from
Barcelona drafted after having spent some time in prison for revolutionary activities;
a mulatto prostitute from Havana, known as La Negra Lola; and his fellow soldier,
Bemat Escriva, seemingly an antipode of Amigo: Bemat era un individu que havia
nascut per a ser soldat de fortuna, aventurer, llibertf, macarro, borratxo o tot plegat
(53). All three contribute to the transformation and awakening of the protagonist.
Ramon Calls opens the world of letters to the illiterate Amigo, La Negra Lola opens
to him the world of sensuality, while Escriva involves him into what will end up as
the explosion on board the battleship Maine. As I mentioned, the novel may be
explored as a story of coming of age. However, as this dissertation is concerned with
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the permutations of the habanera, I will concentrate on the employment of the

narrative elements related to the habanera in this novel.
Multiple references to the habanera and the interplay of characters and motifs
evoking those recurrent in the traditional and new habaneras allow one to explore
this novel as a counterpoint dialogue with the song genre. An invocation of the song
genre opens the novel thus creating a connection with the discourse of the habanera:
El soldat, al qual tothom anomenava Amigo, sabia que la nit no era fosca i que la
distancia no era sinonim doblit, encara que sovint les cangons que es cantaven a
l illa lligaren els seus significats (15). One might argue that this passage invokes
the verse Dicen que la distancia es el olvido, from the ranchera La barca by
Mexican composer Roberto Cantoral (1935), created decades later than the action of
the novel takes place. Yet the invocation of songs allegedly performed during the
war, which represent nostalgia and, therefore, memory more frequently than
oblivion, makes one think of the intentional counterpoint dialogue with the popular
genre implicit in the novel. The finale of the novel will again invoke the habanera:
the protagonist leaves behind the turbulent three years of his life in Cuba and will
always remember them as la melodia del seu goig, the melody that will bring him
nostalgic pleasure. Thus the invocation of the habanera encircles this narrative.
The habaneras resound in the taverns and streets of Havana and are an
intrinsic part of the protagonists existence. Some of the direct quotations from
habaneras in the novel may be seen as polemics with the long-standing debate about
the origin of the habanera and their co-existence in Catalan and Spanish in Catalonia.
262
In Alonsos novel, a Catalan soldier who remains in Cuba after his participation in
Catalan Voluntary Troops during the Ten Year War sings in Catalan Iradiers La
paloma: Quan de lenyorada terra jo vaig sortir, 1amor mes dol? de ma vida vaig
deixar allf. I una blanca colometa macompanya (57). As I mentioned earlier, the
translation of popular traditional habaneras into Catalan has been in the center of
debate since the boom of the habanera in Catalonia. According to Joan Pericot, La
coloma in Catalan started to be sung in the 1970s with the boom of the habanera in
Catalan. Pericot, an adept of the traditional style of the Spanish habanera, ridicules
the translation of the famous Iradiers habanera into Catalan (Bassa Camp 63).
Through the representation of a famous song in Catalan the author of the novel
asserts one of the most sensitive issues for Catalan cultural identity, that of the
presence and functioning of its native language.
The reference to the habanera La ciutat cremada in the text of the novel is
exceptionally relevant for my argument about intertextuality and permutations of the
habanera. This habanera, as I explored in Chapters Three and Four, was created as
the main theme of the musical score for Antoni Ribass cinematographic epic La
ciutat cremada (1976) perceived by many as a renewed assertion of Catalan identity
through cinematography. The habanera La ciutat cremada may be explored as a
paradigmatic example of the dynamics of the new habanera in Catalan, as in the film
it switches from Spanish into Catalan while becoming the main theme of the musical
score of the film. One may argue that La ciutat cremada is employed by Alonso as
the leitmotiv of his novel. The protagonist of the novel En el mar de les Antilles
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listens to a habanera that quotes directly La ciutat cremada: Amb veu vellutada la
bagassa enceta les primers estrofes duna havanera: En mi Cuba me espera una
mulata [...] Ay mulatita querida, escucha el triste son, que te canta, mi vida, un
soldado espanol (51-52). In the novel, this habanera is sung by a Cuban prostitute
accompanied by a Catalan veteran from the voluntary troops. This setting makes one
recall the performance of the habanera Yo te dire in Antonio Romans Los ultimos
de Pilipinas.147 The only female character of this film, a Filipino woman who is in
love with a Spanish officer, sings it to Spanish soldiers who desperately continue to
hold the last remnant of the Spanish empire on Filipino soil. The reiteration in the
text of the novel of La ciutat cremada, a habanera that may be viewed as a
postmodern imitation of folklore, allows one to reflect on a certain hierarchy of
intertextuality and the persistence of discourse of Catalan involvement in Cuba in the
cultural imaginary of the nation. Alonsos novel not only invokes the habanera
through a direct quotation, but also seems to reinvent the theme of this habanera in
the plot of the novel.
The love relationship, which is in the center of the narrative, arguably is a
recreation of stereotypical images and figures represented in traditional and new
habaneras. Throughout this dissertation, I explore how the traditional habanera
articulates the discourse related to the figure of the mulatto woman and may be
perceived as a representation of what is defined by Robert J. Young as colonial
desire. The repeated invocation of the sexual qualities of a mulatto woman
147 Currently, Yo te dire is one of the most popular habaneras in Spain.
264
reinforce the desire for possessing her, while at the same time, as we explored
earlier, it excludes the possibility of a legal union or a socially accepted relationship
with her. The ambivalence of desire and rejection of a female of other race and land
is a dominant motif in the discourse related to the relationship between the white
male, a protagonist of colonial and postcolonial fiction, and a native woman, an
object of desire and lust. The fascination with the mulata, of course, is not limited to
the literature of the nineteenth century. Represented in the songs, in the theater, in
fiction and non-fiction on both sides of the Atlantic, the mythology of the sexual
qualities of the mulatto woman continues its journey into film and narrative of the
late twentieth century. En el mar de les Antilles reinvents this discourse and
articulates it in the language of a popular novel of the late twentieth century. The
relationship between Amigo and his Cuban lover La Negra Lola may be viewed as a
transparent allusion to La bella Lola, emblematic now for Catalonia and perhaps
the most popular of all traditional habaneras. The figure of the mulatto prostitute and
her relationship with the protagonist reinterpret the myth of the mulatto woman
persistent in the Western cultural imaginary. However, En el mar de les Antilles,
aimed at attracting the attention of modem readers, explicitly articulates meanings,
which were hidden behind the euphemisms of the traditional habanera. It was
traditionally up to the listeners of the songs to decide if the mulatto woman showed
to the sailor her delantal, an apron, or something else that this word stood for. In
Alonsos novel, with explicit erotic twist, the relationship between the protagonist
265
and his mulata are articulated in a language aimed at attracting the attention of
modem readers.
La Negra Lola, bom as a slave on a plantation, becomes a lover of her owner
at a very young age, practically as a child. She learns the secrets of the profession
from another female mulatto slave, who, in her turn, in her younger years was also
the lover of the same owner. Lola becomes a highly coveted object of sexual
pleasure capable of driving mad any man: La vella li va ensenyar a Lola gairebe
tot sobre Tart de la complaen^a sexual, i la resta la va anar aprenent en el seu tortuos
camf de mans en mans, fins a esdevenir una experta Afrodita capag de fer tomar boig
qualsevol home (37). The encounter between Amigo and Lola reinvents the myth
of the irresistible sexual attractiveness of a mulatto woman. Lolas professional
magnetismel seu veil ofici li havia ensenyat, per una banda, a despertar linteres
entre els homes, i, per una altra, a distinguir-ne amb un colp dull els mes avids
(24)makes the protagonist forget not only his previous unfortunate experience with
a prostitute but also his beloved wife and follow the prostitute: Encisat per
voluptuos magnetisme de la mulata, Amigo la va seguir sense pensar en res, ni en la
vella meuca de la seua adolescencia ni en la veu espectral de son pare, ni tan sols en
la silenciosa i estimada tendresa de Maria (24). The echoed legend of the
voluptuousness and of the sexual mastery of mulatto women is explicit in the text.
Lola awakens Amigos passion and becomes an object of constant desire on his part:
Dalt al soldat va quedar atrapat en la teranyina del cos
de la Negra Lola. Mai no haguera pogut pensar en
viure el desig amb una intensitat tan gran. La jove
266
prostituta de color li va oferir, a mes del seu cos, la

llibertat de no tropetar amb cap frontera en el llit. (24)
From the time he meets Lola, Amigo lives in a new world of awakened
sensuality that he had not known in his marriage with Maria, his wife left behind in
Valencia. As revealed through flashbacks, Pep meets his future wife Maria while
working at a winery outside of his native town. Their short romance turns into a
marriage that is a happy one, though their physical love is love entre penombres
(23). Deeply religious, Maria does not feel comfortable with Pep seeing her naked
body, therefore she does not allow him to turn on the light while making love. Peps
desire to see the naked body of his beloved woman makes him try to widen the
pupils of his eyes in the dark like a cat in order to see and savor it. However, he is
confined to feel satisfied quan es reflectia lombra de les seues siluetes en la paret
de lestanga (23). As a taboo of any sort enhances the desire, Pep becomes almost
obsessed with the desire to watch the nudity of a woman, a desire that will be
fulfilled in Cuba with La Negra Lola.
Amigos sensual awakening is part of the transformation that the protagonist
undergoes during his service in Cuba. The impact of literacy that he acquires in
Cuba due to his friendship with Ramon Calls and of the sensual awakening are
intertwined, and they are factors that make him try to understand the nature of
existential questions. However, he does not find answers to the questions that
suddenly start to interest him:
Despres de 1orgasme es va adormir abragada al cos del
soldat Valencia, que, en silenci, reflexionava sobre els
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vaivens de la seua vida, tot injectant al seu pensament
unes gotes de poesia, genere literari pel qual anava
sentint una gran afeccio a mesura que coneixia Fobra
dalguns autors:
Per que les ones tomen una vegada i una altra
a la mateixa platja? Per que si el seu desig seria rompre
en altres litorals? Per que retome una vegada i una
altra a la mateixa cambra per a rompre la meua passio
sobre el cos de la Negra Lola i no sobre el duna altra
dona? Per que si la meua pasio esta mars enlla? (40)
Despite his passion for the young and sexually sophisticated Lola, Amigo
cannot help thinking about his wife, Maria, whose figure remains present in his life
not only through the letters that she sends to him, but also through his memory and
nostalgia for her tender and complacent love. Thus the novel revives the commonly
accepted dichotomy of the legitimate spouse and mother of ones children who
remains in the mother country, and the lover of another race who represents the land
that needs to be colonized and fertilized. This permissiveness towards sexual
contacts with native women in the colonized land and subsequent return to Catalonia
where one finds his true love, as we saw earlier, is in tune with the discourse
articulated in postmodern imitations of folklore such as La ciutat cremada, to
which we turn again:
a cantar 1havanera
terra catalana retrobo l amor. (XXXIII Cantada 8)
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Alonsos novel reinvents the theme of this habanera. The passion and desire
that Amigo feels for his Cuban lover do not bring peace to the soldier Amigo. His
relationship with Lola makes him feel guilty for being unfaithful to his wife and to
the family that is left behind at home. The feeling of guilt that he experiences after
sexual intercourse with Lola makes him search for a connection with Maria and his
children in his native Pouet. Maria is an embodiment of motherhood. For her, the
act of love is a prelude for procreation, for giving birth to Amigos children.
Amigos memory reveals that Maria never seems to sleep, she only lets her body
rest, always ready to respond to her childrens movements. The memory of Maria
and his family enhances Amigos feeling of guilt and discomfort at having a
relationship with a prostitute. However, the acute desire for the nude body of the
mulata prevails in Amigo and makes him forget for the time of his existence in Cuba
both his home and his wife. His desire for the nudity of the young mulata is
irrational, however, irresistible:
No entenia la rao daqeust desig, pero se sentia
terriblement atret per la imatge de la nuesa. Sobtat per
una vaga ansietat, va recorrer amb 1esguard cada plec
de la pell morena, recreant-se all! on la bellesa de les
formes es feia mes patent, i assaborint amb delit la
tendresa daquella cam adolescent que arajeia
relaxada despres del coit. (44)
Strong as his desire for La Negra Lola is, however it is not more than his
temporary state due to the circumstances of the war in which he finds himself. In
spite of the metamorphosis that the day laborer Pep el de Tos undergoes during the
war, the only woman that would be a part of his life for ever is Maria, his wife and
269
the mother of his children (92). The masculinist discourse invoking that of the
traditional habanera is transparent in the relationship between the mulatto woman
and the white male protagonist. Amigos carnal desire does not go beyond the
admiration of the physical qualities of the mulata and the pleasure of her sexual
sophistication, which, however, contribute to the transformation of the protagonist.
Amigos perception of the mulatto woman as a remedy against nostalgia and an
erotic fantasy that comes true also invokes the images of the traditional habanera,
explicitly articulating them:
La Negra Lola era tota una altra cosa; potser fora
lamant, el somni ocult i realitzat; potser fora el remei
per a una enyoranga dura i amarga, el remei contra el
desig que ho enva'fa tot; potser fora la jove mestra de
l amor que, com ara Ramon, contribuia en la formacio
del jomaler de Pouet tot transforman-lo en un altre
home, menys tosc, mes conscient del seu cos i de la
profunditat de les cancies que li oferia a 1altre esser
amb el cual compartia 1amor. (93)
The discourse articulated in the novel continues traditional stereotyping of
female dependence on the male. Though for Amigo, La Negra Lola is nothing more
than a realization of his sexual fantasies, his qualities of man and lover make the
young prostitute fall in love with him. Bom on a plantation and used as a love toy by
the owner since she was a child, Lola escapes from her owner. Her freedom,
however, does not bring anything but more trouble into her life. Obliged to be a
prostitute, she finds in Amigo what she never found in any other male. With Amigo
she feels loved and protected (43). As their relationship progresses, she tries to
spend with him as much time as she can and does not charge him any more when
270
they have sex. Thus one can observe in the discourse of the novel the implicit
admiration and masculinist praising of the protagonist. The female figures continue
to be dependent on the male, now, however, emotionally as Lola. Lolas desperate
love for Amigo, who will eventually disappear from her life, makes one think of a
new twist of the masculinist discourse in the novel:
A mes, quan feien lamor mai no fingia. Tenia por
dassumir-ho, pero nestava enamorada. Mai negoci
per a una prostituta, sens dubte, aixo denamorar-se
dun home, i menys encara dun soldat de la metropoli
que podia desapareixer en qualsevol moment, mort o
simplement canviat de destinacio o llicenciat. Lamor
per una prostituta poques vegades tenia futur, un futur
felig. Conscient daquest amor sense esperana, Lola
sabocava a la seua pasio sense pensar en res mes. (45)
One cannot help seeing in the relationship between Amigo and la Negra Lola
an evocation of the habanera La bella Lola, in which the sailor is almost dying of
pleasure when the woman greets him waving her white kerchief and giving him a
hug in front of other sailors. La bella Lola sounds as a triumph of masculinist
discourse and male pride for the attention that he receives from the female. In En el
mar de les Antilles, the masculine qualities of the protagonist and their appraisal are
emphasized explicitly and implicitly. The metaphorical euphemisms of the
traditional habanera are substituted by direct reference to the masculinist virtues in
the boisterous discourse of Amigos friend about La Negra Lola: Caram, mira la
negreta, no et trau lull de damunt. Pel que sembla la tens mig enamorada. Aixo o
es que tens el piu de ferro (110). Implicitly it is represented in the authors
discourse:
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Amigo li feu lamor amb el mal pressentiment que ella
seria 1ultima dona amb la qual estaria. Aquell
pressentiment el feia entregar-se i assaborir mes
intensament Facte. Lola, al seu tom, en trobar-lo tan
apassionat, tan entregat, es va sentir plena de goig i de
felicitat. (110-111)
Lola almost dies trying to save Amigo from adversaries who make an attempt
at his life. Moreover, when Amigo leaves Cuba to return to his native land, Lola is
pregnant with his child. Thus the novel reinvents the myth of fertilization of
colonized lands and reiterates traditional discourse of colonial desire.
The reinvention of colonial desire and the myth of the mulata is not the only
intertextual trait related to the habanera in this novel. En el mar de les Antilles
reinvents the habanera in two ways: by emphasizing what may be perceived as
colonial desire through the relationship between Amigo and his mulatto mistress, and
by entering into a subversive polemics with the myth of heroic soldiers and sailors
articulated in traditional and new habaneras. The title En el mar de les Antilles, as I
mentioned, invokes a verse from El meu avi, a habanera probably familiar to
everybody in Catalonia:
Arribaren temps de Guerra, de perfidies i trai'cions,
i en el mar de les Antilles retronaren els canons.
Els mariners de Calella, el meu avi enmig de tots,
varen morir a coberta, al peu del cano.
This habanera, created by Jose Luis Ortega Monasterio in 1968 and presented
to the public in 1971, is willingly perceived by the audience as a verisimilar
representation of the past of the nation. Reinventing the heroic deeds of the past
generations, this new habanera emphasizes the involuntary participation and the
272
sacrifice of Catalans in Spains colonial war and, at the same time, makes homage to
Catalonia and Catalans that participate in it. As I explored in Chapter Three, El
meu avi may also be seen as a catalyst for the proliferation of new habaneras in the
Catalan language. These new habaneras, on the one hand, continue the traditional
discourse of the habaneras in Spanish related to the participation in the colonial war
and overseas travel, on the other, make their significant contribution to the assertion
of the identity of Catalonia as a maritime community. As I also argued, El meu
avi creates its own mythology with follow-ups that develop the discourse of
Catalan identity, as one can see in the habaneras La meva avia and LAvi Quim
no va anar a Cuba, among others. In this sense, the novel En el mar de les Antilles
can be read as the continuation and development of this discourse, and also, most
importantly, as a critique of this discourse. On the one hand, through an explicit
emphasis on the description of sexual relations between the protagonist and his
mulatto lover, the narrative, in the language of the late twentieth century, fleshes out
the meanings hidden behind the euphemisms of the traditional habanera. On the
other, by way of representing the protagonist and his companions as soldiers who
commit a military crime, the narrative puts them into the position of anti-heroes and
thus challenges the heroic discourse created by El meu avi.
The novel acknowledges the creation of myths through the habanera in the
collective imaginary of the nation, as one of the characters speculates about the
future impact of the sacrifice of the protagonist and his fellow soldiers at war. The
words of Ramon Calls, an ex-student from Barcelona turned into a corporal, can be
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read as a direct allusion to the habanera El meu avi, as well as to the novel itself,
thus converting the text into a self-reflection:
[P]otser algun fill o alguna filla guardara amorosament
la medalla, 1uniforme que ara porta o fins i tot
1expedient de guerra, i algun dia un net o un besnet
daquells que estan ferits per les lletres posara el seu
nom entre estrofes i el rememorara com un heroi de
Cuba. (99)
The novel challenges the mythology of heroi de Cuba by representing the
protagonist and his companions as anti-heroes more than heroes. The polemics and
the critique of the myth of heroes created through the discourse of the habanera,
however, enhance this myth and give it a new interpretation. The protagonist and his
third teacher, Escriva, become directly involved in a military crime of outstanding
proportions, which is the explosion of the battleship Maine in Havana harbor in
February of 1898.148 Having accepted the offer to blow up the battleship Maine,
Amigo and Escriva, two Catalan soldiers serving their larger mother country, Spain,
become an instrument in the hands of those who, as in any war, seek and receive
profit at the cost of the lives of thousands confined to be cannon fodder. The myth
of sacrifice of Catalan soldiers serving the interests of Spains colonial machine
148 The explosion of the Maine enters history as an example of the power that
the press can exercise in society. The Hearst anti-Spanish campaign under the
slogan of Remember the Maine is commonly viewed as an unprecedented pressure
on the public opinion in the United States and its government that led to the
American intervention in the war between Spain and Cuba. As it happens very
often, the real causes of the war were substituted by an obvious reason heavily
represented in the yellow press.
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implicit in El meu avi and other habaneras is questioned by foregrounding the key
role of two Catalan soldiers in a crime of unspeakable proportions.
The story of mariners de Calella, el meu avi enmig de tots, who varen
morir a coberta, al peu del cano, as I explored in Chapter Three, is perceived by
many in Catalonia as a verisimilar representation of historical events and may be
compared for its significance for Catalan cultural imaginary to Els segadors,
Catalan national anthem. By evoking historical personalities and events, Alonsos
novel enters into a dialogue with this discourse. The mystery surrounding until
today the explosion of the battleship Maine offers a privileged space for a fantasy
that may be perceived as verisimilar and thus enhance the role of Catalans in the
events with notorious consequences for Spain and the whole world. Even today the
cause of the explosion still remains a mystery. Thousands of pages have been
written about the possible causes of the disaster on board the ship that cost the life of
two hundred fifty American marines. Different versions of the cause of the
explosion have been discussed for the last one hundred years suggesting the
possibility of involvement of Spanish forces, of Cuban rebels and even of
Americans.149 By inventing the role of Catalan soldiers in an event of such
proportions, the novel contributes to the creation of Catalan identity as an active
agent in Cuban colonial enterprise.
149 The Castro regime for decades played an anti-American and pro-Soviet
card alleging that the Americans arranged the explosion themselves to have a pretext
to enter the war between Cuba and Spain. Most recent research, however, seems to
confirm the accidental character of the explosion (Moreno Fraginals, Cuba/Espana
337).
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Though the driving force behind the consent of the protagonist and his
companion Bemat, un espavilat, un buscavides, whose life objective is very
simple, he wants to be a rich man, un home ric (25), in the crime is similarthey
do it for the sake of promised remuneration,the reaction of the two to the aftermath
is strikingly different. Amigo is repentant and depressed by the crime that he
committed against his religious and moral convictions. Escriva, however, does not
show any signs of remorse. If Amigo is represented as a complex character in search
of his identity, Thome pie de contradiccions (111), his friend Escriva seems to be
interested only in money without any signs of remorse or doubt: Mestre, oblidat de
tot ara i pensa nomes en el munt de diners que ens esperen. Amb diners en les mans
la vida sempre es mes facil i la gent et respecta, encara que sigues el mes gran fill de
puta del mon (105). Amigo who accepts the offer of money for a crime is not the
religious and illiterate laborer Pep el de Tos and not the self-educating soldier
Amigo, but a new identity transformed by the circumstances of the war:
A larmeria es trobava amb un altre home que no era
aquell que a Pouet coneixien com Pep el de Tos, pero
aquest nou home tampoc era el recluta Amigo. Era un
personatge strany, pie de miseries i de fantasies que el
desbordaven per tots els costats. Un botxf, a la vegada
que el seu millor amic. (96)
The unflattering simile with an executioner represents Amigo as an anti-hero who
accepts the life philosophy of his third teacher Escriva and is ready to commit an
atrocious crime for money: Aquest individu miserble i egoista es mostrava, sense
276
cap mena descrupol, partidari de seguir el Bemat Escriva i el gringo150 en la seua
accio de sabotatge, i li retreia el seu conformisme i la seua covardia (97). The
circumstances of war and the misery that expects him in his native land upon return
from the military service make him agree to an offer that will help to achieve
financial independence, the dream of all his life, an ability to work on his own land
and get out of poverty: Diners! Darrere daquella paraula o, mes aviat, darrere del
desig daconseguir-los, samagaven tots els anhels del jomaler Pep el de Tos (78).
Formation received in the war and the new knowledge acquired due to reading
contradict and make him doubt the moral principles on which the life of the illiterate
laborer was built, la seua concepcio del mon del treball, les seues creences
religioses (97). However, the remorse and doubt follow him everywhere. Amigos
In a peculiar way, the novel plays with the motif of the guilt of Americans,
explicit in the habanera El meu avitingueren la culpa els americans. Amigo
and Escriva are approached by an American, Albert Roosevelt, who convinces them
that he represents good patriots of Spain and that the act of sabotage, for which
they will be generously remunerated, will attract the attention to the Cuban problem
in Madrid and in alguns despatxos i algunes redaccions de Washington i de Nova
York (75). Later, it becomes clear to the reader that Roosevelt, whose real name is
OReally, is directly connected to William Randolph Hearst from whom he receives
instructions and money. The connection between the alleged Roosevelt and Hearst is
emphasized on two levels, which may also be viewed as verisimilar and intertextual.
On the verisimilar level, there is a direct discussion in the text of the role of Hearst
and his press in the American involvement in the war (127). In Roosevelts room,
the soldiers see the newspaper The New York Journal, one of Hearsts notorious
yellow newspapers. One may perceive this detail as an attempt aimed at adding an
air of verisimilitude to the fictitious plot of the participation of two Catalan soldiers
in installing the explosive on board the battleship. More interesting is perhaps the
indirect allusion to Hearst through Charles Foster Kane, the protagonist and arguably
a representation of Hearst in the acclaimed movie Citizen Kane, through the name
William Rosebud, with which a telegram with instructions addressed to Roosevelt/
OReally is signed.
277
cowardice and strive for money make him commit a crime that leads to another
crime when he kills Roosevelt/ OReally fearing for his own life. On the one hand,
Amigo is an anti-hero, a contrast to the heroic figures praised in El meu avi and
other habaneras. On the other, Amigos representation as a human being and a
victim of the brutal circumstances of the war reiterate the discourse about the
soldiers of the war who become innocent victims of the governments blindness.
The novel once again fleshes out what is perceived in the cultural imaginary as part
of its historical identity.
En el mar de les Antilles reinvents various aspects of the myths of Catalans
and Cuba. The relationship between Amigo and La Negra Lola may be perceived as
a reinvention of colonial desire. As I mentioned, the mulata legend achieves its
culmination in the finale of the novel. Not only does Lola without remorse sacrifice
her life for her beloved Amigo and survives. She survives to give life to Amigos
child whom he will never know, a scenario many times repeated in fiction and in life.
For Amigo, Cuba will for ever remain a nostalgic memory of the habanera: aviat
1Havana no seria mes que un record, un parentesi en la seua vida. His life upon
return to Spain is his family and his beloved Maria, while La Negra Lola and
everything left behind in Cuba will be nothing more than the melody evoking the
past, una melodia del seu goig (155). The finale of the novel may be read as an
invocation of a traditional habanera:
En Cuba esta la reina del placer
La hermosura del bien y la rosa sin color
Que con su mirar me late el corazon.
278
Amigos crime for the sake of money challenges the essence of Catalan
colonial enterprise, that of creating a fortune, fer les Ameriques. Amigos fortune
is made ruthlessly at the cost of numerous lives. However, many fortunes created in
the nineteenth century in Cuba included the inhuman and ruthless methods that
involved slave trade. The novel seemingly enters into polemics with the heroic spirit
of the habanera that praises the sacrifice of Spanish and Catalan soldiers during the
war in Cuba. However, the polemics and critique of discourse articulated in the
habanera enhance the impact of this discourse on the collective imaginary of the
nation.
Perhaps targeted at a broader Spanish-speaking audience, the novel Habanera
by Angeles Dalmau is published in Seville and is the winner of the VTTTPremio
International de Novela Luis Berenguer, an award granted by a jury representing the
Andalusian city of San Fernando. Written in Spanish, this novel may pretend to
represent a broader discourse in the context of Spain as a whole, yet, at the same
time, it is explicitly committed to a specifically Catalan discourse related to overseas
adventure. The protagonist and the narrator of this novel is a middle-aged female
artist from Barcelona whose name the reader will never know. Likewise, one may
only circumstantially figure out her age. This anonymity, complemented by her
archetypal status variously as mother, daughter and widow, suggests the possibility
of identifying her with an entire generation. In her fifties, the protagonist undertakes
a journey to Cuba where she spent her childhood. The years of formation of the
279
protagonist and the story of a family of Catalan indianos are revealed in a series of
flashbacks triggered by a nostalgia-driven journey to present-day Cuba in order to
visit the houses of her long lost childhood. The dates of the protagonist-narrators
life and of her family history are directly connected to the history of Spain. The
family leaves Spain in 1936 as the Civil War begins, and returns nine years later with
the hope that general Franco will soon step down. Thus the novel is concerned with
the most recent history and the last wave of Catalan immigration to Cuba. The story
of the family of indianos is represented in the novel as part of the history of the
nation, for which immigration to Cuba in search of material fortune continues to be a
significant cultural myth. The representation of this myth in Dalmaus novel,
however, takes new turns as the female protagonist narrator gives a new perspective
to the traditional masculinist discourse concerned with overseas expansion.
The novel starts with the protagonists participation in the funeral of her
uncle, who, similar to many other Catalan immigrants, returned to Catalonia after
building a fortune in Cuba. The funeral of her uncle and a passage through a
cemetery in her native Vilafranca make her reflect on her familys connection to
Cuba and on the role that her mother and other women played in the American
adventure:
Tras la desaparicion de mi padre, un ano antes, solo el
se mantenfa como debil testimonio de la aventura
americana de mi familia. Era el ultimo en la lfnea
masculina, y tras su muerte solo quedaban las mujeres
como testigos de ese esfuerzo que parecfa diluirse en el
vacfo. (12)
280
Forty years after her familys return from Cuba, she decides to revisit the
houses where her family lived. The journey to her roots is motivated by a nostalgia
for a long lost comfort of a well heeled childhood of prosperous Catalan immigrants
and by her desire to revisit Cuba while her aging mother is still alive. Thus the role
of women in immigration becomes the center of the narrative. The anonymity of the
protagonist narrator suggests a reflection on the universality of the female figures,
participants of immigration. In traditional discourse concerned with overseas travel,
the role of women is most often reduced to a shadowy figure that follows a husband
or an unknown fiance in marriages arranged by paternal figures for material profit of
families. Dalmaus novel subverts these stereotypes by showing the role of women
in immigration through the protagonists perception of the role and position of her
mother who plays an equal role with the father in taking family and business
decisions, and through the recuperation of the protagonists identity that takes place
in Cuba during her journey. The female narrative voice and the emphasis on the
participation of women challenge the traditional discourse of immigration with its
focus on the male protagonist. One may argue that this habanera of the end of the
twentieth century gives a new feminist twist to the discourse concerned with Catalan
immigration to the Caribbean.
A nostalgically remembered childhood and the lost comfort of a home
abandoned because of the familys return to Spain convert the figure of protagonists
mother into the metaphorical representation of her home: Levante los ojos, y la mire
con la certeza devastadora de que en adelante ella iba a ser mi unica casa (212).
281
The mother continues to be the centric figure even when the protagonist herself is a
mother and a widow apparently in her fifties. The figure of her mother continues to
represent in the protagonists imagination an unachievable image of feminine
perfection to which she turns in search of her own identity: Aun ahora, ya abuela,
busco en el espejo mi propia imagen esperando ver al menos el palido reflejo de
aquella magnffica mujer que fue durante anos el unico modelo en que reconocemos
(42). Seen through the eyes of the daughter, the mothers role is crucial in the
history of the family and in her daughters life. The mothers authority prevails over
the authority of the father whose presence, because of his devotion to his business, is
compared to a shadow permeating the house: Era como una sombra difusa entre los
muros de nuestra casa (43).
The mothers role is enhanced when she takes a crucial and devastating for
her daughters decision to return to Spain after nine years of comfortable exile spent
in Cuba. For the protagonist, the return to Spain is not the return home as it is for her
mother. Having spent her childhood in Cuba, she considers the island her only
home. Taken away from this tropical paradise, the only home she knows, the
protagonist and her sisters, cubanitas, as they are called in their native Vilafranca,
pass through a drastic period of adaptation to the grim reality of the post-war Spain.
She nostalgically dreams of returning back to the land of her childhood:
Anoraba mi tierra de San Vicente, el rfo y la canada, y
odiaba la unica palmera que habfa en el jardfn,
precisamente porque estimulaba mi evocation de la
isla. Esperaba que ocurriera algo, un milagro, algo que
justificara el que me hubieran trafdo allf. Pero no paso
282
nada en aquel inviemo interminable, nada en aquellos

anos grises que parecfan etemos. (199)
By mentioning a palm tree, which enhances the protagonists nostalgia,
Habanera questions a popular stereotype of achieved prosperity and social promotion
as implicit goals of immigration. Financial stability achieved by way of immigration
is associated in the popular imaginary with houses and mansions of americanos
typically accompanied by a palm tree in front. In Dalmaus novel these emblems are
questioned as seen through the eyes of a child who loses the comfort and stability of
her childhood upon returning from Cuba to the post-war Spain.
One might ask, however, what connection there is between the subject of the
novel, which is a journey of a female protagonist to her roots, and the title invoking
the songs that traditionally speak of voluptuous mulatto women. Habanera offers a
non-traditional interpretation of a traditional theme. While visiting Cuba forty years
after her family left the island, the protagonist and her son discover a well-kept
family secret, the existence of a mulatto half sister of the protagonists father. The
consequence of her grandfathers adventure in Cuba is kept secret for decades from
family and friends for a clear-cut racial prejudice: Quizas intuyo que no tenia un
lugar en la familia, y que para mi abuelo no podrfa ser mas que un recuerdo
antillano (186). However, in the novel told from the perspective of a daughter of a
family of americanos, the mulatto aunt makes the protagonist feel even more
connected to Cuba. This blood kinship and the protagonists identification with the
imagined Cuba of her childhoodcasi soy cubana (26)makes one think again of
283
certain twists of nostalgia for imaginary empire that Catalonia never possessed. The
discourse of nostalgia articulated through a female voice in search of her houses and
of her identity evokes an analogy with Indochine (1992) by Regis Wargnier and its
female protagonist. The discovery of a blood kinship with the nostalgically desired
land of her childhood enhances her love for Cuba and her renewed nostalgia for the
long gone times of the prosperity of Catalan immigrants on the island. Her nostalgia
for Cuba, at first sight, may be perceived as an evocation of the nostalgia explicit in
the traditional habanera. However, Dalmaus female protagonist gives new twists to
the nostalgia for a lost tropical paradise. Her nostalgia is the nostalgia of a woman
and a daughter of prosperous immigrants. Cuba for her is associated with the
comfort of a childhood in a well to do immigrant family. Seen through the eyes of
his daughter, her father is a realization of the myth of a prosperous immigrant. The
protagonists nostalgia for Cuba, unlike the nostalgia of traditional habaneras has no
connotations of sexual desire intrinsic to the traditional habanera. In the
protagonists imagination, the long lost tropical island is a metaphor for her lost
home and identity. The discovery of a mulatto aunt bom and buried in Cuba makes
her feel comfortable and even jealous of belonging to Cuba: Me alegro que alguien
de la familia hubiera podido quedarse en la isla toda la vida. A m lm e sacaron de
aquf. Por unos instantes casi la envidie (184).
More importantly, the nostalgia of generations that experienced Cuban
immigration is transmitted to new generations in the form of collective memory.
The protagonists journey, in which she is accompanied by one of her adult children,
284
becomes a journey in time, a process whereby the protagonists memory recreates

the life of her family in Cuba and after return to Spain. Through the narrators voice
it becomes clear that the years that the family spent in Cuba leave a profound impact
not only on the lives of those who participated in this semi-voluntary exile, but also,
on the imaginary of new generations, the descendants of americanos, represented in
the novel by the protagonists son Javier who accompanies her as she searches for
her roots. New generations perceive nostalgia for Cuba explicit in the habanera as
part of their identity. It is Javier who pronounces the words that I chose for the
epigraph to this chapter: ahora estoy viendo lo que hay detras, lo que callan esas
canciones, las historias que olvidan (131). Similar to En el mar de les Antilles.
Habanera fleshes out the representation of the tropical paradise in nostalgic songs
through the eyes of new generations who inherited this nostalgia. The protagonists
parents, their friends, relatives and neighbors belonged to those who traveled to Cuba
in order to improve their financial situation, and upon return back to Catalonia never
visited Cuba again. However, el embruio, the spell of Cuba, remained with them
for the rest of their lives and is transmitted to new generations through memory and
nostalgic music associated with Cuba. A representative of a new generation, Javier
shares with his mother the fascination with the land where family members once
prospered. Like his mother, he feels at home in Cuba, what makes the protagonist
wonder if the children and grandchildren inherited the collective memory about the
land that they had never seen. More importantly, she recovers her identity as she
285
realizes her own mission of conveying the memory of the past of her family to her
children:
^Acaso al hablar tanto de la isla a nuestros hijos
habfamos conseguido transmitirles, sin damos cuenta,
esa magica e irreal familiaridad que provocan los
paisajes heredados? Su reaccion de cercama con ese
entomo, desconocido para el, evidencio que los lazos
con esta tierra no terminaban conmigo. (25)
The novel acknowledges collective memory of the nation enhanced through
the song genre of the habanera and the transmission of this memory and nostalgia to
younger generations as part of collective identity of the nation. It would be
appropriate here to remember Benedict Andersons thought about popular songs and
poetry as a signifier of national identities. Anderson argues that poetry, songs and
especially national anthems create a unique experience of unisonality, which is an
echoed physical realization of the imagined community: If we are aware that others
are singing these songs precisely when and as we are, we have no idea who they may
be, or even where, out of earshot, they are singing. Nothing connects us all but
imagined sound (132-33).
The novels discussed in this chapter seem to have little in common, as their
protagonists, time settings and subjects are apparently distant. However, their
similarity lies in the reinvention in the language of the late twentieth century of the
collective memory of the nation, for which the connection to Cuba and prosperity
associated with it becomes at the end of the twentieth century a relevant signifier of
its identity. By entering into an intertextual dialogue with the subjects and themes of
286
popular songs, the novels En el mar de les Antilles (1998) by Manel Alonso i Catala,
and Habanera: El reencuentro con un oculto pasado antillano (1999) by Angeles
Dalmau acknowledge the habanera as an emblem of Catalan identity and flesh out
the schematic representations of the lost tropical paradise that persist in the cultural
imaginary of Catalonia, a nation continuously self-fashioning itself as a maritime
community with strong overseas links and its own place in the colonial enterprise.
287
Conclusion
My research started with curiosity about the meanings that stand behind
repeated invocations of Cuba in Catalan discourse related to its past. Classes of
Catalan that I took in Barcelona were held in a mansion that, according to a local
legend, was once built by an americano and was spacious enough to house a
number of University departments. The first thing one sees upon arrival at Sitges
railway station is an advertisement inviting visitors to follow a tourist route to see
casas de americanos. Perhaps my vision was selective, but this is what I saw.
My interest and my attention to the discourse related to americanos was
triggered by the representation of Catalan colonial enterprise in Antoni Verdaguers
adventurous melodrama Havanera 1820. whose action took place mostly in Cuba
while its protagonists were speaking Catalan. When I interviewed Verdaguer, he
mentioned that the mini-series was conceived as a pseudo habanera for the
emblematic significance of the songs on the Catalan coast. That same summer a
facsimile edition of Montsalvatges Album de habaneras was on display at the
FNAC, by all accounts the biggest bookstore in Barcelona. Habanera by Angeles
Dalmau was also among the new arrivals at this store on the same day. In the
musical department of this giant of globalization with headquarters in France and
stores all over Europe, I was completely lost among more than fifty compact disks by
groups that sang habaneras in Spanish and in Catalan, among which only the title
La paloma rang some far away bells at that time.
288
As I was looking deeper into the story of the habanera and the controversy
and debate about its origins, ways of transmission, and formssuch as dance and
songthe habanera started to shape out as a permutable cultural sign that for more
than a century and a half seems to be in the process of constant transformations. The
ever debatable questions when? and where first? still seemed to pose more
questions than answers. However, the perception of the habanera as a signifier of
various cultural identities, such as Cuban, Spanish and Catalan, in different historical
circumstances made me believe that an exploration of what these songs represent and
how they help generate new cultural signs is perhaps more important than the claims
of priority as for their origin.
Cuba, a tropical island associated with former financial prosperity, is
fantasized in songs, film and fiction as a utopian island of nostalgia by the nation that
for centuries has self-fashioned itself as opposed to the central government. Yet,
from nostalgic songs that invoke what may be perceived as colonial desire, the
habanera in Catalonia evolves into a new cultural sign, which asserts Catalonia as a
maritime community with strong overseas links and its own history of colonial
enterprise. Through nostalgia for an empire that Catalonia never possessed, songs,
works of fiction, and film created in the last decade of the twentieth century, assert
the identity of Catalonia as a European nation that has its own colonial and imperial
enterprise in the nineteenth century not overshadowed by the center. At the same,
time, the appropriation of the habanera as an emblem of Catalan identity may be
viewed through the prism of a further European integration and globalization.
289
Through a self-representation as a community that profited from overseas colonial

enterprise in Cuba in its own right, Catalonia continues its secular attempts at
identifying herself as a part of a globalized Europe.
The appropriation of the habanera as an emblem of Catalan identity is a
privileged space for exploration as Catalonia represents an example of small nations
where acts of ethnicocultural affirmation continue to play a major role in the
assertion of national identity. These small nations, such as the Baltic nations of the
former Soviet Union, survived the suppression of their languages and autochthonous
cultures during the times of dictatorships and managed to preserve their cherished
cultural identities. The permutations of the habanera in Catalonia are directly related
to the complex issue of the Catalan language and diglossia characteristic for
Catalonia. Language is peceived as a basic element of national identities in most
models of nation building, yet in Catalonia it has been continuously claimed as a
core issue of identity. The story of Catalan habanera underscores it. Since the times
of Spains last colonial war, habaneras were traditionally sung in Catalonia in
Spanish, until the years of the dictablanda and the transition to a new Spain, when
they start to evolve in Catalan. The linguistic transformation of the habanera in
Catalonia may be seen as a key element in this nations self-representation related to
its overseas adventure. At the time of the renewed assertion of Catalan nationhood,
the habanera becomes an emblem claimed by certain circles as an autochthonous
Catalan cultural sign and therefore part of Catalan cultural identity. However, the
exploration of the habanera phenomenon in Catalonia shows that the habanera in
290
Spanish forms an intrinsic part of Catalan cultural imaginary. Thus the exclusion of
habaneras in Spanish from such highly reputed event as the Mostra de lHavanera
Catalana in Palamos contradicts the inclusive character of Catalan identity
propagated by its ideologists. Catalan identity is generally seen as inclusive, which
means it includes everybody who lives in Catalonia and speaks Catalan, what does
not exclude those who also speak Spanish. The analogy with the sardana is useful
here, as the Catalan national dance is represented as inclusive, in which everybody
may participate, however, to be able to do it one should master the steps and be able
to follow a rather complicated rhythm.
The viability and ambivalence of the habanera in the twentieth century
suggests that the convergence of cultures, a process far from being simple, entails
constant metamorphoses of cultural signsindeed, transculturations as Fernando
Ortiz formulated it. But the process of transculturation does not stop with the
formation of new nations and cultures, such as Cuba. The phenomenon of Catalan
habanera, booming, as it were, in the last four decades of the twentieth century, and
into the twenty-first, can be seen both as a product and a vehicle of the evolving
transculturation, a process that continues to create new cultural forms and identities.
The viability of the habanera in Spain shows that the habanera continues its journey
into the postmodern world by traveling back to the old imperial centers and having a
boomerang effect on the formation of constantly evolving cultural imaginaries. The
propensity of the habanera to generate new cultural signifiers is underscored in the
last decade of the twentieth century in Catalonia where not only new habaneras are
291
created, but also works of cinematography and fiction reinvent the habanera in the
cinematographic and new narrative language of the late twentieth century.
It will be interesting further to see if the habanera and the sardana will
continue to survive and fulfill their functions as signs of cultural identity in the
twenty-first century with further globalization and disappearance of national and
economic frontiers and barriers. Will cultural signs that define identities and are
directly connected to language survive the pressure of diglossia that, according to
some sources, continues to constitute a serious problem in Catalonia in spite of major
efforts of linguistic normalization? Both sardana circles and audiences of cantadas
of habaneras are formed mostly by mature population. Will small nations and their
cultural emblems be able to continue their self-assertion in the twenty-first century
under the pressure of the North American accent of the MTV and the proliferation of
Frank Gehrys creations in different parts of the world?
Another set of interesting questions may be related to Cuba and the
perception of Catalonia in Cuban cultural imaginary, which I did not explore in this
work. Will the attempts at the revival of the habanera in Cuba started with the first
festival Habaneras en La Habana in 1989 be relevant for Cuban cultural imaginary?
What are further transformations of the term Catalan once perceived as a synonym
of merchant there? What stories do habaneras bom in Cuba tell and conceal? Can
one tell the story of Cuba through the habanera? These may be further aspects of
exploration of the habanera as a multifaceted and ambivalent cultural sign.
292
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EMPIRES OF THE HABANERA:

CUBA IN THE CULTURAL IMAGINARY OF CATALONIA

A Dissertation Presented to the

UMI Number: 3094303

ProQuest Information and Learning Company

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

This dissertation, w ritten b y

Under th e direction o f h.fl... D issertation

..A u g u st6.^. 2.Q02.

DISSER TA TION COMMITTEE

Fig. 1. Gran Casino de Barcelona. Advertisement.

Fig. 2. Book cover of Album de habaneras.

Fig. 3. Josep Maria Prim, La cana dulce.

Fig. 4. Josep Puig, Alla en La Habana.

Fig. 5. The giants El Pigat and La Lucia, Vilassar de Mar.

En el mar de les Antillesunderscore the habanera as a viable sign of Catalan

A reader who opened the Barcelona newspaper La Vanguardia during the

El teu avi va anar a Cuba.

Fig. 1. Gran Casino de Barcelona. Advertisement. La Vanguardia. 4 Aug. 2000:

3 Catalunya i Ultramar: Poder i negoci a les colonies espanyoles (1750-1914),

participated in the colonial expansion, contributed to the articulation of this

4 It should be noted that other regions of massive emigration,Asturias,

5 Vicens Vivess Noticia de Catalunya first published in 1954 is a

Catalan historiography distinguishes the development of pactismo, a

Hargreaves offers a concise definition of pactismo: a notion that rules are

served as a corporation of merchants, a trade exchange and a court of justice. The

9 In the twentieth century the date of September 11 would be chosen as the

11 See Balcells: While for other nationalities, race or religion were to

remaining confined to the work of coteries and

15 Antoni Maria Claret was appointed archbishop of Santiago de Cuba in

intense private associationism of Catalan society and the proliferation of voluntary

18 See Hargreaves p.22; Conversi p. 139; Giner p. 12.

the sardana is traditionally considered to be the most distinguished element of

The creation of the new dance based on folkloric traditions of the

Hargreaves quotes Torras i Bages, an ideologist of Catalan nationalism of

Emporda region in North-Eastern Catalonia is traditionally associated with the name

24 On the sardana as an invented tradition, see Stanley Brandes, The

25 Salvador Giner, Albert Balcells, Daniele Conversi, John Hargreaves stress

Catalonia and Cuba: Approaches to a Historical Discourse

No hay pueblo en La Habana: no hay mas que

The publication of Martis book, which articulates a flattering and paternalist

Martis book, preceded by a letter-prologue in Catalan by

another prominent ideologist of Catalan conservative nationalism Francesc Cambo,27

Javier Tusell in an introduction to Prat de la Ribas work published in 1998

be followed by a second part dedicated to the activities of his contemporaries. This

See his highly acclaimed work Aproximacion a la historia de Espana first

30 Cuban historian Manuel Moreno Fraginals, whose work El ingenio is a vast

In addition to his theory of the commercial and financial weakness of

32 In Martf s Los catalanes en America: Cuba, this last name is spelled as

occidental. En ellas vimos precisamente, una de las

Catalans, with their longstanding tradition of commercial diaspora in the

Catalan immigration is also viewed as a classic example of chain

The first destination for an immigrant typically would be the

established House of Commerce of a relative or a family friend, from where, having

According to Yanez, there was no other peninsular group that possessed

country tienda with its varied contents; and in the

economfa de su region de procedencia. (Nation e

Catalan. En Oriente, sinonimo de bodeguero. Antano

It is constantly stressed throughout the works devoted to Catalan

(Barcelona, 1993) 225-233. Jaime Aymar Ragolta, La huella americana en

40See Jordi Maluquer de Motes, La burguesfa catalana i la esclavitud

41 In the novel Barcelona y sus misterios (1860) by Antoni Altadill, the

43 Cesar Yanez quotes documents published by Ines Roldan de Montaud in