Narratives from the past, shortcomings from the present: The Spanish Succession War between Catalans, Portuguese, and Englishmen (1701-1740).

• Grant number: 24/17158-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: January 01, 2026
• End date: December 31, 2027
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - Modern and Contemporary History
• Principal Investigator: Andrea Slemian
• Grantee: Alberto Airton Amendola Gandolfo
• Host Institution: Escola de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (EFLCH). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Guarulhos. Guarulhos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

In the context established by the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), our research will seek to analyse the impacts of the conflict for catalans and portuguese, through the english actions, from two points of view. Firstly, the investigation of memories and narratives built around the "Catalan case", which began during the conflict and involve interpretations about legal rights, fueros, Corts, broken promisses and political negotiations from the different projects of power, like the Bourbon centralization effort, or the production of a catalan counter-discourse beginning in the XIX century. As for the second objective, we will investigate the political realignements of the portuguese Crown and the catalan elites and the consequences of it, as well as the resultant relationship between both regions, which initially align with the Bourbon dinasty, but through the english diplomatic pressure, and specific geopolitical interests join the Grand Alliance. We visualize in the war, with active participations from the portuguese Crown and the different regions of Spain, a synthesis of the plurality of political and economic interests in the Peninsula at the time, with a historical excepert that provides the basis for an analysis of movements such as the construction of a national portuguese and catalan identity, as well as for the relation between Portugal and Great Britain after the end of the Iberian Union. From this understandment, we selected political, diplomatic and administrative historical sources, which allow the exploration of triangular dynamic between catalans, portuguese and british, with documents that estend from the start of the succession struggle in 1700, all the way to 1740, year of death of the Austrian candidate to the Spanish throne Charles VI. (AU)