Catalanist Mood circa 1906

In addition to the appearance of La nacionalitat catalana, arguably the foundational text of Catalan nationalism, the year 1906 saw a series of remarkable events that consolidated the aspirations of the Catalan people to have a national culture of their own: two major collections of verses were published (Joan Maragall's Enllà and Josep Carner's Els fruits saborosos) that assured the continuity and dynamism of Catalan poetry; the First International Congress on the Catalan Language was held in Barcelona; and the Lliga Regionalista, the Catalan nationalist political party, won its second electoral victory and landed the presidency of the Diputació de Barcelona, a key institution of local government. With the publication of La nacionalitat catalana, Enric Prat de la Riba (1870–1917) made a notable contribution to what has come to be known as Catalan culture's annus mirabilis.

The climate of cultural and political exhilaration that existed in 1906 certainly made its way into the uncompromising pages of La nacionalitat catalana, an essay that conveys a serene yet firm optimism about the current state and future prospects of the Catalan nation. Although Prat's book stands in sharp contrast to the elegiac pessimism of fin-de-siècle Spanish letters, it is hard to find overt displays of joyous emotion in it. Rather than seeking to take advantage of the emotional dispositions of his audience, Prat seeks to instill a tranquil optimism in his readers by showing the strength and truth of his arguments. For the most part, Prat relies on an impersonal exposition of his historical and theoretical arguments about Catalan nationhood, as if he trusted that his thesis about the existence of Catalonia as a nation would impose itself by its own weight. In Aristotelian terms, one would say that Prat attempts to persuade his readers through logos rather than pathos.

This approach holds true for most of the essay. Toward its end, however, we find that Prat deviates from his usual composure when he considers the issue of imperialism. For instance, on the last page of the essay, he shows soaring enthusiasm when he entertains the utopian vision of an imperial Iberian Federation led by Catalonia.