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La Diada: Seven things you need to know

As crowds prepare to take to the streets for 'La Diada' - Catalan National Day on Monday September 11th. The Local takes a look at what's it all about.

Published: 11 September 2018 14:08 CEST
Updated: 11 September 2023 10:01 CEST
La Diada: Seven things you need to know
Protestors wave a giant Catalan pro-independence "Estelada". Photo: Josep LAGO / AFP

Catalonia’s National Day, known locally as La Diada Nacional de Catalunya, is a holiday held in the region every year on September 11th.

More than an occasion to celebrate Catalan culture and customs, however, it has become a day of protest and a chance for those who support the independence movement to demonstrate how they feel. 

But why do Catalans celebrate la Diada? What happens during the festival? Read on to find out 7 things you need to know about the big day…

READ ALSO:  Ten colourful Catalan phrases you should learn right now

1. It commemorates a famous defeat

Very unusually for a massive holiday, la Diada marks the occasion of a military disaster. Catalan troops fighting the Bourbon King Philip V of Spain during the War of the Spanish Succession were finally defeated on September 11th 1714 after the 14-month Siege of Barcelona. The surrender marked the dissolution of autonomous Catalan institutions, the removal of Catalan as an official language and the imposition of new laws from the newly centralised Spain. Every year, the independence march starts at 17.14 (5:14 pm) to commemorate the date.

2. It was banned by General Franco

The first celebration of La Diada took place in 1886, but it was officially suppressed in 1939 and throughout the dictatorship of Francisco Franco. The Catalan regional government reinstated the fiesta in 1980, five years after Franco’s death.

3. It is a tribute to lost Catalan lives

4,000 people died defending the city during the Siege of Barcelona and are buried in a cemetery near the Santa Maria del Mar church in the Gothic Quarter. A memorial plaza, the Fossar de les Moreres, now covers the cemetery and thousands of Catalans lay flowers there every year on La Diada.

4. It’s a great day to be a flag seller

La Senyera, the Catalan flag of four red stripes on a yellow background, is everywhere on La Diada. Giant versions are hung across entire buildings while innumerable smaller versions flutter from balconies or are draped across cars. A high percentage of people walking the streets either wear or carry a version of the flag, although many versions on sale are now rather unpatriotically made in China. A slightly different flag, la estelada, is also very popular. It features a white star on a blue triangle (or sometimes a red star on a yellow triangle) over the Senyera’s red-and-yellow stripes and is the unofficial symbol of the Catalan independence movement.

5. The day has become more about the independence movement than anything else


Crowds gathering in Barcelona ahead of the start of rally on La Diada. Photo: AFP

La Diada has always been a magnet for supporters of Catalan separatism. For some people, the day is a simple celebration of their Catalan identity, but many others use the occasion to express their political feelings.

The first mass demonstration was held in 2012 when between 600,000 and two million people (depending on whose estimates you believe) gathered in Barcelona to demand independence from Spain. The following year, approximately 1.6 million people joined hands to form an unbroken human chain across the whole region. In the last few years, support for independence has declined, however, and fewer people attend the protests. 

6. Organisers use it as a chance for mobilisation

Catalan regional president Pere Aragonès. Photo by Pierre-Philippe Marcou / AFP

This year’s event will mark six years since the failed independence referendum in October 2017. Protesters will march down four streets representing the four demands of the independence movement – freedom, language, country and sovereignty – and will all converge on Plaça d’Espanya. 

Organisers are keen to show that the region is still committed to breaking away from Spain – a closely-watched survey by the Catalan government’s Centro d’Estudis d’Opinio in July 2023 showed that 42 percent of Catalans want an independent state, while 52 percent are now against it. 

Catalan president Pere Aragonès has called for people to continue to put pressure on the government this Diada. “Catalonia wants to vote freely on independence, and until the Spanish state responds to this demand democratic, the conflict will exist,” he said. 

7. Government institutions and museums are free to enter 

If you’re curious to see inside various Catalan government institutions or you want to learn more about the region and its history and culture, you’re in luck as several places are free to visit on La Diada. These include the grand Palau de la Generalitat on Plaça de Sant Jaume, the seat of the Catalan president, and the Parlament de Catalunya (Catalan Parliament) located in the Ciutadella Park. 

Certain museums are open too, including the Museu d’Història de Catalunya (Catalan History Museum), the Museu d’Arqueologia de Catalunya (Archeological Museum of Catalonia) and the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (National Museum of Catalan Art), as well as Gaudí’s Palau Güell. Check online at each place before you go as some are free only between certain hours, while others require you to reserve in advance. 

CULTURE

Spain’s flamenco dress, an Andalusian classic evolving with fashion

Luis Fernández's workshop in Seville's Old City is buzzing with customers who have come to try on his dazzling array of flamenco dresses, their vibrant fabrics replete with voluptuous ruffles and polka dots.

Published: 19 April 2024 10:03 CEST
Spain's flamenco dress, an Andalusian classic evolving with fashion

Flamenco fashion hits its annual peak in springtime when towns and cities across Spain’s southern Andalusia region hold their annual week-long ferias, when everyone puts on their finery to go out and eat, drink and dance into the small hours.

One customer is Virginia Cuaresma. Under the watchful eye of the designer, pins at the ready to make any necessary adjustment, she stands before the mirror in a traditional midnight blue gown, ruffles adorning the skirt and the sleeves.

Then she tries one in aquamarine, twinned with an embroidered fringed shawl in the same colour. Then a more modern styled red dress, which leaves a lot of skin on show.

“Right now, everything is in chaos, we’re up to our eyes… these are the last few fittings” before the clients return to collect their gowns “and enjoy the feria,” Fernández told AFP, referring to this southern city’s prestigious fair which attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors and this year runs from April 14th to 20th.

The most traditional design, which dates back more than 100 years, is a floor-length dress which is closely fitted to the thigh, fishtailing out in a ruffled skirt and matching ruffles on the sleeves.

READ ALSO: ¡Olé! Five things you didn’t know about Spain’s flamenco art form

To complement the dress, women accessorise, wearing a fringed shawl round the shoulders, earrings and bracelets, their hair pulled up in a bun and pinned with a comb with a single flower in an ensemble that has become the image of Andalusia and even used abroad as a symbol of Spain.

“The flamenco dress brings out what’s most beautiful in a woman,” explains Fernández, pointing to the wide neckline and “hourglass silhouette” which highlights the contrast between the narrow waist and the hips and bust, in a style that’s “very flattering” and makes the wearer look “beautiful”.

“When I chose a dress to go to the feria, I look for something that will enhance my female figure, says Cuaresma, a 34-year-old geographer with a dark complexion and long dark hair.

For her, dressing up for the feria is a way of “carrying on Andalusian traditions” and connecting with her late grandmother Virginia, who used to sew flamenco dresses when she was a child.

Luis Fernández’s workshop in Seville’s Old City is buzzing with customers who have come to try on his dazzling array of flamenco dresses. (Photo by CRISTINA QUICLER / AFP)

A style evolution

A Seville native who grew up loving the fair, Fernández started working as a designer in 2012 alongside fellow couturier Manuel Jurado, and from the start he knew he wanted to make flamenco dresses.

For him, it is a unique regional costume “that evolves with fashion and the only one which incorporates new trends,” he says with pride.

The garment has its roots in so-called “majo” costumes “worn by working class people” in Spain in the late 18th and early 19th centuries and often captured in the paintings of Spanish master Goya, explained anthropologist Rosa María Martínez Moreno, who wrote a book called “El Traje de Flamenca (“The Flamenco Dress”).

With the start of the Seville fairs in the middle of the 19th century, the style began to be adopted by the wealthy classes at a time when there was a pushback against all things French, including its aristocratic fashions.

READ ALSO: A guide to Seville’s Feria de Abril in 2024

Thrown into the mix was the dress of the gypsy women who sold doughnuts at the fair and who wore dresses and skirts adorned with ruffles.

By the 20th century, the flamenco dress had evolved into its current form and become popular, thanks largely to the growth of flamenco as an art form and the expansion of schools teaching this Andalusian dance form, which women often learn to perform at the fairs, Martinez Moreno said.

Springtime is their heyday as towns and cities across the southern Andalusia region hold their annual ferias. (Photo by CRISTINA QUICLER / AFP)

Image of Spain

During the 1960s, the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco set out to “sell Spain as a tourist attraction” and to do so used “popular stereotypes” such as the flamenco dress which “began to be recognised as the image of Spanishness” abroad, she adds.

READ ALSO: How Spain became a cheap mass tourism destination

In recent years Andalusian dress has inspired big name designers such as Christian Dior, who in 2022 showcased a new collection in Seville’s iconic Plaza de España.

Fernández says the sector in Seville has become more professional with designers who follow “the trends from Paris and Milan”, and who have since 1995 staged a yearly international flamenco fashion show in the city.

An outfit from an atelier like the one Fernández runs can range from several hundred euros to over one thousand.

But there are cheaper options today in an era where fashion has become more accessible.

That is a relief for women like Cuaresma, who says she usually buys “at least” one flamenco dress each year because for the fair, or at least the opening day, “we don’t like to repeat” the same outfit worn in previous years.

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