PAU History (Catalonia) key terms

The social and political order in Europe before 1789, based on absolute monarchy, a society of estates with legal privileges, a seigneurial economy and an alliance between throne and altar.

The political and social upheaval that began in France in 1789, ending absolute monarchy and noble privilege and spreading the principles of national sovereignty, equality before the law and constitutional government across Europe.

French general who took power in 1799 and became emperor, spreading legal equality and administrative reform through conquest while imposing French domination; his 1808 invasion of Spain triggered the Peninsular War.

The war fought in Spain and Portugal from 1808 to 1814 against Napoleonic troops, combining regular armies with guerrilla resistance and creating a power vacuum in which American independence movements and Spanish liberalism emerged.

Spain's first constitution, drafted by the Cortes of Cádiz during the Peninsular War; it established national sovereignty, universal male suffrage, a single chamber and equality before the law, becoming a reference for later liberalism.

The process beginning in eighteenth-century Britain in which mechanised factory production, steam power and new transport replaced artisanal work, transforming the economy, class structure and urban society.

The social group that owned factories, capital and commercial enterprises during industrialisation; it demanded political representation, free markets and legal equality, becoming the main social base of nineteenth-century liberalism.

The organised response of industrial workers to exploitation, expressed through trade unions, strikes, mutual aid societies and socialist or anarchist ideologies, demanding better wages, hours and political rights.

A political doctrine holding that individuals possess natural rights, that sovereignty belongs to the nation, and that constitutions, elected assemblies and property rights should limit royal power and guarantee civil liberties.

A Spanish political movement supporting the claim of Don Carlos and his descendants to the throne, defending traditional Catholicism, regional fueros and absolute monarchy against liberal centralism; it provoked several civil wars in the nineteenth century.

The state confiscation and public sale of land held by the Church and municipalities, carried out mainly by Mendizábal in 1836 and Madoz in 1855, which created a new class of landowners but left many peasants landless.

The six-year period from 1868 to 1874 in Spain that followed the Glorious Revolution, encompassing a democratic monarchy, the First Republic and the cantonal uprisings, and ending with the Bourbon Restoration.

The Spanish republican regime proclaimed in February 1873 after King Amadeo abdicated; it lasted less than a year, divided by federalist and unitary factions, cantonal revolts and Carlist war.

The political system in Spain from 1874 to 1923 built by Cánovas del Castillo, based on the 1876 Constitution, alternation in power between two dynastic parties and electoral manipulation through caciquisme.

A system of political control in Restoration Spain in which local bosses, or cacics, delivered votes and loyalty to the governing party in exchange for favours, jobs and services, making elections largely fraudulent.

The policy of extending a state's power through colonial conquest and economic domination, practised intensively by European powers between 1870 and 1914 and justified by nationalism, economic need and civilising ideology.

The conflict fought from 1914 to 1918 between the Triple Entente and the Central Powers, involving industrialised mass warfare and millions of casualties, and leading to the collapse of several empires.

The revolutionary process in Russia in 1917 that overthrew the tsarist regime and brought the Bolsheviks to power, leading to the creation of the Soviet Union and inspiring communist movements worldwide.

The socialist state created in 1922 from the former Russian Empire, built on one-party rule under the Communist Party, centralised economic planning and collective ownership of the means of production.

A nationalist, authoritarian political movement that rejects liberal democracy and class conflict, exalts the nation and a charismatic leader, and relies on violence, propaganda and single-party rule to reorganise society.

The global conflict from 1939 to 1945 between the Axis powers and the Allies, marked by total war, the Holocaust and the use of atomic bombs, and ending with the defeat of Nazi Germany and imperial Japan.

The prolonged geopolitical rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union after 1945, waged through arms races, alliances, espionage, propaganda and proxy wars rather than direct confrontation between the superpowers.

The process by which Asian and African colonies gained independence from European empires after the Second World War, producing new sovereign states and reshaping the global balance of power.

The authoritarian regime led by General Miguel Primo de Rivera in Spain from 1923 to 1930, which suspended the constitution and parliamentary government, banned political parties and attempted corporatist reforms.

The Spanish democratic regime from 1931 to 1939, established after the fall of the monarchy, which introduced secular education, agrarian reform, women's suffrage and Catalan autonomy amid intense political conflict.

The Spanish war of 1936 to 1939 between the Republican government and the military rebellion led by Franco, sustained by foreign intervention and ending with the establishment of a dictatorship.

The dictatorship led by General Franco in Spain from 1939 to 1975, characterised by single-party rule, repression of political opponents, censorship, nationalism and, later, economic modernisation.

The process by which Spain moved from Franco's dictatorship to a parliamentary democracy between 1975 and 1982, through legal reform, political amnesty, the 1978 Constitution and the creation of a decentralised state.

The nineteenth-century Catalan cultural and literary revival that recovered the Catalan language as a vehicle of high culture and prepared the ground for later political Catalanism.

The political and cultural movement that asserts Catalonia's distinct identity, language and institutions, seeking self-government, recognition of Catalan culture and greater autonomy within or independence from Spain.

The early and intense industrial development of Catalonia in the nineteenth century, centred on textiles and later on metalworking and chemicals, which made Catalan society more urban and produced a powerful bourgeoisie and labour movement.

The administrative body created in 1914 that united the four Catalan provincial councils, allowing Catalonia a degree of self-government and cultural policy until it was abolished under Primo de Rivera in 1925.

A legal statute granting a Spanish region its own institutions, parliament and competences; Catalonia's first statute was approved in 1932 and later ones in 1979 and 2006.

Catalonia's own system of self-government, restored in 1931 and again in 1977, comprising the Parliament, the President and the Executive Council, and responsible for policies transferred from the Spanish state.

The systematic persecution after 1939 of Republicans, trade unionists, Catalanist politicians and speakers of Catalan, carried out through executions, imprisonment, purges, censorship and the banning of Catalan public use.