Transitional Justice and Fascist Toponymy in Catalonia

The repression of Fascism against the Catalan language and culture still has effects on the official toponymy of the country. It is hidden in a subtle way, in toponyms of municipalities that are still official with the pre-normative, archaic spelling that Fascism imposed on Catalan place names. As if Vich, Serchs, Montblanch, or Figueras were still the official names of Vic, Cercs, Montblanc, or Figueres. And this happens in Cabassers, Capmany, Lladó, and Rialp, which in correct Catalan orthography are written Cabassers, Campmany, Lledó d’Empordà, and Rialb.

Law 20/2022, of October 19, on Democratic Memory, mandates the removal of Francoist symbols, and this includes the toponyms of the dictatorship. Let us look at the history of these four place names that are still in the Official Nomenclature of Major Toponymy of Catalonia with the pre-normative spellings imposed on them by Fascism.

The Historical Context

The Instituto Geográfico y Estadístico fixed the graphic forms of the official names of the municipalities of Spain in the mid-19th century, and they were compiled in a five-volume nomenclature, published between 1863 and 1871 (NOMENCLÁTOR, 1863-1871) based on a Royal Decree of 1858 with instructions for the publication of a Nomenclátor de los pueblos de España which would appear in 1858. Toponyms in the Catalan language were graphically fixed according to the orthographic regulations of the Spanish language, as Catalan was a language without official regulations -due to the political circumstances of the territories where it is spoken- until 1913. That year, the Institut d’Estudis Catalans published the orthographic rules of the Catalan language (IEC, 1913).

When it was legally possible, with the first restoration of the Generalitat, the Government commissioned the Philological Section of the Institut d’Estudis Catalans to revise the spelling of the names of the municipalities of Catalonia and to restore the Catalan form of the Hispanicized names. This commission was made on April 20, 1931, only six days after the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic (BOGC 1933: 990).

The fruit of the scientific work of the Institut d’Estudis Catalans was published by the Generalitat in a booklet two years after the commission was made (GENERALITAT, 1933). In that same year of 1933, a Decree from the Ministry of Governance officialized the toponymic forms fixed by the Institut d’Estudis Catalans. To do so, the Decree indicated the name that had been official until that date in a first column, titled “Official name according to the Geographic and Statistical Institute,” and the one that became official from the publication of the Decree in a second column, titled “Name adopted by the Generalitat” (BOGC, 1933).

Therefore, the toponyms Cabacés, Capmany, Lladó, and Rialp were officialized as Cabassers, Campmany, Lledó, and Rialb de Noguera (BOGC, 1933: 991-993).

Once the Civil War -caused by the coup of the army in arms against the legitimate government of the Republic- was advanced, the Francoist government promulgated a law on April 5, 1938, which established in its first article that “the State, provincial, and municipal Administration in the provinces of Lérida, Tarragona, Barcelona, and Gerona will be governed by the general norms applicable to the other provinces.” A second article provided that “without prejudice to the liquidation of the regime established by the Statute of Catalonia, the competence of legislation and execution corresponding to the territories of common law and the services that were ceded to the Catalan region by virtue of the Law of September 15, 1932, are considered reverted to the state” (BOE, 1938: 6674). That is to say, Republican legislation and legality in Catalonia were abolished, and as the rebel army occupied the Catalan municipalities, the forms prior to the officialization made by the Generalitat in 1933 were imposed again as official names for the populations; namely, those used by the Instituto Geográfico y Estadístico between 1863 and 1933.

In the words of Professor Xavier Rull, “The Francoist authorities carried out a policy of persecution of Catalan; and one of the actions of this persecution consisted of deconstructing the normalizing work of the Mancomunitat and the Republican Generalitat. For this reason, Fascism recovered the old spellings […]: it was a way to discredit the work of Pompeu Fabra, and therefore to make it visible to Catalan speakers that Catalan was a speech without clear orthographic rules” (RULL, 2021: 136-137).

Jesús Burgueño explains the Francoist imposition of pre-normative forms on toponyms and the effect it produced: “It is obvious that during Fascism the toponymic proposals of the IEC were set aside and the ‘classical’ official forms were restored. But, after the impulse that Catalan had experienced during the years of the Generalitat, nothing could ever be the same again. A profound change of perception then occurred progressively: the official toponyms of the State (Bañolas, Tarrasa, Vich…) stopped being understood as archaic Catalan forms and began to be identified directly as Spanish forms that did not belong to Catalan. Because, despite all the misfortunes, Catalan had a norm and toponymic alternatives that were generally accepted and consolidated. Thus, a kind of perverse paradox occurred, another of those generated by the dictatorship. If self-government had been preserved, possibly the archaic forms would simply have been replaced and forgotten, just like that, without any resentment or negative connotation. In contrast, their imposition at the end of the Fascst regime made them become a symbol of political and cultural oppression.” (BURGUEÑO, 2020: 165).

August Rafanell also describes this form of Francoist repression: “As soon as Franco’s supporters take the country, the public signs in Catalan are smashed to pieces with hammers in everyone’s sight. There will be a few that will survive, inaccessible to the pickaxe, thus converted into true palimpsests, or textual remains of a shipwreck. The names of the things most felt by the people underwent a total revocation. Not only were the plaques related to the defeated regime pulverized. For a certain time (a short one, truth be told), Plaça de Catalunya in Barcelona -the nerve center of the modern city- was given the title of ‘Plaza del Ejército español.’ Much longer-lasting would be the conversion of the ‘Biblioteca de Catalunya’ into the ‘Biblioteca Central.’ But the renaming of toponyms had an even deeper impact. Thus, Girona and Lleida, written as they had always been said in Catalan, become pure oral suppositions, subordinated to the official names of Gerona and Lérida. Medium-sized cities were also forced to alter their main identification label: Vilanova i la Geltrú from now on would be Villanueva y Geltrú; Terrassa, Tarrasa; Sant Sadurní d’Anoia, San Sadurní de Noya; Sant Boi de Llobregat, San Baudilio de Llobregat, etc. Even many small villages, still fully monolingual in Catalan, would have to bow before the correction: Sant Fost de Campsentelles would become San Fausto de Campcentellas; Sant Fruitós de Bages, San Fructuoso de Bages; Sant Quirze de Besora, San Quírico de Besora; Sant Esteve de Llémena, San Esteban de Llémana; Joanetes, Juanetas, Sant Climent Sescebes, San Clemente Sasebas, etc. etc. We would never finish. It was about making everyone see that the normalization promoted by the pre-war institutional Catalanism had not existed. Or, in any case, that its time had passed. For this reason, apart from Hispanicizing them, the old, pre-normative form was restored to most place names. The way of designating the city of Vic becomes a total paradigm. Until late Fascism, the form Vic, proper to normalized Catalan and phonetically indistinct from the archaic Vich, would be proscribed and sanctioned. Even at the end of the sixties, a simple ‘h’ could cause a headache to anyone who dared to do without it” (RAFANELL, 2009).

Already Josep Benet, in the anonymous edition he made in 1973 in Paris of Catalunya sota el règim franquista (Catalonia under the Franco regime), included a chapter, 44, titled “De-Catalanization of the toponymy of Catalonia.” He said: “Just as had already happened in Euskadi, upon being occupied by General Franco’s troops, an attempt to de-Catalanize the toponymy of the country also began in Catalonia upon being occupied by the same troops. To compile an exhaustive list of this attempt would be excessive, considering the limits of this work. Therefore, we limit ourselves to providing only some evidence of this action by the victors of the Spanish war. Numerous were the towns in Catalonia that saw their names totally or partially modified” (Benet, 1973:382).

Analogy with the Third Reich’s Germanisation of placenames

The Third Reich did the same to the French toponymy of Alsace-Lorraine after 1940, where Strasbourg was changed to Straßburg or Mulhouse to Mülhausen; in Luxembourg, where the Nazis changed Esch-sur-Alzette for Esch-alzig; or in Poland, where dozens of placenames were changed by the Nazi campaign of Germanisation of toponymy, as Poznań (Posen), Kraków (Krakau), Tarnów (Tarnau ) or Grudziądz (Graudenz), just to mention a few examples. The Francoist regime did exactly the same in Catalonia in 1939 to Hispanicize Catalan placenames.

The Continuity of Fascist Illegitimacy in Democracy

After the restoration of the autonomous Catalan Government in 1977, Law 12/1982, of October 8, was promulgated, regulating the procedure for changing the names of the municipalities of Catalonia. The statement of purpose of the law emphasized the intention to repair the effects that Francoist repression had on Catalan toponymy. “The Generalitat of Catalonia, on April 20, 1931, commissioned by decree the Philological Section of the Institut d’Estudis Catalans to revise the names of Catalan municipalities regarding spelling, and to re-establish the Catalan form of those that had been Hispanicized. In 1939, the names on this list were once again subjected to orthographic deformations and adaptations into Spanish, and the names of municipalities resulting from aggregations or segregations of population centers since 1939 often present arbitrary forms, far from Catalan tradition. It is necessary, then, to promulgate a rule that allows us, while respecting municipal autonomy in this matter, the effective application of a correct toponymy to the municipalities of Catalonia” (DOGC, 1982: 2382). The transitional provision of this same law established that “until the change is definitively approved, the municipalities will keep their current name, although in its Catalan expression.” The additional provision of that Law 12/1982 established that the list of official names of the municipalities of Catalonia would be published annually, which was fulfilled in 1983, by the Resolution of February 4, 1983, by which the list of official names of the municipalities of Catalonia is made public (DOGC, 1983: 352-356). There, the forms Cabassers, Campmany, and Rialb appeared as official for the municipalities that until then had had the Francoist spellings of Cabacés, Capmany, and Rialp. However, Lladó continued to appear on the list with the spelling of Francoist imposition and not with the one legalized in 1933.

Due to the transitional provision of that Law 12/1982 regarding the definitive approval of changes by the affected town councils, this officialization was provisional in nature. Those town councils, instead of approving the changes and recovering the forms officialized in 1933, approved resolutions claiming exactly the opposite: that the Francoist toponyms should continue to be official. The administrative files generated by those claims are preserved in the archive of the Department of the Presidency of the Generalitat de Catalunya and can be consulted online, as we have obtained copies through Law 12/2013.

In the lists of official names of the municipalities of Catalonia published subsequently, these toponyms reappeared with the forms imposed by Fascism, as a result of the steps taken by the councils before the Generalitat, which yielded to their pressure. Thus, Cabacés appeared again as the official form of the toponym in 1989 (DOGC, 1989: 536), Capmany in 1984 (DOGC, 1984: 948), and Rialp in 1985 (DOGC, 1985: 1581). The continuity of Francoist illegitimacy is uninterrupted, as those town councils (including that of Lladó, which even avoided the provisional officialization of the correct toponym in 1983) never adopted any resolution restoring the official forms of the Republican legality of 1933, but did precisely the opposite: insistently demanding from the Generalitat that the Francoist toponyms should not cease to be official.

The Legal Grounds for the Removal of Fascist Toponyms

Article 3.6 of Law 20/2022, of October 19, on Democratic Memory, considers the Catalan community, language, and culture as victims of Fascism. Article 4.4 recognizes the policy of persecution and repression against the Catalan language and culture perpetrated by the Francoist dictatorial regime during the war period and during the subsequent decades of dictatorship. Article 30 grants the right to recognition and comprehensive reparation by the State to the victims of the war and the dictatorship defined in the Law. The same article also provides that the General State Administration will develop a set of measures for restitution, rehabilitation, and satisfaction for the re-establishment of the rights of victims in their individual and collective dimensions. Article 35.2 considers references to the dictatorship made in toponyms as elements contrary to democratic memory. The toponyms distorted by Fascism for political reasons are nothing more than the effect of that dictatorship’s repression against the Catalan language and culture, recognized in Art. 4.4 of Law 20/2022, and therefore they refer to it.

One might allege that these toponyms do not explicitly mention the dictator (like Alberche del Caudillo, Llanos del Caudillo, Villafranco del Guadiana, or Villafranco del Guadalhorce) or leaders of the regime (like Alcocero de Mola, Quintanilla de Onésimo, or San Leonardo de Yagüe). It must be clarified that while mentions of the dictator and other leaders of the dictatorship were intended to exalt their figures, the imposition of archaic spellings on Catalan toponyms sought no other purpose than the humiliation and degradation of the Catalan language and culture. In relation to this objective, Article 15 of the Spanish Constitution guarantees the right to moral integrity and prohibits degrading treatment. That toponyms with distorted forms imposed by the dictatorship are still maintained as official implies the violation of this right protected by the Constitution, as well as the survival of the humiliating and degrading effects of Francoist repression, which continue to occur in the cases of the toponyms Cabacés, Capmany, Lladó, and Rialp, as they retain the official form imposed on them by Fascism as part of its repressive program.

The IX United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names (2007), in Resolution IX/4, considers that toponyms are part of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity, and that they must be inventoried, protected, and promoted according to the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, of October 17, 2003. Furthermore, Law 1/1998, of January 7, on Language Policy of the Parliament of Catalonia establishes, in Article 18.1, that the only official form of the toponyms of Catalonia is the Catalan one, according to the linguistic regulations of the Institut d’Estudis Catalans. The toponyms Cabacés, Capmany, Lladó, and Rialp are not only contrary to Law 20/2022, on Democratic Memory, but also to this precept of Law 1/1998, on Language Policy, and therefore the removal of the forms imposed by the dictatorship must consist of the correction of the official spellings of these names according to the current criteria of the Institut d’Estudis Catalans for each of them.

Therefore, the toponyms Cabacés, Capmany, Lladó, and Rialp must be removed for a double reason provided for in Law 20/2022, of October 19, on Democratic Memory:

a) To comply with the re-establishment of the rights of victims through measures of restitution, as provided for in Art. 30, since toponymy is part of Catalan culture and language, recognized as victims of the dictatorship by Art. 3.6, the repression against which is recognized by Art. 4.4 of the Law.

b) Being modifications of toponyms imposed by the repression of the dictatorship, they refer to it, and it is because of it that those toponyms suffered deformations in their spellings. Therefore, by Art. 35.2 these toponyms must be considered elements contrary to democratic memory.

Furthermore, these toponyms fail to comply with Article 18.1 of Law 1/1998, of January 7, on Language Policy, which states that “the toponyms of Catalonia have as their only official form the Catalan one according to the linguistic regulations of the Institut d’Estudis Catalans.”

Inclusion in the Catalog of elements and symbols contrary to democratic memory of the Fascist toponyms Cabacés, Capmany, Lladó, and Rialp

Article 36 of Law 20/2022, of October 19, on Democratic Memory, establishes that the General State Administration will compile a Catalog of elements and symbols contrary to democratic memory with the list of elements that must be removed or eliminated. Point 2 of the same article says that elements resulting from studies and research work, such as the present case, may be included in the catalog. Point 3 determines that requests for inclusion in the catalog will contain “fundamentally historiographical” reasons justifying the incorporation of elements into the catalog.

The request for inclusion of these four toponyms in the catalog was made on November 22, 2022. It only remains for the competent authorities to initiate the removal files and order the offending town councils to correct the Francoist toponyms and, if they do not do so, to apply the coercive provisions and sanctions provided by the rule for those who refuse to respect it, until they comply with the Law.

International Regulations Violated by Misspelled Placenames Imposed by Fascism

The fact that the official form of the placenames of certain municipalities in Catalonia contain linguistic inaccuracies is far from being a simple localist issue; it has an international dimension. Having these incorrect forms as official constitutes a violation of Article 20 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, as it causes inequality before the law for citizens registered in municipalities affected by toponymic irregularities, who are forced to hold documents containing “barbarisms.” While legislation guarantees the majority the use of normative and correct forms of the placenames of the municipalities where they live, for others, the same legislation guarantees the opposite and forces them to commit spelling errors. Therefore, the principle of equality before the law is not met, as the same regulation, originally intended to have a single effect (Decree 133/2020, which guarantees the use of correct toponymic forms, on the understanding that official forms are linguistically correct), causes contrary effects depending on where one resides.

It also violates Resolution IX/4 of the IX United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names, which declares placenames as intangible cultural heritage of humanity and urges the protection and safeguarding of this heritage. Furthermore, it breaches the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of October 17, 2003. Precisely, the latest legislative text from the Generalitat regarding official toponymy is based on these international regulations.

Having non-normative official designations also infringes on national legislation regulating this matter: Law 1/1998 on Language Policy, and results in a fraud in the application of Decree 133/2020, as explained in detail here.

The solution is not to have the residents of these municipalities vote on whether or not they want to maintain misspelled place names imposed by a fascist regime, but rather to correct them directly, just as any spelling mistake is corrected. It is not a matter of taste or will, but of spelling and etymology. In fact, word processors correct mistakes automatically without asking anyone. As can be easily understood, rules of spelling and etymology are not matters that can be decided at the ballot box. Nor can it be put to a vote whether or not to comply with the law; it must simply be obeyed, just like all others. The most sensible solution to this problem is for the Government of the Generalitat to officially correct all Catalan toponymy. Interpreting the law from the principle of legal hierarchy, the Government can do so, as ensuring that placenames do not contain linguistic inaccuracies is not a municipal competence.

Therefore, what we must expect is for this fascist toponymy to be corrected in order to comply with current legislation, both national and international. This is not a matter that depends on city councils, but on the Government. And the Government must bring order to it. Continuing under the current situation -where misspelled placenames due to a fascist imposition are marked with asterisks in the Official Nomenclature of Major Toponymy of Catalonia instead of being corrected, and with legal arbitrariness- neither makes sense, nor is it serious, nor is it possible.

The Utmost Responsibility of the Catalan Government

Neither the affected town councils, nor the regional administration of Catalonia, nor the Spanish State Administration have taken any action to correct this persistence of Fascist repression.

At the heart of this issue is a hierarchy of norms problem and it is a total resonsibility of the Catalan Government which refuses to correct the legal mistakes to allow such a situation to perpetuate, with the passivity of the Spanish Government. Under the Catalan Linguistic Policy Law (Law 1/1998), specifically Article 18.1, it is established that the only official placenames in Catalonia are the Catalan ones according to the linguistic standards of the Institute for Catalan Studies.

However, Decree 139/2007, which regulates the names, symbols, and emblems of local entities, contains procedural gaps or contradictions that allow the municipalities with fascist toponyms to maintain official names that do not align with these linguistic standards fixed by the Linguistic Policy Law.

The Breach of Legal Certainty

Legal certainty is the principle that the law must be clear, predictable, and consistent. When a Decree (a lower-ranking regulation) contradicts a Law (a higher-ranking norm passed by Parliament), it creates a “normative antinomy.”

• The Contradiction: While the Law mandates the use of the correct Catalan form, the Decree is being used as a shield to avoid enforcing this correction.
• The Consequence: Citizens and institutions face a fragmented legal reality where a Law says one thing, but the administrative practice follows an outdated or incorrect regulation.

The Preservation of Francoist Toponymy

The refusal to update the Decree is often interpreted as a political maneuver to avoid a confrontation with local councils. In many cases, the “traditional” names defended by certain town halls are actually castilianized versions imposed or solidified during the Francoist dictatorship. By failing to harmonize the Decree with the Law, the Government effectively allows these historical distortions to persist, undermining the recovery of indigenous Catalan nomenclature.

Breach of the Rule of Law and Legal Fraud

The situation described can be framed as two major legal failures:

• Breach of the Rule of Law: The Rule of Law requires that the executive branch (the Government) remains subject to the law. By intentionally maintaining a defective Decree to bypass the requirements of Article 18.1, the Government fails in its duty to ensure that all regulations comply with superior legislation.
• Legal Fraud: In legal terms, this occurs when a legal rule (Decree 139/2007) is invoked to achieve a result that is contrary to the overall legal system or to the specific purpose of another law (the Linguistic Policy Law). Using a regulatory technicality to protect non-compliant toponymy constitutes an abuse of the administrative process to circumvent a mandatory statutory obligation.

Bibliography

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-BOE, 1938: Boletín Oficial del Estado, número 534, 8 abril 1938.
-BOGC 1933: Butlletí Oficial de la Generalitat de Catalunya, n. 119, 14 de novembre de 1933.
-DOGC, 1982: Diari Oficial de la Generalitat de Catalunya, n. 268, 20 oct 1982.
-DOGC 1983: Diari Oficial de la Generalitat de Catalunya, n. 303, 11 feb 1983.
-DOGC 1984: Diari Oficial de la Generalitat de Catalunya, n. 428, 18 apr 1984.
-DOGC 1985: Diari Oficial de la Generalitat de Catalunya, n. 542, 28 may 1985.
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-GENERALITAT, 1933: Llista dels noms dels Municipis de Catalunya dreçada per la Secció Filològica de l’Institut d’Estudis Catalans amb la col·laboració de la Ponència de Divisió Territorial. Generalitat de Catalunya. Barcelona, 1933.
-NOMENCLÁTOR, 1858: Nomenclátor de los pueblos de España formado por la Comisión de Estadística General del Reino. Madrid. Imprenta Nacional. 1858.
-NOMENCLÁTOR, 1863-1871: Nomenclátor que comprende las poblaciones, grupos, edificios, viviendas, albergues, etc., de las cuarenta y nueve provincias de España : dispuesto por riguroso órden alfabético entre las provincias, partidos judiciales, ayuntamientos, y entidades de poblacion. Imprenta de José María Ortiz. 5 vols. Madrid, 1863-1871.
-RAFANELL, 2009: Rafanell, A. “Breu relació de la destrucció del català sota el franquisme”. In Lengas. Varia. Núm. 66, p. 7-30, 2009.
-RULL, 2021: Rull, X. Els límits en la fixació gràfica dels topònims en català. Torrazza Piemonte, Italy, 2021.

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This issue in the Spanish press

25/08/2025 | ABC. El único pueblo de Cataluña que mantiene su nombre en castellano: cuál es el motivo y dónde está
05/08/2025 | La Razón. Este pueblo de Cataluña rechazó cambiar su nombre al catalán y sigue usando el del franquismo
03/07/2025 | El Periódico de Catalunya. Este es el único municipio de Catalunya que mantiene el nombre en castellano
02/07/2025 | El Mundo. El único pueblo de Cataluña que conserva su nombre en castellano: pocos conocen su historia
21/01/2025 | La Razón. Estos son los municipios catalanes que quieren tener su nombre en castellano
19/01/2025 | As. Este es el único municipio de Cataluña que votó para conservar su nombre en castellano heredado del franquismo
29/07/2024 | Crónica Global. Así es el único pueblo de Cataluña que tiene nombre en castellano: herencia del franquismo que no pueden cambiar
21/02/2023 | La Razón. Los cuatro pueblos catalanes que se resisten a perder su nomenclatura franquista
20/02/2023 | TV3. De Capmany i Cabacés a Campmany i Cabassers?
06/11/2022 | EFE. Los últimos pueblos de España con nombres franquistas
04/10/2022 | Diari de Tarragona. El pueblo tarraconense con nombre franquista
04/10/2022 | La Sexta. Estos son los pueblos de España que aún conservan su nombre franquista
04/10/2022 | Telecinco. Los últimos pubelos con nombres franquistas que aún quedan en España

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