Toponymic changes during the Spanish Revolution and the Civil War (1936-1939). The case of the municipal districts of Catalonia

Abstract

Our purpose is, in this article, to analyse the changes made to the names of 124 municipal districts of Catalonia during the Civil War, and specially in 1937. The study is organised in three main parts. The first part examines the more general nature of these changes, and looks at their legal nature and their chronology. The second part undertakes and analysis of the 124 new names given to the municipal districts and seeks to establish a preliminary typology of the changes made. Drawing on this typology, the third part is a qualitative study of the largest group of new denominations: that is, those names that represented the introduction of elements of a geographical or historical nature. The article concludes with a general appraisal of the process and comments on the transitory nature that most of the new names had.