Talk:Catalan State (1934)

Did this state exist?

So, as a spin-off from the 2017 discussion that decided that, since there was no unequivocal evidence that the republic ever existed, only that a declaration of independence had been made, it should instead be merged with the article related to the declaration of independence, I thought I'd look at the references to this article. What I see here is that the same thing appears to have occurred - none of the references cited here unequivocally states that a country existed in the two days between 6-7 October 1934. Instead we have:

1) A reference from a book about art that does not describe a state being established.

2) Finestres, Jordi; López, Manel (2014). Entre la revolució i l'estelada (in Catalan). Barcelona: Sàpiens. pp. 31–32. ISSN 1695-2014. - I do not have access to this book, but it is not being relied on here to demonstrate that this state existed.

3) War and revolution in Catalonia - this gives a verbatim account of the declaration of independence, but it says absolutely nothing about any state being established or disestablished.

4) "Separatists' Rising: Bloodshed in Barcelona". The Times. 8 October 1934. p. 14. - I don't have access to this, but it is also not being relied on to demonstrate the existence of a state. From the title, it appears to describe a failed uprising, not one that succeeded.

5) Casanova, Julián (2007). República y Guerra Civil. Vol. 8 de la Historia de España, dirigida por Josep Fontana y Ramón Villares (in Spanish). Barcelona: Crítica/Marcial Pons. p. 129. ISBN 978-84-8432-878-0. - Again, I don't have access to this, but it is not being relied on in this article to demonstrate that the state existed.

6) Termes, Josep (1999). De la Revolució de Setembre a la fi de la Guerra Civil (1868-1939). Vol. 6 de la Història de Catalunya dirigida per Pierre Vilar (in Catalan). Barcelona: Edicions 62. p. 381. ISBN 84-297-4510-6. - Same as 5) above.

7) Same as 5)

What we appear to have is a conclusion reached by editors based on original research - that a Catalan Republic existed from 7-8 October, 1934. This is not permitted. Logically, it seems highly unlikely that a state could have existed in the ~24 hours between the declaration and the actions of the Spanish army. If no evidence that this state actually existed can be found in reliable, secondary sources, then it should be re-named "The Events of 6 October in Catalonia" or merged into "Events of 6 October" which has a section on Catalonia which contains nearly all the actually referenced material in this article. FOARP (talk) 07:30, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose rename. Lluís Companys proclaimed the Catalan State on 6 October 1934. Unlike the 2017 proclamation of the Catalan Republic, which was purely symbolic, the Catalan State defended itself in arms against the Spanish state forces. A Google Books search of "Catalan State" 1934 gets plenty of hits, showing both that adequate sources exist and that "Catalan State" is both a natural and a common name. Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. It does not require a test of whether a thing "really existed" in law or in fact, only whether reliable sources exist for that thing, and that thing's name. Scolaire (talk) 11:34, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

This is not a rename discussion (if it was, I would have listed it with the WP:RM template). It is a question about sourcing. WP:V requires that details in an article are verifiable. Wiki policy does requiring sourcing for the subject of the article. This article purports to be about a state that existed for 24 hours and contains many unsourced details about that state. Please go and look at the results in your search - they include statements like "the proclamation of the 'Catalan state' in a hypothetical 'Spanish federal republic', made the army feel threatened from two sides" (i.e., it describes it as hypothetical). FOARP (talk) 14:21, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose rename per Scolaire's argument. Questioning our sources over whether something existed or not, typically leads to OR. Dimadick (talk) 18:37, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

WP:V, WP:GNG. FOARP (talk) 14:21, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose. This is basically a copy-paste proposal from the one at Talk:Catalan Republic (1931), yet the reasons for opposing are the same as I explained there. What was declared was a "Catalan State within the Spanish Federal Republic". Suggesting a rename because of "no independent state existing" basically shows that the rename proposal is flawed from the beginning. The exact scope of the proclamation is explained and described within the article, which does not anywhere establish that this was a full-fledged independent state. Impru20^talk 14:29, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Again, this is not a rename proposal. It is asking that the article conforms with WP:V, WP:GNG. Basically, there are lots of details of a supposed state listed in this article for which there is no source and, logically, cannot be a source (e.g., what was the national anthem of this country that supposedly existed for 48 hours?) FOARP (talk) 14:37, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Same as in Talk:Catalan Republic (1931), and I can't really say much more because this is literally a copy-paste proposal (to the point both the 1931 and 1934 dates are used in the same wrong way in both proposals). Sources do acknowledge that a "Catalan State within the Spanish Federal Republic" was proclaimed, so this does fit WP:V. On the issue of the national anthem, this is a different thing: probably these should be removed from both this and the 1931 articles. However, yet again, you are posing this in the terms of a "country that supposedly existed". No such country ever existed, but this article does not refer to an independent state but to the semi-autonomous entity that was proclaimed at the time. Impru20^talk 14:48, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

The article currently not only states that it was proclaimed but also that it "was a short-lived state" and was "Disestablished by the Spanish Army" on the 7th of October, something for which there is no actual source. And without sourcing for when this state ended, how can the article state that it existed? Isn't the article in fact about the proclamation? as for the bit about this being a "cut-and-paste proposal", this is not an WP:RM proposal - if it was I would have used the relevant template. This is a question about the verfiability of the information on the page (most of which lacks sourcing, and the sourced parts of which do not support the purported subject of the article). FOARP (talk) 15:19, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

"state" should not be confused with sovereign state or country. I can't find any issues with the "disestablished by the Spanish Army"-bit; there are plenty of sources you can find pointing to the Spanish Army ending this state (whether you want to call it "disestablished" or "ended" is really not-consequential here). Then, on the sourcing issue, you should consider WP:WIF here. This is not a case of an issue which can't be verified and that needs more sources; the amount of sources is small according to you, but many more sources could be added to basically reflect what the article already conveys. Finally, no, this wasn't a mere "proclamation". But if your main issue is that you think that this should be named "Proclamation of the Catalan State of 1934" or something along those lines rather than "Catalan State (1934)", then you may clash yourself with WP:CONCISE and WP:PRECISE, both of which would favour using "Catalan State (1934)" instead. Impru20^talk 15:34, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

@FOARP: Firstly, It should be re-named "The Events of 6 October in Catalonia" is a rename proposal. The clue is in the word "re-named". Secondly, you seem to have your own personal definition of "existence" that excludes all others, and you're not even telling us what that definition is! Companys proclaimed the Catalan State; the Catalan State defended itself in arms against Spanish forces; The Spanish forces defeated and brought to an end the Catalan State. Therefore, the Catalan State was a thing. Whether it "existed" according to your or anybody else's definition is neither here nor there, unless you can point to a reliable source that discusses in depth the question of whether it "existed". Don't like the way the article is written? Then improve the article. Don't like the sources? Then improve the sourcing (or take the easy way out and slap a template at the top!). Beyond that, there's nothing more to be said. Scolaire (talk) 16:36, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

...except maybe one thing: is it possible to centralise the discussion on one of the two pages? I suggest Talk:Catalan Republic (1931). This copying and pasting is starting to really annoy me. Scolaire (talk) 16:38, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

No objection to centralising discussion at that page, though we should keep in mind that both pages need their own sourcing. I think this page is more likely to lack sourcing because the claim being made here is that this state existed for 24 hours or less (whilst the claim for the 1931 page is that it existed for three days), and with respect to the original drafter, well, it seems unlikely that anything could really have been done in that time to establish a state, select a flag, select a currency, appoint leadership, create a state-seal, determine the languages used, or any of the other details currently recited on this page without supporting references. FOARP (talk) 13:55, 3 October 2019 (UTC)