The iconography of the Catalan Habanera Indianos, mulatas and Postmodern Emblems of Cultural Identity. BAKHTIAROVA, Galina

RESUMEN: The habanera, a song that became popular in Catalunya in the second half of the twentieth century, evolved into a post-modern emblem of Catalan cultural identity. From the imagery that invoked nostalgia for the lost tropical paradise of the Caribbean, its sensual women and lost opportunities for fortunes and enrichment, the habanera and its iconography evolved into an assertion of Catalunya as a seafaring nation with a place of its own in an overseas colonial enterprise. Arguably, a richly illustrated Álbum de habaneras, a collection compiled and edited by the composer Xavier Montsalvatge, in 1948, started a pattern of collecting and publishing illustrated habaneras. In addition to illustrations in books, habaneras generated a variety of images, such as contemporary commercial publicity materials, posters, postcards,and brochures that played and exceptional part in the transformation of these songs into a nation-wide phenomenon and an intrinsic part of the Catalan cultural identity. The changes in Spain's political and social situation, during the last years of the Franco dictatorship, and the tourist boom of the 1960s played a crucial role in the evolvement of the habanera as a massive phenomenon in Catalunya. Catalan self-assertion may be seen through a prism of European integration and further globalization as Catalunya continues its secular attempts at self-representation as a part of a globalized European community rather than a region over-shadowed by the center.