In 1932, four years before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, the philosopher and essayist Ortega y Gasset declared that the “Catalan problem” was impossible to solve. He is reported as saying: “It is a perpetual problem, which has always been, and will remain as long as Spain exists … it is something that no one is responsible for; it [lies in] the very character of that people; it is its terrible destiny, which drags distress throughout its entire history.” In his view, the best that could be hoped for was that the Catalans, and their fellow Spaniards, would recognise the intractable…