Beyond the Minotaur: The construction of a benign state in three Catalan cultural products.

This article examines how cultural products since the late 2000s have imagined a future independent Catalonia as a benign, horizontal, and modern republic shaped by collective citizen effort rather than elites. Through analysis of three key works—a journalistic fiction (Crònica de la independència, 2009), a documentary (L'endemà, 2014), and a political essay (La República possible, 2017)—the article highlights tensions and omissions regarding state coercion, economic freedom, social protection, bureaucracy, language policies, and immigration. These cultural narratives reflect the evolving and contested meanings of the state and republic in Catalan culture amid the political dynamics of the independence movement, revealing both hopes for a welfare-oriented, peaceful state and underlying uncertainties about sovereignty, state power, and social cohesion. The article situates these representations within broader theoretical frameworks on the state, emphasizing the instability of the state as a signifier and the historical challenges Catalonia faces in reconciling nationhood with statehood.