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II. SOUTHERN EUROPE
NATIONALISM AND NATION-BUILDING IN SPAIN
(1875—1939)
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JAVIER MORENO LUZÖN
ABSTRACT
In the last decades, historiography on nationalism in Modern Spain has been
drastically transformed. A melancholic view of the nation-building process,
focused on its deficiencies and failures, has been replaced by more accurate,
balanced and complex arguments, and the Spanish case has been put into a
broad European context. Two competing versions of Spanish nationalism were
at stake during this crucial period (1875-1939): the liberal-democratic one and
the Catholic and conservative one. This conflict grew through different political
regimes during the interwar European crisis — a constitutional monarchy, a
military dictatorship and a democratic republic — and led to a Civil War in
1936-39, won by National-Catholic forces. Meanwhile, alternative nationalist
movements developed in Catalonia and the Basque Country, provoking diverse
responses from the Spanish state. The principal one consisted of a huge effort
on nation-building policies. As in other European countries, the authoritarian
right was based in strongly nationalist discourses and practices. The repressive
actions against Catalan and Basque nationalisms did not work, but, by the Civil
War years, most of the population was ‘nationalized’, in one way or another.
Keywords: Spain, nationalism, nation-building, liberalism, dictatorship, Civil
War.
This paper will focus, in general terms, on nationalism and national
construction in Spain in the crucial period that ran from 1875 to 1939. That
is, between the establishment of a constitutional monarchy that temporarily
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