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II. SOUTHERN EUROPE NATIONALISM AND NATION-BUILDING IN SPAIN (1875—1939) ——o> — 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 A melancholic view of the nation-building process, focused on its deficiencies and failures, has been replaced by more accurate, balanced and complex arguments, and the Spanish case has been put into a broad European context.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 +65 +
