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NATIONALISM AND NATION-BUILDING IN SPAIN (1875—1939)
Catalan nationalism, albeit that it was initially dominated by sectors from
the right, a republican, federalist left emerged. Moreover, though it might
seem hard to believe today, until a few years ago proponents of complete
independence were a minority within Catalan nationalism.
An event of vital importance in the development of nationalisms in Spain
was the defeat of 1898, which unleashed a real crisis of national identity and
became known simply as el Desastre, the Disaster. While other empires were
growing, Spain lost its own. From that point on, the Catalan nationalists
won major electoral successes, like the Czechs in the Austrian Empire,
and succeeded in negotiating with central governments to obtain practical
benefits. Thus, in 1914 the Mancomunitat, the first joint regional institution
covering all the four Catalan provinces, was created, dedicated to cultural
and social fields, and which employed the Catalan language and set about
building the nation. Within the Spanish ruling elite there were some figures
who were particularly sensitive to the need to integrate Catalanism.
At the same time, however, Spanish nationalism was also reinforced to
an extraordinary degree during these years, with a proliferation of projects
intended to revive the country after the ‘Disaster’. This ‘regenerationism’
also incorporated a strong cultural element, since it placed the Castilian or
Spanish language at the centre of national identity, the only one that could be
permitted in public administration and in schools. Like other nationalisms,
such as Catalanism, it sought to find the national genius or volksgeist in
language. Spain also had its national writer, like Dante in Italy, Schiller in
Germany or Camoes in Portugal: Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quijote
de la Mancha, considered the finest book in the Castilian language and one
of the greatest in universal literature. The three-hundredth anniversary of
the publication of Don Quijote in 1905 served to consecrate its status as the
‘national bible’. Don Quijote was the symbol of Spain, and representative of
its national values (nobility, idealism and love of justice). The conversion of
the Castilian language into a fundamental element of Spanish identity was
a symptom of another characteristic of Spanish nationalism: the manner in
which it confused Spain as a whole with just one of its regions, Castile, the
central plateau of the country, along with its particular history, landscapes
and culture, in opposition to other regions with diverse and different cultures.
In the same period, successive governments launched a variety of initiatives
to encourage and broaden the ‘nationalization’ of Spaniards and deepen
patriotic feeling. Initiatives such as the promotion of all kinds of nationalistic
commemorations — a kind of ‘centenary mania’ — which, in addition to
Don Quijote, included the centenary of the ‘War of Independence’ against
Napoleon. This was the great national epic, interpreted as a unanimous
uprising of the Spanish people against the French invader, through which
each city and each region could venerate its own heroes from the conflict.
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