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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. +7] »
