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NATIONALISM AND NATION-BUILDING IN SPAIN (1875—1939)
battalions" and organizations like the boy scouts. Ihey also encouraged a
fresh colonial war in Morocco, which brought with it renewed nationalistic
campaigns but also new disasters, which made it unpopular.
The First World War represented an important leap forward in the
development of nationalisms, in Spain as in the whole of Europe. The victory
of the Allies led to the dissolution of great multinational empires like Austria¬
Hungary and the application of the principle of national self-determination.
Although Spain had remained neutral in the war, it suffered its impact very
intensely. It did not fragment, nor did it experience a process of separation in
the post-war period comparable to the bloody conflict in Ireland. However,
for the Basque and Catalan nationalists the war did represent an opportunity
to demand at least a statute of autonomy — and in the case of the Basques,
the recovery of their old fueros or traditional laws — within the Spanish state.
These campaigns failed due to the intensification of social conflicts. However,
in the face of both these social conflicts and the sub-state nationalist
agitation, and as was the case in a great many European countries in the
interwar period, from Poland to Portugal, Spain also witnessed a growth in
authoritarian tendencies. Political intervention by the army, supported by the
Church and above all the King, led eventually to the first military dictatorship
in twentieth-century Spain, that of General Primo de Rivera, from 1923 to
1930.8
The Primo dictatorship proposed to culminate Spanish national identity
construction by means of two complementary policies. First, there was the
persecution of any manifestation of non-Spanish nationalism, which centred
on persecuting Catalan national identity, the most vigorous of the sub-state
identities. Not only Catalan nationalist parties but also Catalan symbols and
the language were prohibited, which, far from doing away with them, made
Catalan sentiment stronger and more resistant. This was what Alejandro
Quiroga has called ‘negative nationalization’. Secondly, but with equal vigour,
there was a multiplication of Spanish nationalist initiatives in schools, in the
army, or in continual demonstrations of support for the dictator and the King,
as in, for example, the celebrations of victory in the war in Morocco.? There
were also major international exhibitions which showed off the greatness of
Spain and its links with the Americas, in Barcelona and Seville in 1929.
This dictatorship adopted as its official doctrine a Catholic Spanish
nationalism that was counter-revolutionary, anti-democratic and centralist.
It could not be described as fascist but had a great influence on the subsequent
dictatorship of General Franco. One can find certain parallels with the
® Javier Moreno Luzon: Modernizing the Nation: Spain during the Reign of Alfonso XIII, 1902¬
1931, Brighton, Sussex Academic Press, 2012.
Alejandro Quiroga: Making Spaniards: Primo de Rivera and the Nationalization of the
Masses, 1923-30, London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
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