Oldal 75 [75]
JAVIER MORENO LUZÓN
regime of Admiral Horthy in Hungary, although in Spain the Constitution
was suspended, only one official party was permitted and no parliamentary
elections were held. Inevitably, the dictatorship led to national symbols such
as the red and yellow flag, which up to then had been shared by the majority
of Spaniards, becoming identified with an authoritarian monarchy, and so
rejected by democratic forces.
1he fall of this dictatorship also signified the fall of the monarchy, and the
proclamation in 1931 of a democratic republic. On the one hand this promoted
the other variant of Spanish nationalism, civic and democratic, in its schools
and national holidays, with its own symbols such as the old liberal hymn the
Himno de Riego as a new national anthem, and a new national flag of three
colours (in the French revolutionary style) incorporating the purple that was
associated with Castile and so with the Castilian revolt against the Habsburgs
in the 1520s.’° At the same time it brought a new opportunity for Catalan and
Basque nationalists. The Catalan republicans succeeded in getting the Madrid
parliament to approve a Statute of Autonomy for Catalonia, under which
the Catalan government would take responsibility for education, economic
affairs and public order. However, the Basque nationalists, more conservative
and opposed to the secular republic, did not achieve their autonomy until the
outbreak of the Civil War in 1936, in exchange for supporting the republicans
against the military officers who had rebelled against constitutional legality.
In the Civil War one could see demonstrated the depth of nationalization
that had been achieved up to that point. For, as Xosé M. Nuiiez Seixas has
underlined, both sides employed mobilizing propaganda that conceived the
conflict as a war of independence against foreign invaders. The republicans
saw themselves as heirs to the people in arms of 1808, risen up this time
against fascism, since Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy both supported the
army that had rebelled against the Republic. While the insurgents headed
by General Franco considered themselves the heirs to imperial and Catholic
Spain struggling against the enemies of religion, and above all international
Communism, since the Soviet Union was the principal external source of
support for the Republic. As we all know, Franco’s side, which called itself
the ‘national’ side, won, and with this victory fierce repression was unleashed
against leftists and Catalan and Basque nationalists, and the conservative,
Catholic and militarist version of Spanish nationalism imposed from above."
0 Sandie Holguin: Creating Spaniards: Culture and National Identity in Republican Spain,
Madison, Wisconsin University Press, 2002.
Xosé M. Nujfiez Seixas: Nations in Arms against the Invader: On nationalist discourses
during the Spanish Civil War, in Chris Ealham — Michael Richards (eds.): The Splintering
of Spain: Cultural History and the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939, Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press, 2005, 45-67.
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