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The creation of the tradition of the political community of Spaniards as common destiny over other communities has been argued to trace back to the Cortes of Cádiz.[1] From 1812 on, revisiting the previous history of Spain, Spanish liberalism tended to take for granted the national conscience and the Spanish nation.[2]
A by-product of 19th-century Spanish nationalist thinking is the concept of Reconquista, which holds the power of propelling the weaponized notion of Spain being a nation shaped against Islam.[3] The strong interface of nationalism with colonialism is another feature of 19th-century nation building in Spain, with the defence of slavery and colonialism in Cuba being often able to reconcile tensions between mainland elites of Catalonia and Madrid throughout the period.[4]
During the first half of 20th century (notably during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera and the dictatorship of Franco), a new brand of Spanish nationalism with a marked military flavour and an authoritarian stance (as well as promoting policies favouring the Spanish language against the other languages in the country) as a means of modernizing the country was developed by Spanish conservatives, fusing regenerationist principles with traditional Spanish nationalism.[5] The authoritarian national ideal resumed during the Francoist dictatorship, in the form of National-Catholicism,[5] which was in turn complemented by the myth of Hispanidad.[6] Identified with Francoism, positive affirmation of Spanish nationalism was delegitimised after the death of the dictator in 1975.[7]
A distinct manifestation of Spanish nationalism in modern Spanish politics is the interchange of attacks with competing regional nationalisms.[8] Initially present after the end of Francoism in a rather diffuse and reactive form, the Spanish nationalist discourse has been often self-branded as "constitutional patriotism" since the 1980s.[9] Often ignored as in the case of other State nationalisms,[10] its alleged "non-existence" has been a commonplace espoused by prominent figures in the public sphere as well as the mass-media in the country.[11]
A central scholarly debate pertaining to the construction of the contemporary Spanish national identity revolves around the assessment of the effective reach of nationalising mechanisms, most specifically vis-à-vis the axiom of 19th-century weak nationalization, supported, for example, by José Álvarez Junco.[12]
Spanish nationalism is a justification of the centralist Spanish state, according to Borja de Riquer. In this sense, it is the historical result of well-known political-ideological-economic interests,[weasel words] in the minds of some pressure groups, among which he mentions many elites of the "Hispanic peoples".[13]
- ^ Riquer i Permanyer 1994, pp. 14–15.
- ^ Riquer i Permanyer, Borja de (1994). "Aproximación al nacionalismo español contemporáneo". Stvdia Historica. Historia Contemporánea. 12. University of Salamanca: 14–15. ISSN 0213-2087.
- ^ García-Sanjuán, Alejandro (2020). "Weaponizing Historical Knowledge: the Notion of Reconquista in Spanish Nationalism". Imago Temporis. Medium Aevum. Lleida: Universitat de Lleida: 133. doi:10.21001/itma.2020.14.04. hdl:10272/19498. ISSN 1888-3931.
- ^ Schmidt-Nowara, Christopher (2004). "'La España Ultramarina': Colonialism and Nation-Building in Nineteenth-Century Spain". European History Quarterly. 34 (2): 199. doi:10.1177/0265691404042507.
- ^ a b Muro & Quiroga 2005, pp. 17–18.
- ^ Núñez 2001, p. 720.
- ^ Núñez 2001, p. 721.
- ^ Muro & Quiroga 2005, p. 9.
- ^ Núñez 2001, p. 719.
- ^ Muro, Diego; Quiroga, Alejandro (2005). "Spanish nationalism. Ethnic or civic?" (PDF). Ethnicities. 5 (1). SAGE Publications: 9–10. doi:10.1177/1468796805049922. ISSN 1468-7968. S2CID 144193279.
- ^ Núñez, Xosé-Manoel (2001). "What is Spanish nationalism today? From legitimacy crisis to unfulfilled renovation (1975–2000)". Ethnic and Racial Studies. 24 (5): 719–752. doi:10.1080/01419870120063954. S2CID 143787176.
- ^ Archilés, Ferran (2004). "¿Quien necesita la nación débil? La débil nacionalización española y los historiadores" (PDF). In Forcadell, Carlos (ed.). Usos públicos de la historia. Vol. 1. Zaragoza: Institución Fernando el Católico. pp. 302–303. doi:10.26754/uz.84-7733-698-9. ISBN 84-7733-698-9.
- ^ Borja de Riquer. 2001, 314. or.