The Region as Essence of the Fatherland:Regionalist Variants of Spanish Nationalism(1840–1936)

Abstract

This article attempts to offer a comparative overview of the different regionalist discourses that, from the liberal revolution to the Civil War, have coexisted under the common banner of Spanish nationalism. Instead of their being considered merely as forerunners of stateless nationalisms, it is argued that no one-way evolution from the region to an alternative nation is acceptable. On the contrary, many political actors in Spanish history considered the promotion of regional identity and political regionalism to offer the best means of defending Spanish nationalism. Regionalism was shared by most traditionalist and most republican nationalists, while even among the theoreticians of authoritarian Spanish nationalism it was possible to find the idea that the region was the most ‘natural’ expression of the Spanish patria (fatherland). Nevertheless, regionalist discourse and mobilization also generated dynamics of mesoterritorial identity-formation which led to the articulation of peripheral nationalist discourse.

Place and local identity in the Europe of nations: Catalonia and its cities in Restoration Spain (1875–1923)

“…Rubio, 2003, 2016). Although regional identities in some cases resisted cultural uniformisation, proposed anti‐centralist reforms to the institutional architecture of the state and laid the groundwork for subsequent processes of national affirmation alternative to the Spanish process, these and other case studies generally concur in emphasising that nation‐ and region‐building were more or less interdependent processes and that regionalism could act as a vehicle for the Spanish nationalisation of the population (Núñez, 2001).…”

“…In Catalonia (and also in the Balearic Islands), most particularly during the Bourbon Restoration period, many cities and towns started portrait galleries of illustrious citizens. These galleries were (and to a degree still are today) true local (and regional) lieux de mémoire (Nora, 1997), places where the presence of the past in the present was managed that gave concrete form to the iconic representation of the (local) pàtria and were usually home to a form of civic ritualisation designed to pay homage to fellow citizens who were deemed worthy of being remembered. As a cultural practice, it drew on the genre of biography, which was often intended to edify (Dosse, 2005), and was tied to the social expansion of portraiture in the 19th century.…”

Iconos y Sanctasanctórums de la patria: las galerías de ciudadanos ilustres en Catalunya y Balears (1871-1923)

“…En los últimos decenios han abundado en España las investigaciones y debates sobre la formación y la socialización de la identidad nacional española (entre la bibliografía ingente, unos pocos exponentes recientes: Esteban de Vega y De la Calle, 2010; Morales, Fusi, de Blas, 2013;Moreno y Núñez, 2013;Quiroga y Archilés, 2013;Beramendi et al, 2020) y sus alternativas subestatales (en el caso de Catalunya son muestra de ello Casassas, 2009;Flocel, 2015;Casals y Cattini, 2020) y sobre las expresiones regionalistas y su participación en la construcción del imaginario nacional y el proceso nacionalizador en clave española (por sus planteamientos interpretativos de conjunto, Núñez, 2001;Archilés y Martí, 2004;Storm, 2021). La función de los símbolos, los mitos, las fiestas, las tradiciones y las narrativas sobre el pasado común en todas estas manifestaciones y desarrollos históricos ha generado un interés muy destacable (algunas muestras recientes: Álvarez Junco y De la Fuente, 2017; Moreno y Núñez, 2017;Moreno, 2021.…”

The Long and Winding Road of Nationalization: Eugen Weber's Peasants into Frenchmen in Modern European History (1976—2006)

“…32 In contrast other, recent studies have emphasized the local factor as a form of expressing the national identity of the state. 33 Along these lines, the role of the Church in Spanish nationalization has been defined as contradictory but not competing with the state. 34 In the sphere of peasant identity representation, there have been some advances beyond mere essays, such as Fernando Molina's study of the invention of the 'Basque problem' by Spanish nationalism.…”