Modern Spanish History

We modern kings are not like those of old; we are the first citizens of our Fatherland and, rather than sit immobile on a Throne, we guide nations along the path of progress 1 At the beginning of the twentieth century the political importance of the Spanish monarchy, like that of others in Europe, revealed itself in two complementary aspects of public life. One was the role of the Crown as a constitutional institution, endowed with key functions in the relations between the different powers of the state and the progress of government. The other was the capacity of the king and his family to embody collective identities and projects for the future, above all nationalistic ones, and it was upon this capacity that a large part of their legitimacy began to rest in the first stages of mass politics. The king not only intervened on a daily basis in political affairs, he also aspired to be the incarnation of the nation, and justified his behaviour by reference to the national interest. These two facets complemented each other, and one cannot understand one without the other. Diverse forces contributed to defining these two sources of power, but the opinions of the monarch himself were nearly always decisive. The long effective reign of Alfonso XIII from 1902 to 1931, highly influenced by developments in other European monarchies, can be divided into two phases separated by the First World War, which despite the country's official neutrality had a huge effect on Spanish society. In each a major nationalist and monarchist project, with accompanying public discourse, was put forward which shaped the king's political activities. Before the war the young monarch was filled with the need to regenerate Spain, to make it a cohesive, developed state that could occupy a significant place in Western Europe, a goal that implied respecting the constitutional framework and encouraging policies considered as liberal, even while the monarchy itself was 'nationalised' in the eyes of the people. The Great War

En el siglo xix, la idea de España como antítesis de la Europa moderna era algo más que un arma de propaganda antiespañola, una expresión del complejo de inferioridad hispánico o un artículo del credo progresista. Era el gran tópico identitario español, compartido por todas las corrientes ideológicas, empezando por las más conservadoras e hispanófilas. Este artículo presenta diversos textos decimonónicos que atribuyen a la Reconquista la escasa inclinación de los españoles a la tolerancia, la industria y la ciencia. Y así evidencia que los autores más dispares no solo daban por cierta la distancia entre España y Europa, sino que asociaban esa distancia a la gesta originaria de la nación española.

„Siedzisz sam w swoim płytkim dołku strzeleckim, przemarznięty do szpiku kości. Jedno co przykuwa twoją uwagę,  to  nadjeżdżający  z  oddali  bolszewicki  czołg. Ziemia drży, stalowy potwór jest coraz bliżej, a ty w rękach trzymasz Pancerfaust. Jesteś tak przemarznięty,  że  chłód  stali  parzy dłonie przez rękawice. Czołg się zbliża, a ty nie czujesz już zimna, tylko pot spływający po plecach. Gdy jest o 30 metrów od ciebie, wychylasz się ze swego ukrycia i bierzesz go na cel. Jak toreador w ostatnim akcie corridy: albo powalisz byka jednym pchnięciem, albo stalowe bydle zrobi z ciebie miazgę. Dookoła bitewny zgiełk, padają pociski, wybuchają granaty, słychać wrzask rannych i wycie czerwonej tłuszczy: Urra! Ale wtedy była w nas wewnętrzna cisza i spokój, jak u toreadora, gdy stoi sam ze szpadą na środku areny. Tak, czuliśmy się toreadorami i byliśmy nimi dosłownie, gdy samotnie niszczyliśmy sowieckie T-34 w samym środku bitwy. To był wspaniały moment triumfu, choć nie było muzyki i nikt nie bił nam braw”.
                                                                                kapral José García Moreto

This article explores the sociopolitical significance of automobility
during the Miguel Primo de Rivera dictatorship as a means to
historicize Antonio Espina’s novel Luna de copas. Devoting special
attention to the class antagonisms brought about by Primo de
Rivera’s economic policy and vision for Spain, the article shows
that Espina engages this historical context by fictionalizing the
growth of motorized tourism and industrial development in the
country. The novel’s depiction of automobility advances a critique
of the capitalist elites who achieved social and political
prominence under Primo de Rivera but whose participation in
modernization efforts was self-serving and not meant to bring
about effective change for most Spaniards. Drawing on
sociological theory and archival material, this article contends that
Luna de copas recognized how automobiles afforded their owners
a modern instrument of social distinction, dehumanization,
subjugation and deterritorialization, thereby strengthening
oligarchical structures at the height of the Machine Age.
Historicization of Espina’s novel suggests that scholarship has
overly exaggerated the autonomous nature of avant-garde fiction.

Através da análise da atuação dos juízes almotacés nas cidades Ibéricas pretendemos demonstrar que alguns preceitos migraram dos dogmas religiosos da Igreja Católica para a teoria política municipal posta em prática nas cidades de Portugal e Espanha durante a Idade Média. Para tanto, analisaremos a linha de filiação do ofício, que sofreu influências gregas, romanas e ainda esteve vinculado às mais básicas necessidades locais, até alcançarem à Modernidade e chegarem, com grande fôlego, aos domínios ultramarinos desses reinos.

Reclaiming al-Andalus focuses on the construction of the scholarly discipline of Orientalist studies in Spain. Special attention is paid to the impact that the elaboration of a series of historical interpretations of the legacy left by Muslim and Jewish culture in Spain had over the writing of national history in the period of the Bourbon Restoration. A historiographical account of Spain’s Orientalism tackles the problematized issues that both Arabist and Hebraist scholars sought to address. Orientalist scholarship thereby became inextricably linked to different interpretations of the historical shaping of Spanish national identity. Political circumstances of the day impacted on the approach these scholars took as they engaged with the Iberian Semitic past. And this at a critical moment in the crystallization of modern Spanish nationalism.