Regionalism and Nationalism in Spain During the Restoration
Peripheral Nationalisms in Spain During the Restoration
Nineteenth-century liberalism was based on a central idea of the state, and among the Democrats and Republicans, a centralist and unitary sense of the nation predominated. Commitment to a state. Some forces maintained the idea of Spain as a union of territories that maintained their medieval privileges or a union of free associated states. The Restoration system consecrated centralism in its constitution and through such measures as the abolition of the Basque-Navarrese charters. A movement of cultural and linguistic recovery that was taking place in several areas of the state acquired political overtones. Regionalism emerged as a movement that claimed forms of self-government. Its small social base was the bourgeoisie, peasantry, and sections of the clergy.
Regionalism and Nationalism in Catalonia During the Restoration
In Catalonia in 1830, there was an emerging cultural movement, the Renaixença, which included several changes in intellectual activity. Social aspirations were very diverse. Carlism and federalism are at the origins of Catalanism. The Carlists aspired to the recovery of traditional institutions and fueros. The federalists were the majority in the elections of 1869 as a Federal Democratic Republican Party, founding a pioneering political organization, the Jove Catalunya, led by Angel Guimerà. After the fall of the Republic in 1874 and the Carlist defeat in 1876, a pre-nationalist generalism developed, with Valentin Almirall and Enric Prat de la Riba expressing this movement in their works. Almirall was the creator of modern Catalanism, with a federalist orientation to overcome and unify the different particularistic positions of the bourgeoisie. He founded the Centre Català in 1882 as a patriotic organization that was above the existing parties.
In 1887, he founded the conservative Lliga de Catalunya, which presented to the Queen Regent Maria Christina of Austria a regional program that maintained fidelity to the monarchy and sought a wide autonomy. In 1891, the Lliga de Catalunya merged into the Unió Catalanista. At its first assembly, the Bases de Manresa were drafted for a Catalan regional constitution, a synthesis of the federal conception of the Catalan state and its integration into the Spanish state.
The Beginnings of Basque Nationalism
The nationalism of the Basque Country grew out of the defense of individual peculiarities, similar to Catalan fueros. Its bases were the clergy, the peasantry, and the small bourgeoisie. The abolition of the fueros historically generated a sense of defeat and an idealization of the past. The losers of the Carlist War dreamed of a rural Basque Country, contrary to the urban phenomenon and its industry. To defend the charters amounted to defending the essence of what was Basque. Their enemies were the liberal Spanish government and immigration. The propellant of Basque nationalism was Sabino Arana, who collected these ideas and put them into practice in the first nationalist society. This fundamentalist nationalism was traditionalist, Catholic, and against industrialization, liberalism, socialism, and Spain. On July 31, 1895, he founded the Basque Nationalist Party with an anti-Spanish declaration and a willingness to restore traditional laws on the territory.
Other Regionalism and Nationalism
In Galicia, the bases of regionalism are in the resurgence of the literary language (Rexurdimento) and federalist movements. Writers such as Rosalía de Castro dignified the language, and Alfredo Brañas formulated the political aspirations of the first Galician regionalism.