Rise of Spanish Nationalisms: Catalonia, Basque Country, Galicia
Nationals: Centrality of Liberalismo in Spain
The liberal political system emerged from the Spanish Civil War (1833-1840). It was sustained by military and political elites representing conservative liberal sectors. These elites created a political regime and state model, imitating French uniforms, assuming national unity. The new centralized state organization aimed to ignore existing communities and dissolve them into a common integration process.
Bases of Peripheral Nationalisms
Initially, the movement was claimed to be regionalist and nationalist bourgeoisie. The great industrial and financial bourgeoisie, though in different regions, was linked to public policy interests and used its economic power to influence governments. Madrid provided protection to their regional businesses. The demonstrations were originally by the small and medium bourgeoisie.
Catalanism: Social and Ideological Bases
Catalanism covered diverse intellectual activities using the vernacular language. This movement united various bourgeois interests: industrial, councils, decentralization, and religious. Romanticism and the exclusion of republican federalism forced these groups to abandon doctrinal dogmatism for pre-nationalist regionalism. Federal republicanism and historical privileges on the Carlist dynastic issue led both streams to converge in Catalan politics.
Almirall championed modern Catalanism, focusing on federalism to unify opposing bourgeois positions. His approach was not for independence but for regenerative autonomy, where unity was a consequence of industrial and commercial development led by an urban-industrial bourgeoisie.
Catalan Organizations
Almirall founded the Centre Català, aiming to bridge federal and conservative bourgeoisies. Resistance from conservatives led to the formation of the Lliga de Catalunya, presented to Queen Regent Maria Cristina.
Basque Nationalism
Social and Ideological Bases
Basque nationalism emerged from the defense of privileges, leading to two reactions: those profiting from economic loss concerts and those advocating for the full recovery of charters. These were not the industrial bourgeois but the Carlist War losers.
Historians and ideologues lamented the loss of the “golden age.” Industrialization and migrant influx were seen as enemies, along with the liberal Spanish government that abolished their privileges.
PNV (Basque Nationalist Party)
For a “different” people, regaining full sovereignty meant independence, returning to the original release and historical essence of the Basque people, the Old Law. The motto was “God and Old Law” (privileges and traditions).
The first PNV had an anti-Spanish declaration and aimed to restore the traditional legal order. Unable to achieve this, it expanded its base to include a more modern industrial bourgeoisie. Internal tensions arose between advocates of independence and autonomy within Spain.
Autonomists gained control of the PNV, adopting a “Catalan” autonomist line, aiming to “remake Spain” from the Basque Country. This mix created a balance that lasted for decades.
Other National and Regional Events
Galician Nationalism (Galleguismo)
Galician nationalism showed specific differences from Catalan or Basque. It failed to build a unified political force but created an ideological gap, theorizing on Galicia’s national nature. Its main ideologues’ approaches were adopted by 20th-century nationalists. Galleguismo aimed for legal and political decentralization through autonomy.
Andalusian Regionalism (Andalucismo)
Andalusian regionalism began with the cantonalist movements of 1873. The key act was the Antequera proclamation of a Federalist Constitution for a “sovereign and autonomous Andalusia.” The lack of a consolidated bourgeois Andalusian Party was due to the bourgeoisie’s links with central power and the labor movement’s shift to anarchism, opposing any pact with the bourgeoisie.