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The two Spains (Spanish: las dos Españas) is a phrase from a short poem by Spanish poet Antonio Machado. The phrase is the given name to the intellectual debate concerning the national identity of being Spanish, rising alongside regenerationism at the end of the 19th century. It coincides with the apparition of peripheral nationalisms. This ideology of being Spanish converges with the topic of Two Spains, a very descriptive imagery of the violent division and fratricidal confrontation which characterises the contemporary history of Spain. It is mainly referring to the left-right political divisions that later led to the Spanish Civil War, originated in a short, untitled poem, number LIII of his Proverbios y Cantares (Proverbs and Songs).
The aim of said debate was not inherently political or juri-consitutional — the definition of Spain as a nation in a judicial sense, a topic which was debated in the constitutional process of 1978, where there were negations, nuance and affirmations of the Spanish Nation; it was not a historiographic debate either — studying the construction of the national Spanish identity, which was historically achieved as a consequence of the prolonged existence in time of the institutions of the Ancient Regime of Spain, sometimes even despite them. What those key thinkers aimed was to elucidate the preexistence of a national character, or to be from Spain. In short, they aimed to deduce the "essence" of "what is Spanish". They wished to explore why at the time this identity was problematic, or if it isn't, when viewed through the majority national consensus of other nations which are "more successful", such as the french or the german. Thus planting the possibility that Spain is not a historical exception. This all gave origin to a famous debate, whether through essays, literary or history, which prolonged for decades and has yet to end, creating various differing perspectives and arguments.
In many occasions, the debate itself has been criticised. On one hand, for its negative introspection, and on the other, for its previous condition of essentialism, a philosophical perspective regarding the reflexions about the essence of something. This is criticised as the appropriate historical approach would have explored the passage of time, as nations are not unchangeable, but a construction of humans through the passage of time, perhaps even restricted to the most contemporary history in which concerns modern concepts of nations and nationalism.
Beginning of the intellectual debate
Antonio Machado himself is an example of this split. While he wrote a poem to honour the Communist General Enrique Líster, his brother Manuel Machado dedicated another poem to the saber of the rebel Generalissimo Francisco Franco.
The idea of a divided Spain, each half antagonistic to the other half, dates back at least to 19th-century Spanish satirist Mariano José de Larra, who, in his article "All Souls' Day 1836" wrote "Here lies half of Spain. It died of the other half." Later, philosopher Miguel de Unamuno, Machado's contemporary, developed the idea through the Biblical story of Jacob and Esau struggling for dominance in their mother's womb, as in the article "Rebeca" (1914), which may pre-date Machado's quatrain. But historians trace the idea still further back, to the 17th and 18th centuries and the formation of the Spanish character.
Historian Charles J. Esdaile describes Machado's "two Spains" as "the one clerical, absolutist and reactionary, and the other secular, constitutional and progressive," but views this picture of the first Spain as "far too simplistic", in that it lumps the enlightened absolutism of the 18th century Bourbon monarchs with the reactionary politics that simply wanted to restore the "untrammeled enjoyment" of the privileges of the Church and aristocracy. In addition, he states that the populacho—the mass of the common people "pursuing a dimly perceived agenda of their own"—were not loyal to any of these in the long term.
See also
References
- Proverbios y Cantares Archived 21 June 2007 at the Wayback Machine, LIII, Antonio Machado.
- A Líster, jefe en los ejércitos del Ebro Archived 18 December 2022 at the Wayback Machine, Antonio Machado, June 1938.
- de Larra, Mariano José (2 November 1836). "El Día de Difuntos de 1836: Fígaro en el cementerio. "Aquí yace media España; murió de la otra media."" (in European Spanish). Archived from the original on 9 July 2018.
- Ramón Menéndez Pidal, "The Two Spains," in "The Spaniards in Their History," transl. Walter Starkie. New York: Norton, 1966, pp. 102-43.
- Fidelino de Figueiredo, "As Duas Espanhas" (1932).
- Charles J. Esdaile, Spain in the Liberal Age, Blackwell, 2000. ISBN 0-631-14988-0. p. 40–41.