Spain: A Unique History (48 page)

The rise of the agitation concerning historical memory at the beginning of the twenty-first century has stemmed from three sources. One is the passing of generations and of time, not unassociated with the great development of archaeological research since the 1980s. The serious research aspect of historical memory has developed with historical distance, and with the growth of means to accomplish the work. Passage of time does not mean that there is no political dimension to this activity, but it has certainly meant less interference from countervailing political considerations.

The second factor is the shift in politics itself, with the increasing strength of the Partido Popular during 1996-2004, and the need to associate leftist political agitation with a different kind of argument. The first and second factors are interconnected, for, with the passage of time, most of the older generation of leftist leaders of the Transition has passed from the scene. These were the ones who seriously "remembered" the Civil War, not in the sense that they had participated in it but rather that they had been keenly aware of its realities and dangers, and were agreed not to use history for partisan purposes. The complete consolidation of democracy and the passage of time also meant that any remaining compensatory influences, such as potential pressure from the military, had completely disappeared.

The third factor was the change in ideology on the Left. The Left's doctrine shifted fairly rapidly during the late twentieth century, from the various radicalisms of the 1960s and early 1970s to the social democracy and "Eurocommunism" embraced by the late 1970s. The new orientation lasted for the better part of two decades, but by the 1990s was giving way to the common new ideology of the Left in the Western world, the only major modern ideology that does not have a generally agreed name. Its most technical title is political correctness, but in Spain it has often simply been called "el buenismo" (lit. "goodism"), "el pensamiento dominante" (the dominant thought), or "el pensamiento único" (uniform thought). Even more than other radical leftist doctrines of modern times, political correctness categorically rejects the past and traditional values, fetishizing cultural revolution rather than socioeconomic revolution, in this respect differing sometimes categorically from classical Marxism.
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Rejection of the past is central, as is the emphasis on victims and victimization and the search for special categories of people to be affirmed and, conversely, to be stigmatized. "Victimism" is particularly important to this contemporary ideology, since, like its immediate predecessors, it tends to become a secular religion or religion substitute, and thus must find means of dealing with fundamental questions of human guilt. This is accomplished by projecting that guilt onto selected scapegoats, nearly all of whom are dead white males, led in Spain by Francisco Franco. The definition and identification of victims and victimizers assumes a vital cultic significance, as victims fill the roles held by heroes in traditional culture, achieving a kind of salvific status.
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It is characteristic that in Spain such matters are rarely debated but most commonly simply asserted. This tends to be the case whether in the controversy over national identities or over the Civil War and post-Civil War repressions. When scholarly congresses are convened, they are normally organized by one side, which stacks the program with those representing its point of view, and the opposing side does the same. The partial exceptions have been a few congresses dealing with nationalism and identity, as well as occasional rarities, such as the "curso de verano" (summer course) held at the University of Burgos in the summer of 2005.

A hopeful sign was that the final version of the "Ley de la memoria histórica," as it is commonly but incorrectly called,
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that was finally passed by the Zapatero government, was more moderate than the earlier announcements of 2004-6. As a result of a wide variety of criticisms, ranging from those of spokesmen of the Partido Popular to professional historians (including a few of the most prestigious Socialist scholars), the term "memoria histórica" virtually disappeared, being replaced by the term "memoria democrática," which the law proposed to foster. Strictly speaking, "memoria democrática" would have to refer to the Transition, since there was never any full democracy in Spain before 1977, with the partial exception, perhaps, of the Lerroux-Samper governments of 1933-34, against which the Socialists rose in insurrection. Presumably, however, this was not precisely the intention of the leftist legislators responsible for passing such legislation. The law recognizes that "it is not the task of the legislator to implant a specific collective memory" but then contradicts itself by directing the government to carry out "public policies directed toward knowledge of our history and the development of democratic memory," so that "within the space of a year after this law takes effect, the government will establish an institutional framework to stimulate public policies for the conservation and development of democratic memory."

The principal objective of the law is to denounce "the radically unjust nature of all the condemnations, penalties, and any other form of personal violence carried out for political or ideological reasons or religious belief, during the Civil War, as well as those suffered for the same reasons during the dictatorship," and to prepare the way for supplementary measures of compensation and rehabilitation. The term "memoria histórica" appears only in the announcement of the establishment of the "Centro Documental de la Memoria Histórica y Archivo General de la Guerra Civil" (Documentary Center for Historical Memory and General Archive of the Civil War).
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The ultimate test of the law will be determined by how fairly the supplementary measures are applied to all categories of victims.

The controversies about history in contemporary Spain will not be resolved any time soon, for they are not fueled by antiquarian or scholarly interests but by political passions. The normal path to resolving controversies about history lies through expanded research and keener analysis, but achievements of historical scholarship are likely to have limited effect.

The only other country where equivalent controversy has taken place is not Germany, but Russia during the 1990s, where the main controversy was not just about the atrocities of Sovietism but about national history and identity more broadly. In Russia the debate has largely come to an end under Vladimir Putin, with the projection of a myth of the nation that dwells on positive aspects of the Russian past, without altogether denying the atrocities committed by totalitarianism. This has been encouraged both by the broad authoritarian powers of the Putin government and by its economic prosperity. An equally important factor is that Russian culture and society preserve certain characteristics of their own, distinct from Western culture, and are little affected by political correctness. This is true to such an extent that at least a very large minority of Russians by the early twenty-first century once more embraced Stalin as a national hero. Needless to say, Russia again provides an example of the road not to follow, and there is little danger that Spain will follow such a path.

The Spanish problem is, rather, to provide national coherence for whatever path is followed, and to recognize the ambiguity and complexity of its history. The two major historical controversies — that over the nation, and the second about the Civil War and Francoism, which are not unrelated — have no immediate resolution, since the divides are not merely historiographical but even more political, and will persist for some time.

1. The classic account of west European reactions to Spain in the early modern period is J. N. Hillgarth,
The Mirror of Spain, 1500-1700: The Formation of a Myth
(Ann Arbor, Mich., 2000).

2. J. Tazmir,
Szlachta i konkwistadorzy
(Warsaw, 1969).

3. J. Lelewel,
Parallèle historique entre l'Espagne et la Pologne an XVI, XVII, XVIIIe siècles
(Paris, 1836). This thesis has been updated and revised by M. Malowist, "Europe de l'Est et les Pays Ibériques: Analogie et Contrastes," in the University of Barcelona's Homenaje a Jaime Vicens Vives (Barcelona, 1965), 1:85-93.

4. For a general guide, perhaps the best place to begin is R. Núñez Florencio,
Sol y sangre: La imagen de España en el mundo
(Madrid, 2001).

5. The classic definition is that of Julián Juderías,
La Leyenda Negra: Estudios acerca del concepto de España en el extranjero
(Barcelona, 1912; repr., Salamanca, 1997). L. Español Bouché,
Leyendas negras: Vida y obra de Julián Juderías (1877-1918): La leyenda negra antiamericana
(Valladolid, 2007), presents an interesting account of Juderías and compares the anti-Spanish legend with the anti-American legend of more recent times. Further elaboration may be found in R. García Cárcel,
La Leyenda Negra: Historia y opinión
(Barcelona, 1997); W. S. Maltby,
Black Legend in England: The Development of Anti-Spanish Sentiment, 1558-1660
(Durham, N.C., 1971); M. Molina Martínez,
La Leyenda Negra
(Madrid, 1991); P. W. Powell,
Tree of Hate: Propaganda and Prejudice Affecting United Status Relations with the Hispanic World
(Berkeley, 1971); and D. Ramos,
Genocidio y conquista: Viejos mitos que siguen en pie
(Madrid, 1998). J. Pérez,
La Leyenda Negra
(Madrid, 2009), presents an excellent overview.

6. On the formation of these images, see E. Fernández Herr,
Les origines de l'Espagne romantique: Les récits de voyage (1755-1823)
(Paris, 1973); L.F. Hoffman, Romantique Espagne:
l'Image de l'Espagne en France entre 1800 et 1850
(Paris, 1961); L. Félix Fernández,
La España de Mérimée
(Málaga, 1990); E. Echevarría Pereda,
La imagen de España en Francia: Viajeras francesas decimonónicas
(Málaga, 1994); M. Bernal Rodríguez,
La Andalucía de los libros de viajes del siglo XIX
(Seville, 1985); A. González Troyano,
La desventura de Carmen: Una divagación sobre Andalucía
(Madrid, 1991); B. Cantizano Márquez,
Estudio del tópico de Carmen en los viajeros británicos del siglo XIX
(Granada, 1999); D. Howarth,
The Invention of Spain: Cultural Relations between Britain and Spain, 1770-1870
(Manchester, 2007), and the excellent summary in T. Mitchell,
Flamenco Deep Song
(New Haven, Conn., 1994), III — 25. A classic, if morbid, phrase was Maurice Barres's
Du sang, de la volupté et de la mort
, though the product was a generally uninteresting book that did not live up to its title and eventually appeared in Spanish as
Sangre, voluptuosidad y muerte
, not in Spain but in Buenos Aires in 1922.

7. After 1961 the government abandoned the slogan and generally promoted a more "serious" image. See S. D. Pack,
Tourism and Dictatorship: Europe's Peaceful Invasion of Franco's Spain
(New York, 2006), 148-53.

8. William D. Phillips Jr. has pointed to the presence of such attitudes (and ignorance) in the three books most widely read in the United States on contemporary and general Spanish history: G. Brenan,
The Spanish Labyrinth: An Account of the Social and Political Background of the Civil War
(New York, 1944; repr., Cambridge, 1990);
J. A. Crow, Spain: The Root and the Flower; An Interpretation of Spain and the Spanish People
(Berkeley, 2005); and H. Thomas,
The Spanish Civil War
(New York, 1961; rev. ed., London, 2003). See W. D. Phillips, "La otra cara de la moneda: La imagen de España en los Estados Unidos," in J. M. de Bernardo Ares, ed.,
El hispanismo anglonorteamericano: Aportaciones, problemas y perspectivas sobre Historia, Arte y Literatura Españolas (siglos XVI-XVIII)
(Córdoba, 2001), 161-76.

9. Hillgarth,
Mirror of Spain
, 544.

1. R. Kagan,
Spain in America: The Origins of Hispanism in the United States
(Urbana, 2002), 1-2.

2. In addition to the work by Kagan, see the older summaries by M. Romera-Navarro,
El hispanismo en Norteamérica
(Madrid, 1917), and F. S. Stimson,
Orígenes del hispanismo norteamericano
(Mexico City, 1961).

3. T. E. Chávez,
Spain and the Independence of the United States: An Intrinsic Gift
(Albuquerque, 2002), is an important new work that shows that Spanish policy was active on more fronts than it has been given credit for and had more effect on the war than has generally been thought. The Spanish intervention was a logical extension of the pro-French, anti-British policy of that era, though the more astute Spanish observers and analysts pointed out the potential "boomerang effect" of fostering a strong new independent, English-speaking power in North America. See L. T. Cummins, Spanish Observers and the American Revolution, 1775-1783 (Baton Rouge, 1991).

4. W. H. Prescott,
History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella
(1837),
A History of the Conquest of Mexico
(1843),
A History of the Conquest of Peru
(1847), and
History of the Reign of Philip the Second of Spain
(1855). For a brief summary of Prescott's work in Spanish, see M. González-Arnao Conde-Luque, "William H. Prescott: Historiador de España y de las Indias,"
Historia 16
, 10.117 (January 1986): 99-106.

5. Kagan,
Spain in America
, 10. See also Kagan's article, "Prescott's Paradigm: American Historical Scholarship and the Decline of Spain," American Historical Review 101.2 (1996): 423-46.

6. S. T. Wallis,
Glimpses of Spain
(1849) and
Spain: Her Institutions, Politics and Public Men
(1853).

7. See the remarks of Kagan on Wallis in his articles "Un país gobernado por los curas: Reflexiones en torno a la imagen de España en Estados Unidos a comienzos del siglo XIX," in J. Martínez Millán and C. Reyero, eds.,
El siglo de Carlos Vy Felipe II: La construcción de los mitos en el siglo XIX
(Madrid, 2000),1:419-36, and "La imagen de España en el mundo anglonorteamericano: Reflexiones sobre su evolución histórica," in J. M. de Bernardo Ares, ed.,
El hispanismo anglonorteamericano: Aportaciones, problemas y perspectivas sobre Historia, Artey Literatura Españolas (siglos XVI-XVIII)
(Córdoba, 2001), 1:141-47.