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- Identity: the
building blocks of
2. Literature
and philosophy
3. Art and
architecture
4. Performing
arts
5. Cinema
and fashion
6. Media and
communications
7. Food and drink 8. Living culture:
the details of
Bluntly repressing liberals, reinvigorating the Inquisition
and dragging Spain through further corruption and
economic freefall, he was hardly a shining light.
As Spain’s divisive introspection grew ever worse, its
mighty empire in the Americas slipped away. By 1826 all
the Spanish possessions on mainland South America
had declared independence with Spain incapable of
stopping them.
Power struggles: the monarchy clings on
Fernando VII’s daughter, Isabel II, only acceded to
the throne after her liberal supporters fought the First
Carlist War against the clergy-backed conservatives and
northern rebels (Carlists) loyal to her uncle, Don Carlos.
Despite the liberal ride to power and the establishment
of the Cortes, Isabel attempted absolutism.
The countryside was lawless and the nation crippled by
debt yet Isabel busied herself with decorating palaces.
She became widely hated. General Prim found little
opposition when he and his liberal mates removed her
from power in 1868 in what the Spanish refer to as the
Glorious Revolution (la Gloriosa).
Again, however, the power vacuum left a fractious mess: liberals
wanted a republican democracy, others, including the military, favoured
constitutional monarchy. Prim was assassinated in the scuffles and the
Second Carlist War broke out in 1873, fought between three sides all
favouring a different regent. In the turmoil, liberals seized the chance
to declare a federal republic. It was sunk within a year and Alfonso XII,
Isabel II’s son, eventually got the job of king, ruling with a new constitution
of 1876 and ushering in a period of relatively stable – albeit rigged –
government through parliament. Any appearance of calm was, however,
illusory: trouble was brewing as new ideologies and a vocal underclass
began surfacing with the industrial age.
Come on everyone, cheer
up: the Generation of 98
In 1898 Spain’s last major
colonies, Puerto Rico,
Cuba and the Philippines,
cut the apron strings.
Such was the gloom back
in Spain at the end of its
imperial adventure that
a whole intellectual
movement, the so-called
Generación del 98,
emerged to ponder the
situation. They didn’t
simply navel-gaze on the
country’s woe but tried to
instigate some kind of
renaissance. With writers
like Miguel de Unamuno
and Antonio Machado
surfacing in the early 20th
century, they succeeded.
