Iberian Paradigms of the Twentieth Century: The Constitutive Politicization of Culture and Conflictual Asymmetry

When we regard the Iberian peninsula as a self-contained and culturally multipolar constellation – a “pequeña totalidad geográfica e histórica” (Resina 46) – we find that one specific feature is particularly striking, and that is the region's high degree of social, ideological, and political conflict. This is especially the case for the twentieth century, the historical era on which this essay focuses. Antagonisms develop along two different axes of conflict: on the one hand, between multinationalism and the nation-state, and on the other, ideological conflicts between communism/Republicanism and Falangism/ fascism. Of course, these vertical and horizontal tensions do not occur in southwestern Europe alone but are characteristic of Europe in its entirety. Indeed, for historians like Dan Diner and Tony Judt, to a very great extent they make up the history of the twentieth century. For the Iberian world, however, these axes of conflict are so constitutive and so central to the construction of identity that one might be inclined to regard the Iberian peninsula as a paradigm, or at the very least a microcosm, of the twentieth century as a whole. Of course, the extent to which these simmering antagonisms express themselves in the form of actual events varies over time, from disputes at a tertulia to political conflicts between nacionalidades and the nation-state to armed conflict in civil wars. The key consideration is that they lead to a high degree of politicization of culture, especially in situations of political and generational upheaval such as dictatorship, civil war, and democratization – situations that in turn are almost the norm in twentieth-century Iberia. The politicization of culture will thus play a central role in my exploration of Iberian paradigms.

If we relate these two axes of conflict to each other – the conflict of nationalities and the social and ideological conflict – this would seem to exceed the core of what defines the Iberian cultural area for Resina: the differential structure of internal multi- and transnationalism. These two axes cut across one another. If I relate them to each other nonetheless, I do so because what I have called constitutive politicization is exacerbated still further by a deeper analogy between them: a constant and dominant mode or framework condition of both of these types of antagonism is the asymmetric relationship between the camps.