"Becoming European": Spain's Selective Historical Memory and National Identity
Date
2025-07-15
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Abstract
The role of historical memory in the formation of national identities is well-documented. Historical memory is a continuous process by which societies piece aspects of the past together to devise a narrative that shapes identities and political action in the present. It lends nations the appearance of naturalness and continuity, creates perceived commonalities among those who identify or are identified as members of nations, and erases potentially divisive or embarrassing parts of history. Global communications, international movements to redress past harms, and political actors’ longstanding tendency to define nations in comparison and opposition to one another mean that historical memory, national identities, and nationalism are increasingly shaped by transnational phenomena.
This thesis focuses on the role of historical memory in contemporary constructions of Spain’s national identity, specifically in relation to the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and Francisco Franco’s fascist dictatorship (1939-1975), Muslim rule over the Iberian Peninsula (711-1492), and Spain’s place in European institutions. Spanish politicians, activists, and intellectuals generally express admiration for supranational concepts of “Europe” and European institutions. Some define “Europe” in civic terms by invoking political ideals such as democracy, human rights, and antifascism. Spain diverged from this understanding of “Europe” through the Spanish Civil War and Franco’s dictatorship. Others define “Europe” ethnically by imagining it as homogeneously white and Christian, but Spain is different from its European neighbors because of medieval Muslim rule.
I argue that various individuals and institutions in Spain have employed historical memory to portray their nation as “European” in spite of its past disjunctures from “Europe.” My analysis is informed by a wide range of primary sources in English and Spanish, such as newspapers, polls, legislation, and oral histories; a rich literature on nationalism and the history and contemporary politics of Spain and Europe; and visits to historical sites, monuments, and memorials in Spain.
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Europe, historical memory, nationalism, Spain