En busca del siglo perdido. De la reivindicación imperial al rescate del siglo XIX en los años de consolidación del régimen franquista

Abstract

This article sets up the role of historical essay in the constitution of Spanish nationalist discourse in the years of early civil postwar and initial consolidation of Franco’s regime. It explores the transition of studies basically related to imperial Spain to those examining decadence. Moreover, it evaluates the irruption of a new intellectual consideration of Spanish Nineteenth Century. These last elements —the new analysis of modern decadence and the vindication of regeneration criticism—, were congruent with an intellectual and political need of Francoism. This was the urgency of strengthening its singularity and its will of permanence,when the destruction of international fascist experience could be seen as a contingent circumstance opening way for the recovering of the Spanish universal enterprise essence.