The two Spains

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The two Spains (Spanish: las dos Españas) is a phrase from a short poem by Spanish poet Antonio Machado. The phrase is the given name to the intellectual debate concerning the national identity of being Spanish, rising alongside regenerationism at the end of the 19th century. It coincides with the apparition of peripheral nationalisms. This ideology of being Spanish converges with the topic of Two Spains, a very descriptive imagery of the violent division and fratricidal confrontation which characterises the contemporary history of Spain. It is mainly referring to the left-right political divisions that later led to the Spanish Civil War, originated in a short, untitled poem, number LIII of his Proverbios y Cantares^[1] (Proverbs and Songs).

The aim of said debate was not inherently political or juri-consitutional — the definition of Spain as a nation in a judicial sense, a topic which was debated in the constitutional process of 1978, where there were negations, nuance and affirmations of the Spanish Nation; it was not a historiographic debate either — studying the construction of the national Spanish identity, which was historically achieved as a consequence of the prolonged existence in time of the institutions of the Ancient Regime of Spain, sometimes even despite them. What those key thinkers aimed was to elucidate the preexistence of a national character, or to be from Spain. In short, they aimed to deduce the "essence" of "what is Spanish". They wished to explore why at the time this identity was problematic, or if it isn't, when viewed through the majority national consensus of other nations which are "more successful", such as the french or the german. Thus planting the possibility that Spain is not a historical exception. This all gave origin to a famous debate, whether through essays, literary or history, which prolonged for decades and has yet to end, creating various differing perspectives and arguments.

In many occasions, the debate itself has been criticised. On one hand, for its negative introspection, and on the other, for its previous condition of essentialism, a philosophical perspective regarding the reflexions about the essence of something. This is criticised as the appropriate historical approach would have explored the passage of time, as nations are not unchangeable, but a construction of humans through the passage of time, perhaps even restricted to the most contemporary history in which concerns modern concepts of nations and nationalism.