Regenerationism

Regenerationism is the name given to the heterogeneous ideological current that, between the 19th and 20th centuries, reflected on the Spanish nation and tried to remedy the "decline of Spain", especially after the enormous impact of the "disaster of 98". It is convenient, however, to differentiate it from the so-called "generation of 98", with which it is usually confused, since, although both movements express the same pessimistic judgment about Spain, the regenerationists do in a less subjective and somewhat more documented and practical way, while the generation of 1898 does so in a more literary, subjective and artistic way. The main representative of regenerationism was the Aragonese Joaquín Costa with his motto «School, pantry and seven keys to the tomb of the Cid».

The regenerationists, aware of Spain's backwardness compared to other more developed countries —a backwardness that they even exaggerate—, intend to find ways for a national "regeneration" that will uproot the evils of the homeland (the poor distribution of the wealth originated in the confiscation of Mendizábal in 1836, the lack of stability due to the Carlist civil wars, the corrupt political system of the Restoration based on electoral fraud or caciquil pucherazo, latifundismo, peasant misery, educational backwardness, scientific, technical and industrial, illiteracy, regional issues, irrelevance on the international scene, etc.) and situate it at the level of modernity and power that corresponds to it due to its past greatness.

Regenerationism became a movement of a strongly transversal nature, with regenerationists both conservative and progressive, traditionalist and republican. Among the right, it was mostly Africanist in vocation. Some, like Macías Picavea, defended a regionalist regenerationism. Thus, regenerationism will influence movements on the right (Maurismo) and on the extreme right (Primorriverismo, Falangismo, Francoism) and also on the left (Republicanism, Socialism).

Use of the term

The word «regeneration» is already in use at the beginning of the XIX century and is taken from the medical lexicon, as an antonym of “corruption”, in order to express a political expectation. In fact, it is a new form in which the old concern about the "decline" of the country, which expressed itself in the 16th and 17th centuries through the work of the arbitristas and in the XVIII through the Enlightenment and Bourbon reformism (exemplified at the beginning in the patriotic criticism of Father Feijoo and the novatores), sometimes satirized in the figure of the so-called projectism that José Cadalso attacked in his Moroccan Letters. But its development at the end of the XIX century is a direct consequence of the crisis of the political system founded by Cánovas in the Restoration: the alternation of parties, which had provided the country with some stability, but which was sustained on the basis of great political corruption, caciquismo, electoral fraud and the isolation of modernizing political initiatives such as those proposed by the Democratic Party. The term was defined ideologically through the influence of Krausism, a philosophy that proclaimed freedom of conscience, introduced in Spain by Julián Sanz del Río, and the use of channels other than religious and official to undertake a positive reform of Spain.

Regenerationist magazines

Regenerationist intellectuals tried to forge a new idea of Spain based on authenticity, so it was essential to unmask the impostures of the false official Spain by disseminating their studies in widely distributed magazines. Many of these magazines precede those of 98 and are partly confused with them.

The first was undoubtedly the Revista Contemporánea, founded in 1875 (it lasted until 1907) by José del Perojo, a man deeply imbued with regenerationist ideals and who had numerous collaborators belonging to to the Institución Libre de Enseñanza, such as Rafael Altamira, Julián Sanz del Río, Rafael María de Labra and Urbano González Serrano, characters who managed to import European aesthetic and philosophical currents, thus breaking the link with the Spanish cultural tradition.

It also had great prestige during the years of the Regency Modern Spain (1889–1914). Founded by José Lázaro Galdiano, it intended to represent in the country what the Revue des Deux Mondes did in neighboring France. As merits, it should be noted that he tried to be the "intellectual sum of the contemporary age", with a marked Europeanist tendency that served as a transmitter of a cosmopolitan spirit. Figures such as Ramiro de Maeztu and Miguel de Unamuno collaborate in the magazine.

It is also worth mentioning the magazine Nuevo Teatro Crítico, with Emilia Pardo Bazán practically as the only author, in which she exposed everything from her literary theories to her thought, marked by Europeanism and a sincere feminism.

Among the magazines that disseminated the ideas of the Generation of '98 intellectuals we can also mention the magazine Germinal which, although it was a Spanish literary publication prior to the 1990s era and directed by Joaquín Dicenta However, it shows all the young writers of that generation on its payroll, except for Azorín and Unamuno. This publication is characterized by its rebellion against established values.

The weekly Vida Nueva was published for the first time in June 1898, extending its validity until 1900. Its ideological position is close to Germinal. In this publication we find the writings of such important figures of the "spirit of 98" as Unamuno and Maeztu.

In the case of the magazine Alma Española, it is also a publication with a rebellious and liberal spirit. Despite its short life of only six months, it gave rise to an interesting survey on the future of Spain. All this begins with a well-known writing by Benito Pérez Galdós about the renewal of national life. Such relevant personalities of the time as Francisco Silvela, Eduardo Dato, the Count of Romanones, Pedro Dorado Montero, Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Miguel de Unamuno, Pablo Iglesias, Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, Joaquín Costa or Francisco Giner de los Ríos participated in this publication..

The writers of regenerationism

The writers of regenerationism reacted against the decomposition of the Canovista system by publishing studies and essays that denounced this situation, which became evident with the defeat of the technically obsolete Spanish army in the war with the United States in 1898 and the loss of what remained of the Spanish overseas empire (Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippine Islands).

Portrait of Joaquín Costa of 1913, work of Victoriano Balasanz.

The most important author of this movement, and in a way its leader, was Joaquín Costa, who caused a real stir with his works Agrarian Collectivism in Spain (1898) and Oligarchy and caciquismo as the current form of government in Spain (1901), although its path was previously paved by The evils of the homeland and the future Spanish revolution (1890), by Lucas Mallada and El problema español, by Ricardo Macías Picavea, as well as for the criticisms that the Krausists of the Free Institution had made about illiteracy and insufficient educational improvements in pedagogy and education by the state. of Education directed by Francisco Giner de los Ríos.

On the other hand, a constellation of authors came to follow the paths marked out by Costa. Thus, Rafael Altamira (1866–1951) from Alicante wrote Psychology of the Spanish People (1902), where he conceives patriotism as a spiritual concept innate in the people. After reviewing the propagators of this sentiment from Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, Francisco de Quevedo, Benito Jerónimo Feijoo, etc., to the Aragonese Lucas Mallada, whose work he disapproves of, he mentions the defects of the proposed Spanish Idearium by Ángel Ganivet and treats French hispanophobia as a serious evil, mitigated by German hispanophilia. He defends the Spanish action in America and believes that his reputation has improved, despite still taking no interest in his own affairs. Then he deals with the present situation, rejecting the pessimism of Ricardo Macías Picavea (1847–1899) in El problema nacional and his proposal for a dictatorship, and sympathizes with the Enlightenment of the century XVIII Juan Pablo Forner and Joaquín Costa. He separates national life from the politics of its leaders, not very exemplary, and summarizes the national ills in:

1. lack of patriotism
2. contempt for one's own
3. absence of common interest
4. lack of independence
5. I contempt for tradition.

Lastly, he interprets Joaquín Costa's "iron surgeon" as a symbol of the self-confidence of the Spanish people, with their vices and virtues. Education would solve problems: if the Universities disseminated knowledge in each center and social class —applauds Concepción Arenal—, it would arouse concerns. He asks for carte blanche for the school, which will create a «noble passion to magnify the land where one was born », in the phrase of Lucas Mallada, with the effort that Spanish is capable of.

A similar thought is reflected in José María Salaverría (1873–1940), from Castellón, author of Old Spain (1907).

Although the majority of regenerationists are men, the contribution of some women should not be forgotten. This is the case of Rosario de Acuña, who already in the early eighties recorded some of the ills that afflicted her beloved Spain: the distance from the natural environment, the urban agglomeration, limit people's horizons, turning them into easy prey of appearance, hypocrisy, vanity and nonsense. She doesn't like what she sees and to try to remedy the gradual degeneration that threatens the future of the country, she proposes a return to country life. From his Villa-Nueva, a farm located on the outskirts of Pinto, surrounded by plants and various domestic animals, including two good mounts, he preaches the benefits of country life not only to his readers. El Correo de la Moda, but also to those who delve into the informative depths of Gaceta Agrícola, a publication of the Ministry of Public Works whose objective is to promote agricultural and livestock development and rural education. If in the newspaper directed by Ángela Grassi he maintains a section entitled "In the countryside", in the ministerial edition he will publish three more extensive studies, in which he explains his regenerationist proposals in detail: Influence of country life on the family , Luxury in rural towns and Agricultural education for women.

The ideals and proposals of the regenerationists were welcomed by conservative politicians such as Francisco Silvela, who wrote a famous article, «Sin pulso», published in El Tiempo (August 16, 1898), and Antonio Maura, who saw in this current an adequate vehicle for their political aspirations and adhered to it. So did the liberals Santiago Alba, José Canalejas and Manuel Azaña. Benito Pérez Galdós assimilated this thought as a derivation of his initial krausism in his latest Episodes nacionales and even a dictator like Miguel Primo de Rivera came to appropriate part of Costa's speech, which had called for a "surgeon de hierro» to undertake the urgent reforms that the country needed: in fact, Primo de Rivera undertook and carried out one of Costa's dreams: a hydrological plan.

But they were writers and thinkers like Juan Pío Membrado Ejerique, Julio Senador Gómez, Constancio Bernaldo de Quirós, Antonio Rodríguez Martín, Luis Morote, Ramiro de Maeztu, Pere Corominas, Adolfo Posada, Basilio Paraíso Lasús, Francisco Rivas Moreno or José Ortega and Gasset who mainly prolonged this intellectual movement until the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936.