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Chapter 8

Spanish and Other Languages of Spain in the Second Republic

Henrique Monteagudo

“The question of co-official languages isas complex as that of shared sovereignty.

It is the very heart of national unity.”

Miguel de Unamuno, 1931

The Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed in April 1931, shortly after the collapse of

Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship, which in 1930 had led to the fall of the monarchy. Elections

were called in June 1931 and over the ensuing months (1931-1933) parliament hosted

numerous debates aimed at discussing and drawing up a new constitution. The election was

won by a coalition of republicans and socialists. The latter had the largest number of MPs,

followed by groups of various ideological persuasions: moderate center-right, left and center-

left and right-wing republican parties. Catalan, Galician and Basque and Navarre nationalists

also won a considerable number of seats (Casanova 2007: 3-37). Intellectuals played a

leading role in the advent of the Republic (Tusell and García Queipo de Llano 1990), which

is reflected in the surprisingly large number of them who won seats in this election: out of a

total 446 MPs, there were 47 writers and journalists and 45 university professors (Bécarud

and López Campillo 1978: 34). It is not by chance that the Second Republic was labelled a

republic of intellectuals.

One of the first decisions made by the republican government was to initiate the

process of devolution through legal recognition of self-government to Spain’s internal

nations. Thus, the Estatuto de Autonomía de Cataluña was approved in a referendum held in

August 1931 and authorized the use of Catalan in schools through implementation of

bilingual policies. Almost at the same time, an assembly of Basque and Navarre councils

approved a project for a Statute of Autonomy, and a similar initiative was undertaken in

Galicia. Inevitably, the question of devolution played a central role in the political

discussions of the time as well as in the parliamentary debates surrounding the new



constitution. Closely connected with devolution were issues like state organization, national

identity and the question of the official recognition of Basque, Catalan and Galician.

My aim in this chapter is to analyze the discussions on the political status of Spanish

in relation to the other Spanish languages at that time, especially as it was reflected in the

constitutional debates. I will focus first on the discourses on Spanish, especially on its

history. It will be recalled that the republican constitution was the first in Spanish history to

give Spanish legal recognition as an official language, opening simultaneously the gate for

legal recognition of the other languages of Spain. From a historical point of view, it must be

highlighted that the formula which was finally chosen in 1931 was an obvious precedent for

the formula enshrined in the democratic Constitution of 1978.

Secondly, I will discuss the role played by intellectuals in forging and legitimizing the

aforementioned discourses, focusing especially on Miguel de Unamuno, Ramón Menéndez

Pidal and Claudio Sánchez Albornoz. All three count among the most prominent figures of

Spanish national culture at the time of the Second Republic, with groundbreaking

contributions in the fields of literature, language, philology and history (Tusell and Queipo de

Llano 1990: 19-38; Varela 1999: 229-57, 293-321). Unamuno, president of the University of

Salamanca, was an acclaimed writer who accrued huge prestige as an intellectual, especially

through his journalistic columns and his public speeches1. Pidal was director of the Real

Academia Española and a founding figure of Spanish philology as an academic discipline

(Portolés 1986: 45-83). Albornoz was a professor of Spanish History at the University of

Madrid and a leading member of Acción Republicana, one of the governing parties. Both

Albornoz and Unamuno were among the most active members in parliament.

Unamuno: ‘The discursive creator of the Spanish R epublic’

Unamuno, arguably the most influential Spanish intellectual of his time, made a series of

public interventions on the topics that concern us in this chapter. He delivered three important

parliamentary speeches: one in September-October 1931, in the context of the constitutional

debates, and two in July 1932, in the parliamentary debates about Catalan self-government. In

the constitutional debates he voiced his opposition to devolution and the regions’ self-

government, and expressed his preference for a centralized state (1931i). In line with these

1

Unamuno was hailed, in a petition signed on the 22nd

July 1931 by a large group of intellectuals to support his presidential candidacy, as the ‘creador verbal de la República española’, that is, the ‘discursive creator of the

Spanish Republic’ (Rabaté and Rabaté 2009, 583).



views, he submitted a couple of constitutional amendments, one against the full recognition

of languages other than Spanish (Unamuno 1931j), the other about the powers to be devolved

to the regions and the languages to be used in education (1931k).2 Regarding the Estatuto de

Autonomía de Cataluña, he filed one amendment about the official status of Catalan (1932c)

and another about the proposed powers over education to be devolved to the Catalan

government (1932d).

Unamuno also voiced his views in numerous journalistic columns, where he reiterated

and expanded on the views he expressed in parliament. He contributed thus to shaping

Spanish public opinion on these matters, although he repeatedly argued that he was merely

acting as a spokesperson for the common views of the public.3 Thus, on the one hand, in one

of his speeches he claimed to be a privileged representative of the whole nation (“I don’t

want to say on behalf of whom I am speaking; it might seem smug if I say that I am speaking

here on behalf of Spain,” the emphasis is ours), but, on the other hand, he admitted he was

aware of “his share of responsibility in shaping Spanish public opinion” (2008: 1034, 1048).

Moreover, at the end of this speech he claims to be surprised at the excessively passionate

turn the debates on language had taken, failing to mention the role he himself had played in

arousing such passions (2008: 1058).

As we will see below, his reference to the inflamed passions of the general public is a

characteristic feature in the discourses of those who were reluctant, if not directly opposed, to

grant official recognition to the so-called regional languages. Unamuno was indeed the leader

of a faction of parliamentary hardliners who championed opposition to the rights of minority

languages.

National religion, language worship and imperialism

Unamuno wanted to transfer to the Republic the intellectual and political projects of his own

generation, the so-called Generation of 98, to which scholars attributed the “invention of

Spain” (Fox 1997, Varela 1999: 9-16, 145-76). In particular, he tried to endow Spanish and

national identity with a kind of mystic aura (Resina 2002). On this point his discourse

displays two of the characteristic traits of modern nationalist discourse: the displacement of

2 To make consultation easy, I will be referring to Unamuno’s parliamentary speeches, in Unamuno 2008. Forsimplicity, I will henceforth omit the name of the author when the reference is clear.3

Most of these columns are collected in Unamuno 1979 and Unamuno 1984. We are quoting from Unamuno1931a, 1931h, 1931l, 1931m, 1932a, 1932b and 1932e. For easy consultation, see Unamuno 1979 and Unamuno1984.



the sacred from religion to politics (Álvarez Junco 1993) and the “ethnicization of the polity”

(Grillo 1980 and Grillo 1989: 23-29). Thus, he described the process that turned Spain into a

nation as a substitution of national culture for the monarchy and Catholicism as defining

features of collective identity. Unamuno himself contributed significantly, along many other

liberal nationalist intellectuals, to the project of nationalization of Spanish culture. As he

says: “the State – and this is the heart of liberalism – must play an active role in the field of

culture, especially against the Church. The cultural struggle, Kulturkampf , becomes a

necessity.”4 In Unamuno scholarship it has become almost a commonplace to emphasize his

attempts to infuse politics with religious rhetoric (Rabaté and Rabaté 2009: 317). Indeed, he

once described his own political role as being that of a “culture priest” (2008: 1066).

In his press columns Unamuno repeatedly praised “ popular, secular, national and

traditional” religion which constituted for him the “soul of the nation.”5 The most sacred

dogma in this religious version of Spanish nationalism is that of national unity, which, in his

view, was achieved through divine will (Unamuno 1979: 103). The historical process that led

to the unity of Spain is seen as the teleological development of a god-given plan. This is the

reason why Spanish history, because of its divine origins and transcendental status, becomes

an object of worship. “The nation, the fatherland,” he claimed, “is kept alive through our

worshiping of History, of a past which is unchanging, of an eternal past which at the same

time is an eternal present and an eternal future, which is eternity itself, history itself.

Worshipping the dead is not wor shipping death, but immortality” (1979: 92, 131). It is

difficult to find a clearer formulation of his understanding of the nation: since it belongs to

the realm of the sacred, the nation has a non-historical and non-temporal essence which is

immortal and eternal, and lies beyond human reach (1979: 97).

Unamuno rejects Rousseau’s theory of the social contract, including the doctrine of

federalism (1979: 81-2, 103), holding instead that national unity must be achieved after a free

confrontation between the constitutive groups, whereby the winner, as the strongest group,imposes its language and culture on the others. In practice, in the case of Spain the main

contenders are Castile and Catalonia, both of which, in conjunction with all the other regions,

must try to dominate all the other peoples: “let them conquer us, or let us all conquer each

other” (2008: 1045).6 This is the reason he opposes an agreement with Catalan nationalists:

4 Speech delivered in Bilbao in 1908. See Unamuno 2008, p. 239.5 Unamuno 1932b, 140; see also 1931b, 57; 1931m, 119; 1932a, 137.6

This notion of “civil war” is not new in Unamuno’s work, even though scholars emphasized it only recently(Rabaté and Rabaté 2009: 59, 130). He borrowed this from Herbert Spencer, of whom he had long been anadmirer and follower.



“With this we want to avoid civil war. Some civil wars lead to true unity between peoples.

Before civil war, unity is false, after civil war there is true unity” (2008: 1069). Unamuno’s

idea of a reciprocal conquering between the various peoples of Spain seems to be either a

utopian wish or else simply an attempt to legitimate the right of the strongest group to

culturally ‘conquer’ the others.

Now if history acts as a guarantee for the transcendence of the nation, the Castilian

language is a kind of thread “uniting the historical generations, making continuity possible.”

The language creates a “human, historical, spiritual race [raza]’, it is “what turns us into a

community, what creates our communion through space and time” (1984: 121). Closely

connected with this is the idea of Spanish/Castilian as the spiritual foundation of the Spanish

empire: “Who cares if a part of our spiritual community or spiritual race [ raza espiritual ] is

split politically from us, if it continues to think by means of our spiritual blood, by means of

our language?” (1984: 122). Furthermore, this worship of language is not just an integral part

of the national religion, as it also becomes a kind of religion of empire: “there is religiousness

in language. And this religiousness is an integral part of the great Hispanic race [ raza

hispánica] on both sides of the Atlantic” (1984: 122-3). We see here how Spanish linguistic

nationalism takes on an imperial character, not just with regard to the Americas, but also

inside the Iberian Peninsula itself (Del Valle and Gabriel-Stheeman 2002: 6-7).

National sentiment vs. regional resentment

The sacred unity of Spain is projected into the future as a shared Spanish national mission.

Unamuno uses such a notion in order to differentiate the noble sentiment associated with the

sacredness of the Spanish nation-state from the regional resentment which he sees negatively

in so far as it challenges the former. Thus, in a parliamentary discussion about the official

character of the other languages of Spain, Unamuno started by recognizing that “this issue

lies, no doubt, at the very heart of national unity and is what most arouses national

sentiment,” to conclude in a lyrical tone with a celebration of a sort of mystical fusion of his

own body with the transcendental nation, embodied in its History, its land and its language. It

is with the final rest in the bosom of the motherland, when historical time is suspended, that

the survival of the Spanish language ensures his individual transcendence:

I feel I am walking down, little by little, under the weight not of years but of centuries full ofmemories stemming from History, toward the final and well deserved rest, into my deathbed,



the maternal earth of our Spain, to lie there waiting for the sounds of one single Spanish

language to echo in the grass that grows above me (2008: 1047).7

Unamuno’s passion for Spanish, indeed the pathos of religious communion with the

language, the nation and the soil, so vividly expressed in this quotation, contrast starkly with

the little affection he showed for “regional” languages. Indeed, he even denounces the excess

of sentimentality on which regional language supporters allegedly indulge: “I want to make it

clear that I will avoid the sentimental tone which, regrettably, has often accompanied

discussion of these issues;” “supporters of non official, regional languages have all too often

approached this issue sentimentally, rather than politically” (2008: 1107-8). For him, “the so-

called personality of the regions” is to a great extent no more than a “sentimental myth”

(1979: 83). His contrast between sentimientos and resentimientos briefly encapsulates his

opposed feelings for the different languages of Spain: the positive sentiment he associates

with Castilian and Spain versus “local resentment” (1979: 98), which is peculiar to regional

“resentful peoples” (1979: 93-4). Sometimes his dislike for regional languages is voiced in a

hardly disguised aggressive tone: “I believe one must hurt sentiment and resentment,” he

once said in a discussion about the topic in focus (2008: 1034).

He encapsulates the plight of both the Spanish nation and the Spanish language in a

powerful metaphor: Spain as a crucified Jesus. Thus, just like the inscription on the cross,which was written in three languages, so Spain was being turned into a “trilingual country,”

where everything is going to be written “in the languages that divided parents from their

children, brothers and sisters from their brothers and sisters, in the languages of particular

sentiment and resentment, instead of the Spanish language, which has a universal, imperial

sense” (1984: 62). It should not come as a surprise that just a few months after its

proclamation he expressed (Unamuno 1979: 88-9) his feeling of distance toward the Republic

specifically because it granted regional autonomy and official status to regional languages.8

Language struggle and bilingualism

7 This kind of emotional rhetoric about the afterlife is not new in Unamuno. See the end of a talk he gave inBilbao in 1905 (Unamuno 2008: 747). It also appears in a newspaper column of this period (Unamuno 1979:90).8 He had made repeated pronouncements on this during the months that preceded the constitutional debates, for

example: “ No, Spain cannot be sacrificed for the sake of the Republic” (Unamuno 1979: 98); “if in the end theRepublic dies, Spain can engender a new one, but if Spain dies, there will not be another Republic ” (Unamuno2008: 1104).



Unamuno found academic and scientific backing for his linguistic nationalism in biology,

more specifically in evolutionary doctrines about the survival of the fittest. The history of

languages is, according to this view, modelled on nature and is ultimately determined by

biological laws (Huarte Morton 1954: 90-2). This is the reason why Unamuno believes that

any attempt at modifying natural development of languages through social and political

intervention is doomed to fail (2008: 1114). Herber t Spencer’s social doctrines were

reinforced and complemented by the positivist faith in the progressive character of the laws

of human development leading inescapably towards the unity of the whole of humanity. The

idea that the whole of humanity would one day speak one single language was a corollary of

the belief in the future unity of the human race (Williams 1992: 1-8, 16-7).

The bulk of Unamuno’s ideas on the question of language unity were already present

in a speech he gave at Poetry Floral Games ( Juegos Florales) in Bilbao in 1901, where he

made explicit his belief in a natural teleological plan inevitably leading to a final state of

linguistic unity. He cautions, however, that this process of progressive development toward

unity “cannot be imposed extemporaneously or from the outside by force. Self-interest alone

will achieve what cannot be achieved by means of governmental decisions” (Unamuno 1968:

241). This is the reason why he opposes any legal and political decision that might interfere

with this natural tendency towards unity. Thus, although he opposed the repression exerted

on minority languages under Primo de Rivera, he firmly believed that the hegemony of

Spanish was a historical necessity and, therefore, became a fierce opponent of the policies of

official recognition for “regional” languages: “official status should not be granted to any

language other than Castilian, the national language” (Unamuno 1966: 436). So Unamuno’s

attitude of tolerance towards “regional” languages must be understood in the sense that he

trusted that, through natural selection, the “national” language would prevail in the end

(Juaristi 1997: 65-135).

Unamuno understands that this process of unification will come about spontaneouslythrough the fusion of the weakest with the strongest languages:

The problem of the multiplicity of languages will be solved through integration, perhaps

through reduction to a multiplicity of styles within one common language. Dialects should not

be repressed, just allowed to fuse with the strongest language, in accordance with the laws of

nature’ (Unamuno 2008: 963-4).



This idea of evolution through fusion of languages, borrowed from pre-comparative

linguistics, allows Unamuno to present “Spanish” not simply as a more developed form of

“Castilian,” but as a sort of ongoing synthesis of all the languages of the Peninsula (2008:

1101). He sees bilingualism merely as a transition stage which will sooner or later lead to

language assimilation, this being another reason for his stubborn stance against the official

recognition of bilingualism: “official recognition of bilingualism,” he says, “is nonsense and

fighting assimilation is a disaster” (1979: 82-3). Thus, in order to justify his opposition to the

recognition of co-official status for Catalan, he argues that since this is a question of language

biology, “lawmakers have no business here.” Further, he has recourse to the alleged authority

of science to claim that there is no true bilingual country anywhere: “when a country is

allowed to become bilingual, it ends up by, first, mixing up the two languages and, finally, by

combining them till they fuse into one” (2008: 1104).9

Rather than an academic philologist, Unamuno was an ideologue of language or, as he

has been called, a “language priest” (Huarte Morton 1954: 7-29). Jon Juaristi claims that

Unamuno, “in his self-appointed mission as a bard, prevented other possible discourses about

the Basques to emer ge and gain public recognition” (Juaristi 1997: 107). I would claim that

this is also what he tried to achieve in the language field: to prevent the emergence of

alternative, more egalitarian and democratic discourses that might challenge the hegemony of

Spanish.

Ramón Menéndez Pidal: the Spanish language and the Spanish nation

In parliamentary debates Pidal was often quoted as a universally recognized scientific

authority on historical and linguistic matters. Indeed, his authoritative accounts of the history

of Spain and of the Spanish language were met with such wide acclaim that by that time they

had arguably acquired canonical status. The narratives he constructed, however, were not

ideologically neutral (Del Valle 2002). In fact, it could be said that his historical narratives

provide the single most important intellectual contribution for the ideological underpinning of

modern Spanish nationalism (Abellán 1993 (vol.VII): 203-07 and Varela 1999, 238-50). It is

not surprising, then, that he was often quoted in support of the view of Spain as a single

nation-state under the hegemony of Castilian Spanish, and against granting rights to the other

languages of Spain. For example, the Castilian MP Antonio Royo Villanova repeatedly

9 In a lecture at the Liceo Andaluz on May 7,1932 on the topic of bilingualism in Euskadi and Catalonia, heargues that bilingualism “can only be a transitional state” (qtd. in Rabaté 2009, 597-8).



quoted Pidal in support of his amendment to keep a clear r eference to the sovereignty of “la

Nación Española” (the Spanish Nation) in the final draft of the Constitution. According to

Royo’s views, the national character of Spain is something “unquestionable, unavoidable”

(Mori 1932: II, 54), unlike Catalonia which, for him, is not a nation because it is simply

grounded in the possession of a different language. For him, the mere existence of a language

is not sufficient to ground a nation: “the nation is not the language’, he claimed, rather, ‘what

makes a nation is national consciousness” (Mori 1932: (vol. II: 56).

At first sight, it might seem surprising to find that someone like Pidal was quoted,

from a centralist perspective, to the effect that nations were not simply grounded in language.

In fact, this might not be considered as surprising if we bear in mind that for him nations are

defined primarily by ethnic and racial elements – including psychological traits – and the

privileged mode of expression of their national spirit is literature, rather than language

(Menéndez Pidal 1962 [1921]: 14-5). However, it is interesting to note that this rejection of

the link between language and nation always takes place in the context of debates and

controversies a bout the national character of “regions” like Catalonia (Monteagudo 2000).

Our eminent philologist argues, however, for a Spanish national character in a couple

of articles published in the newspaper El Sol .10 Pidal rejects the idea, put forward by Catalan

nationalists, that Spain is a state but not a single nation. As he puts it, Spain is “the most

homogeneous of the greatest European nations in linguistic and racial terms,” clearly

differentiated from the “heterogeneous and autocratic” empires with which “extremist

nationalisms” – meaning peripheral nationalisms – want to associate it (1931a). He argues

that the Spanish nation was constituted historically, well established from around the

thirteenth century (1931b). In this narrative, he accords Castile a leading role: “[Castile] had a

clear vision for great collective endeavours, and its hegemony was well deserved in historical

terms, rather than a product of mere chance.” Pidal believed in the cultural superiority of

Castile over the other peoples of Spain, and the metaphor he chose to express it wasunambiguous: Castile reached “the highest peaks in the curve of culture in Spain” (1931a),

which endowed her with a “stronger power of attraction and assimilation over the other

peninsular peoples.” He insisted that the spread of Castilian over the Peninsula had nothing to

do with the political hegemony of Castile. For him it was a merely cultural phenomenon, as

10 Menéndez Pidal 1931a and 1931b. El Sol also published an interview with Pidal shortly afterwards dealingwith most of the issues that interest us here (Arbeloa and Santiago, 1981: 211-17).



he explicitly emphasized “the non-political character of the spread of the central language

over the regions” (1931a). 11

Further, Pidal also made use of a purportedly scientific argument borrowed from

historical linguistics to support his thesis of a natural, age-old tendency for all peninsular

language varieties to fuse with central Castilian. He invoked the linguistic map of the North

of the Peninsula which, instead of sharp linguistic frontiers, displays large grey transition

zones where the different language varieties mingle with each other. This for him is evidence

of “the centuries-old phenomenon of the mixing of all Peninsular cultures, of the fusion of the

peripheral languages with the central language” (1931a). We have already encountered this

notion of a kind of natural and spontaneous drift towards unity in Unamuno. Pidal is making

a similar point here, this time grounding unity on the allegedly objective facts provided by

historical linguistics, but fails to provide a convincing explanation for this natural

“spontaneous drift” towards unity and fusion with Castilian.

Pidal generally had a more tolerant attitude toward the other Spanish languages than

Unamuno and was better disposed toward their official recognition and introduction in school

curricula. Although he could be considered a moderate supporter of the policies of

bilingualism, he always insisted that the “bilingual regions” like Galicia, Euskadi and

Catalonia should never attempt to get rid of Spanish, and this for two reasons. First, Spanish

was part and parcel of these region’s identities as a result of their “centuries-old coexistence,”

and secondly, Spanish could counter “regional parochialism,” given that it was a widely

spoken language. Thus, Pidal underscored the role of the school as a guarantee for the

survival of Spanish in these “regions” (1931a).

The state, through its educational institutions, is entrusted with the mission of

bolstering national consciousness. If this mission fails, then the pre-existing Spanish nation

runs the risk of collapsing and turning simply into… a state. There is something paradoxical

here. On the one hand, Pidal seems to be simply asserting an essentialist concept of theSpanish nation, in so far as he sees it as the result of an unproblematic and natural process of

historical development, as we saw above. On the other hand, the very existence of the nation

seems to depend on the political role of the state in bolstering national consciousness. It is

true that, in his historical and linguistic nar ratives, he used concepts like “hegemony” and

11 This argument had been put forward by him in an article published much earlier (Menéndez Pidal 1902).



“prestige,”12 which correctly point to the central role of politics. However, he never quite

abandoned the sharp distinction between culture and politics, and the paradox remained.

Articles 4 and 48/50 of the Constitution

In order to give readers a better understanding of the context in which these debates took

place, I will briefly summarize the process of elaboration of the new republican constitution

(Jiménez de Asúa 1932). Shortly after the proclamation of the Republic, the provisional

government appointed a Technical Committee with the task of writing a first draft for the

new constitution. Later, another committee was appointed by the newly elected parliament

with the charge of writing the final draft of the constitution, which was to be submitted for

discussion, amendment and approval at plenary sessions in parliament. We already

mentioned the dispute caused by the use of the term “nation” in the preamble, but the most

important controversies arouse in connection with discussion of articles 4 and 48 of the final

draft (4 and 50 in the definitive text of the constitution), dealing, respectively, with the

official standing of Castilian vis-à-vis the other languages, and the devolution of education

powers to regional governments, which included the power to decide on education language

policies.

From our point of view it is interesting to consider the significant differences between

all three versions of the constitution – that is, the first draft, the final draft and the definitive

text. It should be recalled that as the constitution was under elaboration, in Catalonia, Euskadi

and Galicia preparatory work had already started towards writing their respective estatutos de

autonomía, all of which included articles relative to language. The amendments to articles 4

and 48/50 which appear in the final draft and the definitive version all go in the direction of

limiting the devolution of power to the regions and securing a higher legal status for Castilian

to the detriment of the other languages. These changes and amendments were proposed by all

state-wide majority parties, both leftwing and rightwing. It seems surprising that

representatives of peripheral nationalist parties did not propose any amendments (with the

12 From the beginning of the twentieth century, some European linguists – Gilliéron, Meillet, Bartoli – explainedthe spread of languages outside their original areas as a process of external irradiation from a culturallyinfluential central point. For the so-called French sociological school and the Italian ‘neolinguistic’ school the

outward spread of languages was not due to state coercion, but to the superior cultural prestige these languageshave accrued and which speakers of neighbouring areas were spontaneously willing to accept. The notions of

(language) prestige and (social and political) hegemony also feature prominently in the work of AntonioGramsci, who underscores the relations between culture, politics and the state. See Lo Piparo 1979: 103-51,Rossiello 1982, Ives 2004.



exception of Galician nationalists, see Monteagudo 2000) nor participate much in

parliamentary debates.

Of the seven proposals to amend article 4, just one was accepted for consideration

( DSCCRE 40-41).13 One of the most restrictive amendments for “regional” languages was put

forward by a liberal group called “ Al Servicio de la República” [“In the Service of the

Republic”], to which Unamuno and other well-known intellectuals belonged. Unamuno

himself was responsible for proposing and defending this amendment which, after discussion

in parliament, was approved and included in the definitive version of the constitution. Thus,

article 4 of the final text reads:

Castilian is the official language of the Republic. All Spanish citizens are entitled to use it and

obliged to know it, without detriment to the rights that state laws might grant to regional and

provincial languages. Unless special laws stipulate otherwise, knowledge or use of regional

languages does not constitute legal requirement for anyone.

Regarding article 48/50, there were ten proposed amendments ( DSCCRE 60-61, see

Jiménez de Asúa 1932: 308-17 and Azaña 1981: I, 244-47). Alongside Unamuno, Albornoz

played a leading role in the discussion of amendments and in the negotiation of the final

contents of this article, which was the result of an agreement between centre-left republicansand Catalan nationalists:

Autonomous regions shall be able to organize education in their respective languages, in

accordance to the powers granted to them in their Statues of Autonomy. The study of the

Castilian language is compulsory, and it shall also be used as a vehicular language in all

primary and secondary schools in the autonomous regions. The state shall be able to create or

preserve teaching institutions at all educational levels in the official language of the Republic.

Unamuno is responsible, to a great extent, both for including the obligation for all Spaniards

to know Castilian in article 4 and the obligation for bilingual regions to provide education

with Spanish as a medium of instruction. This was an important precedent for the 1978

constitution, which also includes the obligation to know Castilian. As for the question of the

availability of education in Spanish in Catalan schools, it is no less well-known that it has

13

DSCCRE = Diario de Sesiones de las Cortes Constituyentes de la República Española. [Record BookProceedings of the Constituent Parliament of the Spanish Republic] Book and page numbers and are given in brackets.



constantly been an object of concern – and media hype – for Spanish nationalism since the

Generalitat (the Catalan government) started to implement Catalan immersion policies.

Parliamentary debates: intransigent vs. conciliatory stances

One striking aspect of the parliamentary debates is the relatively low-key participation by

representatives from peripheral nationalisms, who apparently preferred to work behind the

scenes and reach agreements with other groups, rather than engage in public controversies. In

the course of debates, two main positions emerged among representatives of majority state-

wide parties: first, the intransigent stance of those who, like Unamuno, strongly opposed both

regional devolution and the co-official recognition of Basque, Catalan and Galician. A second

group of MPs showed a more conciliatory attitude accepting both a certain form of

decentralization of state power and some form of legal recognition to languages other than

Spanish. Their priority was to consolidate the republican regime; and, in order to achieve this,

it was important for them to include peripheral nationalists into the constitutional agreement,

especially the influential Catalan left nationalists.

Critical MPs often justified their intransigent stance arguing that they were simply

acting as spokespersons for the whole of Spain, as Unamuno did, usually equating Spanish

public opinion with Castilian public opinion. There were constant warnings about the

importance of these issues and the possible alarm these might cause in the public. Manuel

Azaña, the prime minister, Castilian MP and leader of a leftwing republican group, warned

about the risk of inflaming the passions of the public: “there is nothing more sensitive,

nothing which causes more irritation, than the language question” ( DSCCRE 61: 1891).

Along these lines, other MPs insisted on the centrality of language for more general questions

about identity, sovereignty, power and nationality. Within the critical or intransigent camp,

use of apocalyptic rhetoric and alarmist tone were frequent, for example when they talked of

“relinquishing the cultural mission of the state,” “abandoning our centuries-old spiritual

heritage,” and even of “high treachery.”

While for critics with devolution and minority language rights the hegemony of

Spanish was a necessary condition to guarantee the Spain’s spiritual unity, the feared risk of

dismemberment was downplayed by the conciliatory camp, which emphasized instead that a

tolerant official attitude towards other languages could be helpful for establishing a new

sense of peaceful coexistence among all Spaniards. As Albornoz, one of the most



distinguished “conciliatory” MPs, put it: “Spain already has geographical, racial, cultural and

spiritual unity, and it also has unity of destiny.” He does not see recognition of language and

political rights to minorities as a threat to the common national project: “only if we concede

maximum liberties and maximum recognition to regional languages will we all be able to feel

comfortable within this State we are all helping to build” (DSCCRE 61: 1884-87). Note,

though, that he speaks of conceding , from a position of superiority, recognition to regional

languages.

In spite of these differences, both intransigent and conciliatory MPs, from the left and

from the right, still had quite a lot in common, as they all relied on the then dominant

narrative about the linguistic history of Spain. Andrés Ovejero, a socialist MP and a literature

professor at the University of Madrid, went the furthest in this direction when he claimed that

“our Castilian language was already an official language in Catalonia and Navarre two

centuries before they were politically united with Castile” ( DSCCRE 40: 994), something

which flies in the face of all historical evidence. Albornoz, more cautiously but no less

significantly, ascribed the hegemony of Castilian to the “genius” of the “race,” again

displacing the causes of the process from the sociopolitical field into an allegedly detached

realm of learned high culture:

It was the genius of Castile, spurred by the sharpest minds of our race, which determined that

the regions of Galicia and Catalonia, purely out of their free will, adopted our language, our

culture and our arts ( DSCCRE 61: 1885).

There were numerous alarmist warnings coming from the intransigent camp about the

catastrophic consequences that official recognition of Catalan, Basque and Galician would

bring about. Thus, Abilio Calderón suggested that all action which was not aimed at

defending Castilian was “detrimental to our language, hurtful to our patriotic feelings and prejudicial to our moral and economic interests.” And, characteristically, he also warned

about the risk of Spain becoming a new Tower of Babel, at the same time as Spanish would

have disappeared from Catalonia in a single generation ( DSCCRE 40: 990-91). From the

conciliatory camp they replied that these fears were unjustified. Eduardo Ortega, for example,

expressed his total faith in “the vitality, the biological, universal force of Castilian, which

must always prevail under any circumstances” (DSCCRE 61: 1897). Along similar lines,

according to Albornoz, Castilians should not be concerned in the slightest about the future of

their language, since the latter’s future is “absolutely guaranteed.” Albornoz does not fear for



the unity of Spain either, as he believes the latter will always exist as long as this world

exists. He even trusts that “Castilian culture will flourish in Catalonia the moment they stop

seeing it as imposed” ( DSCCRE 61: 1884-87).

As we see in these quotations, the question was often presented in terms of a

confrontation between Castilian culture, often equated with Spanish culture, and Catalan

culture. This is consistent with the already-mentioned fact that some of the MPs seemed to be

acting as Castilian MPs, rather than Spanish MPs. “It is the state’s duty to protect and to

teach Castilian culture,” said the Conservative Miguel Maura, who also reproached Catalan

nationalist representatives “trying to impose your Catalan spirit at your universities, to the

exclusion of the Castilian spirit” ( DSCCRE 61: 1889-91). On hearing this reproach, Manuel

Azaña himself replied angrily: “Catalan culture is as Spanish as our culture, and both are an

integral part of this country and this Republic” ( DSCCRE 61: 1892-93).14

The old question of the name of the language, español or castellano, was also debated

in relation to proposed amendments of article 4. In fact, perhaps this apparently

inconsequential question of the naming of the language encapsulates better than anything else

the true political stakes of this whole debate. Initially, Spanish seems to have been the

preferred option for a majority. Nationalists from the peripheries rejected this and claimed

that the other languages should also be considered Spanish languages. The Galician Daniel

Castelao, for example, argued that Galician should be considered “as Spanish a language as

Castilian” ( DSCCRE 41: 1013-14), and the Catalan Gabriel Alomar went further when he

complained that equating Castilian and Spanish was an “insult” to Catalonia and the other

regions: “my Catalan language, Basque and Galician are all Spanish languages” ( DSCCRE

40: 996-97). In the end castellano, Castilian, was the preferred choice for both Castilian

centralists and peripheral nationalists, although probably for opposite reasons.

Conclusion. “The heart of national unity”

We have identified a contradiction at the heart of what we have termed the “intransigent”

discourse. On the one hand, they assert the inherent, natural superiority of Castilian language

and culture, denying thereby that politics, in the form of state intervention, had played a

major role in bringing about this region’s hegemony. One wonders why, then, they opposed

official recognition for the other languages so vehemently. One cannot avoid the feeling that

14 On Azaña’s views about Spanish nationalisms, see Blas Guerrero 1991, 124-33.



their insistence on preserving the privileged position of Spanish in education and other state-

related domains reveals that they believed, more than they were prepared to admit, that the

political action of the state is ultimately determining for achieving language hegemony. This

could be the best way to refute their thesis about the intrinsic superiority of Castilian,

pointing instead to the true political factors lying behind its hegemony. On this point the

conciliatory camp seems to have been more consistent: they were convinced that no form of

official recognition of the other languages would be enough to challenge the superior strength

of Castilian language and culture.15

We have pointed out that MPs’ stances towards the regional languages were not

strictly matched with any political ideology or political party, as intransigent and conciliatory

positions cut across the ideological spectrum. Nevertheless, generally speaking, liberal and

center-left groups (where Azaña and Albornoz belonged) showed a better disposition than

both conservative and leftist groups. That said, both the stances had more in common than it

might appear at first sight; their differences were more a matter of political tactics than

conviction. The intransigent camp insisted that the state should not hesitate to facilitate –

rather than hinder – the process of linguistic “unification” already under way, whereas the

conciliatory position viewed such approach as dubiously democratic and strategically

counterproductive. First, it could be an obstacle for the incorporation of peripheral

nationalisms into the republican project and, secondly, a language policy openly restrictive

could trigger a counter reaction, as it happened with Primo de Rivera’s repressive measures

(Ventalló 1976).

The weakest point in the argument of the conciliatory camp was the lack of a truly

pluralist cultural discourse which could have acted as a real alternative to dominant centralist

and nationalist stands. One such discourse was not available in the Spanish intellectual and

academic contexts of that time. Philology, being imbued as it was with nationalist ideas, was

probably unable to provide it. As a consequence, the foundations of the linguistic ideologythat furnished their discourses were shared by both camps. First, they all share the idea of a

monolingual culture which, explicit denials aside, ultimately subordinates language and

culture to the state. Secondly, the hegemony of Spanish is unquestionably assumed to be

based on the superiority of the Castilian language and raza. The spread of Spanish in the

Peninsula is presented as a natural fact, the result of a spontaneous historical tendency

towards unification, driven by an inexorable law of progress. This process is further

15 Menéndez Pidal voiced his support for this view, see Arbeloa and Santiago 1981: 215.



legitimized through references to biological science, bringing Darwinian ideas about the

survival of the fittest into the field of language. In this connection, it is interesting to note

their respective attitudes towards bilingualism: while Unamuno rejected it head-on, Pidal and

Albornoz said they were in favour of it (however, their position is quite ambiguous and

somehow half-hearted, and ultimately seems to be based on tactical calculation, rather than

firm conviction). Finally, one cannot avoid the feeling that, whatever their differences, they

were all convinced that Spanish would end up replacing all the other languages, turning Spain

into a monolingual country, which, in their eyes, made it a stronger nation.

We have underscored the role intellectuals like Pidal and Unamuno played, first, in

underpinning the hegemonic Spanish nationalist discourse on language and, second, in

legitimizing political and legal regulations that were in accordance with that discourse.

However, they differ markedly. As an unquestioned academic authority, Pidal’s could be

characterized as a cold rational discourse, in the sense that it is intellectually solid and

anchored in the scientific field. Unamuno, in contrast, was an acclaimed writer, and his

discourse on language displayed poetic and lyrical overtones. It is weaker than Pidal’s,

perhaps, from a strictly rational position, but strongly appealing from an emotional point of

view. They could be said to embody two slightly different versions of the same nationalist

discourse on the Spanish language and the Spanish nation. Pidal’s, in its ambiguity, proved to

be appealing both f or the intransigent and the conciliatory stances. Unamuno’s, on the other

hand, having a more openly nationalistic overtone, proved more appealing to the intransigent

stance. In any case, the notoriety these and other intellectuals enjoyed is not totally unrelated

to the political centrality of the language controversy, in the same way that the passion with

which they defended Spanish cannot be totally detached from their own material and

particular interests as a social group (Hobsbawn 1991: 127).

Finally, the achievement of co-official recognition for the smaller Spanish languages,

alongside Castilian, for the first time in Spanish history was the result of an agreement between the conciliatory camp and peripheral nationalists, reached through a complex and

protracted negotiation. The conciliatory discourse towards the other languages of Spain

opened up a new path which made possible to pursue peaceful dialogue between Castilian

language and culture and the other languages and cultures of Spain, for the first time

questioning the hitherto dominant monolingual hegemonic culture. For their part,

representatives from peripheral nationalisms did not play as much of a central role in these

debates as one would have expected given the nature of the topics that were discussed.



Instead, they seem to have preferred to concentrate their efforts on the elaboration of their

respective statutes of autonomy.

Be it as it may, official recognition in the Constitution of the other Spanish languages

was an important first step in the direction of constructing new, more inclusive and pluralistic

discourses in Spanish culture, a path which, as we know, was sadly truncated by the fascist

coup in 1936, the civil war and Franco’s subsequent dictatorship. Within the few years that

the Second Republic lasted, there was not enough time for the practical effects of the new

official arrangement to be fully felt, except briefly in Catalonia. In any case, it constituted an

important legal precedent for the 1978 Constitution. But that is another story.

6b. (t2-t3) ii república. inglés. cambridge university press

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