Imperiofobia y leyenda negra: Roma, Rusia, Estados Unidos y el Imperio español by María Elvira Roca Barea, and: Imperiofilia y el populismo nacional-católico by José Luis Villacañas

Abstract

Reviewed by: Imperiofobia y leyenda negra: Roma, Rusia, Estados Unidos y el Imperio español by María Elvira Roca Barea, and: Imperiofilia y el populismo nacional-católico by José Luis Villacañas Duncan Wheeler María Elvira Roca Barea. Imperiofobia y leyenda negra: Roma, Rusia, Estados Unidos y el Imperio español. SIRUELA, 2016. 460 PP. José Luis Villacañas Imperiofilia y el populismo nacional-católico. LENGUA DE TRAPO, 2019. 264 PP. AS RECENTLY AS 2014, I argued that the dictatorship's co-option of the Golden Age had been rejected to an extent that it was seen as even more politically suspect for Spanish cinema to present life in early modern Spain in a positive light than to cast any approving glance at Francoist Spain (Duncan Wheeler, "Back to the future: repackaging Spain's troublesome past for local and global audiences," (Re)Viewing Creative, Critical and Commercial Practices in Contemporary Spanish Cinema, edited by Duncan Wheeler and Fernando Canet, Intellect, 2014, pp. 205–33, p. 227). Spain was long thought to be an outlier in relation to its European neighbors for not having a party of the extreme right. Progressive Spaniards were (too) quick to mock Vox as a kitsch anachronism, a refuge for oddballs nostalgic for Francoism. Establishing initial strongholds in Andalusia and Murcia, promotional videos featured party leader, Santiago Abascal, riding horseback and announcing a new Reconquest. Islamophobia was further promoted through Trump-like promises to build walls to prevent Moroccans and sub-Saharan Africans from crossing the frontier. Spurred on by a resurgent nationalism in the face of the [End Page 183] Catalan secessionist movement, the aggressively nationalist Vox was the third most voted-for party in the 2019 general elections. Abascal has described the Black Legend as "obra de los enemigos de España" (Fernando Sánchez Dragó and Santiago Abascal, España vertebrada, Planeta, 2019, p. 124) and cites María Elvira Roca Barea's Imperiofobia approvingly (254). This surprise best seller (over one hundred thousand copies sold in Spain) by a secondary-school teacher from Murcia with a doctorate (and a nebulous connection to Harvard University) has also been championed by the Instituto Cervantes, a Madrid-based government agency created in 1991 in the buildup to the quincentenary celebrations of Columbus's voyage to the Americas, with the aim of promoting the study and teaching of Spanish language and culture. The reception of Roca Barea's polemic, described in José Luis Villacañas's rebuttal as "populismo intelectual reaccionario" (14), warrants attention, even and perhaps especially for those unsympathetic to its claims. Roca Barea has opted not to respond to the arguments made in Villacañas's book—"Agradezco al autor que se haya tomado tantas molestias con mi trabajo, pero lamento decir que no voy a hacer lo mismo con el suyo" (cited in El País, 4 Jun 2019, p. 28)—but putting the publications into dialogue serves to cast light on the privileged role the early modern period occupies in the cultural wars of contemporary Spain. With a plethora of footnotes and references to literature and philosophy, Imperiofobia constitutes a (pseudo-)erudite correlative to the rhetoric rehearsed as early as 2008 by Santiago Abascal and Gustavo Bueno, long before they and their party Vox became major political players: "España es, sobre todo, la realización de esa gran empresa imperial por lo que, y como corolario suyo, se llega a comprobar que el planeta es una esfera, un globo circunvalado por primera vez precisamente por España: 'tú me diste la vuelta', tal es la divisa que regala Carlos I al vasco Elcano" (En defensa de España. Razones para el patriotismo español, Fundación para la defensa de la nación española y Ediciones Encuentro, 2008, pp. 33–34). The resurrection of such neo-Francoist rhetoric has been facilitated by Spanish democracy's selective memory. It was under the PSOE government in the 1980s that 12 October—the date that Columbus first set foot on American soil—was declared a national bank holiday, the "día de la raza" (baptized thus by King Alfonso XIII in 1918 and subsequently celebrated with fanfare throughout...