The second battle of Covadonga: The politics of commemoration in modern Spain

History and Memory

Volumn 14, Issue 1-2, 2002, Pages 37-64

  Boyd, Carolyn P ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 33749824813     PISSN: 0935560X     EISSN: 15271994     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/ham.2002.0002     Document Type: Review

References (102)

1. Claudio Sánchez Albornoz y Menduiña, Orígenes de la nación española: Estudios críticos sobre la historia del Reino de Asturias (Oviedo, 1972-1975) is the most complete, if highly engaged, scholarly study of the battle of Covadonga and the founding of the Asturian monarchy. The battle may actually have occurred some years after 718.
2. El Comercio Digital, 8 Sept. 2001, at http://www.elcomerciodigital.com. Accessed 24 Jan. 2002.
3. The catalog for the exposition is Covadonga: Iconografía de una devoción: Exposición conmemorativa del centenario de la dedicación de la basílica de Covadonga (1901-2001) (Covadonga, 2001).
4. Victor Guerra, "Valdediós y el Estado laico," La Nueva España: Diario independiente de Asturias, 8 Aug. 2001, at http://www.lanuevaespaña.es. Accessed on 15 Jan. 2002.
5. On commemoration and sites of memory, see especially Pierre Nora, ed., Les Lieux de mémoire, 3 vols. (Paris, 1984-1992);
6. John R. Gillis, Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity (Princeton, NJ, 1994);
7. Jay Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History (Cambridge, 1995);
8. Daniel J. Sherman, The Construction of Memory in Interwar France (Chicago, 1999);
9. Rudy Koshar, From Monuments to Traces: Artifacts of German Memory, 1870-1990 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2000).
10. Antonio Ubieto Arteta, ed., Crónica de Alfonso III (Valencia, 1960), establishes a date of AD 903-910 for compilation of the chronicle. Early twentiethcentury scholars, including Claudio Sánchez Albornoz, Manuel García Moreno, Carlos Cabal and Zacarías García Villada, dated it in 833, suggesting greater proximity to the battle itself.
11. On the relevance of myth to collective identities, see George Schöpflin, "The Functions of Myth and a Taxonomy of Myths," in Geoffrey Hosking and George Schöpflin, eds., Myths and Nationhood (New York, 1997), 19-35.
12. For the history of the shrine of Our Lady of Covadonga, see Fermín Canella y Secades, De Covadonga: Contribución al XII Centenario (Madrid, 1918);
13. Luis Menéndez Pidal, La cueva de Covadonga: Santuario de Nuestra Señora la Virgen María (Madrid, 1956);
14. Covadonga: Iconografía de una devoción. The titles of these three works, published over the course of the 20th century, reflect the shifting character of the memory they endeavor to invoke.
15. Pablo Fernández Albaladejo, "Teoría y práctica del poder en la monarquía del siglo XVII," Actas de las Juntas del Reino de Galicia (forthcoming). I am grateful to Professor Fernández Albaladejo for allowing me to consult this text prior to its publication.
16. Vidal de la Madrid Álvarez, "La arquitectura en el Santuario de Covadonga en el siglo XVIII," in Covadonga: Iconografía, 50-74.
17. The Asturian community in Madrid founded a pious and charitable congregation dedicated to Our Lady of Covadonga in 1742, described in Canella Secades, De Covadonga, 105-60.
18. For Jovellanos's response to Covadonga, see Zacarías García Villada, Covadonga en la tradición y la leyenda (Madrid, 1922), 60.
19. José Álvarez Junco, Mater dolorosa: La idea de España en el siglo XIX (Madrid, 2001), passim;
20. Covadonga: Iconografía, 153-92.
21. The liberal democratic press nevertheless criticized the inclusion of religious references in the portrait. An excellent reproduction of Madrazo's portrait, along with other representations of Pelayo, is in Covadonga: Iconografía, 155-92.
22. See Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember (New York, 1989), on the importance of commemorative rites for social memory.
23. Menéndez Pidal, Cueva de Covadonga, 20, 106-10.
24. Álvarez Junco, Mater dolorosa;
25. Carolyn P. Boyd, Historia Patria: Politics, History, and Identity in Spain, 1875-1975 (Princeton, NJ, 1997);
26. Juan-Pablo Fusi, "Center and Periphery, 1900-1936: National Integration and Regional Nationalisms Reconsidered," in Francis Lannon and Paul Preston, eds., Elites and Power in Twentieth-Century Spain (New York, 1990), 33-40;
27. Andrés del Blas Guerrero, Sobre el nacionalismo español (Madrid, 1989);
28. Borja de Riquer i Permanyer, "La débil nacionalización española del siglo XIX," Historia Social 20 (1994): 97-114.
29. See Boyd, Historia Patria.
30. José Álvarez Junco, "La difícil nacionalización de la derecha española en la primera mitad del siglo XIX," Hispania 61/3, no. 209 (2001): 831-58.
31. Martín Andréu Valdés, Visión de Covadonga: Apuntes de emoción para el peregrino y el turista (Covadonga, 1926), 11.
32. Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus, 8 Dec. 1854.
33. On the Catholic revival, see in particular Ruth Harris, Lourdes: Body and Spirit in the Secular Age (New York, 1999);
34. Thomas A. Kselman, Miracles and Prophecies in Nineteenth Century France (New Brunswick, NJ, 1983);
35. Mary Lee Nolan and Sidney Nolan, Christian Pilgrimage in Modern Western Europe (Chapel Hill, NC, 1989);
36. Sandra L. Zimdars-Swartz, Encountering Mary: From LaSalette to Medjugorje (Princeton, NJ, 1991);
37. David Blackbourn, Marpingen: Apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Bismarckian Germany (New York, 1993).
38. For Spain, William A. Christian, Jr., Moving Crucifixes in Modern Spain (Princeton, NJ, 1992);
39. Julio de la Cueva Merino, Clericales y anticlericales: El conflicto entre confesionalidad y secularización en Cantabria (1875-1923) (Santander, 1994)
40. "Católicos en la calle: La movilización de los católicos españoles, 1899-1923," Historia y Política 3 (2000): 54-79
41. "Inventing Catholic Identities in Twentieth Century Spain: The Virgin Bien- Aparecida, 1904-1910," The Catholic Historical Review 87, no. 4 (2001): 624-42;
42. William J. Callahan, The Catholic Church in Spain, 1875-1998 (Washington, D.C., 2000), 40-148.
43. Menéndez Pidal, Cueva de Covadonga, 137.
44. Luis López Suárez, "El renacimiento monumental de Covadonga: El Camarín y la Basílica (1872-1901)," in Covadonga: Iconografía, 75, 87-88. Sanz y Forés visited Lourdes in 1877.
45. Lewis Mumford, The Culture of Cities (London, 1940), 434.
46. At the petition of Sanz y Forés, Pope Pius IX had given the Virgin of Covadonga her own Mass, office, and feast day (9 September). Covadonga: Iconografía, 77.
47. Menéndez Pidal, Cueva de Covadonga, 113-66.
48. On the link between nature, antimodernity and the female principle, see Annette Kolodny, The Lay of the Land: Metaphor as Experience and History in American Life and Letters (Chapel Hill, NC, 1975);
49. Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology and the Scientific Revolution (San Francisco, 1980).
50. Covadonga: Iconografía, 191-92.
51. An impressive sample of the proliferating souvenir images of the Virgin in Asturias and the Americas is in Covadonga: Iconografía, 240-496.
52. An early tourist guide is Acacio Cáceres Prat, Covadonga: Tradiciones, historias, y leyendas (Madrid, 1887).
53. "Llamamiento a todos los españoles para terminar el templo monumental de Covadonga," 1 Jan. 1892, in Covadonga: Iconografía, 373.
54. Archivo General del Palacio, Sección Alfonso XIII, Caja 6176/8.
55. On the devotion to Covadonga in Mexico and Cuba, see Canella Secades, De Covadonga, 67-68;
56. Covadonga: Iconografía, 240-65.
57. De la Cueva, "Inventing Catholic Identities
58. See Isidoro Martín, "Pedro Poveda, pedagogo, innovador y divergente en la generación del 98
59. María Encarnación González, "La obra escrita de Poveda: Invitación a una lectura desde el autor," in Pedro Poveda: Volumen-homenaje cincuente nario, 1936-1986 (Madrid, 1988), 63-81, 103-34.
60. Xosé-Manoel Núñez, "The Region as Essence of the Fatherland: Regionalist Variants of Spanish Nationalism (1840-1936)," European History Quarterly 31, no. 4 (2001): 483-518.
61. See also Celia Applegate, A Nation of Provincials: The German Idea of Heimat (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1990);
62. Caroline Ford, Creating the Nation in Provincial France: Religion and Political Identity in Brittany (Princeton, NJ, 1993);
63. Alon Confino, The Nation as a Local Metaphor: Württemberg, Imperial Germany, and National Memory, 1871-1918 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1997).
64. For Asturian regionalism, see Vizconde de Campo Grande, Ceferino Alonso and José González, Doctrina asturianista aprobada por la Junta Regionalista del Principado, 1918 (Gijón, 1977);
65. Jorge Uria González, Cultura oficial e ideología en la Asturias franquista: el I.D.E.A. (Oviedo, 1984), 6-17.
66. Adrian Shubert, The Road to Revolution in Spain: The Coal Miners of Asturias, 1860-1934 (Urbana and Chicago, 1987);
67. Pamela Beth Radcliff, From Mobili zation to Civil War: The Politics of Polarization in the Spanish City of Gijón, 1900-1937 (New York, 1996).
68. Despite the participation of distinguished sculptors, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts refused to award the commission to any of the submitted projects. See Real Academia de San Fernando de Bellas Artes, legajos 3/418 and 54-5/4
69. Covadonga: Iconografía, 189-90.
70. Julio Somoza García-Sala, Gijón en la historia general de Asturias, 2 vols. (Oviedo, 1908-1909);
71. Eduardo Saavedra, Estudios sobre la invasión de los árabes en España (Madrid, 1892).
72. Ricardo Burguete, Rectificaciones históricas: De Guadalete a Covadonga, y primer siglo de la reconquista de Asturias: Ensayo de un nuevo método de investigación e instrumento de comprobaciones para el estudio de la historia (Madrid, 1915);
73. Carlos Cabal, Covadonga (Madrid, n.d.);
74. Gabriel Maura y Gamazo, "Cómo nació la raza
75. Bernardo Acevedo, "Covadonga," in Batalla y santuario de Covadonga: Tradición. Monumentos. Historia (Oviedo, 1918), 34-39, 51-59;
76. García Villada, Covadonga en la tradición;
77. Sánchez Albornoz y Menduiña, Orígenes de la nación española.
78. On performativity, see Connerton, How Societies Remember.
79. Canella Secades, De Covadonga, 205-6.
80. editorial by Francisco Anaya Ruiz, "Covadonga, la ilustre," La Esfera, 11 Aug. 1917.
81. Mariano Zavala, "A los parlamentarios asturianos," La Esfera, 30 June 1916.
82. Mariano Zavala, "Dos centenarios: La Patria en Covadonga," La Esfera, 20 Oct. 1917.
83. "Mensaje de La Esfera al Príncipe de Asturias," La Esfera, 14 Sept. 1918.
84. Canella Secades, De Covadonga, 226-27.
85. The crowns were designed and executed by Félix Granda Buylla, a religious arts firm associated with the neo-Catholic campaign to "re-Christianize" the nation. Covadonga: Iconografía, 396-407;
86. Luciano López García-Jové, La batalla de Covadonga e historia del santuario, 8th rev. ed. (Oviedo, 1960), 163-75.
87. Canella Secades, De Covadonga, 272-74.
88. Zavala, "Dos centenarios
89. Diario de las sesiones de las Cortes españolas: Congreso de los Diputados, 13 May 1918 (no. 38, Apéndice 3). The bill introduced by the Asturians included funds for a technical college, the Nautical School in Gijón, a grade school in Cangas de Onís, and an agricultural and industrial fair in Oviedo.
90. Dictamen de la Comisión permanente de Presidencia, in Archivo del Congreso de los Diputados, Indice de expedientes desde 1905, leg. 441, no. 3.
91. Law of 16 June 1918, discussed in Carlos Serrano, El nacimiento de Carmen: Símbolos, mitos y nación (Madrid, 1999), 313-29.
92. The act of presentation is in López García-Jové, Batalla de Covadonga, 166-68.
93. The lyrics of the "Hymn of Covadonga" were by the Augustinian Father Restituto del Valle Ruiz; the music, chosen after a public competition, was by Ignacio Busca de Sagastizábal. See Covadonga: Iconografía, 450-56. The complete score is available in a commemorative edition (Covadonga, 2001). The commemorative volume is Batalla y santuario de Covadonga.
94. La Época, 8 Sept. 1918, 1.
95. See Menéndez Pidal, Cueva de Covadonga, 169-70.
96. For a guidebook, see Andréu Valdés, Visión de Covadonga.
97. Decreto-ley of 25 Jan. 1952. On the appropriation and promotion of the shrine by the Franco regime, see Menéndez Pidal, Cueva de Covadonga, 179-259.
98. Quoted material in this paragraph is on pp. 189, 180, 209, and 257.
99. On the return of the image in 1939, see also López García-Jové, Batalla de Covadonga, 185-318.
100. Pierre Nora, "La nation-mémoire," in idem, ed., Les Lieux de mémoire, vol. 2, La Nation, 3: 648-51;
101. Sherman, Construction of Memory, 8-9.
102. Peter Carrier, "Places, Politics and the Archiving of Contemporary Memory in Pierre Nora's Les Lieux de mémoire," in Susannah Radstone, ed., Memory and Methodology (New York, 2000), 40.