The two Spains

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 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).

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.

[4][5] Historian Charles J. Esdaile describes Machado's "two Spains" as "the one clerical, absolutist and reactionary, and the other secular, constitutional and progressive," but views this picture of the first Spain as "far too simplistic", in that it lumps the enlightened absolutism of the 18th century Bourbon monarchs with the reactionary politics that simply wanted to restore the "untrammeled enjoyment" of the privileges of the Church and aristocracy.

In addition, he states that the populacho—the mass of the common people "pursuing a dimly perceived agenda of their own"—were not loyal to any of these in the long term.