CRONOLOGÍA DE LA REVOLUCIÓN RUSA
Capítulo 1. LOS ORÍGENES
The lamentations for ‘lost manhood’, seen as a cause and a consequence of the decline of the nation, are not limited to a few sporadic mentions in regenerationist thought. To some degree, the whole of the oeuvre which accompanied the ‘Disaster’ is permeated by this concern. Regenerationist thought can be seen, at least in part, as a paean to lost masculinity. But above all, the fundamental crisis of the nation is rooted in inactivity, in ‘abulia’. This is not something which is located in the province of one class; it is a general and widespread cause of decay. Regeneration- ists used a variety of terms to express this idea. While ‘apathy’ was used by Mallada, ‘abulia’ by Ganivet and Altamira, ‘laziness’ and ‘indolence’ by Mallada, ‘weakness’ by Altamira and ‘general paralysis’ by Morote, Maeztu and Picavea, all coincided that feminine ‘passivity’ expressed by Maeztu was opposed to ‘will- power’, ‘character’ and ‘energy’, all values associated with mascu- linity.32
The reasons behind this lack of willpower varied according to the author. Some believed that it was a constitutional characteris- tic of Latin races, reinforced by specific Spanish circumstances.33
Others, retaining an essentialist explanation, recognized the ambivalent inheritance supplied by Spain’s links to Africa: a strong and positive independent spirit dogged by an ‘instinto de discordia, de desunión, de separatismo’ [instinct of discord, of disunity, of separatism],34 which had been triumphant in the
historical arena. Some viewed passivity as rooted in Spanish history itself. Original Spanish virtues may have been tainted by a ‘cuerpo extraño’ [foreign body]. In this sense, Macías Picavea introduced the idea of ‘Austracism’ to describe the imperial designs introduced by the Germanic races and the ‘monomanía teológica y teocrática’ [theological and theocratic monomania] of the Habsburg dynasty, which made the country embark on an ill-advised series of adventures of conquest. Spain’s energies were thus dissipated and its constitution fatally weakened.
Despite this, not one of the regenerationist writers sees this end result as part of an irreversible historical process. What history has done, can be undone. In this sense, regenerationist thought is opposed to Darwinian inevitability as expressed in Lord Salis- bury’s famous speech on ‘dying nations’ in May 1898. According to this thesis, the weakest nations, which would include the
former powers of Spain and the Ottoman Empire, would be unable to adapt themselves to the new prevailing circumstances and would, hence, perish.35
The notion of masculinity articulated by these regenerationist writers, drawn from the professional and intellectual bourgeoisie, contrasts clearly with that which they attributed to the old deca- dent nobility and, by extension, to the whole of the nation. Virility, in this new formulation, is not seen as the aggressive and intermittent force employed by the warlike aristocracy, dismissing hard work both intellectual and manual. Neither is it linked to inheritance or blood ties. Instead it is a biological and psychologi- cal quality based on the values of self-control, foresight, discipline and knowledge. This is a modern form of masculinity which tries to maintain some of the old aristocratic values such as asceticism, stoicism in the face of adversity, noble generosity, dignity, and strength of character. It tries to combine all these with the new bourgeois values of self restraint, pride in one’s work, the values of knowledge for knowledge’s sake, morality and civic sensibility.36
The regenerationists speak of an outmoded masculinity, ‘a puro de tanto pelear, de sangre depauperada, de nervios agotados, de inteligencia yerma’ [of the fighting man, of impoverished blood, of exhausted nerves, of barren intellect],37as dead and gone. The
‘new man’ will rise, phoenix-like, from the ashes of the old. One of the principal motifs that regenerationist writers would have recourse to for the materialization of this new man would be, in accordance with Costa’s exhortation of ‘escuela y despensa’, the provision of fully costed education. But once more, we come up against an antagonism between what were understood as the female and the male principles in education. The former would embrace a purely intellectual mode of instruction, which was seen to overstimulate comprehension, while the latter would empha- size the strengthening of the will and would have more to do with morality and religion. Intellectual education is not denied, how- ever; the regenerationists were concerned about the cultivation of sentiment at the expense of practical knowledge. This asymmetry between ‘education’ and ‘instruction’ was, in the psychiatric language of the times, postulated as a disease known as ‘neuras- thenia’ that was to become common in the period.38Neurasthe-
nia was a condition characterized by nervous overexcitement which would result in fatigue and loss of intellectual and bodily powers. It was increasingly associated with particular lifestyles,
such as those of bohemians and poets, but also with anarchists and intellectuals. Mut denounced ‘Esos jóvenes viciosos, desapli- cados y holgazanes’ [These lazy and indolent young people of both sexes], ‘esos juerguistas, derrochadores’ [those late-night drinkers and party-goers], as useless for society. Those who lived for the latest fashion, ‘esclavos de sus tiranías, con el ala del sombrero levantada por la parte anterior, aun cuando haga un sol canicular; con pantalón bien arremangado aunque no haya barro’ [slaves of its caprices, whose hats are cocked up from behind, despite the midday heat; with rolled up trousers even though there is not a speck of mud], formed the ‘inmensa falange de asténicos’ [huge phalanx of pale-faced individuals].39
‘Neurasthenia’ is also a pathology which affects ‘los que traba- jan mucho intelectualmente’ [those who engage in much intellec- tual work], including poets and students,40 and ‘esos bohemios
melenudos, hipersensibles, que mueren jóvenes debido a su vicio’ [those long-haired hypersensitive bohemians who die young as a result of their vices].41It brings with it weakness, enervation and
thus provokes feminization, as several hygienists were to argue: ‘un hombre perezoso, entregado al vicio o enervado por la profesión sedentaria, se afemina con facilidad’ [a lazy man, absorbed by vice or enervated by sedentary occupations, becomes effeminate with great ease].42For this same reason, neurasthenia
is associated with the rapid and busy lifestyle of the big city, although towns and villages are not exempt from such a plague.43
With respect to sexuality, César Juarros was to argue that overex- citation of the mind and a too vivid imagination could arise from masturbatory practices.44A surplus of undirected intelligence led
to ‘la lujuria, y con ella a las aberraciones sexuales y a la homoerastia’ [luxurious behaviour, and to the sexual aberrations and homoerastia].45 A direct relationship is thus constructed
between an excess in refinement, sharp intelligence and erotic interest in those of the same sex. Such an equation anticipates the debate which would come at the end of the 1920s on the subject of the relationship between genius and homosexuality.
Against this dissipation of intellect, regenerationists advocated a form of education that would rely on energy, will and discipline. Altamira spoke of an education of will that would heal the defects present in the national psyche and that would make up ‘ciu- dadanos en quienes vibre el sentimiento de la disciplina social y del amor a la patria, y sea claro y enérgico el concepto de la
convivencia social’ [citizens in whom social discipline and love of thepatriawould hold strong and in whom there would be a clear and energetic notion of conviviality].46Morote also alluded to the
need to create ‘national energy’ and advocated a form of educa- tion that would ‘cultivar la paciencia, . . . dominar los propios impulsos, . . . consultar con la razón tranquila la conducta que debemos seguir’ [cultivate patience, . . . would control one’s own impulsiveness, . . . would rely on one’s calm rationality to deter- mine the way to proceed].47 Finally, Matías Picavea proclaimed:
‘¡La disciplina! ¡Hay que resucitar la santa, entonadora, espiritual disciplina . . . Donde quiera en Europa se conserva; ¡sólo en España se ha hecho de ella tabla rasa, hasta el monstruoso absurdo de haber llegado a su total, absoluta, rotunda anulación!’ [Discipline! We have to resuscitate strong, spiritual and abnegated discipline . . . Throughout Europe this has been preserved; it is only in Spain that it has been reduced to almost nothing, made to appear as a monstrous, absolute and total negation of its former self!].48
The anti-intellectualism of this pedagogical proposal is con- firmed when we examine the importance awarded to physical education. This was emphasized by Costa, especially: ‘educación física en interés mismo de la intelectual y de todo el individuo, porque el hombre no vive sólo de abstracciones’ [physical educa- tion for the benefit of intellectual education and for the indi- vidual as a whole, because man does not live by abstractions alone’.]49 The regenerationists, as we have pointed out, under-
stood the lack of energy and virility that characterized Spanish culture as something to do with the ‘flojedad de cuerpo’ [weak- ness of body] which, in Mallada’s words, was at the heart of ‘national apathy’.50Luis Morote considered that ‘en la educación
física estará el remedio de ese mal’ [physical education will be the remedy for this illness] and he was to praise highly the pedagogi- cal work of Francisco Giner de los Ríos.51The Institución Libre de
Enseñanza (1876), the incarnation of the regenerationist educa- tive spirit, considered that physical education was of prime impor- tance. This included gymnastics, sports, excursions into the countryside and the establishment of educational camps or colo- nies. In physical play, Giner de los Ríos pointed out, ‘los mucha- chos obran con entera libertad’ [pupils enjoy complete freedom]; ‘el egoísmo y el sentimentalismo, la debilidad y la afeminación
tienen que desaparecer’ [egotism, sentimentality, weakness and effeminacy must disappear].52
The dichotomy between male and female present in a number of scenarios illustrated above did not refer only to human facul- ties such as activity/passivity, reason/sentiment, strength/ weakness, or to attitudes such as chauvinism/patriotism, words/ deeds, to professions (technician/writer, engineer/lawyer), or to practices (education as opposed to instruction). It also took on a geographical significance. Differences were inscribed between north and south and between centre and periphery. The North could be Europe and the South Africa, as in Costa’s Política Quirúrgica (1905) where the necessary Europeanization of Spain was contrasted with Spain’s colonies in black Africa: ‘España pedía a sus gobiernos europeización, y los gobiernos han contes- tado africanizándola’ [Spain demanded from its governments Europeanization and our governments gave us Africanization].53
The same concern is seen in Matías Picavea who compares the dejected situation of the rural Spaniard with that of the ‘African hordes’.54
Africa, like the Orient and in contrast to Europe, is a symbol in turn of the century Europe of the reign of passion and sentiment over and above reason, of the predominance of the feminine over the masculine.55 But Luis Morote believed that this could be
overcome through education. Japan would be an example of the triumph of education above sentiment: ‘que de ser un pueblo de civilización asiática decadente, se ha trocado en un pueblo de civilización europea joven, robusta, sana, maravillosamente pro- gresiva’ [from being a decadent Asian people, it has become a young European civilization, robust, healthy and marvellously progressive].56
For Ramiro de Maeztu, the north/south divide is expressed alongside the periphery/centre contrast. On the one hand, this materialized as a difference between the hard-working north of Spain, with its Basque and Catalan industrialists and the centre and south, the land of administrators,latifundistas andcaciques.57
On the other hand, ills arose from the dissonance between the coast (‘en la hora actual toda la costa se ha modernizado económicamente’ [the whole coast is now modernized in the economic sense]) and the meseta (‘Castilla, despoblada por mil guerras, arruinada por la usura y por el fisco, atrasada porque en
ella perviven las odiosas leyendas de los tiempos muertos’ [Cas- tile, bled by a thousand wars, ruined by usury and its tax burden, held back by its odious legends from moribund times]).58But this
antithesis between active and passive spaces is not merely present in Spain’s geography. It also makes its presence felt in the spheres of sociability and socialization. There are places where the race decays and becomes degenerate, where the national vices of verbosity, flamenco dancing, laziness, drunkenness and excess such as the casino, the bar and the bordello thrive.59
But who should lead the nation out of this mire? Regeneration- ist writers coincided in the need for a strong, charismatic leader who personified precisely the qualities that had been absent in Spain’s governments to date. This figure would not necessarily be a dictator; while Mallada and Macías Picavea did point to this solution, others such as Costa and Altamira opted for a demo- cratic regime of some variety. What was necessary, all admitted, was a figure in whom all the qualities of a new virility coincided. The third chapter of Costa’s Política Quirúrgica is entitled ‘En Busca de Hombres’ [In Search of Men]. These men would be exemplars in whose ‘venas corra sangre caliente, que levanten a España del cieno de Sedán’ [veins there runs hot blood, who can raise Spain up from the mire of Sedan].60This man must act with
conviction, with iron strength, ‘blandiendo su maza de hierro para limpiar la tierra de monstruos’ [brandishing his iron ham- mer to rid this land of monstrosities].
This kind of virile politician was scarce in Spain at the time, the regenerationists argued. The type of political figure that tri- umphed was the upstart, the voluble and effeminate politician who sold himself to the highest bidder and who became the puppet of thecaciques. The failure of these politicians, corrupted and effeminate, appears to have surpassed the boundaries of the genre of the political essay. In a costumbrista novel of 1885, published five years before Mallada’s Los Males de la Patria, the inadequate effeminate politician made his appearance in Ángel María Segovia’s suggestively and captivatingly entitled novel Los Maricones.
This rather extraordinary text, published under the pseudo- nym ‘K. Arbbón de Kock’, was not, despite first appearances, an erotic or indecent publication. The author invited the potential reader to open ‘sin desconfianza este libro y llévale a tu casa sin temor a la curiosidad de las mujeres. Esta obra pueden leerla tu