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The Francoist state was founded as a radical solution to the historical confrontation between two great and mutually incompatible visions of the nation: the liberal and the Catholic one. Expanding on the concept of "national homogenization", the article explores the processes of State formation in Eastern Europe as a pattern in the formation of the Francoist nation state. It argues that Francoism was substantially an ethnonationalist political regime that fostered an aggressive nationalization of the masses founded upon political violence and Catholic religion. As a result of this political program, which is analyzed, the Republican national community was dismantled and erased, and Spain was "reconstructed" as a culturally homogeneous Catholic national community. ; En este artículo estudio la renacionalización franquista centrándome en dos referentes esenciales: la violencia y la religión. Planteo que el franquismo constituye un ejemplo de Estado homogeneizador impulsado por un etnonacionalismo extremo que tenía como referente cultural la tradición católica. Paso revista a la función de la cultural alcanzada y el papel que jugó la religiosidad popular como experiencia de la nación franquista. De acuerdo a este análisis propongo que el franquismo logró «reconstruir» la nación española de acuerdo a un proyecto de destrucción del proyecto nacional republicano, experiencia que lo asemeja a otros casos de nacionalización extrema y homogeneización nacional en Europa escasamente atendidos por la historiografía española.

The Francoist state was founded as a radical solution to the historical confrontation between two great and mutually incompatible visions of the nation: the liberal and the Catholic one. Expanding on the concept of "national homogenization", the article explores the processes of State formation in Eastern Europe as a pattern in the formation of the Francoist nation state. It argues that Francoism was substantially an ethnonationalist political regime that fostered an aggressive nationalization of the masses founded upon political violence and Catholic religion. As a result of this political program, which is analyzed, the Republican national community was dismantled and erased, and Spain was "reconstructed" as a culturally homogeneous Catholic national community. ; En este artículo estudio la renacionalización franquista centrándome en dos referentes esenciales: la violencia y la religión. Planteo que el franquismo constituye un ejemplo de Estado homogeneizador impulsado por un etnonacionalismo extremo que tenía como referente cultural la tradición católica. Paso revista a la función de la cultural alcanzada y el papel que jugó la religiosidad popular como experiencia de la nación franquista. De acuerdo a este análisis propongo que el franquismo logró «reconstruir» la nación española de acuerdo a un proyecto de destrucción del proyecto nacional republicano, experiencia que lo asemeja a otros casos de nacionalización extrema y homogeneización nacional en Europa escasamente atendidos por la historiografía española.

En las décadas de 1960 y 1970 se produjo una intersección de procesos de nacionalización, uno de signo vasquista y el otro españolista. En ambos jugó un papel esencial la violencia. Ésta se había constituido en referente esencial del promovido por la dictadura, mediante la activación de políticas de memoria ancladas en la exaltación de la victoria en la Guerra Civil como mito fundacional del "Nuevo Estado". Sin embargo, en el tiempo en que este patriotismo guerrero comenzó a declinar fue cuando el nacionalismo vasco intensificó el suyo al completar su discurso belicista con el activismo armado. Este proceso nacionalizador ascendente se materializó en una primera fase simbólica, que buscó la destrucción del imaginario españolista. A partir de 1968 a esa fase sucedió otra más propiamente asesina, en la que la violencia se amplió a los individuos que representaban esa memoria, intensificándose este proceso diez años después, en plena transición democrática. La memoria abertzale recorrió, así, un camino muy diferente de que definió la memoria colectiva que inspiró el proceso de transición democrática en España. ; In the 1960s and 1970s Basque and Spanish nationalizing projects overlapped in the Basque Country, with violence exerting a major role in both of them. Franco's Dictatorship used violence as a prominent tool to promote policies of memory extolling the Civil War as the foundational myth of the "New State". But when this bellicose patriotism started to wane Basque nationalism created its own version with a belligerent discourse accompanied by a call to arms. This raising nationalistic project had a first and symbolic stage dedicated to destroy the Spanish imaginary. It then, since 1968, evolved into a new and violent phase characterized by the killing of prominent individuals who symbolized that memory. That campaign of violence intensified during the transition to Democracy, helping us to understand why the abertzale memory followed a different path from that of the collective memories recalled to support Spain's democratic transition.

All the historical moments in which the Basque debate reached political protagonism in contemporary Spain coincided with political contexts of institutional democratisation. The debate on patriotism in the Basque Country is connected with a uniform narrative regarding the Basques and their moral distance from the Spanish nation: the 'Basque problem'. This narrative has fostered a confrontational discourse between Spanish and Basque nationalism. It has also promoted recourse to specific stereotypical images of the Basques, which bind ethnicity to collective identity. Such representations reveal that the invention of the Basque country as a uniform ethnic collective had much more to do with the internal contradictions of Spanish national identity - and later of Basque identity - than with the existence of a secular conflict between Basques and Spaniards. The Basque case shows that every 'ethnic conflict' requires adequate contextualisation in order to avoid simplifying its origins and past pathways to make it conform to present uses. (Nations and Nationalism)

"This book analyses the rise and decline of the Basque terrorist group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA, Basque Homeland and Freedom). ETA declared a unilateral ceasefire in November 2011, bringing to a close a campaign of political violence that started in the late 1960s. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, the overwhelming majority of secession supporters agreed that an independent Basque homeland would be realised through 'ballots' and not 'bullets'. Providing an inter-disciplinary overview of radical Basque nationalism that pays special attention to the drivers for ETA's decline, defeat and disbandment, this book includes chapters by historians, political scientists and sociologists who offer three important theoretical and empirical contributions to the literature on nationhood and security studies. Firstly the book re-assesses the military conflict that opposed ETA and the Spanish state, by paying special attention to tactical and strategic considerations as well as the counter-terrorist policy itself. Secondly it provides an original interpretation of the politics of fear which surrounded the process of victimization, as well as assessing the extent to which the issue of violence led to the polarisation of citizens. Thirdly the authors examine the historical narratives and rituals that contributed to the production and reproduction of identity binaries and memories of war. Arguing that the defeat of ETA must be contextualised within the strategic evolution of Basque nationalism, the declining resonance of the radical message and the effectiveness of the Spanish counter-terrorist effort, this book is essential reading for students and scholars working in the areas of European politics, nationalism and terrorism studies"--Provided by publisher