Durán Armando Zerolo
Abstract. Liberalism appears in Spain at the beginning of the XIX century as a spontaneous popular movement against Napoleonic absolutism. The nation becomes self-conscious; as a result, political modernity comes to Spain. Peculiarity of Spanish political reality is that unlike other countries liberals fight for the establishment of the monarchy of Fernando VII but not against it, how it been, for example, in France. The relations of liberalism with the monarchy give it a very specific character. Ideologically, this is original liberalism because it results from the typically Spanish political reality – “medieval Spanish monarchy” founded by “Catholic kings”, and both moderate liberals and right-wing radicals value it. This political form is a fundamental myth of Spanish liberalism, and is the forerunner of the modern constitutional monarchy. Spanish liberalism is an unrealized attempt; it never obtained its own political body and proved to be incompatible with the masses, which led to the civil war of 1936–1939s.
Keywords: liberalism, Spanish monarchy, sovereignty, modern constitutionalism, XIXth century Spain.