Vasilenko Yuri
Abstract: The article analyzes some ideas, views and values of the outstanding Spanish historian, writer and poet of the late XVIII – early XIX centuries J.L. de Villanueva y Astengo. Living in the turn of the eras, Villanueva experienced several ideological and value «mutations» during his turbulent political career. Therefore, in the Spanish political science the definition of his ideological identity varies from «exalted» liberalism to radical traditionalism. Based on the interpretation proposed by two Spanish historians – liberal J. Herrero and traditionalist M. Menendez y Pelayo – the author distinguishes nine such «mutations», which turns into unsolvable problems for researchers of Villanueva`s political ideology and political practice. Proving Villanueva`s ideal-typical non-ideality (as the priest who retired from the Inquisition into the liberal-bourgeois revolution, but wished to remain Catholic traditionalist), the author demonstrates the complex nature of modern political ideology genesis and explains why in the XIX–XX centuries Spain the modernization runs down and faces serious difficulties.
Keywords: Spanish traditionalism, transition, ideological and value «mutation», J.L. de Villanueva.