When Did Nationalism Become Banal? The Nationalization of the Domestic Sphere in Spain

Abstract

Inspired by Michael Billig’s Banal Nationalism, social scientists have begun to study the impact of nationalism on everyday life. However, Billig’s concept is far from clear. Actually, banal can refer to ‘mundane’ expressions of nationalism, to their ‘unconscious’ consumption or their ‘cold’ temperature. Moreover, on many occasions Billig referred to the state instead of the nation, thus in fact analysing ‘banal statism’. For historians it is often difficult to ascertain whether people consciously perceived certain expressions of nationalism or not. However, we can analyze when certain mundane forms of nationalism were invented, while looking for clues as to how they cooled down and slowly became taken for granted. In this article, I will analyze how the nationalization of the domestic sphere manifested itself in Spain. In fact, this transnational trend has been largely ignored by architectural historians and scholars dealing with gender, food, design and animal–human relations, because they primarily focused on processes of modernization. In this way, the intensification of the nation-building process, which now also actively implies housewives, has remained largely invisible. Using evidence from a broad array of books, lectures and magazines, I will show that during the belle époque – when Spanish nationalism was quite hot – all kinds of spaces, objects and practices associated with the private sphere and the home were consciously nationalized by writers, architects and cooks. The focus will be on the nationalization of domestic architecture, food and dishes, but I will also pay attention to the nationalization of furniture, pets, gardening and cleaning. There are clear indications that over time many new national forms, objects and spaces slowly became banal stereotypes, thus further naturalizing existing national identities.

Introduction: Banal Nationalism for Historians

Social scientists studying nationalism increasingly focus on the way national identification functions in everyday life, which because of its often mundane forms is also known as ‘banal nationalism’. This concept was introduced in 1995 by Michael Billig, who in his monograph with the same title made clear that people routinely divide the world into nation-states and identify with their own. When we read that the government raises taxes, we understand that it is ‘our’ government that increases the taxation within the borders of ‘our’ nation-state. Similar references to ‘the’ economy, ‘the’ countryside and even ‘the’ weather are also self-evidently understood as referring to our own country. In the international arena we naturally identify with ‘our’ artists, ‘our’ athletes and ‘our’ soldiers. ¹ In an almost equally influential study on National Identity, Popular Culture and Everyday Life from 2002, Timothy Edensor has shown how the internalization of the nation-state cannot be detected only in the discourse people use, but also occurs through all kinds of banal spaces, objects and practices. We almost unwittingly associate different types of landscape, buildings, furniture, design, cars, fashion, cooking, music, etc. with particular nations. ² In a recent overview, Siniša Malešević rightly argues that the omnipresence of these banal forms of nationalism should not be interpreted as a sign of it becoming weaker or more benign, but as a proof of its unremitting vigour. ³

Therefore, it is all the more remarkable that historians have barely examined the role of banal nationalism in the past. ⁴ To be sure, historians have already extensively studied nationalism from many different angles, but they have primarily focused on the more ‘hot’ or ideological forms of nationalism, such as the rise of nationalism, the role of nationalist movements, nationalist violence, the creation of new nation-states, the invention of national symbols, heroes and canons and their diffusion through the nation-building process. However, the analysis of these more obvious forms of nationalism cannot convincingly explain the overwhelming success of the nation-state, which over the last two centuries has become the hegemonic form of statehood in the world. Historians should take up the challenge and also investigate apparently trivial expressions of everyday nationhood in the past. But to what extent can the concept of banal nationalism be of use in this task?

Although Billig’s Banal Nationalism can already be considered a classic in the field of nationalism studies, his use of the concept has been criticized for various reasons. First of all, authors such as Michael Skey have argued that Billig’s suggestion that ‘banal’ forms of nationalism are dominant in established Western nation-states, while the politically charged and often even violent expressions of ‘hot’ nationalism can more easily be encountered elsewhere in the world or among some minor extremist groups in the West is too simplistic. ⁵ Billig, moreover, also seems to imply that banal forms of nationalism are confined to the post-1945 era, and in fact most social scientists who have adopted his approach focus on the late twentieth or even twenty-first century. Even the handful of historians who have begun to use the concept of banal nationalism generally focus on the post-1945 period.

Recently, however, a few authors have argued that banal nationalism should be historicized. John Hutchinson, for instance, has introduced a temporal dimension by affirming that hot and cool (or banal) phases of nationalism alternate, as wars, disasters and migration waves often heat up nationalist feelings, and that nation-formation is ‘a dynamic and potentially reversible process’. ⁶ His assertion that hot and banal phases alternate and ‘operate together in an interactive relationship’ ⁷ has been confirmed by various investigations, which aim to show that apparently banal forms of nationalism have sometimes led to vehement reactions. Raento and Brunn, for instance, make clear that towards the end of the nineteenth century, when the Czar imposed the use of the Russian language and coat of arms on the postage stamps of the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland, many inhabitants showed their opposition to the Russification campaign of which this was part by placing the stamps upside down on the envelope. ⁸ Jones and Merriman, in turn, examine how in the late 1960s road signs in Wales began to be portrayed by nationalists as ‘everyday media of oppression’ – for only using the English language – while demanding the inclusion of Welsh names. ⁹

The problem, however, is that these authors do not distinguish between mundane forms and cool temperatures. This confusion is caused by Billig’s rather ambiguous use of the concept, which in his own book in fact refers to three related aspects. Firstly, banal refers to ‘mundane’ expressions of nationalism; secondly, it can relate to their ‘unconscious’ consumption and, thirdly, to their ‘cold’ temperature. ¹⁰ These three aspects do not necessarily coincide. Sometimes, mundane forms of nationalism, such as stamps or road signs, are consciously used and become quite ‘hot’. A similar confusion is visible in Malešević’s recent survey of the rise of nationalism, in which he argues that ‘everyday nationalism’ is not the preserve of the post-1945 democratic nation-states of North America and Europe, since hot and banal forms of nationalism have existed side-by-side from the very beginning. The examples he gives to prove his point are the clothing of French revolutionaries, the way they addressed each other – as ‘citizen’ – and the hundreds of Bismarck columns that were erected after the death of the former chancellor of the German Empire. However, these obviously were rather mundane forms, but generally they were not unconsciously perceived, nor uncontested or cold. ¹¹

Not only is Billig’s use of the term ‘banal’ confusing, the same is true for his use of the concept of ‘nationalism’. Both he and Edensor illustrate their argument primarily with examples taken from established nation-states, such as the United States and Great Britain. Thus, nationalism implicitly refers to the identification of the citizens with their nation-state. However, when media speak about ‘we’ and ‘our’ they can also refer to ‘stateless-nations’ such as in the case of Scotland or Catalonia, ¹² or to more restricted groups. Some recent studies on local newspapers have even introduced the term ‘banal localism’, ¹³ and probably provincial newspapers could profess a form of ‘banal provincialism’. The same also applies to Edensor’s everyday nationalism; we routinely associate dishes or food items, such as an Italian pizza or Russian vodka, with nation-states. However, as the examples of Scotch whisky, Burgundy wine or Gouda cheese show, we can also identify them with stateless-nations, regions or cities. So, we should determine in each specific case whether the implicit or explicit reference to a particular territory implies a form of nationalism.

Moreover, Billig’s argument that people could routinely write about the government, the army, the diplomatic service and readers would automatically understand that this referred to the government, etc., of one’s own nation-state is not conclusive either. Such casual references will certainly have been customary during the medieval and early modern period as well, when nation-states did not yet exist. As a result, what Billig actually refers to with these examples is not necessarily banal nationalism, but what could better be labelled ‘banal statism’, since it could also refer to similar routine identification processes that operated in city-states, absolute monarchies or large empires. These critical remarks on Billig’s ambiguous use of both ‘banal’ and ‘nationalism’ do not mean that we should do away with the concept of banal nationalism altogether. However, we will have to be careful to see if we really can speak of an expression of nationalism and whether its banality refers to its form (mundane), its temperature (cool) or to its perception (unconscious).

But how can historians study forms of banal nationalism in the past? In the first place, it will be rather difficult to examine whether expressions of nationalism were not perceived (anymore) in a very conscious way. This is already a problem for social scientists, ¹⁴ but without the possibility to conduct interviews or use opinion polls this is even more complicated for the distant past. On the other hand, by carrying out detailed and contextualized case studies, historians already have extensive experience in assessing the temperature of certain expressions of nationalism. The most promising field for historians is to explore how and when all kinds of mundane practices and forms were nationalized – which is still largely unknown – and how the newly nationalized spaces, objects and practices slowly became accepted and taken for granted.

In order to examine the rise of banal forms of nationalism, I will analyze how the domestic sphere in Spain was nationalized between approximately 1890 and 1930. Spain was an old, but rather weak state with a considerable amount of ethnic/linguistic diversity, which eventually led to the rise of alternative nationalisms in the Basque Country, Catalonia and Galicia. Thus, it was neither a homogenous centralized state where nation-building went quite smoothly, nor a new or rather artificial state where the nationalization of the masses was very difficult. By studying some specific aspects of the rise of banal nationalism in Spain within a broad international context, I do not analyze this process as an isolated case, but hope to shed new light on wider transnational trends.

Although until the late 1980s scholars primarily studied the so-called peripheral nationalisms in Catalonia and the Basque Country, recently the rise and dissemination of Spanish nationalist feelings has become a very fertile field of research. There are even a few edited volumes that focus on the presence of nationalism in everyday life, but most chapters deal with the (late) twentieth or even twenty-first centuries. ¹⁵ The main exception is Ferran Archilés, who in various publications has shown how the Spanish national framework already became interiorized during the late nineteenth century. Nevertheless, he primarily deals with the presence of nationalism in the political sphere, mass media, education and popular culture, thus limiting himself to what Alejandro Quiroga has defined as the public and semi-public sphere, largely ignoring the domestic sphere. ¹⁶ In this article, therefore, I will investigate how the domestic sphere was nationalized in Spain during the late nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth century.

Strikingly, even outside of Spain, the nationalization of the domestic sphere has not been studied as a separate topic. Nevertheless, it is not uncharted territory. The evolution of the domestic sphere in this period has been examined by scholars from various separate disciplines and specializations, such as architectural history, gender studies, the history of decorative arts, food studies, social history and animal studies. In general, however, they focus on topics related to the modernization process, such as the rise of modern architecture, the emancipation of women, the impact of capitalism and the growing influence of hygienic ideas. Themes that were considered less relevant because they were seen as backward or traditional, such as housekeeping, vernacular architecture, or the impact of nationalism received much less attention. ¹⁷ As we will see, recently a growing number of case studies have been published on various partial aspects of the nationalization of the domestic sphere, but unfortunately not all of them are very well informed by recent developments within the field of nationalism studies.

The nationalization of the domestic sphere in Spain will be studied by zooming in on the nationalization of both the cuisine and the architectural space. Both processes started around 1890 and continued to have an important impact until the 1930s. Obviously, it is almost impossible to study this long-term process through the eyes of individual Spaniards, since the primary sources that will give access to their views are scarce and generally scattered over a wide variety of documents and archives. Therefore, I have opted for an indirect approach by exploring views on this topic as expressed in specialized magazines, professional journals, lectures, treatises and occasional press articles. This also means that the actual experiences of individual citizens, and as a consequence also the conscious or unconscious perceptions of these mundane practices and spaces, cannot be analyzed in depth.

The Nationalization of Spanish Cuisine

The main domestic practice that became nationalized in the early twentieth century would be cooking. During the early modern period, differences in food habits were primarily social, not geographical. Everywhere in Europe, the poor majority of the population simply ate what was available, while the upper classes followed the exuberant culinary standards that from the middle of the seventeenth century were set at the French court. Only in England and the Dutch Republic were there sufficient people that were neither extremely rich nor poor and who could afford modest and varied home-cooked meals, which slowly evolved into more coherent ‘middling cuisines’. This went hand-in-hand with the rise of a commercial agriculture and the standardization of certain food items, such as cheese and fish. ¹⁸

This is not to say that geographical differences did not exist. People who travelled often were aware that cooking habits and food items were different elsewhere and sometimes these varieties were expressed in national terms. Thus, well-educated Russians were aware that ‘their’ recipes for Lent were different from those in the West, since fish and dairy products were also proscribed for Eastern Orthodox Christians. Moreover, they also knew that rye bread and cabbage soup were not part of the diet in the rest of Europe. Americans, in turn, were conscious that corn was not common in the Old World. Foreign travellers could also increase the awareness of one’s own ‘national’ identity. Thus, roast beef became associated with the English, while many Spaniards knew that strangers often complained about the fried dishes, chickpeas and the excessive use of garlic in their country. ¹⁹ Nevertheless, these differences remained quite vague and did not play a role in most people’s daily lives.

During the nineteenth century, steamships and railways made travel easier, while borders between nation-states were more sharply defined, thus most probably the awareness of Europe’s culinary geography slowly increased. At the same time, however, a reinvented French haute cuisine expanded its reach among the affluent classes. Haute cuisine had been largely dependent on the monarchy and the aristocracy, but both were dethroned during the French Revolution. In the context of the new egalitarian and meritocratic nation-state, cooks had to look for a new clientele, which they found for instance in the recently invented restaurants, which catered to a wider well-to-do public. During the nineteenth century, grand chefs such as Marie-Antoine Carême and Auguste Escoffier began to profile themselves as modern professionals, while presenting their art as quintessentially French. This was a success and cooks, restaurants and cookbooks exported French cuisine to all corners of the civilized world. ²⁰

The nationalization of cooking practices outside of France only gained pace towards the end of the nineteenth century. In her impressive overview of cooking in world history Rebecca Laudan argues that this process was largely caused by the spread of middling cuisines. Towards the end of the nineteenth century the middle classes grew rapidly and the standardization of food products even enabled parts of the working classes to regularly eat meat, white bread and other luxury items. The wealth of new possibilities was streamlined by cooking classes, magazines and cookbooks, which all focused on relatively simple home-made dishes, thus creating new national culinary communities. Standardized ‘national’ dishes also entered the menus of a rapidly growing number of cheap restaurants. Laudan therefore argues that the new middling cuisines became increasingly identified as national cuisines and that, as a consequence, ‘the world’s culinary geography in 1920 [was] radically different from that in 1840’. ²¹

However, I would argue that this did not just happen as a side-effect of a socio-economic modernization processes and the rise of mass consumption, but that cultural factors were important as well; in this case, the expansion of the nation-building process. All over Europe nationalist elites began to target larger groups of society, and part of the effort was directed at the nationalization of the domestic sphere. A detailed analysis of this process in a somewhat backward European country like Spain – where in 1900 more than 60 per cent of the population was still active in the primary sector ²² – will make clear that conscious nation-building efforts played a crucial role in the rise of national cuisines.

Until well into the twentieth century, Spanish culinary authors continued to propagate the cosmopolitan cuisine that originated from France. Women’s magazines like La Moda Elegante (Elegant Fashion) and El Hogar y la Moda (Home & Fashion) provided their readers with many recipes, the majority of which derived from French cuisine. In general, these magazines wanted to show their readers – which clearly were from the upper strata of society – how to behave in a civilized way. This meant following French examples, not only in the kitchen, but also in clothing and good manners. The message was clear: a Spanish lady should know how to dress, dine and behave according to the international standards that were set in Paris.

The international culinary trends also informed the most influential Spanish cookbook of the time, Ángel Muro’s El practicón. Tratado completo de cocina al alcance de todos (1894; The practitioner: a complete cooking treatise accessible to all), which until 1928 would have no less than 28 editions. Muro had spent a large part of his life in Belgium and France and presented the recipes in a very didactic way. He did not only show his readers how to prepare the best dishes of French cuisine, but he also included a long appendix with practical advice on how to lead a civilized life according to the latest international standards. Thus, in 26 pages the author explained the ‘rules for serving the table’, another 20 pages were dedicated to the right way to cut the different types of food and seven pages were needed for clarifying how to eat the various dishes. The author even gave advice on the treatment of domestic servants. ²³

Nevertheless, the first complaints about the French culinary hegemony were already being voiced during the last decades of the nineteenth century. In the spring of 1876, in an open letter in Spain’s leading illustrated magazine La Ilustración Española y Americana, a certain Doctor Thebussem – the German-sounding pen-name of the Andalusian author Mariano Pardo de Figueroa – criticized the habit of writing the official menus at the Royal Palace in a flawed French instead of in Spanish. He also suggested that the king should serve the national dish, olla podrida (stew with pork and beans), at official occasions. His friend, José Castro y Serrano, a journalist from Madrid, answered him as ‘a cook of His Majesty’, initiating a public correspondence on Spanish cuisine, which in 1888 was published as a book. ²⁴ The ‘cook’ complained that every country had its own well-defined national dish. The French had their pot-au-feu, the English their roast-beef, the Italians risotto, the Germans their gollasch [sic], and even the Moroccans had their couscous. Spain, by contrast, did not have such a national dish because its cuisine was ‘federalized’. The olla podrida of Extremadura was called puchero in Andalusia and both were different from Castile’s cocido. Every part of the country prepared this dish in a different way. This lack of ‘gastronomic unity’ was a problem and the author suggested that a repository should be compiled of the ‘most illustrious Spanish dishes’ by requesting people from all parts of the country to send in the best local recipes. ²⁵

In the end, it would take until 1913 before the famous novelist Emilia Pardo Bazán took it upon herself to publish an inventory of the best Spanish recipes in two volumes. Both La cocina española antigua and La cocina española moderna (The old and modern Spanish cuisine) were ordered according to type of dish, beginning with soups and finishing with desserts. Since the geographical origin of the different dishes was not mentioned, the author in fact ‘constructed’ a new national cuisine. ²⁶ However, as a convinced nationalist she argued that Spanish cuisine did already exist and that she just wanted to salvage the old recipes that were about to disappear. In the prologue to the first volume she asserted that every nation had its own popular spirit, which also expressed itself in the kitchen. Over the centuries, the Spanish culinary traditions had adapted themselves to the flavourful products of the soil and the customs of the inhabitants. Therefore, Spaniards should take pride in their own cuisine, which was characterized by ‘clear and strong flavours’, it was ‘not ambiguous with sauces and spices’ and possessed a ‘vegetarian tendency, maybe due to religious ideas and the heat’. ²⁷

Probably influenced by her own well-to-do aristocratic background, in her modern Spanish cookbook Pardo Bazán still concentrated on French cuisine. Fried dishes or Spanish omelettes were permitted for a simple lunch with good friends, but not for a festive dinner. Like Ángel Muro, she took for granted that her readers would have domestic servants and she underlined the importance of an elegant presentation of a well-ordered combination of refined dishes. A Spanish lady needed to know how to behave and how to serve a respectable dinner for her guests. Nevertheless, some adaptations were admissible, for instance by replacing foreign products that were difficult to attain with their Spanish equivalents. Thus, it was permitted to use lard or olive oil instead of butter. ²⁸

In December 1916, in a lecture for the new Domestic Science School of Madrid, Pardo Bazán seems to have radicalized her views since she argued that Spanish cuisine should recover its position, not only among the poor – who according to her had no option but to eat national dishes – but also among the middle and upper classes. In the context of the First World War, which even raised the nationalistic mood in a neutral country like Spain, she decided to address young girls who were being educated to become domestic servants or simple housewives and encourage them to stay loyal to the supposedly authentic culinary traditions of Spain. It would be foolish, she now argued, to reject:

… the food that sustained the living of our ancestors and that continues to sustain our farmers, fishers and shepherds and which was enforced upon us by our resources and our local and regional needs and which puts ourselves into contact with the basic elements of our nationality. ²⁹

Although the French hegemony would not disappear immediately, in the 1920s and 30s – which from an international perspective is somewhat late ³⁰ – almost all cookbooks began to include Spanish dishes, while some were even exclusively dedicated to the highlights of the national cuisine. ³¹ At the same time, the interest in the culinary traditions of the different Spanish regions also increased. Thus, the famous Catalan chef Ignacio Doménech published books on the Basque and Catalan cuisines, ‘constructing’ or ‘inventing’ them in a similar way as Pardo Bazán had done for Spain. ³² In 1929, the Guía del buen comer español (Guide of good Spanish cuisine), a first inventory of the Spanish cuisine organized by region, was published by Dioniso Pérez. Its source of inspiration was without a doubt the more than 20 volumes of La France Gastronomique: Guides des merveilles culinaires et des bonnes auberges françaises, published from 1921 onwards by Curnonsky and Marcel Rouff, which was also ordered by region. Both books attempted to present the culinary heritage of the fatherland as a union in diversity. ³³

Classifying the recipes by region also meant that Pérez openly associated the different dishes with a specific geographical area. This often even influenced the denomination of the dishes or products. These could now refer to a region, such as in bacalao a la vizcaína or callos a la andaluza, or to a locality, such as mantecadas de Astorga or queso de Cabrales. Gastronomy, according to Pérez, reflected the specific natural characteristics of an area and its local traditions. The province of Cadiz, for example, had a cuisine that was as varied ‘as her geological and topographical nature and her diverse customs and ways of living’. Only the situation in Madrid was different. The King and the aristocracy followed foreign fashions, while the population ‘brought to Madrid the taste and manners of the regions from which they originated. Thus, the cooking-stove of Madrid… has been the great melting pot in which what we call the “national cuisine” was founded, forged and unified’. Nevertheless, the capital had not, as had happened in France, imposed its preferences on the rest of the country. Instead of a national cuisine, it had created the ‘cuisine of New Castile’. ³⁴

The author’s tone was overtly nationalistic, regretting for instance that during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the ‘palate of the nation’ had been Frenchified. But fortunately, Spanish cuisine, consisting of a harmonic combination of regional cuisines, had come back to life again. He also argued that during several centuries, Spain – due to the Arabic influences and the conquest of America – had had the ‘most advanced cuisine of Europe’. Spaniards had introduced many new products and dishes to the rest of the continent and even in more recent times French cuisine had adopted elements from Spain, such as mayonnaise, which originated from Mahón. This message was repeated in a column titled ‘Spain has shown the world how to eat’ that he published in the culinary magazine Marmitón (Kitchen aid), which Pérez edited from November 1933 onwards. ³⁵ After the beginning of the economic crisis in 1929, at the request of the National Union of Agricultural Exports, he also wrote a book with recipes to stimulate the consumption of Spanish oranges and he propagated the celebration of a national rice day to come to the aid of the Spanish rice producers. ³⁶

Nationalists, such as Pardo Bazán and Pérez, thus explicitly stimulated their fellow countrymen to ‘re-adopt’ Spanish culinary practices and consume Spanish agricultural products. However, this would have fallen on deaf ears if there had not have been a growing demand for Spanish cuisine and its regional variants. In fact, the number of books that focused partly or entirely on Spanish recipes increased rapidly; many of them were now written by women and explicitly targeted middle-class housewives. At the same time, agribusinesses began to associate their products with the motherland, since this proved to be a profitable strategy. Thus, food producers marketed their goods – such as Rioja wine or cheese from La Mancha – as intimately connected to the soil and climate of a specific region. Following the example of their French competitors, they even requested official measures to protect their collective trademark, which resulted in the award by the military dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera of the appellation of origin, starting with Rioja wines in 1925. ³⁷

Although the novelist did not mention them in her lecture, at about the same time pets were nationalized as well, and this process had many parallels with the nationalization of food and culinary practices. In 1859, the first dog show was held in Great Britain. This provided a strong incentive for dog lovers to adopt breeding practices developed to improve livestock, poultry and horses. In 1873, the new national Kennel Club defined standards for each breed, which now also had to receive a name. Instead of continuing to denominate dogs quite generically after their function, such as retrievers or mountain dogs, they now were more closely defined according to shape, size, colour and coat, while often receiving a name that referred to a country or a region, such as the German shepherd or the Yorkshire terrier. Although this first of all affected dogs for hunting and racing, it rapidly affected non-sporting dogs and other pets. Pet breeding was quickly adopted outside the United Kingdom as well, and in 1911 the Fédération Cynologique Internationale was created to assure the international recognition of pedigree dogs. ³⁸ Although Spaniards were not particularly known for their fancy for dogs and other pets, in 1911 they followed the new trend by creating a Central Society for the Promotion of Dog Breeds in Spain. Initially, the focus fell particularly on Spanish greyhounds and warren hounds, which was quite logical given the prominent role of male aristocrats as breeders and board members of the dog lovers’ associations, but companion dogs and other pets were shown as well at the growing number of dog and animal shows. One of the central concerns of the Society was to revive and improve the Spanish breeds, such as the Spanish mastiff, the Andalusian hound and the Burgos pointer, thus actually creating a growing number of Spanish breeds. ³⁹

Emilia Pardo Bazán, on the other hand, explicitly advocated the nationalization of practices such as cleaning and gardening, which traditionally belonged to the female sphere. In her lecture of 1916, the countess argued that the Great War had shown that the idea of the patria was ‘something natural and organic, like the circulation of the blood’. Women, according to her, had a crucial role in stimulating the well-being of the nation and should strengthen the presence of the nation at home. First of all, women had to take care of their own bodily condition – she even favoured physical education for girls – because healthy and strong mothers were needed to give birth to and raise good future soldiers. Therefore, it was necessary to reject those foreign customs that were not in tune with the nation’s true nature. This applied to the diet and culinary traditions, but also to the way of cleaning. Modern hygiene, according to her, should be combined with national and local cleaning habits, which were more in harmony with the natural conditions and cultural traditions of the different parts of the country. Also the way of decorating the house and arranging the yard should be done by taking into account national traditions and by using native plants and flowers. ⁴⁰ Nevertheless, since there were no strong commercial interests involved and because these customs were not widely associated with Spain – unlike gardening in England and cleaning in Germany ⁴¹ – Pardo Bazán seems to have enjoyed less success with her pleas in these domains.

The Nationalization of Spanish Domestic Architecture

That the nationalization of the domestic sphere was not the straightforward result of broader modernization processes also becomes clear by examining the evolution of domestic architecture, which was nationalized at about the same time as cooking practices. Although during the nineteenth century the Parisian Academy of Beaux-Arts heavily influenced architectural developments throughout the Western world, it was not as hegemonic as French haute cuisine. Most European countries trained their own architects, although the curriculum largely followed the French model. The Spanish Royal Academy of Fine Arts, thus, was created in 1744 and in 1875 a second School of Architecture was opened in Barcelona. Historicism and eclecticism provided the dominant architectural trends, while nationalism primarily affected high-profile monuments or public buildings. From the early nineteenth century onwards heated debates were waged over the particular (national) style that was most suited for them. ⁴² Nationalist considerations barely influenced less prominent assignments, such as apartment blocks or private houses, where different historical styles were often combined in a rather unsystematic way. Thus, a mansion could feature a neo-Renaissance façade, a Gothic library, a Moorish smoking room and a Chinese salon. ⁴³

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the market for apartment buildings in cities, villas in new suburbs and second homes in beach and mountain resorts was growing rapidly. However, the reorientation of domestic architecture towards a more nationalistic course was primarily caused by the intensification of the nation-building process. ⁴⁴ In Spain, the first to criticize the dominant cosmopolitan architectural trends were young intellectuals. In 1896 the ambitious author Ángel Ganivet opposed the construction of a new avenue with modern apartments in Granada’s historic city centre. In the local daily El Defensor de Granada, he stated ‘I do not understand how the apartment building has become dominant in our city [and] how the porter’s lodge has killed our Andalusian patio’. He also opposed the trend to build highly decorated villas that combined different styles, taken out of books ‘that we do not understand’. According to him, every country had its own architectural style that could be found in the constructions of the poor. Accordingly, local building traditions should be cherished. ‘Nature endowed our soil with splendid vegetation and our first impulse was to take advantage of this. Thus was born what is typical of our architecture: the bond between buildings, flowers and plants’. The dwelling that in his native city best embodied this organic relationship between local traditions and the surrounding nature was the carmen, a modest house with a patio and a small garden, only adorned with window bars and flowers. ⁴⁵

It was clear that Ganivet was in favour of taking vernacular buildings as a source of inspiration, and in his next contribution he argued that subsidies should be given to those who construct new buildings in a local style. This way, the new parts of Granada would be in harmony with the rest, while reinforcing the city’s unique character. ⁴⁶ As a consequence, Ganivet did not want a homogenous national architecture; on the contrary, inspiration should be sought among the vernacular traditions that over the centuries had adapted themselves to the particular climatic and geological conditions, which differed substantially throughout Spain.

A similar argument was put forward by Azorín (the pseudonym of José Martínez Ruiz), another writer of the same generation. Already in 1902, he made it clear that he was in favour of a national cuisine by organizing a meal in a popular tavern to celebrate the success of Pío Baroja’s novel Camino de perfección. Here they had roast lamb, rice-stew with leftovers and other traditional dishes, accompanied by local Valdepeñas wine from earthen cups. ⁴⁷ Seven years later, in his daily column in the conservative newspaper ABC, he defended the need to continue existing building traditions, which took into account the specific natural conditions of the area. His article was triggered by a resolution of the National Conference on Architecture claiming that architects needed to extend their activities to the countryside. Azorín clearly opposed this proposal. People in rural areas should not employ architects who will plan wide and straight avenues and construct pretentious houses, while imitating the opulent buildings of the great cities:

In the small villages, the landscape rules over the constructions and the climate has more power than man … It is better when the genius of the local masters runs its traditional course … they have no ‘art’; they are driven by a profound longing for life and harmony; they will not build a house from Alicante in the Basque Country or a Catalan house in Andalusia. It is the sun, the air, the light and the hygrometric quality of the atmosphere … that constructs the houses in the small villages. ⁴⁸

By 1909, however, the idea that a house should be adapted to the natural environment and the local building traditions had already become accepted all over Europe. The new vogue, moreover, was propagated by innovative architects and cosmopolitan intellectuals, like Azorín, rather than by provincial contractors, and had already resulted in a growing number of neo-vernacular villas and cottages. The new trend also reached Spain and is nowadays known as ‘regionalism’. ⁴⁹ In 1910, for instance, Manuel Aníbal Álvarez, a professor of the School of Architecture of Madrid, used his inaugural speech for the Royal Academy of Fine Arts to plead for a new national architecture. He asserted that every country has its own climate, traditions and customs; as a consequence, it was not logical to copy architectural styles from abroad. Spaniards have their own way of life, and without rejecting modern standards of comfort architects should develop a new building style based on their nation’s constructive traditions, while taking into account regional differences. ⁵⁰ In the following years, the question of how to regenerate Spanish architecture while incorporating the idiosyncrasies of the various regions would become a prominent topic of debate. ⁵¹

The new ideas obviously also had practical implications. Thus, in 1910 a conservative city councillor of Seville proposed – as Ganivet had wanted in Granada – that houses which adapted their façade to the ‘style of the land’ should be exempted from municipal charges. Two years later, the city organized a competition for façades in ‘Sevilian style’. ⁵² Around the same time, architects such as Leonardo Rucabado and Manuel Smith Ibarra were constructing the first regionalist houses in the Basque Country and the province of Santander, as was Aníbal González Álvarez in Andalusia. These architects were clearly inspired by local vernacular traditions and consciously tried to place their buildings in the surrounding countryside or cityscape. Rucabado probably was the most conscientious of the new generation of regionalist architects. He visited all parts of his native province of Santander to document extensively the region’s characteristic vernacular constructions and monumental buildings, while incorporating traditional elements into his own designs. ⁵³

What architects such as Rucabado did, in fact, was to select those houses, roofs, balconies, porches and picturesque details which could not be encountered elsewhere, while declaring them to be characteristic of a specific region or locality. They deployed natural materials, such as brick, stone, timber and tiles that could be found in the area and where possible employed traditional artisanal techniques. The villas and cottages in a regionalist style were very popular among a broad upper-middle-class clientele and within a few years the new residential neighbourhoods of big cities and seaside resorts in the Basque Country ⁵⁴ and Cantabria became more expressive of their regions than they had ever been. In Seville over 50 per cent of the buildings that were constructed between 1916 and 1932 could be classified as regionalist. ⁵⁵ Although regional differences were strengthened this way, the changes also helped to distinguish the country from its neighbours, making Spanish homes more Spanish. The nationalist intent was also obvious in garden cities, where most houses were built in a regionalist style in order to reconnect the inhabitants with the soil of the motherland. ⁵⁶

Glancing through specialist journals such as La Construcción Moderna, Arquitectura y Construcción and Cortijos y Rascacielos, it becomes clear that during the 1910s and 1920s regionalism became the dominant domestic architectural style, particularly for villas, cottages and country houses. In 1920, the architectural critic Leopoldo Torres Balbás complained jokingly that in the province of Santander the regionalist style had become a ‘superficial fashion’ that was even applied to streetlights and public dustbins. ⁵⁷ In more general illustrated magazines one could also encounter articles on these types of houses. In the mid-1920s, El Mundo en Auto featured a section titled ‘la casita soñada’ (the dream house), which reviewed a recently built dwelling, generally a cottage or a country house in a regionalist style. These articles made clear that the neo-vernacular style was not limited to the design and decoration of the façade, but that the architect also took care to place the building into its natural surroundings. Much emphasis in the accompanying text was put on the orientation of the house in order to protect it from the sun, strong winds, rain and snow. The natural building materials, the colours and the picturesque shapes of the building were especially valued when they were in tune with the surrounding landscape. Porches, terraces, balconies and bay windows were placed strategically in order to provide vistas, easy access to the garden and plenty of natural light. Houses were also planned to stimulate family life in an organic manner. Most houses were organized around a cosy hall, while, for reasons of convenience the kitchen was next to the dining room. The kitchen generally had a separate entrance, so that the coalman and the garbage collector did not have to enter the living quarters, while the servants’ rooms were somewhat removed from the family in order to guarantee their privacy. ⁵⁸ Often the architects also designed the interior and sometimes even the furniture, all in the same regionalist style.

During the early decades of the twentieth century, the nationalization of the interior decoration of houses became an important issue as well. This became evident for instance in Spanish art and architectural journals in which attention was given to furniture and applied arts. In 1912, the Society of Friends of Art organized an exposition in Madrid of Spanish furniture from the Golden Age, and one of the organizers, the Count de las Almenas, asserted that this should be a source of inspiration for new designs that could replace the bad imitations of foreign styles, which were still current at the time. ⁵⁹ The next year, the secretary of the same society, the Baron de la Vega de Hoz gave a lecture series on the history of Spanish decorative arts from prehistory to the eighteenth century, which inspired its board to announce the publication of a series of six volumes on the same topic with the explicit goal of providing models for contemporary designers. ⁶⁰

Illustrated magazines also dedicated attention to interior decoration, while promoting national styles. Thus, the Revista de Oro contained a section entitled ‘Portfolio of Spanish furniture’, although there were also many foreign items in the photographs of interiors from different parts of the country. This household magazine also reviewed the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts that was organized in Paris in 1925. The anonymous author dismissed the feverish Art Nouveau ‘nightmares’ of the past in favour of a new national art. The exhibition made clear that France had already abandoned the ‘heavy ballast of twenty years of foreign influences’, while turning its gaze towards the glorious traditions of its past ‘in order to restore to its luxurious and decorative arts the personality that it had almost completely lost’. Luckily this return to normality, which meant a reorientation on national traditions from the past, was also under way in the Spanish decorative arts. According to the author, it was ‘pointless to flee what necessity, logic and tradition had brought forth throughout the ages’. ⁶¹

Since the ideas of these authors were converted into reality by many regionalist architects, the interior decoration of many houses was nationalized. From some texts we can even deduce that these nationalized domestic spaces were supposed to stimulate the moral behaviour of the inhabitants. Obviously, this also entailed a traditional division of tasks between men and women. Thus, in an extensive article that was published in El Mundo en Auto in July 1926, the anonymous author presented time-honoured rural kitchens as an edifying example to his or her readers. These kitchens – no matter if they were for the rich or poor, splendid or miserable – were heart-warming and they constituted the true symbol of domestic life in the countryside. Eight photographs of rural kitchens from different parts of Spain conveyed a faithful image of this ‘familiar sanctuary’. Since the Middle Ages, ‘the fireplace, with the great hood that covers it, signifies… home, family, tradition, because around it, under the protection of the large chimney, the generations that represent the life of the nation succeed each other’. The author pictured an idealized image of the past, in which everyone knew their place and did their job without complaining:

After their daily work, parents and children gather in these kitchens; where grandfather … is the head of the family; where mother cares for and nurses her small children, without abandoning for a moment the preparation of the meal for the big ones; where, finally, the spouses make their plans for the preservation of the house and the protection of their interests. And all this life that flows towards eternity is presided over by the fire and its large fireplace, which like a baldachin covers the family throne that maintains the fatherland that the faraway city, with its cosmopolitism and intoxicating splendour, wants to destroy. ⁶²

It is obvious that the author thought that a cosy kitchen which was decorated according to the age-old traditions of the fatherland, with azulejos (tiles), traditional furniture, copper pots and earthenware dishes, would stimulate a healthy family life, which in turn would be beneficial for the entire nation.

This intimate connection between regionalist architecture, personal rectitude, ‘traditional’ family life and the greatness of the fatherland was also particularly manifest in articles dedicated to garden cities. Each house, including the most modest ones, should have separate bedrooms for boys and girls, a bathroom to stimulate personal hygiene and a garden that could be used for the leisure of both parents and children. Accordingly, children could develop freely and adults would not feel the need to seek pleasure in bars. A house in a neo-vernacular style should be welcoming and create an ideal atmosphere for a united, healthy and happy family, which in this way could function as a stable ‘pillar’ of the nation. ⁶³ Hilarión González del Castillo, one of Spain’s most zealous promoters of modern city planning, even asserted in an article that by transforming the worker into the owner of a small piece of land – which was the objective of most garden cities – the great social plagues of the moment, such as emigration, alcoholism, crime, ignorance, prostitution, tuberculosis and class struggle, could be solved. ⁶⁴

Regionalist interiors were also a commercial success. Thus, in 1914 two businessmen from Bilbao opened the Hostería del Laurel, a café designed by Leonardo Rucabado. Instead of importing ‘barbarities’ from abroad, the design was inspired by the joyful scenes from ‘our classical’ picaresque novels, many of which took place in taverns, inns, guesthouses and hostels. The name of the café was taken from José Zorilla’s famous play on Don Juan and the place was infused with a national aroma. The rooms were inspired by a large number of ancient interiors and were filled with craft products from all parts of the country, such as a Castilian coats of arms, Catalan lanterns, Sevilian crockery and ceramics from Talavera. The café was a great success and quickly became the seat of the local bullfighting club. ⁶⁵

Perhaps the sector where the tendency to create nationalized spaces was most explicit was tourism. In this field the Marquis Benigno de la Vega Inclán played a leading role. Even before being appointed as the first Royal Commissioner for Tourism in 1912, he bought the remains of the house in Toledo in which El Greco had supposedly lived, with the aim of converting it into a small museum. The house was reconstructed and decorated with paintings by El Greco and sixteenth-century Spanish furniture. All details had to contribute to recreating the atmosphere of the Golden Age in New Castile. ⁶⁶ Even the sober garden fitted in well; with its benches, pools, climbers and strong contrasts between light and shadow, it formed in effect an extension to the house. A reviewer even remarked that the restored house and its garden seemed to be a ‘natural emanation of the soil of Toledo’. ⁶⁷

A trip to the United States in 1913, where he was much impressed by neo-vernacular rural hotels, stimulated the Marquis to take the initiative and create a network of state hotels, the so-called paradores, to stimulate automobile tourism in the more remote parts of the country. The new luxurious hotels were to be adapted to the climate, the natural environment and local traditions, and as a consequence were built in a neo-vernacular style. Since the hotels were decorated with regional furniture and artisanal products, the tourist was submerged in a Spanish atmosphere. Even the food should be home-made. In the first parador in the Gredos Mountains, dinner was not prepared by a male chef, but by a local woman who was familiar with traditional cooking practices. ⁶⁸ According to a review of a renovated college in Alcalá de Henares, another parador, everything represented the ‘sturdy popular arts of Castile’. The furniture and the entire interior decoration conformed to this style and an old guitar hung on the wall. Handsome girls in traditional costumes served local wine and traditional dishes, such as Spanish omelette, serrano ham and crumbs with chocolate. ⁶⁹ The nationalization of interior spaces, objects and practices, thus, did not only stimulate Spaniards’ national consciousness, but also attracted tourists. Moreover, it was not only physical space that was dressed up to be Spanish, the visitor took in Spanish-ness through all the senses, and this was not only the case in interior spaces designed to welcome foreigners.

Conclusion

As we have seen, vague notions of national differences and identities already existed in the early modern period; but only at the beginning of the twentieth century was the domestic sphere consciously nationalized. In Spain this was done by a small number of dedicated nationalist intellectuals and professionals, who began to redefine dishes that were part of a new middling cuisine as traditionally Spanish, while at the same time propagating a new type of domestic architecture that supposedly was firmly rooted in national and regional vernacular traditions. Although these nationalist intellectuals and professionals argued that they were merely propagating practices and forms that were already firmly rooted among the Spanish people – meaning basically the rural lower classes – they actually constructed something new. When they started, their interpretations were also perceived as new and innovative, but over the time they became taken for granted. Moreover, the omnipresence of their ideas from about the second decade of the twentieth century onwards in all kinds of publications and magazines, and their rapid spread through cookbooks, regionalist villas, second-homes and cottages, prove that there was a broad and receptive audience for their ideas.

It is also clear that the rapidly growing demand for Spanish dishes and regionalist architecture primarily came from the urban middle and upper classes. Only they could afford a neo-vernacular house and a Spanish pedigree dog, buy hand-made Spanish furniture, use cookbooks and choose between French and Spanish dishes. This was out of the question for most poor Spaniards. Nevertheless, many working-class families also obtained a cottage in a garden city. Others worked in hotels or restaurants, or as a domestic servant and learned how to prepare national or regional dishes. In this way, the nationalization of the domestic sphere also began to reach wider strata of the population. With the rise of mass consumption, these mundane spaces, objects, animals and practices were increasingly identified – probably unconsciously – with their supposed national or regional geographic origin, thus becoming completely banal.

Nonetheless, this was not the result of an automatic process of economic modernization; cultural factors played a crucial role. Spanish intellectuals and professionals did not merely use aesthetic or economic arguments to propagate their ideas, but always combined them with nationalist and even ethical motives. The nationalization of the domestic sphere, therefore, was part of a consciously propagated nation-building process, which now also began to target everyday life and housewives. Women were also citizens and it was clear that sooner rather than later they would be given the vote; female suffrage in fact was introduced in 1931. They therefore had to be turned into respectable Spanish citizens who would faithfully fulfil their patriotic duties. It is also clear that these nationalist authors clearly preferred a ‘traditional’ – and thus authentically Spanish – division of tasks between men and women.

The nationalization of the domestic sphere did not stop in the 1930s, but its further development would show great variations. Thus, the nationalization of domestic architecture and applied arts would quickly lose impetus. Already during the Great Depression, functionalist architecture – also known as the international style – gained the upper hand and rendered the neo-vernacular trend largely obsolete. ⁷⁰ Only in the tourist sector did buildings and interiors with a strong local flavour continue to be in vogue, but these were generally not taken seriously as works of art or architecture. We have also seen that Pardo Bazán’s pleas for the nationalization of cleaning and gardening – both of which were not considered typical of the Spanish nation – did not have much lasting effect.

On the other hand, the nationalization of the cuisine and pets was a resounding success. Nowadays, dishes (and most domestic animals) are routinely associated with a particular nation, and each nation, region or locality has its characteristic products and recipes. These are not only served to tourists, but can also be found in cookbooks, restaurants and supermarkets and thus also target a domestic audience. The (global) advance of nationalism in the culinary sphere can probably be explained because – contrary to architecture and design – cooking was not part of high, but of low culture. Moreover, food – like animals – was part of nature and thus largely determined by geographic and climatic circumstances. Gender differences seem to play a role as well. At the beginning of the twentieth century, architects were almost exclusively male professionals that had to follow the newest international artistic trends in order to be taken seriously. Cooking – with the exception of haute cuisine – was the task of housewives, who were supposed to faithfully pass on the national culinary traditions from their mothers and grandmothers, and so converted the kitchen into a banal stronghold of the nation.