Today, Tuesday 12 October, we are again celebrating Columbus Day. The festivities may be somewhat muted compared to a typical year, but at least celebrations and some parades are yet again allowed. The day, now officially called the Fiesta Nacional or Fiesta Nacional de España falls on the day of Cristóbal Colón’s first land exploration in the New World in 1492. But if you think Spain has celebrated Columbus Day as its National Day for hundreds of years, you are wrong. Because, like most other things “national” in Spain, the National Day has also been the subject of controversy and strife. The modern celebration of Columbus Day is almost the result of a political compromise from the 1980s.
Columbus Day is celebrated across large parts of the Spanish-speaking world, as well as in the United States which is just about to enter the final stages of Hispanic Heritage Month. In recent years, it has admittedly been increasingly seen as a “politically incorrect” celebration of the start of European colonization of the New World, but that is another discussion.
The day when Columbus and his crew landed on the American continent for the first time in 1492 is often referred to in Spanish-speaking countries as Día de la Hispanidad, a day when one also celebrates what binds the Spanish-speaking world together. In Spain, the holiday is often celebrated with fireworks. From the year 2000, there has also been a large military parade in Madrid with the king, prime minister, members of the government and other celebrities present. This year’s celebration will probably be far more modest than usual but still an improvement over last year.
But the celebration of a Spanish National Day is historically a fairly new phenomenon. Spain can be said to have been a state at least since the end of the 15th century, but developing a common national identity has been more problematic.
National Day without a Nation?
Spain’s national anthem illustrates the point: La Marcha Real has been the Spanish national anthem for almost 260 years, making it one of the world’s oldest national anthems. But adding lyrics to the melody has been just about impossible to agree on despite countless attempts.
As with trying to add lyrics to the national anthem, there has been no shortage of attempts to introduce a national day. Several attempts to agree on a date have been made just since the end of the 19th century.
May 2nd represents, as far as we have seen, the first formal attempt to establish a Spanish National Day. The day marks the outbreak of riots in the streets of Madrid against Napoleon and his soldiers who were conquering the Iberian Peninsula. The revolt against the French general gradually spread to most of Spain, and can thus be claimed to have brought the otherwise rather fragmented country together. If nothing else, against a common enemy. The proposal to introduce May 2nd as a national day was put forward in the latter half of the 19th century, but the celebration never became particularly “national”.
Among the reasons for this was that the socialist movement had begun to organize in earnest in Spain in the late 1870s. And May 2nd as a national day had the potential to overshadow the celebration of the International Worker’s day or Labor Day as it is also called. Add to that the regional differences and interests, with large sections of the population finding little reason to celebrate what they perceived as an alleged common Spanish identity.
In the late 19th century, an attempt was made to introduce 12 October as a national holiday. Columbus Day originally went by the name Día de la Raza, directly translated: Race Day. It must be said to be a somewhat disturbing term for a national day. The idea was to highlight that Columbus’ discovery of America was a Spanish achievement. And the support for the celebration was primarily to be found among Spain’s conservatives, the royals and church supporters who wanted to emphasize the monarchy’s role in the conquest of the New World and the country’s subsequent golden age. Ferdinand and Isabella, who saw themselves as defenders of the Catholic faith, were known to play an important role in Columbus’ expedition.
But this did not unite the “nation” either – King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella were Castilian monarchs, and thus little to celebrate for populations with a different ethnic, linguistic, regional or political identity.
From the turn of the century until the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), Spain had several relatively short-lived governments, alternating from right and left in politics. The two wings could not agree on a common, official national day. The Spanish right-wing party was mainly the driving force behind the National Day celebrations, while the left-wing party preferred 1 May and a celebration of international solidarity.
Battle for National Day
After the 1931 election, Spain got a coalition government of liberal and left-wing parties. On 14 April, 1931, the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed. The king left the country and the liberal government introduced a number of reforms which, among other things, gave the regions greater autonomy. Oddly enough, one might say, the government tried to introduce that same day, 14 April, as a Spanish National Day.
As is well known, a civil war between Republicans on the one hand and conservative forces with church, military officers, nobility and royals on the other hand erupted in 1936. In its wake, General Franco came to power and started his work on building a Spanish nation.
Franco quickly abolished the “National Day of the Republic”. Instead, in 1940, he introduced 12 October as a celebration of Spanish identity. But not as a national day, a decision he in retrospect may have regretted. Instead he made 18 July the national day. This was the day the civil war started; the day the generals launched their coup attempt against the legally elected Spanish government. It did not have a unifying effect on the population.
The National Day compromise
This was the situation as long as Franco remained in power. After his death in 1975, a process began to create a modern democratic Spain. 18 July as a national day was not very suitable for uniting the nation, but there were many other more important issues on the political agenda in Spain than having a national day celebration.
So, it was not until the end of 1981 that Columbus Day on 12 October was established as a national holiday by royal resolution, but then as Día de la Hispanidad. It would take another six years, until 1987, before the day actually became a National Day under the name Fiesta Nacional de España.
Many saw the National Day as an admission to Spain’s conservative forces. And the celebrations were toned down in terms of nationalism and national symbols. Instead it emphasized to a greater extent the celebration of the Spanish contribution to the discovery of the New World. To emphasize that Spain had now gone from being a dictatorship to a democracy and “balancing” between right-wing and left-wing forces. The same year a celebration of Constitution Day was introduced, on 6 December. On this day in 1978, Spain regained a democratic constitution.
History can explain the somewhat modest celebration of National Day in Spain compared to many other countries. If you are in Spain on 12 October, you will hardly come across enthusiastic crowds waving Spanish flags. In the year 2000, National Day was also declared Military Forces Day and, as mentioned above, a military parade was introduced. It is usually held in the capital Madrid. Whether the debate concerning a National Day and its content that has been going on since the 19th century is over or not: Enjoy the National Day!
Find Your Spain!
Like this article? Share it with your friends and family.
