Los viajes de la reina: Monarquía, nación e identidad nacional

Abstract

Abstract:Los viajes de la reina: Monarquía, nación e identidad nacional explores Queen Isabel II's travels throughout Spain between 1858 and 1866, organized by Leopoldo O'Donnell's Union Liberal government as documented in the official published chronicles of these journeys. Unlike the peripatetic monarchs of the medieval and early modern periods, whose travels functioned to connect and secure their scattered territories, the primary objective of Isabel's journeys was to "nationalize" the monarchy. Her plan was to establish the symbolic identification between the monarchy as an institution and the emergent liberal nation-state, which was in the throes of articulating its national identity as it entered modernity, and also within the national imaginary. The article analyzes the meaning-making royal itineraries through several of Spain's regions—principally Cataluña, Asturias, Andalucía, and Castilla—, and the cultural apparatus (royal rituals, ephemeral architecture, visits to factories and industrial exhibitions) deployed to elaborate a national identity. I also explore the sites of memory visited by the queen so as to cement an historical narrative for the nation. The article highlights the ways the journeys portray the monarchy as both the champion of a much-desired modernity and the incarnation of an eternal nation.