UNIT 7. MODERN SPAIN I (SOCIAL SCIENCE)

UNIT 7. MODERN SPAIN I

REVOLUTION AND CHANGES IN SPAIN

With the French Revolution, the absolutism finished and new liberal ideas started.

·         Carlos IV

Carlos IV became a Spanish King in 1788, when The French Revolution started. In the past, relationships between Spain and France were not very good but in 1807 the Prime Minister (Manuel Godoy) signed the Treaty of Fotainebleu with  Napoleon Bonaparte.  They agreed to invade Portugal and divide it between them, but France used this to invade Spain. Fernando VII, who was Carlos´ son,  did not agree with the Alliance between France and Spain and led the Mutiny of Aranjuez against Godoy in 1808. Carlos abdicated and Fernando became King. Later, Napoleon forced Fernando VII to abdícate and put his brother Joseph Bonaparte in the Spanish throne.

·         The war of Independence

After the French invasión, the 2nd May 1808 there was an uprising and The War of Independence began. It was against France and it also was a civil war in Spain because there were different opinions about who should be the King.

With the help of British, the French were defeated and, in 1814, Fernando was recognised as King by Napoleón. Absolutism came back.

·         The Constitution of 1812

Cadiz was the only place of Spain which was not under the French power and in 1812 the First Spanish Consitution was signed. It was a liberal Constitution and itestablished:

-          Freedom of the press

-          Equality for all

-          Right vote for men over 18

-          Freedom of expression

-          National sovereignty

-          A Constitutional Monarchy

But when Fernando VII came to the throne in 1814, it was abolished.

·         The Independence of the American territories

The French Revolution and American Independence from Britain in 1776  influenced liberal ideas in the descendants of Spanish and Portuguese colonists. In 1825, Spain had a lot of these territories except Cuba and Puerto Rico.

THE REIGNS OF FERNANDO VII AND ISABEL II

The reign of Fernando VII can be divided into three periods:

1.       1814 – 1820 (Absolustism): When Fernando came back to the Spanish throne it meant the end of the French occupation.  He declared illegal the Constitution in 1814 and be became an absolute monarch.

2.       1820 – 1823 (Liberal Trienium): Rafael del Riego led a military rebelión. In 1823, Fernando VII revoked the Constitution again having the support of other absolutist regimes in Europe.

3.       1823 – 1823 (Ominous decade): period of repreessions and problema of sucession.

When Fernando VII died in 1833, the laws  did not let women to reign, so Carlos (Fernando´s brother) should be the King. However, Fernando chose his daughter Isabel to be the queen. He was 3 years old, so her mother María Cristina and General Espartero were their regents until she was 13. She was Isabel II.

There were different civil wars  (Carlist wars) between the people who wanted Carlos as King (the Carlists, who wanted and absolute monarchy) and the people who supported the regency.

During Isabel´s reign, Spain became a parlamentary monarchy. There was political inestability and she was exiled in 1868.

There was a provisional government which wrote the Constitution of 1869 (similar to the Constitution of 1812).

·         Social changes

-          Upper class: nobility and owners of rich factories and Banks, called the upper bourgeoisie. They wanted to raise their status by marrying between memebers of nobility or buying big houses.

-          Middle class: merchants, doctors, lawyers and small landowners.

-          The working class: very low-paid agricultutral workers and labourers from rural areas. In urban  areas, there were factory workers.

·         The labour movement

Conditions for the working class were very bad. In rural areas, workers were low-paid and were unemplyed part of the year.  Industrial workers worked a lot of hours in dangerous conditions.

Workers created associations ( unions) to improve their wages and working conditions.

CULTURE: A REFLECTION OF THE TIMES

Francisco de Goya y Lucientes was a painter of this time who painted about this period of change and revolution in Spain.

-          1774 – 1792: free time activities of the different social classes. For example: La gallina ciega, El pelele, La vendimia.

-          1785: portraits of the Royal family. For example: La familia de Carlos IV.

-          1808 – 1813: horrors of the War of Independence. For example: El dos de Mayo, La carga de los mamelucos, Los fusilamientos de la Moncloa.

-          1814-1824: black paintings. For example: Saturno devorando a su hijo, El aquelarre.

·         The horrors of a war

Los fusilamientos de la Moncloa:

-          Disposition: it is divided into two parts: the right side is darker and the left side represents the observer´s eye of the key part.

-          Colours: it is a dark painting but the painter used White and red to highlight some details and to represent suffering.

-          Facial expressions: the painter wanted to show suffering as we can see in the faces of the victims. For tese reason we do not see the soldiers faces.