"THE PEOPLE AND ITS OPPRESSORS": POPULISM AND NATIONALISM IN DEMOCRATIC RADICALISM'S POLITICAL CULTURE, 1844-1848

In the last years, our knowledge on mid-Nineteenth-century Spanish democratic radicalism has improved considerably. This article tackles two aspects of this political culture that have not been yet studied by the specialists: its populism and its nationalism. The author analyses both dimensions from the perspective of the new cultural history and links them with a new social literature that redefined the former Spanish liberal narrative after the failure of that political culture during the Espartero Regency. This literature added two main elements to the liberal narrative of the Spanish people providential fight for their rights and freedom: the denunciation of the miserable reality of the popular classes and the celebration of some of its features as essentially national against an elite that looked foreign. Both elements would be decisive for the configuration of a new democratic popular identity in the next decades.