'98 emléke Spanyolországban

Abstract

[EN] The memory of 1898 lives in the collective Spanish historical consciousness as `The Year of Disaster', the national tragedy signalling the end of the American and Asian colonial system. Losing the colonies, however, as the author points out, was not a disaster but the beginning of a series of changes that linked up with the modernisation of Spain and with its approaching Europe. Reviewing the historical works published in recent years on 1898 and its effects, the author asserts that these refute the catastrophist interpretation of the event: the military defeat by the United States was not a disabling blow for Spain either from military or from economic or ideological aspects. Indeed, the conditions were already ripe for the independence of Cuba. At the same time, the disruption of colonial-political ties between Spain and Cuba did not mean the severing of cultural-spiritual bonds between Spaniards and Cubans. The author claims that the end of Spanish rule in Cuba, which can be attributed to '98, should be celebrated, and not mourned. What were unfortunate in the affair was rather the consequences of the simultaneous unfolding of what can be regarded as the neocolonist aspirations of the United States.