2023-10-16 00:12:52
Academia Play is a YouTube channel that is dedicated to explaining the story with drawings and a chatty tone. It could, with millions of views, be just that: entertainment… But it is something more than that. Many scripts are signed by great historians such as Enrique Moradiellos or José Soto Chica, while others are written in person by the creator of the project, Javier Rubio Donzé, an architect of endless curiosity who does not make ugly any puddle or controversy. The Black Legend is one of his obsessions.
«I deal with complex topics, I delve into historiographical gardens and refute some authors, so I have had no choice but to thoroughly document myself. “I couldn’t do it any other way,” explains the YouTuber, who has just published a voluminous essay titled ‘Spain against its Black Legend: myths, grievances and speeches’ (The Sphere of Books) to clarify the nuances of a term that is being abused to histrionic limits. The founder of Academia Play makes an exhaustive review of the clichés about the history of Spain, from the Inquisition to the civil war nature of the Iberians, in search of the validity or not of the Black Legend and to answer the question of how much of it is a product from national clichés and how much from bad press.
Reconquista, Hispanism, Hispanic reunification, nationalism, indigenism, Anglophobia, iconoclasm, pink legend… ‘Spain against its Black Legend: myths, grievances and discourses’ picks at a salad of persistent themes in the dark image that the Spanish have been carrying for centuries. «It is very difficult to face certain prejudices. It is true that the Spanish of the 16th century came to America and enslaved, but they also built a mestizo society. And here there is a contradiction, because many times it is the descendants of those Spaniards who complain so much, trying to blame their misfortunes on the Spaniards of today. It is a victimist attitude that if you go deeper into it there is no way to take it,” he points out.
«The Black Legend has existed, it is still present and we will never be able to eradicate it completely»
–Henry Kamen assures that the Black Legend was an invention of a group of journalists at the beginning of the 20th century. Why the constant denial of the phenomenon?
–The term associated with Spain emerged with Emilia Pardo Bazán in 1899 after the loss of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam in a speech given at the Paris Conference Society. She then popularizes it Julian Juderías in 1914. It is true that the term is an intellectual creation. Henry Kamen is an estimable author and has refuted the Black Legend in his book on the Inquisition. He, however, is one of those who want to remove iron from everything associated with the Black Legend, such as victimhood, lack of self-esteem, the paranoia of ‘they don’t love us…’ And he is partly right, that’s why he doesn’t. He is in favor of using the term. I do. It is an operational term. I believe that the Black Legend is a phenomenon with a real substratum. It has existed, it is still present and we will never be able to completely eradicate it, as it provides very juicy material to support certain narratives.
–Is the Black Legend an Anglo-Saxon creation?
–No, not at all. The Black Legend is not an Anglo-Saxon creation. The Spanish Black Legend is created in Italy. This has already been studied very well by Sverker Arnoldsson. It is true that when the Spanish Empire was hegemonic, the Germans, Dutch, English and French spread the anti-Spanish Black Legend, each with its peculiarities, but mainly they were based on reworkings of writings made within the Empire as they are. the ‘Very brief account of the Destruction of the Indies’ by Bartolomé de las Casas, ‘Arts of the Spanish Inquisition’ by Reginaldo González Montano, the ‘Apologia’ by Guillermo de Orange or the ‘Relations’ by Antonio Pérez. Therefore, it could be said that the Black Legend is created within the Spanish Empire, then foreigners use it to attack Spain and later the cycle closes, as many Spaniards end up assuming it as true history.
–Does it affect Spaniards on a day-to-day basis today?
–Not within academic historiography, but of course it is still valid, the Black Legend is used to attack Spain, as is the case of Catalan or Basque nationalism, also to legitimize certain political discourses, as occurs with indigenism in Latin America. Then, there are those who assume it out of pure ignorance, since many clichés and many black legend discourses have remained entrenched within the popular imagination. It affects many Spaniards and it is evident that there is a certain lack of self-esteem. It is convenient, therefore, to counter the Black Legend, but in a dispassionate way, which is what historians do with objective data.
Photography by Javier Rubio Donzé ABC
–Another book of the black legend, is there saturation with the topic?
–There may be some saturation, since as a result of the success of Roca Barea’s Imperiophobia, there has been a lot of talk about Leyenda Negra and new books have emerged that address this phenomenon, but in my opinion it has not always been treated in the right way. adequate, that’s why I wanted to contribute my grain of sand. My book is more along the lines of Julián Marías or Ricardo García Cárcel, a de-dramatizing line that tries to reconcile with our own history. But I don’t just talk about Black Legend, I also address tangential and equally interesting issues such as nationalism, Hispanism, Anglophobia, propaganda, terminology…
–Comparative history has been lacking in Spain, why is there a tendency not to look beyond the Pyrenees to compare stories and experiences?
–Some Hispanists have done comparative history. There we have the example of Charles F. Lummis, or more recently John H. Elliott. In my book I do some comparative history, however it is a very complex task that requires a lot of effort, since you have to handle a huge amount of information. And one must be very careful, and of course, extremely honest. For example, when you compare the Spanish Empire with another empire, what is not valid is taking the best of the Spanish Empire and the worst of the other empire and making moral judgments, since we would be doing a deceitful, presentist and Manichaean exercise, pure cherry picking… That doesn’t interest me. That is activist hooliganism.
–How do you dismantle such resistant myths?
–Mainly with data. In Latin America the Black Legend is very present, much more than in Spain. I see them constantly in the comments that people leave on the YouTube channel. The title of some chapters of my book is based on a typically black legend phrase that I then try to refute. For example: “They stole our gold”, “You invaded us, you enslaved us and raped our women”, “Christopher Columbus did not discover America. America was already discovered”, “You destroyed our languages”, “I wish the English had conquered us”, “Shame on the state that celebrates a genocide…”.
“They use the disaffection that the Black Legend creates as a mere tool to sneak their ‘geopolitical’ vision into our heads”
–In your networks you have denounced the recent use that Russian propaganda has made of Hispanicism. Is it a Trojan horse for Putin to attack Spain and its European ties?
-Definitely. Many propagandists, from different perspectives, have used the term ‘Hispanidad’ to spread their pro-Russian narratives. It is a Hispanism of battle, political, strongly nationalist, xenophobic, nostalgic for the Empire, anti-liberal, anti-European and anti-Western. These so-called ‘Hispanists’ fight against a decadent and degenerate West and seek to defeat Anglo-American imperialism, which is why they resort to themes such as the Black Legend and everything related to Hispanidad as a recurring banner. They use victimist rhetoric and try to reverse the Black Legend by creating a Pink Legend. They use the disaffection that the Black Legend creates as a mere tool to sneak in their ‘geopolitical’ vision. They pervert history, as they exploit it to create a series of mythologies and a ‘founding’ faith.
–What concrete examples are there of this propaganda?
–Russian activists like Aleksandr Dugin in recent years have known how to approach nationalist circles—both in Spain and in Latin America—trying to denaturalize Hispanism and put it at the service of Russia, always interested in sowing conflict within Western liberal democracies. Books have even been written that associate Hispanism with Russian Eurasianism and el ‘Russian Mir’, almost like brother imperialisms. That is why we find social networks such as Telegram, Twitter (X) and Facebook collapsed with pro-Russian, anti-Yankee and anti-European propaganda from people who are wrapped in the cross of Burgundy. Many confuse me for refuting the Black Legend. Of course, if we understand ‘Hispanism’ as a movement for the Hispanic world to be sovereign (whatever that means) or a reissue of the Spanish Empire that confronts ‘Anglo’ hegemony, get me out of there. And that does not make me an Anglophile sepoy as some maintain. I am interested in history, not in using history to change the world.
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