Questione sefardita e antisemitismo nell’Ottocento spagnolo

Abstract

Questione sefardita e antisemitismo nell’Ottocento spagnolo 

The essay gives the XIX Century part — roughly until the Bourbons’ Restauration — of a much larger research on Spanish anti-Semitism in the contemporary age, of which many portions have already been published, some even in this same journal. Going through historiographical and direct sources, and giving a particular prominence to the literary ones (Borrow, Fernán Caballero, Alarcón, Bécquer, etc.), the essay focuses on the traditional anti-Jewish feeelings existing within the contemporary Spanish culture and society, together with the birth of the new political anti-Semitism. The essay investigates some aspects already taken into account by the historiography, as for instance the impact of the Sephardis’ “discovery” by the Spaniards during the African campaigns of 1859- 60. Other aspects are however given historiographic relevance for the first time or dealt with more precisely and in depth. This is the case of the repercussions on the dawning national history of the link between the 1492’s deportation and Spain’s decline, and of the first steps of the identification between Jew and Mason, as an introduction to the Jewish-Masonic conspiracy’s theory.