Certain concepts are used, on occasions, more out of routine than due to a deep reflection on their meaning. This is the case of "black legend". What legend are we referring to? No need to specify. If we use the expression without adding more data, we can only refer to that of Spain. It would designate a hypercritical vision of what its history has been –both in the peninsula and in America–, in which it appears as a particularly backward, fanatical and violent country. It would be, according to the playwright Valle-Inclán, "a grotesque deformation of European civilization."
These words correspond to Luces de Bohemia, a work that was published in 1924 in its definitive version. Did you intend to reflect the history of Spain in an essentialist way or just attack the government of that time, the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera? Ten years ago Julián Juderías had published La leyenda negra, a book destined to exert considerable influence.
Juderías defined its object of study in the following terms: “By black legend we understand the atmosphere created by the fantastic stories about our homeland that have seen public light in all countries, the grotesque descriptions that have always been made of the character of the Spaniards as individuals and as a community.
The question seems simple at first glance, but it is not. We are not facing a unitary and localized discourse in time, but rather a mass of criticisms of very diverse origin and about the most varied topics. The conquest of America, of course, has been one of the star controversies. From the works of Fray Bartolomé de las Casas in the 16th century to the current indigenous historiography, it is affirmed that Cortés, Pizarro and company committed a horrific genocide.
On the other hand, we are referring to the denunciation of the repression of the Holy Office, the abuses of the Duke of Alba in Flanders or the fanaticism of Felipe II, a monarch who, in the eyes of his detractors, would be more the demon of midday than that "prudent king" portrayed by those who admire him.
The very expression, “black legend”, is not so much an objective description of reality as a value judgment, intended to deal with certain criticisms of some controversial episodes.
This plunges us into a war to monopolize the story. On one side, those who present the Spaniards as tyrants in armor and with a harquebus. On the other, the supporters of what has been called the "pink legend", which is just the opposite: the exaggerated praise of everything done by the Spanish, without recognizing black spots.
Authors such as the Argentine Rómulo D. Carbia spearheaded this trend, often linked to the right and extreme right. In the middle of both currents, those who have made an effort to give complex visions and not select the facts based on their own prejudices.
The concept of "black legend" suggests that Spain was a unique case, being the victim of a campaign of denigration sustained over time that would be unique in history. However, Ricardo García Cárcel, author of The Black Legend. Historia y opinión (Alianza, 1992), does not believe that we can speak of a particular cruelty against our country: "The mythical black legend has not existed as long as there has not been, in our opinion, that systematic, fierce, unanimous, intentionally negative criticism destructive towards Spain and the Spaniards”.
It is not that the others, according to García Cárcel, have a special aversion to us, it is that we have suffered from a persecution mania that has led us to become obsessed with the opinion that was held in other parts of our country. Hence the concept resurfaces periodically, coinciding with crisis situations. Rather than designating external hostility, the expression “black legend” would show a more or less acute feeling of victimization, the bitter denunciation that we are not loved even though we have done nothing to deserve that hatred.
Why wouldn't this be a specifically Hispanic problem? The truth is that other countries, also imperial powers, have received criticism based on stereotypes, not on proven facts. England, for example, was called "perfidious Albion" and portrayed as a nation of pirates, though strictly speaking Drake, Raleigh and others were privateers. They had the permission of their sovereign to launch attacks on the enemy in the framework of the struggle with the Spain of the Habsburgs.
On the other hand, certain beliefs have also been distorted by their opponents. Let's think about Catholicism seen by Protestants or Protestantism seen by Catholics.
Jesús Villanueva, in Black Legend. A nationalist polemic in 20th century Spain (Los Libros de la Catarata, 2011), stresses that "black legend" is not, contrary to what many think, a phenomenon with several centuries of life, but an ideological tool born in the 20th century. It would have emerged in an environment marked by the loss of Cuba and the generation of '98, when some intellectuals believed they had to reflect on issues of the 16th century that they considered decisive for their national identity.
From here, conservative nationalism, especially under the dictatorships of Primo de Rivera and Franco, would star in its particular crusade to clean up the image of Spain.
García Cárcel took up the theme again with El demonio del Sur. La Leyenda Negra de Felipe II (Cátedra, 2017), where, at the same time that it showed the inaccuracies of certain negative topics, it expressed its disagreement with “the hypersensitivity to any criticism of our past, establishing a past-present mechanical correlate that forces us to act as permanent vigilantes of the opinion of others”. In his opinion, the important thing is not to affirm or deny certain facts, but to stop living certain facets of our past in dramatic terms.
He was referring to the debate, often metaphysical, between an often idealized national identity and another seen from the prism of the most absolute pessimism, like that of the poet Jaime Gil de Biedma when he said that, of all the stories in history, the saddest It was the one in Spain because it ended badly.
The controversy, in any case, is politically explosive because it does not only have to do with the past, but with the present, with a history that is written based on a current political agenda. In this sense, many works on the black legend, rather than inform us about what happened in the 16th century, what they do is reflect the mentality of their authors.
