Fascination and Surprise: The Consolidation of Flamenco in the Spain of the 19th and 20th Centuries

Abstract

The consolidation of Flamenco in Spain during the 19th and 20th centuries will be addressed, as a unheimlich situation, that is to say, as a repeated process of appropriation of the odd, and a denial of what is familiar, since Flamenco has experienced condemnation alternated with attraction: it was first used by the liberals to create a “nationalism”; later, to build an idea of unity and “Spanish nationality”, by the pro-Franco regime. Simultaneously, it was considered by  republicans as a criticism to that idea, which caused their pursuit by the dictatorship
and their praise by the anti-Franco movement.