# Contesting the Nation's Imaginary: A genealogy of Spain is different

Jorge Villaverde

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Jorge Villaverde. Contesting the Nation's Imaginary: A genealogy of Spain is different. Studies on National Movements, 2025, 14 (1), https://openjournals.ugent.be/snm/article/id/95474/10.21825/snm.95474. hal-05322118

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# Contesting the Nation's Imaginary:
A genealogy of Spain is different

Jorge Villaverde
Sorbonne Université

## Abstract

This article reconstructs the genealogy of the slogan *Spain is different*, widely associated with Francoist tourism but rooted in Republican Spain's 1932-1933 tourism campaign. Based on archival and visual sources, as well as national and foreign press, it examines how the slogan emerged within broader debates over national identity, exoticism, and modernity. Designed by Rafael Calleja, a Republican civil servant with conservative views, the campaign mobilized early branding strategies to market Spain's distinctiveness while navigating deep ideological tensions within the Second Republic. Landscapes, monumental architecture, and folkloric imagery were employed to craft a unified national image for foreign audiences, even as the Republic faced domestic conflicts over secularism, gender roles, and modern reforms. The analysis situates *Spain is different* within long-standing cultural narratives that framed Spain's difference both as backwardness (Leyenda Negra) and as an exotic attraction for tourism. It highlights how the slogan circulated internationally during the Spanish Civil War, often reframed in the Anglophone press as a trope to explain Spain's perceived violence, orientalism, and otherness. Calleja's role extended beyond the Republic: he remained at the helm of Spanish tourism until 1957, adapting the same imagery across regimes. His later works further codified Spanish uniqueness through nostalgic, orientalist, and imperial themes. By tracing the continuity of symbols, images, and narratives across the Republic and the Franco regime, this study challenges sharp divisions in Spain's historiography. It shows how the Republican-era national imaginary laid groundwork that the dictatorship would appropriate, reshaping it into a more explicit discourse of national exceptionalism. *Spain is different* thus operated both as a marketing slogan and as a durable framework for representing and contesting Spanish identity across ideological shifts and political regimes.
"It's because there are tourists who believe in the virtue of posters that Switzerland is always so well-groomed, that London is always so foggy in December, and that an endless summer reigns in California! Just as it's because Jules Verne dreamed of the Nautilus and Saint John of the Redeemer that we ended up with submarines... and Jesus Christ!"

Jean Giraudoux, *La Publicité - Revue des méthodes modernes de vente et de publicité*, 1933.

"A new space cannot be born (produced) unless it accentuates differences"

Henri Lefebvre, *The Production of Space*, 1991.

A poster featuring a large black-and-white photograph of a woman standing confidently, seconded by two men, was published by the Spanish Republic's Tourism Department.¹ Dressed in traditional folkloric attire, the three figures form a diagonal, fading into the background. Above the image is the word *Spain* in English, with the slogan *Spain is different* below.² [Fig. 1]

At first glance, this print seems unremarkable, just another promotional image for Spain as a tourist destination. Yet, it marks the debut of one of the most iconic tourist slogans, which, reused for decades, became the unofficial motto of Francoism—ironically coined by a regime it opposed. The phrase defined an era and, when inverted by the public, became a self-ironic description of Spain—still relevant today. Beyond its cultural impact, this simple phrase taps into a long history, reflecting ongoing debates about Spain's place in Europe and its relationship with modernity.

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /><figcaption>[Fig. 1] PNT, 1932-1933. Photograph by Francisco Andrada.</figcaption></figure>

In the following pages, we trace the origins of the slogan *Spain is different*, beginning with how Spain's national identity was shaped by a sense of difference, crucial to both nationalism and tourism. This analysis explores Spain's attempts to enhance its image, first through International Exhibitions and later via state-led tourism campaigns. Using the 1930s *Spain is different* ad as a case study, we show how tourism constructed a unified national image. Central to this effort was Republican official Rafael Calleja, whose conservative views influenced the choice of national symbols and rep-
representations of femininity. Though seemingly folkloric, these choices reflected deeper ideological tensions with the Republic's progressive reforms. Finally, we highlight how the slogan was used in Anglophone countries during the Spanish Civil War to make sense of the conflict, and we examine the continuity of these symbols into the Franco era, revealing how they connected Spain's two opposing regimes and shaped national identity for decades.

## One difference, three facets

This case is particularly well-suited for analysis, as Spanish nationalism has a distinctive, transparent—and, thanks to this tourist slogan, explicit—relationship with its own sense of difference. Historian Nigel Townson captures this well in the opening of his book:

> *Is Spain Different?* Certainly, Spaniards have been convinced for most of the last century that their country *is* different. This collective conviction has *not* been based on pride in their political freedoms, their scientific and technological achievements, their military triumphs, imperial conquests, or international power and prestige — in contrast, say, to the British in the 19th century or the Americans in the 20th. On the contrary, Spaniards believe that their modern history has been different because of chronic political instability, debilitating economic and scientific back-wardness, successive military calamities and, above all, the loss of empire; in short, an awareness of failure. As the dominant political figure of the late 19th century, Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, witheringly put it: ‘Spaniards [...] are those that cannot be anything else’.³

This explicit relationship with difference emerges in three intertwined facets. First, Spanish national identity is marked by an enduring anxiety over its peripheral position in Europe, shaped by a dialectic between natives and foreigners.⁴ This unease began with France’s imperial rise and was reinforced by philosophes and encyclopédistes: ‘Mais que doit-on à l’Espagne?’⁵ In the 19th century, this external image combined romanticized, orientalist fascination— articulated through travel literature and art—with Spain’s quasi-colonial subordination to France and the UK.⁶

Spain’s self-image began to solidify during the 19th-century international exhibitions, where its weak performances—especially in comparison to more developed nations—fueled two lasting beliefs: that Spain was a ‘sick’ nation in need of regeneration, and that it had long been denigrated by European powers. The nationalist awakenings of Joaquín Costa and Emilia Pardo Bazán at the Paris expositions gave rise to *Regeneracionismo* and the *Leyenda Negra*.⁷ The loss of the last colonies to the United States reinforced these ideas among the Spanish elite. *Regeneracionismo* was Spain’s response to the turn-of-the-century crisis, drawing on European organicist theories that framed the nation as a sick body in need of moral, cultural, and biological renewal—
along with modernization and alignment with Europe. The idea cut across the political spectrum and shaped all twentieth-century political regimes. The *Leyenda Negra* refers to a body of hostile, exaggerated, and often foreign-fabricated narratives that, since the sixteenth century, have portrayed Spain and Spaniards as uniquely cruel, intolerant, backward, and morally corrupt. In reality, it was a late rhetorical invention, adopted by twentieth-century conservative nationalism—particularly under both dictatorships—as a propaganda tool to delegitimize external and internal criticism.⁸

*Regeneracionismo* and the *Leyenda Negra* became key yet opposing forces within Spanish nationalism: one driving Spain toward Europe, the other pulling it away. This tension persisted into the late twentieth century and continues to resurface in public discourse, as seen in the bestseller *Imperiofobia y Leyenda Negra* (2016) and the *European Action Plan against Disinformation*, branded in Spain by the current government as the *Plan de Regeneración Democrática* (2024).

Secondly, Spain's distinctiveness shaped the historians who crafted its national narrative, leading to a Sonderweg paradigm that cast Spain as a perpetual outsider, excluded from modernity and European integration. As the American historian Stanley Payne noted, 'Commentary on modern Spain has largely revolved around concepts of difference.'⁹ Spain's late industrialization, weak bourgeoisie, and delayed secularization and democratization, compared to France, Britain, and Germany, reinforced this view.

This paradigm also shaped nation-building studies. The rise of alternative nationalisms in Catalonia, the Basque Country, and Galicia was seen as evidence of Spain's weak nationalization, contrasting with stronger processes in countries like... France.¹⁰ However, this narrative began to fade with the rise of comparative history, the collapse of the monolithic modernization model, and a surge in nation-building studies within Spain.

As noted, *Spain is different* is a familiar slogan to the average Spaniard, popularly attributed to Franco's reformist super-minister Manuel Fraga during the tourism boom of the 1960s, when Mediterranean beaches swarmed with northern European tourists. This attribution reinforces a narrative of technocratic modernization associated with that decade. A more informed citizen might recall its association with the *XXV Años de Paz* campaign—a grand propaganda effort marking Franco's 25 years of peace following the Civil War.¹¹ Several former ministry officials have disputed authorship, while some scholars have traced its use to earlier campaigns of the 1940s and 1950s. Others have projected it retrospectively onto the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, treating the slogan as a floating signifier retroactively linked to various episodes of state-led modernization. One otherwise reliable source even claimed it was copied from a Soviet campaign (it was not; I have checked).¹² Ireland, for its part, was briefly promoted with the same slogan - 'IRELAND is different!' - in the early 1930s.¹³ Those who correctly locate its origins in the 1930s have typically done so on iconographic grounds.¹⁴
Though widely used abroad, the slogan was never formally deployed within Spain. Yet every Spaniard knows what *Spain is different* truly means. Through *détournement* or oppositional reading (in Stuart Hall's terms), it quickly became an unofficial national motto.¹⁵ Whenever something went awry—a delayed train, a failed government reform, or the national football team's latest fiasco—someone would shrug and say *Spain is different*, and all would nod in agreement. Nothing more needed to be said.

## Nationalism, Tourism and Difference

These are the three major interconnected facets of Spain's self-consciousness of its distinctiveness, but beyond the coincidence of this explicit slogan, why is difference important for both Nationalism and Tourism?

Nationalism is fundamentally rooted in perceived difference. Like all social identities, it requires both collective belonging and differentiation—an ‘us’ defined against a ‘them.’ As Zygmunt Bauman notes, ‘for us to exist, they, the not-us, must exist or be conjured up, or in the last resort, fantasized.’¹⁶ Some in Nation-building studies, following Karl W. Deutsch, conceptualize the nation as a form of social communication, a view expanded by scholars like Craig Calhoun, Benedict Anderson, Homi Bhabha, Stefan Berger and Umut Özkirimli.¹⁷ Others, such as Anthony D. Smith, Anne-Marie Thiesse, and Joep Leerssen, emphasize nationalism as a cultural phenomenon.¹⁸ Leerssen traces nationalism as the ‘articulation and instrumentalization of collective self-images,’ shaped by opposition to other nations, developing through both socio-political nation-building and cultural discourse.¹⁹

For tourism, difference is essential, as like in any commodity, ‘product differentiation’ helps stand out and attract consumers. By the 1930s, commodities had become central to mass culture and modern representation.²⁰ Product differentiation techniques, pioneered by 19th-century marketers and advertisers, were initially applied to goods. While the formal theory emerged in the 1930s, the concept had long been practiced.²¹ Today, we understand that the differences between brands are often subtle, like packaging variations or advertising themes, but succeed by positioning products as unique in consumers’ minds.²²

When the product is a country rather than a bag of chips, branding follows similar principles. However, as Eric Zuelow has shown in the case of Ireland—and as I argued elsewhere for Spain—differentiating a nation for tourism requires a complex, ongoing dialogue, both domestic and international, which Nation Branding experts have yet to fully grasp.²³

The shared emphasis on difference in both nationalism and tourism is far from incidental. It underscores a key insight: the growing trend in nation-building studies that focuses on the transnational construction of identities, as Anne-Marie Thiesse eloquently
stated—'Rien de plus internationale que la formation des identités nationales'—is deeply influenced by observations on tourism and international exhibitions.²⁴ Scholarship in this field draws from various disciplines and converges on similar conclusions through the study of cultural contact, especially travel and related writings. Key contributions come from postcolonial studies, new imperial history, and imagology, with classic works by Edward Said, Mary Pratt, Maria Todorova, John Mackenzie and Joep Leerssen. More recently, tourism history and multidisciplinary studies on international exhibitions have enriched this field.²⁵

Swedish ethnologist Orvar Löfgren made an early, influential link between nationalism and tourism through the concept of difference. Drawing on Benedict Anderson's idea of nationalism's modular nature and focusing in everyday life, Löfgren proposed in 1989 national identities, in a fittingly Swedish metaphor, as a 'Do-It-Yourself' kit of validated possibilities, assembled by each nation according to its historical context. New elements, once approved, became part of this modular system.²⁶ In the seminal *Being Elsewhere: Tourism, Consumer Culture, and Identity in Modern Europe and North America* (2001), Löfgren expanded this idea, highlighting how nations constructed heritage and tourist attractions in comparison and competition with one another, often through international exhibitions.²⁷ The 'transnational moulding of national identity' produced the 'standardization of cultural difference' Paradoxically leading to nations becoming more alike as they sought to distinguish themselves.

This homogenization driven by capitalism and tourism is particularly evident today at the urban scale. If the city is also the capital of the nation—with its collection of heavily touristified national symbols, such as the colonnaded National Library or the statue of the heroic national figure on horseback alongside the newly finished nightlife district in the repurposed docks, or the shiny Contemporary Art Museum designed by a world-renowned architect—the complementary paradoxes Löfgren identified can be redundantly appreciated.

## Producing Difference Since 1855: Spanish Interventions in International Exhibitions and Tourism

Spaniards, like many others, sought cultural difference at International Exhibitions, often leaving with a sense of defeat. Earlier studies focused on Spain's oscillation between European and Oriental architectural styles for its pavilions, choices that either flattered or challenged European stereotypes. The French *L'Andalusie au Temps de Maures* installation at the 1900 Paris Exhibition epitomized Spain's failed attempt to present itself as a modern European nation and marked the end of a research focus that rarely ventured beyond the turn of the century.²⁸ Recent studies offer a more nuanced view of Spain's contested image. Beyond architecture, Spain's representation extended to scientific conferences, food, music, machinery, and visual technologies.
Yet, as nations competed through similar channels, Spain struggled to stand out as commercially advanced, refined or industrious. Increasingly relegated to a minor role, Spain leaned on its history, showcasing a past seen as more glorious than its present.²⁹ [Fig. 2]

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /><figcaption>[Fig. 2] Spanish Section of Art Retrospective at the International Exhibition of 1878, Paris.</figcaption></figure>

In the early 20th century, as some states recognized the economic potential of tourism in Italy and Switzerland, they began to take an interest in the industry. By the 1910s, official propaganda portrayed Spain as an alternative to Italy—a hidden gem with rich monuments, an open-air museum, accessible via European-standard transport and accommodations.³⁰ Though it took time for tourism to eclipse exhibitions as a primary medium for projecting national identity, Spain was innovative in organizing the 1914 Anglo-Spanish Exhibition in London, led by the Royal Commissioner of Tourism Marqués de la Vega-Inclán (1858-1942).³¹ Framed as a tourism event, the exhibition also aimed to attract investors, improve Spain's international image, and align with the Triple Entente. The Royal Commissioner sought to present a nation with a grand history and a modernizing present under the young king. Despite these ambitions, the exhibition
struggled–hampered by limited public interest, institutional inexperience, and controversies over Spain's folkloric portrayal, which even reached the floor of the Spanish Parliament.³² [Figs. 3 & 4]

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>[Figs. 3 & 4] Anglo-Spanish Exhibition's Poster by William H. Barribal, London, 1914 and Members of the *Murga Valenciana del Maestro Porta* in the Valencian section of the *Panorama de España* at the Anglo-Spanish Exhibition, London, 1914. MNR.</figcaption></figure>

The failure of the Anglo-Spanish Exhibition stalled Spain's tourism agency, which, despite minimal funding and political indifference, survived until 1928 thanks to royal support.³³ By then, the crisis of liberalism had triggered an authoritarian response across Europe, and in 1923, dictator Primo de Rivera, with royal backing, replaced liberal democracy. In 1929, after a period of economic growth, Spain hosted the International Exposition of Barcelona and the Ibero-American Exposition of Seville, leading to the establishment of the modern Spanish State Tourism Department (*Patronato Nacional de Turismo* or PNT). These expositions marked the end of Primo de Rivera's regime, which collapsed in 1931, paving the way for the peaceful proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic. The PNT, seen as corrupt and aristocratic, became an easy target for critics of the fallen dictatorship and monarchy.³⁴ The Republic's first elections produced a new constitution and, for two years, a stable left-wing government embarked on sweeping reforms.

## The 1932-1933 Campaign

After a period of dormancy and a purge, the PNT was revived with a reduced staff and budget. Leading its propaganda efforts was Rafael Calleja Gutiérrez (1888-1957), a
monarchist who survived the overhaul. Calleja was no ordinary bureaucrat; in his youth, he mingled with Madrid's bohemian circles, published literary works, and revitalized his family's publishing business, introducing graphic design, comics, and *Pinocchio* to Spain. Financial troubles eventually led him to public service.³⁵

After some initial efforts, the reformed Republican PNT was ready to launch its first major campaign. Rafael Calleja embarked on a trip to refine the agency's propaganda strategies, visiting France and Germany, after attending the *VII Congresso Internazionale delle Associazioni ufficiali di propaganda Turistica* in Rome and Naples, alongside representatives from various European countries.³⁶ This underscores how 1930s state-driven tourism was highly transnational and professionalized. Upon his return, Calleja produced sixteen photogravure posters—a technique involving photographic enlargements—printed in English, French, and German, and quickly distributed by three publishers. He explained the strategy internally:

> I aimed to create a small number of posters representing Spain as a whole, ensuring that various tourist aspects of our country—monuments, landscapes, popular types, etc.—were included. To avoid the challenges of sourcing color originals and the delays in reproducing them, it was decided to use photographs instead, and this approach has already been implemented.³⁷

Painted posters were more appealing at the time, and the monarchist PNT's elegant campaigns were still remembered [Fig. 5, 6, 7]. However, painted posters were slow to produce, often requiring public contests that delayed printing. Calleja's preference for photographic posters likely stemmed from their practicality and the greater control they offered over aesthetics and messaging. The PNT had an in-house photo collection, started in 1928 and expanded through purchases from national and international photographers. Though less striking today, large photographic posters were innovative in the 1930s, designed to be displayed with neon lights for added effect.

<figure><img src="image_6.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_7.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_8.png" /><figcaption>[Figs. 5, 6, 7]. *Valladolid* by Eduardo Santonja Rosales (1929); *Salamanca* by Salvador Bartolozzi (1930); *Bilbao* by Antonio de Guezala (1929). All edited by the PNT. CDTE Turespaña.</figcaption></figure>
The first photogravure posters series included the following themes³⁸:

<table><thead><tr><td>As they were listed in the internal documentation of the PNT:</td><td>Meaning by that:</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Ávila</td><td>The Roman walls of Ávila, Castilla</td></tr><tr><td>Burgos</td><td>The Gothic cathedral of Burgos, Castilla</td></tr><tr><td>Córdoba</td><td>The Christ of the Lanterns in Córdoba, Andalucía. [Fig. 21]</td></tr><tr><td>Generalife</td><td>The gardens of Generalife in Granada, Andalucía [Fig. 22]</td></tr><tr><td>La Giralda de Sevilla</td><td>The Giralda Tower of Sevilla, Andalucía</td></tr><tr><td>Manzanares de la Sierra</td><td>The castle of Manzanares de la Sierra, near Madrid, Castilla. [Fig. 21]</td></tr><tr><td>Monasterio de Piedra</td><td>The gardens of Monasterio de Piedra, Aragón</td></tr><tr><td>Salamanca</td><td>The Renaissance facade of the University of Salamanca, León</td></tr><tr><td>San Sebastián</td><td>The bay of San Sebastián, a famous spa city and royal summer residence, País Vasco. [Fig. 22]</td></tr><tr><td>Sevilla Romerías/Pilgrimages</td><td>Pilgrimages of the Virgin of Rocío, Sevilla, Andalucía. [Fig. 10, 21]</td></tr><tr><td>Valencia</td><td>The rice paddies of Valencia, Valencia. [Fig. 21]</td></tr><tr><td>Segovia</td><td>The Alcazar of the Catholic Kings in Segovia, Castilla [Fig. 26]</td></tr><tr><td>Sierra de Guadarrama</td><td>Sierra de Guadarrama, the mountain of Spanish nationalism, near Madrid, Castilla. [Fig. 22]</td></tr><tr><td>Spanish Types</td><td>An Alcaldesa of Zamarramala and two men in traditional Segovian dress, Castilla. [Fig. 1, 10, 22, 26]</td></tr><tr><td>Valle de Sallent</td><td>Valle de Sallent, Pyrenees. [Fig. 21]</td></tr><tr><td>Aqueduct of Segovia</td><td>The Roman aqueduct of Segovia, Castilla. [Fig. 22]</td></tr></tbody></table>

Before interpreting the meaning, we should ask if this print run was part of a broader strategic plan for representing Spain or an isolated effort. The answer is clear—it was planned. Calleja was pleased with the results, stating that ‘all of them have turned out,
in the opinion of the section, to be excellent'.³⁹ The PNT replicated the approach in later print runs, in 1934 and 1935 adjusting slogans and photos. The themes aligned with other advertising formats of the time, such as brochures, postcards, and publications in the foreign press [Fig. 8, 9, 10]. This consistency reflects a deliberately crafted national imagery.

<figure><img src="image_9.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_10.png" /><figcaption>[Figs. 8, 9] English-language brochure of the PNT (c. 1934); PNT postcard (c. 1934).</figcaption></figure>

For Calleja, it was crucial to market Spain as a cohesive whole and establish what we would now call a recognizable national brand. He battled the prevailing practice of promoting individual localities, which had dominated in the 1920s and was still demanded by various towns. Calleja spearheaded the shift—reflecting broader trends—toward using local sites, not to promote themselves, but to advertise the entire nation. For him, distinctiveness was key when selecting subjects for promotion:

> Regarding the photogravure posters [...], the section suggests that when selecting photographs, preference should generally be given to typical subjects that, while being inherently local, would acquire from an outside perspective a national character by representing and evoking what is distinctively Spanish (*lo diferencial español*).⁴⁰

Calleja likely followed the work of Pedro Prat Gaballí (1885-1962) closely. Based in Barcelona, he had long been promoting the latest modern advertising theories from the United States, with his influence peaking in the 1930s. Particularly relevant were his discussions of brand identity, market research, and consumer psychology—concepts Calleja would have encountered while struggling to sustain his publishing house, and later from his position at the Propaganda and Publications Office of the National Tourism Board.
Aesthetically, the pictorialist style and emphasis on monumental and landscape subjects in the series reflect a continuity with the scholarly vision of tourism from earlier decades. The exception lies in the images by Francisco Andrada (1894–1977) [Fig. 1], *Tipos españoles*, and Serrano [Fig. 10], *Sevilla (Romería)*, which center on human subjects with an ethnographic approach.

Andrada was a key figure in Spanish pictorialism, which—unlike in the rest of Europe—continued to flourish in Spain into the 1950s, due in part to Rafael Calleja’s support. During the 1930s, the debate between pictorialists and younger advocates of an art free from pictorial artifice inspired by *Neue Sachlichkeit* and *Neues Sehen*, gave rise in Spain to a third path: documentary pictorialism. This hybrid approach was shaped by the success of José Ortiz Echagüe (1886–1980), whose influence Andrada clearly followed. This distinctive style enjoyed wide popularity in the 1930s and was praised by the conservative press. The critic José Francés believed that this type of pho-

tography could restore national values and “re-Spanishize” Spain by exalting traditional dress in its natural environment, as displayed by “purely racial types.”⁴¹ Reminding Spaniards of who they truly were—untainted by foreign influence and modernity—would, in this view, allow for the *regeneration* of the fatherland.

The 1930s series contrasts with the photomontages of constructivists, Dadaists, and surrealists, whose techniques were repurposed for commercial ads in the 1930s and 1940s. This difference is clear when compared to Herbert Matter’s Swiss tourism work or Ruggero Alfredo Michahelles’ for Italy. Notably, both Switzerland’s agrarian liberal-conservative government and fascist Italy presented a very different model of feminity from the supposed progressive Spanish Republic. [Fig. 11, 12]

While the photographic style remained largely traditional—aside from occasional bold compositions like the panoramic view of San Sebastián—thematic focus had shifted. By the 1930s, Spain was no longer presented as merely an open-air museum. Replacing Vega Inclán’s patriotic vision with a more pragmatic one, Calleja insisted that “the artis-

<figure><img src="image_11.png" /><figcaption>[Fig. 10] Part of a feature on Spain in the *Daily Mail*, 27 September 1935.</figcaption></figure>
tic wealth of Spain is just one, and not the most effective, of its tourist attractions,” and
that the PNT should avoid “Art for Art’s sake.”⁴²

The use of folkloric, traditional figures by state organizations like PNT, ENIT, or INTOUR-
IST should not be automatically linked to a purely traditionalist agenda but aligned with
nationalist aims. Across political projects, promoting regional symbols was seen as a
way to foster national identity at the grassroots level.⁴³ In state-driven tourism, folkloric
motifs go beyond commercial differentiation, reflecting a *nationalism régionalisé* or cul-
tural regionalism — ‘the political agenda emphasizing the strength of the ‘greater’ na-
tion by fostering local, provincial, or regional layers of identification.’⁴⁴ Folkloric motifs
were key to expressing national difference, especially in Europe’s periphery, as seen
in International Exhibitions. Regional types and (neo)vernacular architecture became
early tourism tools to emphasize distinctiveness, as seen in 19th-century ads for Bret-
on and Basque train destinations. By the 1930s, these themes were standard in many
countries’ advertising strategies, foreshadowing the postwar folkloric boom in tourism.

<figure><img src="image_12.png" /><figcaption>[Figs. 11, 12]. Herbert Matter, Swiss National Tourist Office (ONST-SVZ), 1934; Ruggero Alfredo Michahelles, ENIT (Italy), 1936.</figcaption></figure>

Some scholars argue that the 1920s and 1930s marked a low point in the relationship
between regionalist culture and tourism—severed by World War II and not revived until
the 1970s. This view, however, overlooks key evidence. There is little indication of a
decline in cultural regionalism within democratic countries, as shown by events such
as the *International Folk Dance Festival* in London (1935) or the *Centre régional* at the
1937 Paris Exposition. Meanwhile, fascist and communist regimes actively appropri-
ated regionalist and folkloric imagery for ideological purposes,⁴⁵ from the Metaxas
regime’s stadium ceremonies in Athens (1937–1940), to Nazi harvest festivals (*Re-
ichserntedankfest*, 1933–1937), to the founding of the Igor Moiseyev State Ensemble
in 1937. By the war's end, authoritarian governments already outnumbered liberal capitalist ones in Europe.⁴⁶

In reality, mid-century Europe was saturated with folkloric imagery. Peasant figures appeared in town squares, on stage, and at international exhibitions (Seville/Barcelona 1929, Brussels 1935 and 1958, Paris 1937), as well as in dance tours and the folk festivals that flourished across the continent during the 1950s.⁴⁷ Tourist advertising also shifted: where once it emphasized empty monuments, it now foregrounded local people. From Faro to Leningrad, and from Trieste to Galway, tourism campaigns between the 1920s and 1960s illustrate the scale of this folkloric boom. [Fig. 13,14,15, 16,17,18,19,20]

<figure><img src="image_13.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_14.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_15.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_16.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_17.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_18.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_19.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_20.png" /><figcaption>[Figs. 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]. Selection of tourist advertisements based on gendered folkloric motifs from various countries, 1920s to 1960s.</figcaption></figure>

Geographically, Castilla dominates the campaign, representing half the subjects and reflecting its status as the quintessential national region for Spaniards. Andalusia follows with four subjects, seen as the quintessential region for foreigners. This highlights the enduring tension between Castilian and Andalusian representation in Spain's representation. Moreover, the only two posters featuring human figures—Castilians and Andalusians—mark the first use of real Spaniards in large-scale tourism propaganda. In Calleja's pragmatic hands, the 19th-century Aragonese majo icon is notably absent.⁴⁸ By the 1930s, foreigners were always drawn to Spain's exotic elements—Muslim heritage, flamenco, religious fervor, bullfighters, and bandits, all tied to Andalusia. In contrast, Spain's elites preferred Castilla, the heartland symbolizing the nation's imperial past. Tourism representation had to balance enticing foreign audiences with maintaining Spain's self-image and avoiding internal controversy. Catalonia, however, played little role in official representation, despite tourism becoming largely a Catalan enterprise by the 1930s. A distinct Catalan-Balearic-Valencian tourism sub-system had emerged, attracting a significant portion of tourists and featuring the country's most active tourism associations, experts, and politicians.⁴⁹ Catalonia's autonomous government took control of tourism responsibilities in June 1932, and Mallorca had already become a well-established international destination. This autonomy could have been leveraged by Madrid to promote tourism in less developed regions.

Thematically, most images focus on monuments, followed by landscapes, with only two posters featuring people. The Medieval Christian era dominates with four examples, while Roman, Muslim, and modern periods are each represented by two posters—modernity subtly depicted through a spa town and a sky runway. Unlike the colorful post-
ers from the previous dictatorship, tourists and modernity are mostly absent, though they appear in in other promotional materials like brochures and guides.

As for the lengthy slogans, they sometimes appear randomly placed and disconnected from the images, complicating their cohesion as *iconotexts*.⁵⁰ However, the language is carefully tailored, with French and German slogans noticeably longer than their English counterparts—reflecting not only the character of the language but perhaps even the ‘character of the people’ they targeted. This intent found its most successful expression in the English version alone. While the 16 images across three languages appeared under convoluted slogans, only one—simple and enduring—survived: *Spain is different*. It was, in all likelihood, a fortunate yet substantiated case of serendipity. A contemporary brochure featuring nearly identical photographs, including the motif of our poster, was titled *Aspectos turísticos de España*. Its French and Italian translations remained faithful—*Aspects touristiques de l’Espagne, Aspetti turistici della Spagna*—while the German version offered a visual emphasis: *Bilder aus Spanien*. The English edition, however, introduced a telling shift: *Looking into Diverse Spain* [Fig. 8]. The term *diverse*, according to the *Oxford English Dictionary*, carries two principal meanings. The first is ‘various; of various kinds,’ evoking the marketing cliché that a country can offer something for everyone. Yet the primary definition is more revealing: ‘different in nature, form, or quality; distinctive.’ In this case, the English translation rendered implicit meanings explicit, signaling a key conceptual link between tourism and national distinctiveness.

## 1. Cultural and Artistic Heritage:

- Europe's Edge with the Magic of the Orient.

- The Romance of the East with the Comforts of the West.

- The Whole of Spain is a Living Museum.

- Every Type of Art, Every Phase of Nature.

- Typical and Picturesque, Exuberant and Delightful.

- Sun, sea, eternal snows, artistic marvels: all the attractions of tourism in one country.

- Picturesque and diverse, rich in traditional folklore.

- ... nature and man have favored Spain with the most beautiful specimens of their art.

## 2. Year-Round Destination Appeal:

- Every season is right for a visit to Spain.

- In every season, it's in Spain where life is good.

- Spain is beautiful... all year round.

- Visit Spain in any season, in spring, summer, autumn, and winter. A trip to Spain is always worthwhile.

- Which is it? Summer? Winter? Autumn? Spring? Just the Time to Visit Spain!

- In spring, in summer, in autumn, in winter – Visit Spain.

- Spain has a thousand faces... In every season, you will find some that smile at you.
### 3. Natural Beauty and Scenic Diversity:

- On the peaks of eternal snow, palms in the south.

- A Paradise of a Thousand Pleasant Climates.

- Sun, sea, eternal snows, artistic marvels: all the attractions of tourism in one country.

- Every Type of Art, Every Phase of Nature.

### 4. Comfort and Pleasure:

- Touring in Spain Means Pleasure in Comfort with Economy.

- The comfort of Europe, the luxuriance of Africa await you in Spain.

- Under the beautiful sky of Spain, you will forget all worries.

- The sun of Spain will dissipate your worries.

### 5. Unique and Memorable Experiences:

- A journey to Spain is a date in life.

- Visit Spain: A thousand new impressions of a unique country await you.

- To go to Spain is to want to return.

- Spain is different.

<figure><img src="image_21.png" /><figcaption>[Fig. 21]. Display window of the Berg-Hansen travel agency, Oslo, c. 1934. AGA 12242.</figcaption></figure>
The themes promote Spain’s rich culture, striking landscapes, year-round appeal, and the comfort and pleasure of visiting.⁵¹ Some slogans embrace the romantic exoticization of Spain, echoing painful judgments from 19th-century imperial narratives, though with a subtle negotiation. Yes, Spain has an Oriental, even African, dimension, but it also has a Western and modern side. The message: Spain has it all. [Fig. 21, 22] Even *Spain is different*—which, in the English-language press, often implies ‘different from us,’ from the modern world—may perform a similar negotiation. This is especially true in images like that of the defiant woman staring directly at the viewer [Fig. 1].

<figure><img src="image_22.png" /><figcaption>[Fig. 22] Counter of the Oficina del Turisme de Catalunya OTC-PNT (Puigcerdà), 1934. ANC 7914.</figcaption></figure>

## National and International Reception

Domestically, the campaign generated little attention, as seen in the sparse coverage in the national press. One exception was a poster featuring the Valle de Sallent, showcased in a special edition of the key republican journal *El Sol* marking the Republic's second anniversary [Fig. 4].⁵² This extensive exposure connected the regime, the nation, and their representation through official imagery. Initially, the paper praised the PNT's efforts, but as relations with the government soured, it criticized the lack of tourism advertising and funding: 'Everything remains to be done in our country.'⁵³ Other
republican papers echoed these concerns, lamenting Spain's inadequate promotion abroad: 'Spain's propaganda abroad is so miserly, so insufficient, that it is almost non-existent. Neither in tourism, nor economically, nor culturally do we do what we should abroad. We are unknown, avoided, and sidelined, and it is our own fault.'⁵⁴

Another frequent criticism came from patriots lamenting that their *terruño* (Heimat, little land) was neglected in state propaganda. Galician nationalist Xerardo Álvarez Gallego wittily asked in his article 'Is Galicia Officially Landscape? What posters has the National Tourist Board printed that shout about the marvel of our natural scenery? In which brochure is our existence recognized?'⁵⁵ Similarly, Spaniards abroad often struggled to find information about their own country, as highlighted in Baeza's article 'Spanish Tourism in London: A Fruitless Pilgrimage in Search of Information about Spain'.⁵⁶ The press may have ignored the Republican PNT, frustrated by budget cuts that ended subsidies and contracts from the Dictatorship PNT's tenure. Many republicans viewed the PNT as tainted by the clientelism and corruption of the previous regime, leading them to dismiss its efforts or question its legitimacy. Media attention also shifted to the *Pedagogical Missions*, where republican artists and intellectuals brought national culture to remote regions, captivating the public.⁵⁷ The 1932-1933 tourist campaign, despite its ambition, seems to have faded into the long history of national indifference, contributing only to the banal nationalism of the 1930s.⁵⁸

In contrast, Spanish tourist advertising received positive international attention, particularly within professional circles. The French advertising magazine *La Publicité* frequently highlighted Spain's proactive tourism promotion, encouraging France to follow suit. Shortly before the poster campaign's release, the magazine reproduced a Spanish ad featured in the French press showcasing iconography very similar to the series in question, noting: 'We are struck by the spirit of collaboration that reigns in Germany, Spain, Czechoslovakia, and Switzerland. Here is an example: a collective advertisement for Spain, presented as a kaleidoscope designed to satisfy even the most discerning tastes'.⁵⁹ [Fig. 23]

The following year, the magazine featured a reproduction of the very poster in its French version—*Aller en Espagne c'est vouloir y revenir* instead of *Spain is different*. In the accompanying article, poet, traveler, and tourism enthusiast Émile Roux-Parassac praised Spain's commitment to tourism and its propaganda efforts, despite the political and economic challenges facing the young Republic and its shift toward more seductive motifs.

However, we have a very admirable example. Despite the universal slump, which afflicts it like everyone else, and the inevitable and sometimes distressing surprises of a regime change, Spain, with boldness and generosity, spends—intelligently—a lot of money on remarkable tourist publicity.

It does not hesitate to promote the beauty and curiosities of the peninsula,
doing so better than anyone, through countless means. Industry is idle, and
regular commerce struggles; it was rightly thought that travel and stays might
help navigate the deficits and perhaps mitigate troubles and strikes.

In any case, numerous newspapers, often in full-page spreads organized by
the Spanish tourism office in Paris, display images, notices, appeals, and invi-
tations. These are complemented by colorful posters, catching the eye, depict-
ing beautiful Andalusian women under an enchanting sky. Monuments, cus-
toms, ceremonies, and picturesque scenes are excellently portrayed; gone are
promises of lavish receptions with the legendary pomp of the bygone Spanish
Grandees at the Escorial Palace or recreations of the University of Salamanca
and Moorish ceremonies at the Alcázar of Seville. And that is perfectly fine.⁶⁰

<figure><img src="image_23.png" /><figcaption>[Fig. 23]. Saint-Germain, "Note sur la publicité touristique," *La Publicité*, May 1932.</figcaption></figure>

Moreover, a German thesis, part of a broader 1930s trend, when tourism began receiv-
ing scientific scrutiny, by economist Wilhelm Schmit, *Der Fremdenverkehr in Spanien*,
offered a favorable analysis of Spain's state-managed tourism, highlighting the cam-
paign's reach. Schmit documented all the slogans from the 30 rotogravure posters
available in German at the Madrid headquarters in spring 1935, though no images were
included.⁶¹

But we have saved the most striking examples for last: two fascinating cases of the
*Spain is different* slogan's reception within Spain. These are the only known instances
from the 1930s, and both had already been subjected to *détournement*—an opposition-
al reading that anticipates the subversive reinterpretations popularized in the 1960s.
The first is a particularly compelling example—an in-between, meta-image that illustrates the notion of “imputing to Others the way we think they look at Us.” It appeared in the sports section of *La Vanguardia*, a leading conservative Catalan newspaper.

A discreet 'R.E.' recounts an encounter between an Englishman and one of the posters at a railway halt, using it as a platform to critique the apparent exploitation tourists faced in Spain. He stresses the importance of treating tourists fairly and avoiding economic abuses, arguing that tourism is 'an article of primary necessity' for Spain—essential to replace emigrant remittances as a means of balancing the trade deficit. Tourists, he notes, can become 'future agents of propaganda for the country... or against the country,' depending on their experience. The story unfolds like this:

> At the Aragón railway halt, there is a propaganda poster placed by the National Tourist Board. The poster—a beautiful photograph—depicts Castilian figures. Below, in English, it reads: 'Spain is different' (Spain is different; it is something other than what you know).

> Well, beneath these two words, a malicious Englishman has written in pencil, with cruel irony: 'Oh and how!' (Oh, and in what way! You can tell me!). This is what we must avoid at all costs...'⁶²

This anecdote captures the interplay between self-perception and foreign gaze, revealing how tourism imagery—designed for external consumption—was reflected back into national consciousness through local media. It reveals a dynamic exchange between how Spain saw itself and how it imagined others viewed it, positioning tourism as both an economic tool and a mirror of national identity.

The second example is a comic cartoon published during the Spanish Civil War on the back cover of *L'Esquella de la Torratxa* (1872–1939), a weekly Catalan satirical magazine known for its republicanism and anticlericalism.⁶³ [Fig. 24] The drawing, by David Santsalvador (1909–1938), depicts an English tourist family—*Baedeker* in hand—admiring a large tourism poster featuring the French slogan *Visitez l'Espagne* at the top and *Spain is different* below. Between the two lines of text, an effeminate General Franco strikes the Mayoress' pose, flanked not by her fellow countrymen but by a bishop, a Moorish colonial soldier, a Nazi officer, and an Italian fascist. All but the North African and the Italian wear swastikas, while Nazi and Fascist flags form the backdrop. The figure of the foreign enemy was deployed by both sides in the war to stir nationalist sentiment and justify exclusion and violence.⁶⁴ Beneath the image, an ironic caption in Catalan reads: *PROPAGANDA TURÍSTICA INTERNACIONAL - VISITEU L'ESPANYA!*

A coda about reception. Unfortunately, these findings emerged during the final revisions, leaving little room to fully develop this side of the story, which has largely escaped attention in the extensive scholarship on what is arguably the most studied event in modern Spanish history. While the international dimension of the conflict is widely
<figure><img src="image_24.png" /></figure>

PROPAGANDA TURISTICA INTERNACIONAL.
VISITEU L'ESPANYA!

<caption>[Fig. 24]. Propaganda turística internacional-Visiteu l'Espanya! Cartoon by David Santsalvador, L'Esquella de la Torratxa, 13 November 1936.</caption>
recognized as central to its outcome, the role of *Spain is different* within contemporary foreign commentary has gone largely unnoticed.

In fact, the slogan was repeatedly invoked in the English-speaking press to make sense of the war, particularly in popular media, and often through female voices. We found, for instance, the account of Mrs. Melanie Pflaum, a writer and wife of United Press correspondent Irving Peter Pflaum, who reported from Madrid for the American press in the days following the coup. She opened her account as follows:

> SPAIN IS DIFFERENT — this was the slogan last year on the posters of the national tourist agency. These brightly colored posters showed pictures of old castles and quaint villages. They are still to be seen in public buildings and railway stations — I saw one in the Central Francia station in Barcelona. Some local wit had added in pencil below the gigantic letters the words: ‘and how!’⁶⁵

Pflaum offered a sympathetic portrait of the Republic, emphasizing the resilience of civilians and the democratic ethos of the militias, though her articles appeared under sensationalist headlines such as *Keeping House in War-Torn Madrid* (6 March 1937) and *Under Spanish Guns!* (21 March 1937). [Fig. 25]

Similarly, a 'Humorous Travelog' entitled *Spain is Different* was delivered by Ester Perez de King at the Ladies Century Club in Oshkosh, Wisconsin (14 November 1936).⁶⁶ Using slides and Spanish folk songs, she attempted to explain the causes of the conflict. It remains unclear, however, whether the humorous framing in both cases originated with the authors or reflected the editors' and journalists' tendency to trivialize women's contributions.

What these examples confirm is that the tourist slogan had reached wide international audiences—even as far as Australia—and that the phrase resonated almost immediately. The bad news, however, is that it often served as a trope to justify the conflict, presenting Spain as an inherently different, even barbaric, exception to the norms of civilized Europe, reviving long-standing Anglo-Saxon perceptions of Spanish orientalism and backwardness. As Alan D. Edwards, a lecturer at the School of Arts in Wagga, New South Wales, Australia, put it:

> It is a mistake to judge the Spaniards from our standards [...] Spain is well behind the times, and out of the present evil much good may come [...] The literature of Spain is decidedly oriental [...] In Spanish literature one meets the fitful pagan outbursts, revealed in the present atrocities, religious fervor, dignity, and independence.⁶⁷

Similarly, Dr. Walter Starkie, Hispanist and member of the Royal Irish Academy, stated before the Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society (10 March 1937): 'In dealing with Spain they were dealing with a complete people of intense individualism. Spain was different from the rest of Europe, with a great deal of Africa in its composition.'⁶⁸
<figure><img src="image_25.png" /><figcaption>[Fig. 26]. *The Daily Telegraph*, 1 August 1936.</figcaption></figure>
Others, in a more restrained register, simply pointed to the irony of the slogan when placed alongside reports of massacres and atrocities. Already at the start of the war, along with headlines such as *Spain's Mass Executions: Firing Squads Busy on Both Sides* framed the conflict as a sanguinary deadlock.⁶⁹ [Fig. 26] Years later, the same contrast was noted in Portland: 'There was irony in a large poster unearthed from old records today by Mrs. Gladys LaVigne [...] Received about three years ago, it bore a picture of happy Spanish people in native dress, with the legend beneath: "Spain is different."'⁷⁰

The feeling surrounding the poster was even notice by a Hollywood columnist whose 'On the Lots' column offered readers behind-the-scenes glimpses of the starts:

> Today it is in Nice, on the French Riviera, and if you happen to be leaving from it, or meeting some arriving friends, you may, just as we did, come upon Joan Crawford and Reginald Owen [Clark Gable was not in the scene] They are there for 'Love on the Run.'

> The two are rehearsing a scene under the sharp, searching eye of W. S. Van Dyke, the director. As they move into camera range, they stand for a moment in front of a travel poster on the outer wall of the station.

> In black type a foot high the poster, not without irony, proclaims, 'Spain Is Different.' Then they walk the full length of the platform, the camera moving closely in front of them for a 'trucking' shot.⁷¹

We stop here. Preliminary evidence suggests that the barbaric reading of the slogan may have allowed conservative bourgeois newspapers to frame Spain as a liminal country, suspended between barbarism and civilization. In doing so, they maintained a divided public opinion and justified the Crown's policy of *non-intervention*, which ultimately served economic interests more concerned with the success of the coup than with the fate of the population.

**Does this series reflect the image the Second Republic aimed to project both externally and internally?**

The answer is likely no. Despite the seemingly neutral and consensual nature of tourist advertising, which aimed to select elements palatable to most variants of Spanish nationalism, three critical motifs expose underlying tensions. These frictions stem from societal conflicts triggered by the Republic's reforms, which deeply unsettled traditional sectors, eventually leading to a coup and civil war. While the series aimed to present a unified Spain, it subtly exposes the fractures between modernizing aspirations and entrenched conservatism that shaped much of the national landscape at the time:

The *Cristo de los Faroles* (Christ of the Lanterns) [see Fig. 21] plays a central role in Córdoba's Holy Week, surrounded by the headquarters of the Holy Week brotherhoods.
The Second Republic's push to separate Church and State, including restrictions on public religious displays, led to tensions. In Córdoba, the brotherhoods protested by suspending processions from 1931 to 1935, resuming only after the right's electoral victory. The next disruption came only 86 years later, during the Covid-19 pandemic. Ironically, despite political efforts to curb them, religious events were still marketed as tourist attractions—'Processions by decree for tourists', fueling further protests as brotherhoods resisted restrictions that paradoxically catered to tourism.⁷²

The pilgrimage of *El Rocío* [see Fig. 21,], shown in a poster with young women on decorated carts, is one of Spain's most popular religious gatherings. In spring 1932, tensions rose when the town council of Almonte, following the Republic's new secular laws, removed tiles of the Virgin of Rocío and the Sacred Heart of Jesus, installed during Primo de Rivera's dictatorship. This sparked an uprising, led by local landowners, forcing the Republican mayor to flee.⁷³ The incident underscores the volatility surrounding the Republic's secular reforms, particularly in places where religious traditions like El Rocío were central to local identity.

The photograph with the slogan 'Spain is different' features the *Alcaldesas de Zamarra-mala* (Mayoress of) from a Segovian village where women take charge for a day during the Saint Agatha festival [Fig. 1]. In this ritual, married women are granted authority symbols like the montera (hat) and mayor's staff. The Mayoress has been a popular icon since the early 19th century, captured in various formats, including Jean Laurent's

<figure><img src="image_26.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_27.png" /><figcaption>[Figs. 27, 28]. Postcard by the Laurent company (1953), based on an original from 1878; Segovian group at the Anglo-Spanish Exhibition, London, 1914.</figcaption></figure>
photos at King Alfonso XII's wedding (1878), works by Joaquin Sorolla, López Mezquita and Richard Henry, the 1914 Spanish tourism exhibition in London or their inclusion in Ortiz Echagüe's celebrated book *Spain. Types and Costumes* (1930). [Fig. 27, 28, 29] By the 1920s, high-society women even adopted traditional Segovian dress to be photographed in. Featuring the Mayoress in the campaign symbolically merged cultural heritage with modern tourism. Thus, it was a logical and symbolic choice to feature this image as an exemplar of Spanish Types, blending cultural heritage with the modern allure of tourism. For Spaniards imagining outsiders' views, the *Alcaldesas* and *rocieras* offered a firm response to the foreign appetite for Spanish exoticism. These women were authentic in their pious festivities—picturesque and representative of Spain's distinctiveness, yet far removed from the expected Andalusian dancers.

<figure><img src="image_28.png" /><figcaption>[Fig. 29]. Castilla, *La Fiesta del Pan* (1913), in *Visions of Spain* series, Joaquin Sorolla, Hispanic Society of New York.</figcaption></figure>

However, when the image of the Mayoress was combined with the slogan 'Spain is different' in 1932–1933, under Rafael Calleja's direction, it could carry deeper implications. As Calleja distanced himself from his bohemian youth, he joined a conservative circle that included his cousin, Fernando Gallego de Chaves y Calleja, the Marquess of Quintanar. Fernando co-founded Acción Española with Ramiro de Maeztu and Eugenio Vegas, a journal that attracted leading anti-Republican voices. It advocated for 'a single leadership, tradition, authority, and corporative organization,' firmly opposing democratic-liberal parliamentarism.⁷⁴

Before joining the civil service, Calleja was able to express his opinions frankly during a lecture at a provincial Athenæum, lamenting the era's uncertainties: 'Nothing seems
secure anymore. Even the core social bond—property—is in question, as is the fami-
ly'.⁷⁵ His words reflected anxieties about shifting gender relations, which challenged
19th-century beliefs in women's inferiority and blurred traditional roles. Many linked
these changes with fears of feminism, the collapse of marriage, and concerns that
emancipated women threatened the stability of the home and even human reproduc-
tion.⁷⁶ As Calleja put it: 'And if we find the moist gaze of a mother cow looking at her
calf preferable to the perverse smiles of a degenerate and ambiguous garçonne, who
detests children—and perhaps even men—we shall not offend the moth-eaten dignity of
a king so far fallen from grace'.⁷⁷

Given this backdrop, it's unsurprising that Calleja chose the Mayoress of Zamarramala to represent Spain. Her role in the festival, which celebrated women's temporary assumption of authority in a strictly controlled ritual, aligned with Calleja's conservative ideals. By emphasizing such a model, the image reinforced traditional gender roles, offering a vision of femininity that was reassuring to those unsettled by the Republic's social changes. Any doubt about Calleja's alignment with reactionary thought, authoritarian corporatism, and Christianity over democratic ideals vanished after the failed military coup of July 1936. Following the coup's collapse, he fled to the Francoist zone, where he led propaganda for the National Tourism Service in Burgos, organizing Francoist 'War Routes' across the still-smoldering civil war battlefields. This move clearly cemented his rejection of the Republic's vision and entrenched his place in the authoritarian narrative that would shape Spain for decades.

During the Republic's mid-years, Spain faced a charged political climate. After months of fierce debate, women gained the right to vote in 1931, with the law taking effect in 1933's elections. Other reforms, including civil marriage (March 1932), the legalization of natural children (May 1932), secular marriage (Jun 1932) and the abolition of adultery laws for women (October 1932), sparked outrage from Catholics and right-wing factions. Amidst these social upheavals, Calleja chose the first two photographic posters featuring people to represent Spain for a state tourism campaign: one with the Mayoress of Zamarramala, other with Rocieras, a symbol laden with political tension following the Almonte riot of 1932.

Calleja's choice of the Mayoress—a figure who governed without votes or republics,
though only for a day—was symbolic. José María Pemán, a leading voice of
Acción Es-
pañola, echoed this sentiment in Ellas, a magazine he directed, urging Spanish women
to support fascism: 'You will not choose governments with your votes, but predestine
leaders with your sympathy.'⁷⁸ Pemán's antidemocratic views were further evidenced
in his 1934 play *Cuando las Cortes de Cádiz*, where a character asks, 'Why grant free-
doms that the people have never sought? Freedom has always existed for the good and
Christian. If they desire another kind, it is because they seek freedom for the wicked'.⁷⁹

Calleja's tourism campaign of the 1930s, launched under the nowICONIC slogan Spain
is different, employed an iconographic motif that resonated with the republican regime's promotion of Spain as a cultural and folkloric destination. The tradition of representing Spain through regional folklore made this choice acceptable to the Republic, which sought to appeal to rural populations while struggling to build a hegemonic image based on its urban and proletarian bases. The imagery was broad enough to be utilized across the political spectrum, reflecting the adaptability of nationalist symbols.⁸⁰ However, this choice stood in stark contrast to the Republic's progressive policies, which were extending political citizenship to women and reshaping gender roles—policies that conflicted with the traditional femininity embodied by the Mayoress.

A comparative perspective is useful here. Shanny Peer's study of France demonstrates that the rural folkloric imaginary was central not only to Vichy France but also to the Popular Front during the twilight years of the Third Republic—though for markedly different purposes. The former placed folklore at the core of its *révolution nationale*, aiming to reforge French identity by re-rooting the nation in a mythic rural past and remaking *Frenchmen into Peasants*. In contrast, the Popular Front sought to reconcile tradition and modernity, presenting a vision of *modernisation à la française* that stood apart from the American model of progress.⁸¹ Calleja's construction of Spanish Imaginary echoed elements of both. On one hand, it aimed at economic modernization through tourism and the influx of foreign currency; on the other, it invoked a reactionary project of national regeneration rooted in a nostalgic and ideologically conservative vision of the past.

## Conclusions

*Spain is different* condensed long-standing tropes of exoticism, alterity, and peripheral identity; it was the crystallization of a broader semiotic field in which tourism, nationalism, and foreign perception intersected. The genealogy of the slogan has yielded several contributions and opened new avenues for research.

First, it firmly establishes the slogan's emergence in 1932–1933, based for the first time on archival documentation produced by its creators. This moves us definitively away from speculative attributions and a growing body of scholarship based on loosely dated materials. Rather than mythologizing the origin of this dictum, a more precise chronology enables a critical reading of the national imaginary it projected—placing it in direct relation to the political and ideological turbulence of the early 1930s.

Secondly, I have sought to contextualize the slogan's emergence within the long history of defining and debating the Spanish national imaginary—a process carried out, to a significant extent, on the symbolic playing fields of international exhibitions and tourism discourse. Among the many actors shaping this discourse, I have foregrounded the figure of Rafael Calleja, a civil servant who, with considerable autonomy and unprecedented use of photography, designed a series of 16 photogravure posters.
<figure><img src="image_29.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_30.png" /><figcaption>[Figs. 30, 31]. *Spain is beautiful and different: Visit Sunny Spain*, Valle de Ansón, Dirección General del Turismo, 1949.
Photograph by Alfonso Foradada Coll; *Spain is different*, Chinchón, Ministerio de Información y Turismo, Servicio Oficial de Fotografía, 1964. CDTE Turespaña.</figcaption></figure>

The result is far from a clear-cut 'Eureka'; I can only offer my hypotheses. I believe that *Spain is different* emerged, first, through Calleja's early grasp of branding logic: a way to highlight Spain's distinctiveness in a competitive global market. The English version of the campaign distilled this vision into a clear, lasting slogan—making implicit cultural meanings explicit, reinforcing tourism's role in shaping national identity, and echoing a broader transnational conversation on what it means to be Spanish.

Thirdly, the iconotextual logic of the posters—particularly the images evoking traditional femininity and religiosity—touched on deeply contested themes in the Republican public sphere, such as secularism and women's roles in public life. In the hands of a conservative intellectual like Calleja, these choices raise difficult questions. Was he merely a loyal bureaucrat operating within the bounds of institutional continuity, or did he subtly embed a rival, reactionary project under the cover of state service? The Tourism Board was not the only public institution that may have attempted to short-circuit the Republic's progressive agenda; the judiciary itself did much to obstruct the implementation of social and democratic constitutionalism.⁸² Was Calleja, perhaps, selling the
image of the 'True Spain' under the counter, as he had briefly done openly under the Primo de Rivera dictatorship—and would continue to do for decades within the Francoist administration? Whether knowingly or not, Calleja's images—so deeply associated with national identity—may have been intended to placate the moderate Republicans who oversaw him, while still certain to provoke the fierce anticlericalism of anarchists and socialists, and simultaneously serve as a dog-whistle to reactionary conservatives.

These ambiguities continue to complicate our understanding of the period. Despite significant efforts to study the reception of these images—both domestically and internationally—the Republican years, in stark contrast to the Francoist era, remain a blind spot in terms of the political uses of rural life, folklore, and the peasant figure. Bridging this gap could also facilitate richer comparisons with other contexts where progressive regimes were later displaced by authoritarian ones—Portugal, France, Austria, or Germany. What does seem clear, however, is that cultural regionalism did not decline in the mid-century. The peasant who arrived from the past came to stay—at least for rehearsal evenings and weekend performances—and their photographs, recordings, and films circulated widely across Europe, crossing the Iron Curtain with surprising ease.

<figure><img src="image_31.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_32.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_33.png" /><figcaption>[Figs. 32, 33, 34]. España brochure, PNT, 1935, cover by Josep Morell; photomontage by Josep Renau, contrasting a woman in Lagartera dress and a militiawoman, for the Spanish Pavilion at the Exposition Universelle, Paris, 1937; Spain, poster by Josep Morell, Dirección General del Turismo, 1950. CDTE Turespaña.</figcaption></figure>

While my study pauses in the 1930s, Calleja's influence continued. We have seen how the slogan—and even the original poster—circulated in Anglophone countries during the Spanish Civil War as a way to frame the conflict. Calleja remained in charge of state tourism promotion until his death in 1957. Understanding the ideological premises of this foundational moment allows me to reconsider not only Francoist tourism discourse, but also the deeper origins of Spain is different [Fig. 30, 31].⁸³ Calleja's later works—the
<figure><img src="image_34.png" /><figcaption>[Fig. 35]. Alcaldesa de Zamarramala, Segovia: Año Internacional de la Mujer, Visite España, Ministerio de Información y Turismo, 1975. Photograph by Baldomero Pestana. CDTE Turespaña.</figcaption></figure>

could be repurposed by another.

It was not the last time the Mayoress would be used to represent Spain in this twisted logic. In the final years of Francoism, the Ministry of Information and Tourism featured another Mayoress in a 1975 tourism poster—this time to mark the International Year of Women, following a historic debate at the United Nations General Assembly [Fig. 35].

In the end, while we may never fully recover the slogan's original intent, it is possible that Spain is different—revived in the late Franco era to assert Spain's exceptionalism within democratic Western Europe, yet quickly turned into an ironic national motto—was from the beginning a subtle parody of the Republic's own narrative, crafted from within a competing national project embedded in the state itself.

lavish coffee-table books published by the tourism administration, *Apología turística de España* (1943) and *Nueva apología turística de España* (1957)⁸⁴—offered increasingly elaborate visions of Spanish uniqueness, couched in orientalist, imperial, and nostalgic tones. Though no longer framed as marketing, the argument remained centered on Spain's peculiar variety—its landscapes, climates, art, and human character. Yet Calleja also advanced a broader reflection on difference itself, treating it not merely as a promotional asset but as a cultural and historical essence. His prose evoked both cultural pride and a lament for a Spain lost to modernization, but always returned to the theme of difference as national essence.

This analysis thus complicates narratives of rupture between the Republic and the dictatorship. The folkloric imagery so often associated with Francoism was already in circulation before the Civil War, shaped by actors like Calleja operating inside Republican institutions. [Fig. 32, 33, 34]. The afterlife of the slogan Spain is different further underscores the nonlinearity of national imaginations, revealing how motifs born under one regime

## Endnotes

<footnote n="1">1 FUNDING: This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation [MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033] and by the European Union with the projects under Grants [PID2019-108299GB-C21, PID2020-115959GB-I00 and PID2023-150409NB-I00].</footnote>

<footnote n="2">2 In this article, I expand on some data and arguments from a previous biographic work on the intellectual author of this campaign: Jorge Villaverde, 'The "Spain is Different" of Rafael Calleja: National Identity and Images of Femininity in the Tourist Promotion of the Second Republic', in *El placer de la diferencia: Turismo, género y nación en la Historia de España*, ed. by Antonio Vives Riera and Gemma Torres Delgado, (Granada: Comares, 2021).</footnote>
3 Nigel Townson, *Is Spain Different? A Comparative Look at the 19th and 20th Centuries* (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2015), 1.

4 This would be a clear example of the *meta-images* coined by Millas: neither an auto-image nor a hetero-image, but projections somewhere between the two. Meta-images exist wholly by imputing to Others the way we think they perceive Us. Hercules Millas, 'Perceptions of Conflict: Greeks and Turks in Each Other's Mirrors', in *The Long Shadow of Europe: Greeks and Turks in the Era of Postnationalism*, ed. by Othon Anastasakis and others (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 98.

5 Nicolas Masson de Morvilliers, 'Espagne,' *Encyclopédie méthodique, géographie moderne*, vol. I (Paris, 1788), 565.

6 Xavier Andreu, *El descubrimiento de España: mito romántico* (Barcelona: Taurus, 2016); Nick Sharman, *Britain's Informal Empire in Spain, 1830-1950: Free Trade, Protectionism and Military Power* (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021); Villaverde, 'Une approche imagologique du Sud: voyage et tourisme dans un empire informel', *Crisol: Inventions du Sud* 16 (2021), 1-31.

7 Julia Morillo Morales, *Las Exposiciones Universales en la Literatura de Viajes del siglo XIX*, (Madrid: UNED, 2015); Villaverde, work in progress presented at the II Seminario de Investigación: 'La España Global. Las Identidades Españolas en Perspectiva Transnacional,' 21 October 2021: 'Nationalist Epiphanies in the City of Light: The Origins of Joaquin Costa's Regenerationism and Emilia Pardo Bazán's Black Legend'.

8 Jesús Villanueva, *Leyenda negra: Una polémica nacionalista en la España del siglo XX* (Madrid: Catarata, 2011).

9 In Townson, *Is Spain Different?*, 4.

10 Ferran Archilés and Manuel Martí, 'Un país tan extraño como cualquier otro: la construcción de la identidad nacional española contemporánea', in *El siglo XX. Historiografía e historia*, ed. by María Cruz Romeo and Ismael Saz (Valencia: Universitat de Valencia, 2002), 245-278.

11 Asunción Castro and Julián Díaz, *XXV años de paz franquista* (Madrid: Silex, 2017).

12 Sasha D. Pack, *Tourism and Dictatorship. Europe's Peaceful Invasion of Franco's Spain*, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 4.

13 *The Guardian*, 5/6/1931.

14 For a discussion of the slogan's origins, see: Alicia Fuentes Vega, *Aportaciones al estudio visual del turismo: la iconografía del boom de España, 1950-1970* (PhD diss., Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2015), pp. 66-75.

15 Dorothy Kelly, 'Selling Spanish 'Otherness' since 1960,' in *Contemporary Spanish Cultural Studies*, ed. by Barry Jordan and Rikki Morgan-Tamosunas (London: Arnold, 2000), 29-37.

16 Zygmunt Bauman, *Retrotopia* (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2017), 82-83.

17 Karl Deutsch, *Nationalism and Social Communication: An Inquiry into the Foundations of Nationality* (Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1953); Craig Calhoun, *Nationalism* (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997); Umut Özkirimli, *Theories of Nationalism: A Critical Introduction* (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000); Benedict Anderson, *Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism* (London, Verso, 3rd edition, 2006); Homi Bhabha (ed.), *Nation and Narration* (London: Routledge, 1990); Stefan Berger, *A Companion to Nineteenth-Century Europe: 1789-1914* (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006).

18 Anthony Smith, *The Ethnic Origins of Nations* (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986); Anne-Marie Thiesse, *La création des identités nationales: Europe XVille-XXe siècle* (Paris: Seuil, 1999); Joep Leerssen, *National Thought in Europe: A Cultural History* (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006).

19 Leerssen, *National Thought*, 17. Leerssen's contribution to nationalism studies is deeply indebted to his imagologist research; see Manfred Beller and Joep Leerssen, *Imagology: The Cultural Construction and Literary Representation of National Characters: A Critical Survey* (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007).

20 Thomas Richards, *The Commodity Culture of Victorian England: Advertising and Spectacle, 1851-1914* (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), 1.

21 Edward Chamberlin, *The Theory of Monopolistic Competition: A Re-orientation of the Theory of Value* (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1933).

22 Michael Porter, *Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors* (New York: Free Press, 1980).

23 Eric Zuelow, *Touring Beyond the Nation* (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011); Villaverde, 'Do we need Nation Branding to look at the Past? A Reflection from the Spanish Case', *European Review of History*, 32, 2 (2025), 251-282. See the entire Special Issue for a state-of-the-art discussion: *Selling the*
Fatherland: Spanish Nation Branding and Soft Power in the Twentieth Century, European Review of History: Revue européenne d'histoire, 32/2 (April 2025).

24 Thiesse, La Création des Identités, 11.

25 Key works in Postcolonial and New Imperial Studies include: Edward Said, *Orientalism* (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978); Mary Louise Pratt, *Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation* (London: Routledge, 1992); John Mackenzie, *Propaganda and Empire: The Manipulation of British Public Opinion, 1880-1960* (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984); Maria Todorova, *Imagining the Balkans* (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997). In Imagology: Beller and Leerssen *Imagology: The Cultural Construction*; Xavier Andreu, *El descubrimiento de España: mito romántico* (Barcelona: Taurus, 2016). In Tourism History: Zuelow *Touring Beyond the Nation*; Eric Storm, 'A New Dawn in Nationalism Studies?' 'the impact of tourism on the construction and diffusion of national and regional identities' (2014). For International Exhibitions: Ana Belén. Lasheras, *España en París. La Imagen nacional en las exposiciones universales, 1855-1900* (PhD diss., Universidad de Cantabria, 2010); Manuel Viera, *El Imaginario español en las Exposiciones Universales del siglo XIX: Exotismo y Modernidad*, (Madrid: Cátedra, 2020); David Raizman and others, *Expanding Nationalisms at World's Fairs: Identity, Diversity, and Exchange, 1851-1915* (London: Routledge, 2018); Leerssen and Storm, *World Fairs and the Global Moulding of National Identities: International Exhibitions as Cultural Platforms, 1851-1958* (Leiden: Brill, 2021).

26 Orvar Löfgren, 'The Nationalization of Culture' *Ethnologia Europaea* 19/1 (1989), 5-24; Villaverde, 'Processos de patrimonialització al primer terç del segle XX a Espanya i el Museu de Benedict Anderson', *Nacionalisme cultural: estudis i perspectives*, Afers. Fulls de recerca i pensament, 86/XXXII (2017), 97-116.

27 Löfgren, 'Know Your Country: A Comparative Perspective on Tourism and Nation Building in Sweden', in *Being Elsewhere: Tourism, Consumer Culture, and Identity in Modern Europe and North America* by ed. Shelley Baranowski and Ellen Furlough, (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001), 137-154.

28 María José Bueno Fidel, *Arquitectura y nacionalismo: Pabellones españoles en las exposiciones universales del siglo XIX* (Málaga: Universidad de Málaga, 1987).

29 See footnote 24.

30 Ana Moreno Garrido, *De forasteros y turistas. Una historia del turismo en España (1880-1936)* (Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2022); Moreno Garrido and Villaverde, 'De un sol a otro: turismo e imagen exterior española (1914-1984)' Ayer, 114 (2019), 95-121.

31 Villaverde, 'Vega-Inclán, Benigno' in ed. Leerssen, *Encyclopedia of Romantic Nationalism in Europe* (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press; 2018).

32 Villaverde, 'Una arqueología del nation branding: las exposiciones binacionales del Londres eduardiano', *Amnis. Revue de civilisation contemporaine Europes/Amériques*, 2, 2018.

33 Villaverde, 'La Comisaría Regia de Turismo (1911-1928): ¿ejemplo de España oficial?' in ed. Bartolome Yun and Jorge Luengo, *Pensar el poder. Liber Amicorum de Pedro Carasa* (Valencia: Universitat de València, 2018).

34 Moreno Garrido, *De forasteros y turistas*.

35 For an intellectual biography, see Villaverde, 'The "Spain is Different" of Rafael Calleja.

36 Álcala de Henares, *Archivo General de Administración* (AGA), (03)049.002 12112: Minutes of the Central Secretariat 1932, 11/6/1932.

37 AGA (03)049.002 13021: Publications issued by the National Tourism Board from August 1, 1932, to May 1, 1933. AGA (03)049.002 12112: Edition of a series of 16 posters in gravure printing, n.d.

38 AGA (03)049.002 13022: Posters in photogravure published by the PNT, n.d.

39 AGA (03)049.002 13022: Internal letter from the Head of the Propaganda and Publications Section to the Secretary General, 17/3/1934. Later, probably before 1935, he printed around 10 more motifs in the same style, now featuring a common and distinctive striped-letter font. However, to simplify the analysis, we have focused exclusively on the initial series of 16 posters. AGA (03)049.002 12378.

40 AGA (03)049.002 13022, 17/3/1934.

41 Carmelo Vega, *Historia de la fotografia* (Madrid: Cátedra, 2017)
42 AGA (03)049.002 13021: Publications plan, 24/5/1934.

43 Xosé M. Núñez Seixas and Eric Storm, *Regionalism and Modern Europe: Identity Construction and Movements from 1890 to the Present Day* (London: Bloomsbury, 2019), 8.

44 Núñez Seixas and Storm, *Regionalism and Modern Europe*, 8.

45 Strangely enough, however, they refer only to the inter-war period: Núñez Seixas and Storm, *Regionalism and Modern Europe*, 346. For the Spanish case and a longer (until 1975) and more logical route see Núñez Seixas, *Imperios y danzas: nacionalismo y pluralidad territorial en el fascismo español (1930-1975)*, (Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2023).

46 Storm, 'Painting Regional Identities: Nationalism in the Arts, France, Germany and Spain, 1890-1914', *European History Quarterly*, 39/4 (2009), 557-582.

47 David Hopkin, 'Regionalism and Folklore', in *Regionalism and Modern Europe*, by ed. Núñez Seixas and Storm, 43-64.

48 Marta García Carrión, *Por un cine patrio: Cultura cinematográfica y nacionalismo español (1926-1936)* (Valencia: PUV, 2013).

49 Rafael Vallejo, 'Spain in international tourism. A backward and emerging country (1900-1939)', in *Turismo 4.0. Storia, Digitalizzazione, Territorio*, by ed. Giovanni Gregorini and Riccardo Semeraro (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 2021), 65-94.

50 Peter Wagner, *Reading Iconotexts: From Swift to the French Revolution* (London: Reaktion Books, 1997).

51 These slogans come from a non-exhaustive collection of documents compiling all the variations found among the sixteen iconographic motifs and the slogans in English, French, and German. They originate from various sources: the wrong dated Jordi Carulla, *España en 1000 carteles* (Barcelona: Postermil, 1995), 368-369; the Tourspain Documentation Center: https://conocimiento.tourspain.es/en/centro-documentacion-turismo/; Spanish and French press, various sales websites, and the author's private collection.

52 *El Sol*, 14/4/1933, 19. On the relations between the press and the republican regime see: Antonio Checa Godoy, *Prensa y partidos politicos durante la II República* (Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca, 1989).

53 *El Sol*, 1917. 21/4/1933.

54 *El Heraldo de Madrid*, 10, 25/5/1935.

55 Xerardo Álvarez Gallego, 'Temas Gallegos ¿Galicia es oficialmente paisaje?', *El Sol*, 6, 5/1/1936.

56 Luis de Baeza, 'Spanish Tourism in London: A Fruitless Pilgrimage in Search of Information about Spain,' *Ahora*, 15/10/1932.

57 Sandie Holguín, *Creating Spaniards: Culture and National Identity in Republican Spain* (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002).

58 Silke Geven and Gerrit Verhoeven, 'Branding (a slice of) Belgium: Nationalism and tourism promotion in politics and the press (ca. 1935-1985)', *Journal of Belgian History*, LIV/2, (2024) 8-32; Villaverde, '¿Estereotipos banales?: Una razón y varias propuestas para tomarse en serio la caracterización nacional,' *Iberic@I. Revue d'études ibériques et ibéro-américaines*, 10/Automne (2016), 53-65.

59 Saint-Germain, 'Note sur la publicité touristique,' *La Publicité*, Mai 1932, 291, 353.

60 Émile Roux-Parassac, 'Tourisme et Publicité', *La Publicité*, février 1933), 148-150.

61 Wilhelm Schmitz, *Der Fremdenverkehr in Spanien*, (PhD diss., Köln: May, 1936), 115-117.

62 R. E., 'Vida Motorista: El turismo artículo de 1ª necesidad. Pequeños defectos, enormemente importantes en suma, que conviene desterrar', *La Vanguardia*, 5/1/1935.

63 Picture found by Hilari Raguer i Suñer, *La pólvora y el incienso: La Iglesia y la Guerra Civil española (1936-1939)*, (Barcelona: Ediciones Península, 2001).

64 Núñez Seixas, ¡Fuera el invasor! Nacionalismos y movilización bélica durante la Guerra Civil Española, 1936-1939 (Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2006).

65 *Buffalo Evening News*, 6/3/1937 and *Los Angeles Times*, 21/3/1937.

66 *The Oshkosh Northwestern*, 14/11/1936.

67 *The Daily Advertiser*, 25/3/1937.

68 *Irish Independent*, 10/3/1937.
69 *The Daily Telegraph*, 1/8/1936.

70 *The Sunday Oregonian*, 23/1/1938.

71 *Detroit Free Press*, 13/9/1936.

72 'Atracción de forasteros - Procesiones por decreto', El Sol, 4/3/1932.

73 Francisco Espinosa Maestre, *Contra la República: los «sucesos de Almonte» de 1932*, (Sevilla: Aconcagua Libros, 2012).

74 Editorial, *Acción Española*, 17, 1932.

75 'En el Ateneo - Conferencia de Rafael Calleja,' *La Atalaya*, 13/2/1927.

76 Nerea Aresti Esteban, *Médicos, donjuanes y mujeres modernas: los ideales de feminidad y masculinidad en el primer tercio del siglo XX* (Bilbao: Universidad del País Vasco, 2001).

77 *La Atalaya*, 13/2/1927.

78 Editorial, *Ellas (semanario de las mujeres españolas)*, 12/3/1933.

79 'Cuando las Cortes de Càdiz (1934),' in Eduardo González Calleja and others, *La Segunda República Española* (Madrid: Pasado y Presente, 2015), 1027-1028.

80 We still know little about the political uses of folklore during the Second Republic. In contrast, the Francoist period has recently received considerable scholarly attention. For the Republican context, see Eduardo Hernández Cano, 'Printing the "People": Populism, Photography, and the Spanish Republican Nation (1931-1936)', *European History Quarterly*, 50/2, 2020, 311-330 and Antoni Vives, 'Regionalización turística de la música popular y resistencias campesinas: El Parado de Valldemossa en Mallorca (1913-34)', *Historia Nova*, in press(2025). For the Francoist period, see Nuñez Seixas, *Imperios y danzas* and Claudio Hernández Burgos and Cesar Rina Simón, *El franquismo se fue de fiesta. Ritos festivos y cultura popular durante la dictadura*, (Valencia: PUV, 2022).

81 Peer, Shanny, *France on Display: Peasants, Provincials, and Folklore in the 1937 Paris World's Fair* (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998).

82 Rubén Pérez Trujillano, *Jueces contra la República: El poder judicial frente a las reformas republicanas* (Madrid: Dykinson / Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, 2024).

83 Already sensed by Sasha D. Pack, *Tourism and Dictatorship. Europe's Peaceful Invasion of Franco's Spain*, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006).
On Franco's tourist iconography see Alicia Fuentes Vega, *Bienvenido Mr. Turismo: cultura visual del 'Boom' en España*, (Madrid: Cátedra, 2017).

84 María Ramón Gabriel y Jacobo García Álvarez, 'Fotografía, turismo e identidad nacional en el primer franquismo (1939-1959): Rafael Calleja y la apología turística de España', *Cuadernos de Turismo*, 38, (2016); pp. 385-410.