RADICALS AGAINST CARLISTS: THE STRUGGLE FOR PUBLIC SPACE IN CUENCA DURING THE DEMOCRATIC "SEXENIO" (1868-1874)

The Revolution of 1868 opened an historical period characterized by an intense process of politicization among the Spanish population. Its effects were not limited to urban areas, but were also important in the agrarian interior of the country. The new democratic system favored public debate. In this sense, the monarchical issue was placed at the heart of political struggles. The secularizing impulse deployed by the new democratic institutions was directly related to that debate that marked, on the one hand, the option of a de-sacralized monarchy subordinated to the Constitution of 1869 and, on the other hand, a legitimist and ultra-Catholic option, in which the influence of Carlism was decisive. The aim of this paper consists in evaluating these processes from the framework of an archetypal city of rural Spain, as was the case of Cuenca. The analysis, in this sense, focuses in the projection on public space of these political mobilization.