'Baroque Spain' As Metaphor. Hispanidad, Europeanism and Cold War Anti-Communism in Francoist Spain

The Franco regime's notion of hispanidad stood for a specific style of thought, based upon the imagery of 'Baroque Spain' and referring to the sense of cultural superiority and religious mission as well as to the close relations between Spain and 'Hispanoamerica'. Using references to Baroque arts and architecture as a rhetorical instrument, the discourse of hispanidad was meant to strengthen the assertion of an essential unity between Spain and its former colonies. To assert themselves within the regime, Spanish politicians had to adapt their purposes to this discourse. Surprisingly, this principle applied also to the cautious European policy of the early 1950s as well as to the regime's aggressive Cold War anti-communism. The ideological flexibility of this concept of hispanidad is shown by the example of the Centro Europeo de Documentacion e Informacion (CEDI). The CEDI was founded in 1952 with the active support of the Instituto de Cultura Hispanica (ICH) as a political instrument, but gradually turned into an independent platform for conservative European elites, transgressing the role it had originally been assigned within the Franco regime.