Monarquía ibérica o Iberia republicana: identidad política e iberismo en la España de la revolución (1868-1873)

The Revolution of 1868, from its origin to its end, generated a series of circumstances which forced the different political factions to adapt and rebuild their party identities. In that fast succession of scenarios and situations, Iberism constituted a powerful tool that both progressives and democrats first, and republicans later, would use in different moments of the revolutionary process. A principle which became an essential part of their corresponding political cultures and helped to define their particular collective imaginaries. The Iberian Union project was a useful and effective travel companion during the complex trajectories that these political factions had to confront, especially in the phases prior to their access to the government, becoming one of the main ingredients of the idea of revolution defended by them. However, it also turned out to be a difficult element to control and assimilate, once the power had been accomplished, in the creation of the new political structures that they had to undertake. An uncomfortable witness which was avoided, from monarchic parties to republicans, without it being possible to face ― much less to achieve― the desires and dreams liberalism promised: neither an Iberian monarchy nor a republican Iberia.