The House of Bourbon and Сonstitutional Revolutions in Southern Europe

Abstract

The article examines the transfer of ideas and practices of constitutionalism from Spain to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1812–1820. On the basis of dispatches of the Russian envoy in Naples Gustav Stackelberg, the author analyses the features of the revolutionary events of the summer — autumn of 1820. The immediate objects of Count Stackelberg’s observation in Naples were the situation of the Bourbon monarchy and the new constitutional government; their relations with the Carbonari society; relations within the diplomatic corps and among representatives of the great powers. The article also examines texts of constitutional acts that formed the main milestones of the development of constitutionalism in Southern Europe: the Bayonne Statute of 1808, the Cadiz Constitution of 1812, the Sicilian Constitution of 1812, the French Charter of 1814, and the “constitution of Murat” of 1815. An attempt is made to compare the constitutional revolutions in Spain and Italy in 1820–1823: contradictions of domestic politics, the struggle of the Liberal Party and the opposition, support for the army, parliamentary activity, the fight against separatist movements, complications in foreign policy and opposition to the Holy Alliance, the role of Kings Ferdinand VII of Spain and Ferdinand I of Naples in the development of constitutional practice. This approach corresponds to modern trends in the history of the Restoration era, in which the concept of the “liberal international” is tested against Russian diplomatic sources. G. Stackelberg did not just observe the Neapolitan Revolution; he noted obvious parallels with the Spanish Revolution and reported on any attempts of covert contacts of revolutionaries from all over Europe. His political ideal was the French Charter of 1814, the application of which to the Neapolitan political situation he wanted to see in order to avoid the worst consequences of the intervention of the Austrian Empire. The author concludes that the borrowing of the Spanish constitution by the Neapolitans took place within the prepared framework, becoming a logical stage in the development of constitutionalism in countries close to each other not only in spirit, but being for a long time in the orbit of the French revolutionary and Napoleonic despotic influence. The article also shows that Stackelberg modernized the pattern of the era about the “pan-European conspiracy” and created its more moderate version based on his observations of the development of the constitutional revolution in Naples.