Asturias as Myth, Memory, and Ideology: Reading David Guardado’s Nuncia Vencida [Never Defeated], a history of the idea of Asturias

King Pelayo was a semi-legendary eighth-century leader traditionally regarded as the founder of the Kingdom of Asturias and one of the earliest Christian figures of resistance to Muslim rule in the Iberian Peninsula. The Battle of Covadonga refers to the symbolic confrontation in which Pelayo and his followers are said to have defeated Umayyad forces in the mountains of Asturias. Although the historical scale of the battle remains debated, Covadonga later became a foundational myth of the Spanish Reconquista and a central symbol of Asturian identity and resistance.

In Nunca vencida Asturian philologist and essayist David Guardado advances a striking thesis: Asturias can be understood less as a stable historical reality than as a symbolic narrative continuously reconstructed across centuries. Rather than writing a history of Asturias itself, Guardado traces the history of the ways Asturias has been imagined — by monarchists, republicans, federalists, workers’ movements, and contemporary regionalists alike.

The essay’s originality lies in its historical-materialist reading of myth. Guardado argues that symbols such as Pelayo, Covadonga, the miners’ revolts, or the Asturian language do not possess fixed meanings; instead, they function as ideological instruments repeatedly adapted to changing political contexts. The battle of Covadonga, for example, becomes less a verifiable historical event than a symbolic site through which competing visions of Spain are articulated. In different periods, the myth has served monarchist nationalism, Catholic conservatism, republican regionalism, and contemporary forms of cultural branding alike.

At the center of the book stands the enduring myth of Asturias as an unconquered land — rebellious, mountainous, and irreducible. Guardado shows how this narrative persists from Roman chronicles to labor struggles and even present-day tourism discourse. Asturias has often been imagined as “the first to rise and the last to surrender,” a territory that may be defeated materially but never spiritually.

Yet the book’s most incisive contribution is probably its analysis of what Guardado calls the “discourse of renunciation.” According to this idea, Asturias defines itself not through nationalist affirmation, but through sacrifice: as the “mother” of Spain, destined to dissolve its own singularity into a broader national unity. This may help explain why Asturias developed strong traditions of autonomy and resistance without producing a mass nationalism comparable to that of Catalonia or the Basque Country.

Guardado’s essay does not simply seek to demystify Asturias. Rather, it examines how myths continue to function politically, emotionally, and historically even when their factual foundations remain uncertain. Ultimately, Nunca Vencida is as much about Spain as it is about Asturias. Through the Asturian case, the book raises broader questions about the tensions between centralism and plurality, memory and invention, identity and self-erasure. The result is a dense yet remarkably contemporary reflection on how collective identities are constructed — and why societies continue to need the myths they claim to outgrow.

Because these narratives remain deeply embedded in everyday Asturian public culture, Guardado’s work also provides a valuable framework for understanding the region as experienced by students and visitors today. Students participating in IFE’s Field Study & Internship Program encounter these discourses not only through coursework on Asturian and Spanish history and society, but also through conversations with host families and excursions throughout the region. Sites such as the Sanctuary of Covadonga are approached not simply as historical landmarks, but as spaces where memory, identity, and political narratives continue to intersect in contemporary Asturias.