Editing Castile and León (section)

===Antecedents of the autonomy===
In June 1978, Castile and León obtained the pre-autonomy, through the creation of [[General council of Castile and Leon|General council of Castile and León]] by [[Royal Decree-Law (Spain)|Royal Decree-Law]] 20/1978, of 13 June.{{citation needed|date=November 2020}}

In times of the [[First Spanish Republic]] (1873–1874), the [[Federal Democratic Republican Party|federal republicans]] conceived the project to create a federated state of eleven provinces in the valley of the Spanish Douro, that would also have included the provinces of [[Cantabria|Santander]] and [[La Rioja (Spain)|Logroño]].{{citation needed|date=November 2020}} Very few years before, in 1869, as part of a manifesto, federal republicans representatives of the 17 provinces of Albacete, Ávila, Burgos, Ciudad Real, Cuenca, Guadalajara, León, Logroño, Madrid, Palencia, Salamanca, Santander, Segovia, Soria, Toledo, Valladolid and Zamora proposed in the so-called [[Castilian Federal Pact]] the conformation of an entity formed by two different "states": the state of Old Castile -that is presently built for the current Castilian-Leonese provinces and the provinces of Logroño and Santander-, and the state of New Castile -which conforms to the current provinces of [[Castile-La Mancha]] plus the [[province of Madrid]]-. The end of the Republic, at the beginning of 1874, thwarted the initiative.{{citation needed|date=November 2020}}
[[File:Minutos de Historia. Por la Autonomía de Castilla y León, 1978.jpg|thumb|right|Manifestation of 1978 in Valladolid that sued a Statute of Autonomy for the region.]]

In 1921, on the occasion of the fourth centenary of the [[Battle of Villalar]], the [[City Council of Santader|Santander City Council]] advocated the creation of a Castilian and Leonese Commonwealth of eleven provinces, an idea that would be maintained in later years. At the end of 1931 and beginning of 1932, from León, [[Eugenio Merino]] elaborated a text in which the base of a [[Castilian-Leonese regionalism]] was put. The text was published in the Diario de León newspaper.<ref name="catechism">Juan-Miguel Álvarez Domínguez.[http://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/fichero_articulo?codigo=2381262&orden=0 ''The Regionalist Catechism of Don Eugenio, an example of Castilian-Leonese regionalism sponsored by León''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110719235215/http://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/fichero_articulo?codigo=2381262&orden=0 |date=19 July 2011 }}. 1931, Argutorio, No. 19 (2nd semester 2007), pp. 32-36.</ref>

During the [[Second Spanish Republic]], especially in 1936, there was a great regionalist activity favorable to a region of eleven provinces, and even bases for the Statute of Autonomy were elaborated. The ''Diario de León'' advocated for the formalization of this initiative and the constitution of an autonomous region with these words:
{{Blockquote|Join in a personality León and Old Castile around the great basin of the Douro, without to fall now into provincial rivalries.|''Diario de León'', 22 May 1936.}}
The end of the [[Spanish Civil War]] and the beginning of [[Francoist Spain|Franco regime]] ended the aspirations of the autonomy for the region. The philosopher [[José Ortega y Gasset]] collected this scheme in his publications.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://biblioteca2.uclm.es/biblioteca/ceclm/websCECLM/transici%C3%B3n/PDF/03-02.%20Texto.pdf |title=La propuesta autonomista de Ortega y Gasset: un claro antecedente de la configuración autonómica del Estado español de 1978 |author=Alejandro De Haro Honrubia |publisher=University of Castilla-La Mancha |access-date=5 January 2018 |archive-date=8 March 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308075425/http://biblioteca2.uclm.es/biblioteca/ceclm/websCECLM/transici%C3%B3n/PDF/03-02.%20Texto.pdf |url-status=dead}}</ref>

After the death of Francisco Franco, regionalist, autonomist and nationalist organizations ([[Castilian-Leonese regionalism]] and [[Castilian nationalism]]) as [[Regional Alliance of Castile and León]] (1975), [[Regional Institute of Castile and León]] (1976) or the [[Autonomous Nationalist Party of Castile and León]] (1977). Later after the extinction of these formations arose in 1993 [[Regionalist Unity of Castile and León]].<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.elpais.com/articulo/espana/ESPANA/CASTILLA_Y_LEON/UNIDAD_REGIONALISTA_DE_CASTILLA_Y_LEON/PARTIDO_NACIONALISTA_DE_CASTILLA_Y_LEON/grupos/politicos/fusionan/partido/regionalista/Castilla/Leon/elpepiesp/19920427elpepinac_6/Tes |title=Seis grupos políticos se fusionan en un partido regionalista en Castilla y León |author=El País (newspaper) |newspaper=El País |date=26 April 1992 |access-date=29 November 2009 |archive-date=5 November 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111105094656/http://www.elpais.com/articulo/espana/ESPANA/CASTILLA_Y_LEON/UNIDAD_REGIONALISTA_DE_CASTILLA_Y_LEON/PARTIDO_NACIONALISTA_DE_CASTILLA_Y_LEON/grupos/politicos/fusionan/partido/regionalista/Castilla/Leon/elpepiesp/19920427elpepinac_6/Tes |url-status=live }}</ref>

At the same time, others of [[Leonesism|Leonesist]] character arose, such as the [[Leonese Autonomous Group]] (1978) or [[Regionalist Party of the Leonese Country]] (1980), which advocated the creation of a Leonese autonomous community, composed of provinces of [[Province of León|León]], [[Province of Salamanca|Salamanca]] and [[Province of Zamora|Zamora]]. The popular and political support that maintained the uniprovincial autonomy in [[Province of León|León]] became very important in that city.