Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo ( , ; 29 September 1864 – 31 December 1936) was a Spanish essayist, novelist, poet, playwright, philosopher and academic. His major philosophical essay was Tragic Sense of Life (1913), and his most famous novels were Abel Sánchez: The History of a Passion (1917), a modern exploration of the Cain and Abel story, and Mist (1914), which The Literary Encyclopedia calls "the most acclaimed Spanish Modernist novel".
Early life and education
Miguel de Unamuno was born in Bilbao, a port city of the Basque Country, Spain, the son of Félix de Unamuno and Salomé Jugo. As a young man, he was interested in the Basque language, which he could speak, and competed for a teaching position in the Instituto de Bilbao against Sabino Arana. The contest was finally won by the Basque scholar Resurrección María de Azkue. Academic career Unamuno worked in all major genres: the essay, the novel, poetry, and theater, and, as a modernist, contributed greatly to dissolving the boundaries between genres. There is some debate as to whether Unamuno was in fact a member of the Generation of '98, an ex post facto literary group of Spanish intellectuals and philosophers founded by José Martínez Ruiz (Azorín)—a group that includes, besides Azorín, Antonio Machado, Ramón Pérez de Ayala, Pío Baroja, Ramón del Valle-Inclán, Ramiro de Maeztu, and Ángel Ganivet, among others.
University of Salamanca Unamuno would have preferred to be a philosophy professor, but was unable to get an academic appointment. Instead, in 1891, he became a Greek professor at University of Salamanca.
In 1901 Unamuno gave his well-known conference on the scientific and literary inviability of the Basque. According to Joxe Azurmendi, Unamuno went against the Basque language once his political views changed as a result of his reflection on Spain.Azurmendi, Joxe: Espainiaren arimaz, 2006. pp. 101–46.
In addition to his writing, Unamuno played an important role in the intellectual life of Spain. He served as rector of the University of Salamanca for two periods: from 1900 to 1924 and 1930 to 1936, during a time of great social and political upheaval. During the 1910s and 1920s, he became one of the most passionate advocates of Spanish social liberalism. Unamuno linked his liberalism with his hometown of Bilbao, which, through its commerce and connection with the civilized world, Unamuno believed had developed an individualism and independent outlook in stark contrast to the narrow-mindedness of Carlist traditionalism. When in 1912 José Canalejas was assassinated by an anarchist, he blamed it on the fact that Spain lacked a "true liberal democratic party" and in 1914 denounced the Spanish nobility for their alleged philistinism. Along with many other Spanish writers and intellectuals, such as Benito Pérez Galdós, he was an outspoken supporter of the Allied cause during the First World War despite Spain's official neutrality. Unamuno viewed the war as a crusade not just against the Imperial Family of the German Empire, but against the monarchy in Spain, and intensified his attacks upon King Alfonso XIII. Exile (1924–1930) Unamuno was removed from his two university chairs by the dictator General Miguel Primo de Rivera in 1924, over the protests of other Spanish intellectuals. As a result of his vociferous criticisms of Primo de Rivera's dictatorship, he lived in exile until 1930, first banished to Fuerteventura, one of the Canary Islands; his house there is now a museum, as is his house in Salamanca. From Fuerteventura he escaped to France, as related in his book De Fuerteventura a Paris. After a year in Paris, Unamuno established himself in Hendaye, a border town in the French Basque Country, as close to Spain as he could get while remaining in France. Unamuno returned to Spain after the fall of General Primo de Rivera's dictatorship in 1930 and took up his rectorship again. It is said in Salamanca that the day he returned to the university, Unamuno began his lecture by saying, as Fray Luis de León had done after four years of imprisonment by the Spanish Inquisition, "As we were saying yesterday..." (Decíamos ayer...).
Political aspirations Also after the fall of Primo de Rivera's dictatorship, Spain embarked on its Second Republic. He was a candidate on the Republican/Socialist ticket and was elected, after which he led a large demonstration in the Plaza Mayor in which he raised the Republic's flag and declared its victory. He always was a moderate and refused all political and anticlerical. In a speech delivered on 28 November 1932, at the Madrid Ateneo, Unamuno protested against Manuel Azaña's anti-clerical policies: "Even the Inquisition was limited by certain legal guarantees. But now we have something worse: a police force which is grounded only on a general sense of panic and on the invention of non-existent dangers to cover up this over-stepping of the law."
Unamuno's dislike for Manuel Azaña's rule went so far as to tell a reporter who published his statement in El Adelanto in June 1936 that Azaña "should commit suicide as a patriotic act". After Unamuno made this statement, on 22 August 1936, the Republican government decreed that he should once again be removed from his position as rector of the university. Moreover, the government removed his name from streets and replaced it with the name of Simón Bolívar. Spanish Civil War Early favoring of Franco Having begun his literary career as an internationalist, Unamuno gradually became convinced of the universal values of Spanish culture, feeling that Spain's essential qualities would be destroyed if influenced too much by outside forces. Thus, he initially welcomed Franco's revolt as necessary to rescue Spain from the Red Terror by forces loyal to the Second Spanish Republic. When a journalist questioned how he could side with the military and "abandon a Republic that [he] helped create," Unamuno responded, it "is not a fight against the liberal Republic, but a fight for civilization. What Madrid represents now is not socialism or democracy, or even communism." Turn against Franco However, the tactics employed by the Nationalist faction in the struggle against their republican opponents caused Unamuno to also turn against Franco. Unamuno said that the military revolt would lead to the victory of "a brand of Catholicism that is not Christian and of a paranoid militarism bred in the colonial campaigns," referring in the latter case to the 1921 war with Abd el-Krim in Spanish Morocco.
In 1936 Unamuno had a public argument with Nationalist general Millán Astray at the university in which he denounced both Astray—with whom he had had verbal battles in the 1920s—and elements of the Nationalist faction . Shortly afterwards, Unamuno was removed for a second time as the rector of the University of Salamanca. A few days later he confided to Nikos Kazantzakis:
On 21 November, he wrote to the Italian philosopher Lorenzo Giusso, "The barbarism is unanimous. It is a regime of terror on both sides." In one of his final letters, dated 13 December, Unamuno, in terms that were to be widely quoted, condemned the White Terror being committed by Franco's forces:
Confrontation with Millán-Astray
On 12 October 1936, the Spanish Civil War had been underway for just under three months; the celebration of the discovery of America had brought together a politically diverse crowd at the University of Salamanca, including Enrique Pla y Deniel, the Archbishop of Salamanca, and Carmen Polo Martínez-Valdés, the wife of Franco, Africanist General José Millán Astray and Unamuno himself.
Unamuno had supported Franco's uprising because he believed it necessary to bring order to the anarchy created by the Popular Front, and that day he was representing General Franco in the event. By then the Republican Government had removed Unamuno from his perpetual rectory at the Salamanca University and the rebel government had restored him.
There are different versions of what occurred.
The Portillo/Thomas version According to the British historian Hugh Thomas in his magnum opus The Spanish Civil War (1961), the evening began with an impassioned speech by the Falangist writer José María Pemán. After this, Professor Francisco Maldonado decried Catalonia and the Basque Country as "cancers on the body of the nation," adding that "Fascism, the healer of Spain, will know how to exterminate them, cutting into the live flesh, like a determined surgeon free from false sentimentalism."
From somewhere in the auditorium, someone cried out the Spanish Legion's motto "¡Viva la Muerte!" [Long live death!]. As was his habit, Millán Astray, the founder and first commander of the Spanish Legion, responded with "¡España!" [Spain!]; the crowd replied with "¡Una!" [One!]. He repeated "¡España!"; the crowd then replied "¡Grande!" [Great!]. A third time, Millán Astray shouted "¡España!"; the crowd responded "Libre!" [Free!] This—Spain, one, great, and free—was a common Falangist cheer and would become a francoist motto thereafter. Later, a group of uniformed Falangists entered, saluting the portrait of Franco that hung on the wall.
Unamuno, who was presiding over the meeting, rose up slowly and addressed the crowd:
Unamuno gestured to the Archbishop of Salamanca,
Millán Astray responded: "Death to intelligence! Long live death!" provoking applause from the Falangists. Pemán, in an effort to calm the crowd, exclaimed "No! Long live intelligence! Death to the bad intellectuals!"
Unamuno continued: "This is the temple of intelligence, and I am its high priest. You are profaning its sacred domain. You will win [venceréis], because you have enough brute force. But you will not convince [pero no convenceréis]. In order to convince it is necessary to persuade, and to persuade you will need something that you lack: reason and right in the struggle. I see it is useless to ask you to think of Spain. I have spoken." Millán Astray, controlling himself, shouted "Take the lady's arm!" Unamuno took Carmen Polo by the arm and left under her protection.
The Severiano Delgado version In 2018, the details of Unamuno's speech were disputed by the historian Severiano Delgado, who argued that the account in a 1941 article by Luis Gabriel Portillo (who was not present at Salamanca) in the British magazine Horizon may not have been an accurate representation of events.
Severiano Delgado, a historian and librarian at the University of Salamanca, asserts that Unamuno's words were put in his mouth by Luis Portillo, in 1941, possibly with some help from George Orwell, in a piece in the literary magazine Horizon, entitled Unamuno's Last Lecture. Portillo had not witnessed the event.
Severiano Delgado's book, titled Archeology of a Myth: The act of October 12, 1936 in the auditorium of the University of Salamanca, shows how the propaganda myth arose regarding the confrontation that took place that day between Miguel de Unamuno and the general Millán Astray.
Delgado agrees that a "very fierce and violent verbal confrontation" between Unamuno and Millán Astray definitely occurred, which led to Unamuno being removed from his rectorship, but he thinks that the famous speech attributed to Unamuno was invented and written by Luis Portillo."
Delgado says that: