Miguel de Unamuno

Miguel de Unamuno in 1925

Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo (born September 29, 1864 in Bilbao , † December 31, 1936 in Salamanca ) was a Spanish philosopher and writer .

Life

childhood

Sculpture commemorating Miguel de Unamuno in Bilbao

Miguel de Unamuno was born in Bilbao on September 29, 1864; he himself attached importance to the - unproven - fact that he was born on the same day as his namesake Miguel de Cervantes . In 1870, when he was only six years old, he lost his father, Don Félix de Unamuno. This was a so-called "indiano", which in Spanish means a returnee from the former Spanish colonies in Latin America . Unamuno's father had lived in Tepic ( Mexico ) for many years and brought a Latin American library with him from there, which the son devoured when he was twelve. He also remembers hearing his father speak French with a visitor , which for him meant “an enlightenment on the secrets of the language”. Based on this experience, the boy wanted to learn " Aztec ". At the school in the Colegio San Nicolás he was the victim of a beating teacher, a certain Don Higinio, who had no children himself. Even as a child, Miguel was telling other students stories, and Jules Verne was particularly inspiring. As a child he also experienced the 3rd Carlist War from 1874 to 1876, during which Bilbao was bombed and besieged by Carlist troops: in the basement of his uncle's pastry shop, with artificial light, the children played war with folded paper figures; At the age of eleven, he and his cousin Telesforo de Aranzadi (later a university professor in Barcelona) wrote a "treatise" on the anatomy of paper animals ("cocotología", from French cocotte ).

youth

With the school year 1875/6 Unamuno entered the Instituto Vizcaíno, where he found the lessons to be very dry and unfamiliar. He was famous there for the caricatures he made of the teachers and also took painting lessons from Antonio de Lecuona (some of his paintings can still be seen in Salamanca today). In his youth he was an ardent representative of the so-called “vasquismo”, that is, the advocacy of Basque culture; For a while he was a real “vascófilo”, meaning “Bascophile”. Originally, he wanted to write a history of the Basque Country in 16-20 volumes. His dissertation from 1884 is entitled Crítica del problema sobre el origen y prehistoria de la raza vasca (Critique of the problem about the origin and prehistory of the Basque race), but in 1887 he distanced himself from the "bizkaitarra" (nationalist movement), even before that In 1893 the Partido Nacionalista Vasco was founded by Sabino Arana, due to its discrepancy to his simplified scientific approaches. Nevertheless, he maintained an emotional bond with his "patria chica" (closer homeland) and dedicated some of his writings to Basque problems: Paz en la guerra (1897), De mi país. Descripciones, relatos y artículos de costumbres (1903) Recuerdos de niñez y mocedad (1908) and Sensaciones de Bilbao (1922).

At the age of 15 or 16, Miguel de Unamuno felt called to be a priest. (He tells of an experience when he opened the Bible and repeatedly came across the same place where it said: “Go and teach all peoples.” In the end, however, the love for his future wife Concha, with whom he had been with, won out was friends when he was 14 years old.)

Study time

In 1880 he went to Madrid , where he studied at the Universidad Complutense Filosofía y Letras ( philology ); he also learned German there so that he could read Schopenhauer in the original. His studies led to the clash of his previous deeply religious Catholic views with modern philosophy: He got to know rationalism , positivism and Krausismo , which was important for Spanish intellectual history , which meant the entry into modernity for him. He stayed in the Spanish capital, where he did not feel very comfortable, until he completed his doctorate in 1884. From 1885 to 1890 he lived again in Bilbao. Here, at the same time as his friend Ángel Ganivet , he was preparing for the “oposiciones” (applications for a professorship ) customary in Spanish academic life , but it was only the fifth time that he succeeded in obtaining an appointment.

Professorship in Salamanca

Unamuno , portrait of Ramon Casas , ( MNAC )

After marrying Concepción ("Concha") Lizárraga Ecenarro († 1934) from Guernica on January 31, 1891, Unamuno went to Salamanca, where he received a professorship for ancient Greek at the university .

The originally liberal Unamuno now joined the socialists of the PSOE (1894–1896), toying with Marxism and took part in the publication of the magazine Lucha de clases (class struggle). He also dealt with problems of the labor movement in Bilbao. In 1897 he went through a deep religious crisis as he felt guilty about the birth of a disabled child, Raimundo Jenaro, who was born in 1896 but developed meningitis a few months after birth and died in 1902. This led to an internal conflict between faith and reason. During this time he was ultra-spiritualistic and lost interest in criticizing material conditions. This period has also been referred to as its “reactionary” phase. At the same time, Unamuno criticized the technocratic modernity, which, in his opinion, was increasingly instrumentalizing everything.

From 1900 Unamuno taught Filología comparada del Latín y el Castellano (Comparative Philology of Latin and Spanish), later Historia de la Lengua Española (History of the Spanish Language) at the Universidad de Salamanca. In the same year he became the rector of his university for the first time . In 1908 his mother, Doña Salomé, suddenly died; then he brought his sister María to Salamanca. In 1908 Unamuno took part in a campaign against the conservative politics of Antonio Mauras , with which he joined other intellectuals such as Ramiro de Maeztu or José Ortega y Gasset , who advocated a new liberalism with a socialist sign. In 1909 he made a trip to the Canary Islands . In his 1912 essays on the tragic attitude to life, he developed the idea that “the immense Milky Way that we can see in the sky on clear nights - that gigantic ring in which our planetary system forms only one molecule - (as) a cell of the universe , the body of God ”could be viewed.

Political activity and exile

Caricature by Luis Bagaría on the occasion of a speech given by Unamuno at the anniversary celebrations for España magazine in 1917. At the bottom left, a Stone Age man hung with the Iron Cross symbolizes the German-friendly Spaniards.

1912–1913 Unamuno took part in a campaign for land reform , against large landowners and feudal conditions in the countryside, which was organized by young university professors in Salamanca. They did not limit themselves to “preaching” from newspapers, but instead sought direct contact with the population, went to the countryside to meet the farmers, and encouraged them to organize themselves (a kind of forerunner of citizens' initiatives ). They also had some success, as some of these initiatives were able to prevail in elections against the " caciquismo ", resistance committees were founded, for example to stop concluding leases that were supposed to last less than ten years. Unamuno's dismissal as rector in 1914 (without giving reasons) by the Ministro de Instrucción Pública, Francisco Bergamín, also had something to do with this fight against the oligarchy . He found out about it from the newspaper on his return from summer vacation. From then on, Unamuno sharply criticized the monarchy and the corrupt , oligarchic system. Unamuno also criticized representative democracy and the party system; to the point that he questioned the usefulness of elections. During World War I he vehemently sided with the Entente and against the Germanophilia that was generally prevalent in Spain. In general, he spoke out against militarism and the misunderstood love of the country. He also heavily criticized the Spanish policy of neutrality and the authoritarianism of the state towards the individual. During this time he approached socialism again. His novel Abel Sánchez (1917) uses the myth of Cain to address the inner turmoil of the nation that later led to civil war.

In 1917 Unamuno became a member of the Salamanca City Council with the votes of the railroad workers. In September 1920 he was tried because of his article "Antes del Diluvio" in El Mercantil Valenciano ; He was sentenced to 16 years in prison for lese majesty , but was finally pardoned again, among other things because of a campaign by many intellectuals such as Ramón Pérez de Ayala , Ortega y Gasset and Manuel Azaña in favor of Unamunos. In 1922 he again demanded the restoration of the constitutional guarantees and became King Alfonso XIII. summoned to the court. There was also a meeting in April, but the problems could not be resolved and Unamuno continued to attack the Spanish monarchy .

After the military coup by Miguel Primo de Rivera on September 13, 1923, Unamuno did not cease, despite military censorship , to rail against militarism and its dictatorial namesake personally. In December 1923 he again had to appear before a court in Valencia , where he was again charged with lese majesty, but this time acquitted. In February 1924, due to a letter published in the magazine Nosotros , as well as further articles in El Mercantil Valenciano and La Nación ( Buenos Aires ) by dictator Primo de Rivera, he was relieved of his offices as vice-rector and dean and banished to the Canary Island of Fuerteventura . Two policemen came to his home on February 21st and transported him to Seville and from there to Fuerteventura. Unamuno turned down an offer to flee to Argentina . In the middle of the year he was offered a pardon, but he did not accept it because he wanted justice, not mercy. There was a not unjustified fear of an assassination attempt on his life, so after four months, in July 1924, with the help of the newspaper editor Henry Dumay of Le Quotidien Paris, he fled to Paris , where he was greeted stormily by other Spanish exiles . However, he could not meet the expectations of French intellectuals and felt like a "bicho raro" (strange bird). Unamuno co-founded an exile newspaper, España con Honra. together with Vicente Blasco Ibáñez , Eduardo Ortega y Gasset, the brother of José, and others. In the meantime he had been removed from his position as professor in his native Spain. He spent 13 months in Paris, where he wrote the following works: De Fuerteventura a París (1925, poetry), Romancero del Destierro (1928, poetry), La agonía del Cristianismo (1926), Cómo se hace una novela (1925). In 1926, his chair was declared vacant and advertised again, amid violent student protests. Again and again there was cause for concern for his life, pistoleros were smuggled in, Unamuno was accused of being the originator of a scattered revolution in Vera. He was dejected and feared that his personal example would be useless, but various intellectuals, including Américo Castro , encouraged him to persevere. Hoping for the outcome of the Moroccan War , he moved to Hendaye in south-west France in August 1925 to be closer to Spain and to provoke even more. The government tried in vain to do its part through diplomatic actions, but also through fictitious skirmishes, to get Unamuno away from the border. Unamuno's motto was: “Volveré no con mi libertad, que nada vale, sino con la vuestra” (I will not return with my freedom, which is worth nothing, but with yours). During his self-chosen exile, he asked himself again and again whether he was not only playing a role to “perpetuate” himself, to make himself immortal, or whether his political position was authentic. He wrote a series of articles against the dictatorship in Hojas Libres. a monthly magazine, which from 1927 to 1929 had 21 issues of 96 pages and whose import the Spanish government tried in vain to prevent.

Return and Second Republic

On January 28, 1930, Primo de Rivera resigned from office after demonstrations and strikes had broken out across the country and the military and economic gangs had given up their allegiance. As early as February 9, 1930, Miguel de Unamuno returned to Spain, where Primo de Rivera's successor, General Dámaso Berenguer , ruled in the meantime : he demonstratively crossed the bridge at Irún on foot . He was also given a triumphant reception in Salamanca, for he was considered by some to be the most upright intellectual figure in Spain. On April 14, 1931 Unamuno officially proclaimed the Second Spanish Republic in the Plaza Mayor of Salamanca, he took part in the May rally in Madrid with Francisco Largo Caballero , Indalecio Prieto and other important politicians. In the same year he was appointed rector for life. Unamuno initially spoke out in favor of the republic, and was also a member of the Cortes from 1931 to 1933 , where he advocated three reforms in particular: 1. the agrarian reform , 2. the reform of the army, 3. the reorganization of the educational system. In 1931 he was appointed chairman of the Consejo de Instrucción Pública and hoped for the post of minister of education for a time.

However, he soon fell out with Prime Minister Manuel Azaña and had been a declared opponent of religious policy and hasty restructuring since 1932 because he was afraid of anarchy and stood up to defend Christian civilization. It was also directed against official bilingualism; he worried about the agnosticism of the Republicans, distrusted the political parties and feared an international class struggle instead of internal renewal. As early as 1931 he compared himself to Moses on his arrival in the Promised Land: for lack of faith in the new cause, he would be prevented from participating in this new Spain, which sees itself as federalist and revolutionary. He said Spain is not yet ready for radical reforms. In 1932, in a well-attended lecture in Madrid, he said he would rather be an anarchist than a dictator, and denounced the inquisitorial policies and the ineptitude of the Azaña government. In the general elections in November 1933 Unamuno ran for the radicals under Alejandro Lerroux , which in turn led to a scandal. In April 1935 he was made an honorary citizen of the republic.

Spanish civil war and death

When the Spanish Civil War broke out on July 18, 1936, Unamuno indicated that he would join the cause of the rebels under General Francisco Franco . He mistakenly believed in a "pacífica guerra civil-civil" (a peaceful, civil civil war); only when he realized that it was going to be a brutal “guerra civil-incivil” (an uncivilized civil war) did he make another move. Unamuno believed that he could mediate between the two parties as a respected intellectual. On September 4, 1936, he was reappointed rector of the University of Salamanca. However, he soon realized that he had been mistaken about the character of the uprising: after the first murders of intellectuals, including close friends of Unamuno, he distanced himself from Franco, who had since been appointed head of state. Now he saw clearly that it was not about a renewal of the republic, but the restoration of the monarchy against which he had fought for so long. As early as September 1936 he said that he would go into exile again, "porque en tales condiciones nunca podría estar con el vencedor" (because under such circumstances I could never be at the side of the victor). On October 12th (the traditional, so-called “Fiesta de la Raza”) - Franco had set up his headquarters in Salamanca - Unamuno presided over a ceremony as rector, next to Franco's wife Carmen Polo . There it came to a scandal , because Unamuno announced his famous sentence: "Vencer no es convencer" (Siegen is not convincing). An ardent defense of the Basques and Catalans followed, and he repeated that this was not a guerra civil, but incivil . General José Millán Astray then chanted the Francoist slogans “¡Muera la inteligencia! ¡Viva la Muerte! ”(Death to the intellectuals! Long live death!). Some of his people stood ready to shoot the speaker. The presence of Polo saved Unamuno. At the request of the teaching staff, Franco removed him from his post as rector, he spent the rest of his days in voluntary house arrest and died on December 31, 1936.

Prizes and awards

1936 Honorary Doctorate from Oxford University

plant

Unamuno was a poet, novelist, playwright and literary critic. He belonged to the Generación del 98 , which tried to preserve and regain the Spanish identity in the cultural sphere, which was shaken after the defeat by the USA and the loss of its last colonies. A key figure in this cultural renaissance and the memory of Spain's Golden Century was Don Quixote , the embodiment of courage, loyalty, faith and ideality, to whom he dedicated an essay. He viewed Sancho Panza , the representative of fear, progress, skepticism and a sense of reality as the antithesis, complement and equal dialogue partner of Don Quixote . His reinterpretation of Cervantes' work within the framework of a philosophy that sees itself as the transformation and critical further development of the traditions of the Golden Century establishes the quijotismo of the generation of 1898, the indissoluble dualism of thought and belief that leads to the sentimiento trágico . But even a heroic life cannot save a person from tragedy, but it can give his life meaning. Del sentimiento trágico is dedicated to the ideal of Catholicism and its decline through the rationalism of scholastic philosophy . Unamuno's unsystematic philosophy , which did not shrink from paradoxes, was an affirmation of “belief in faith” and made use of the literary forms of representation of essays , novels , plays and poetry .

Essays

• En torno al casticismo , 1902 (first published as five essays in La España Moderna in 1895 )
• Tres Ensayos , 1900 ("Adentro", "La ideocracia", "La Fe")
• Vida de Don Quixote y Sancho , 1905
• Mi Religión y otros ensayos breves , 1910
• Soliloquios y conversaciones , 1911
• El porvenir de España , 1912 (derived from correspondence with Ganivet)
• Contra esto y aquello , 1912 (polemics)
• Del sentimiento trágico de la vida en los hombres y en los pueblos , 1913 (German title: The tragic attitude to life , transferred by Robert Friese, with an introduction by Ernst Robert Curtius , 1925)
• La agonía del cristianismo , 1925 (first published in French, 1930 Spanish, German title: Die Agonie des Christianentums , translated by Otto Buek , 1928)
• Cómo se hace una novela , 1927 (begun in Paris in 1924; the unfinished manuscript was translated into French by Jean Cassou and published in the Mercure de France in 1926 ; then back-translated by Unamuno and added with additions. German title: How to make a novel , translated by Erna Pfeiffer )

Nebel (Niebla), German first edition, Meyer & Jessen, Munich 1927

Novels

• Paz en la guerra. 1897 (= the only "realistic" one) about the 3rd Carlist War 1874–1876; Peace in War , Translator Otto Buek. Guide & People's Association of Book Friends, Berlin 1929
• Amor y pedagogía. (1902).
• Niebla. (1914, German Nebel. )
• Abel Sánchez: una historia de pasión. (1917).
• La tía Tula. (1921, German aunt Tula. ).

Stories, short stories and novellas

• Una historia de amor. 1911.
• El espejo de la muerte. 1913.
• Tres novelas ejemplares y un prólogo. 1920.
• Tulio Montalbán y Julio Macedo. (1920).
• La novela de don Sandalio, jugador de ajedrez. (1930).
• Un pobre hombre rico or the sentimiento cómico de la vida. (1930).
• San Manuel Bueno, Martir. (1933).

Travel descriptions, articles and the like

• De mi país. 1903.
• Por tierras de Portugal y de España. 1911.
• Andanzas y visiones españolas. 1922 (first article in La Nación. Buenos Aires, and El Imparcial. )

Poetry

• Poesías. 1907.
• A mi buitre. 1911.
• Rosario de Sonetos Líricos. 1911.
• El Cristo de Velázquez. 1920.
• Rimas de dentro. 1923.
• Teresa. 1924.
• De Fuerteventura a París. 1925.
• Romancero del destierro. 1928.
• Cancionero. 1762 poems, written between 1928 and 1936.

drama

• La Esfinge. (1898) [originally: "Gloria o paz"]. First performed in 1909, published in 1959.
• La Venda. (1899) [originally: “La ciega”], published in 1913, first performed in 1921.
• La princesa doña Lambra. (1909).
• La difunta . Sainete (1909).
• El pasado que vuelve. (1910) First performance in 1923.
• Fedra. Tragedia desnuda. (1910) First performed in 1918, published in 1921.
• Soledad. Otro drama nuevo. (1921) First performed in 1953, published in 1954.
• Raquel encadenada. (1921) First performance in 1926.
• Sombras de sueño. (1926), published 1927, premiered in 1930.
• El otro. Misterio en tres jornadas y un epílogo. (1926) First performed in 1932, published in 1932.
• El hermano Juan. 1934.

German translations

• The love that overtook him. [1913] In: The mirror of death. Novellas. Translated by Oswald Jahns. Munich 1925
• Translator Otto Buek : From hatred to pity, (Del odio a la piedad, excerpt from El espejo de la muerte, pp. 119-122) in The great masters. European storytellers of the 20th century, Vol. 2. Ed. Rolf Hochhuth . Bertelsmann Lesering o. J. (1966), pp. 213-216
• Translator Otto Buek: Aunt Tula. Afterword by Klaus Ley. Ullstein book 30136, 1982 ISBN 3-548-30136-3
• Übers. Wilhelm Muster : A whole man. Three nivolas. Peter Selinka, Ravensburg 1989
• Übers. Otto Buek: Nebel , überarb. after the 3rd edition of the orig. by Roberto de Hollanda, Stefan Weidle . Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main 1996, ISBN 3-548-24035-6
• Selection and translation. Erna Pfeiffer : Plea of ​​idleness. (= Essay, 31). Literaturverlag Droschl, Graz 1996, ISBN 3-85420-442-6
• Selection and translation. Erna Pfeiffer: Self-talk and conversations . Droschl, Graz 1997, ISBN 3-85420-453-1
• The Martyrdom of San Manuel. Three stories about immortality . Epilogue by Erna Pfeiffer. Ullstein, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-548-24259-6
• Übers. Erna Pfeiffer: How to make a novel. (= Essay, 42). Droschl, Graz 2000, ISBN 3-85420-543-0

Film adaptations

• 2019: Mientras dure la guerra , by Alejandro Amenábar , Spain, duration 103 min.
• 1964: Aunt Tula ( La tía Tula )

literature

• Joxe Azurmendi : Ethnic Psychology. In: Espainiaren arimaz. Elkar, Donostia 2006, ISBN 84-9783-402-X .
• Joxe Azurmendi: Bakea gudan. Unamuno, historia eta karlismoa. Txalaparta, Tafalla 2012, ISBN 978-84-15313-19-9 .
• Joxe Azurmendi: Unamunors atarian. In: Alaitz Aizpuru and others: Euskal Herriko pentsamenduaren gida. Bilbo UEU 2012, ISBN 978-84-8438-435-9 .
• Dolores Gómez Molleda (Ed.): Actas del Congreso Internacional Cincuentenario de Unamuno. Universidad de Salamanca, 10-20 December 1986 (= Acta Salmanticensia. 13). Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca 1989, ISBN 84-7481-561-4 .
• Andreas Gelz: Reflections on a poetics of the scandal using the example of Miguel de Unamunos San Manuel Bueno, mártir (1931/1933). In: Andreas Gelz, Dietmar Hüser, Sabine Ruß-Sattar (eds.): Scandals between modern and post-modern. Interdisciplinary perspectives on forms of social transgression. de Gruyter, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-11-030765-8 , pp. 167-184.
• Egyd Gstättner: "Horror Vacui" - The Spanish villages of Don Miguel de Unamuno . Novel. Edition Atelier, Vienna 2003, ISBN 3-85308-091-X .

University publications

• Frank Esser: Miguel de Unamuno. Philosophy in his essays, letters, and posthumous writings. DNB 1081295007 Zugl. Diss. Phil. University of Bonn 2015, with illustrations. contents
• Francisco-Javier Insausti Ugarriza: Miguel de Unamunos and José Ortega y Gassets philosophy in connection with their Hegel reception . L. Ramirez, San Sebastián 1993 ISBN 84-604-5611-0 Zugl. Diss. Phil. University of Munich 1991

Web links

Commons : Miguel de Unamuno  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Wikiquote: Miguel de Unamuno  - Quotes

• Literature by and about Miguel de Unamuno in the catalog of the Ibero-American Institute in Berlin
• Literature by and about Miguel de Unamuno in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Miguel de Unamuno  in the German Digital Library
• Newspaper article about Miguel de Unamuno in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
• Literature by and about Miguel de Unamuno in the catalog of the library of the Instituto Cervantes in Germany

Individual evidence

1. ↑ la revelación del misterio del lenguaje. In: Recuerdos de niñez y mocedad. 1908.
2. ↑ Paper figures by Miguel de Unamuno
3. ↑ Dolores Gómez Molleda (ed.): Actas del Congreso Internacional Cincuentenario de Unamuno. 1989, p. 19.
4. ↑ Dolores Gómez Molleda (ed.): Actas del Congreso Internacional Cincuentenario de Unamuno. 1989, p. 42f.
5. ↑ Dolores Gómez Molleda (ed.): Actas del Congreso Internacional Cincuentenario de Unamuno. 1989, p. 110.
6. ↑ Dolores Gómez Molleda (ed.): Actas del Congreso Internacional Cincuentenario de Unamuno. 1989, p. 20.
7. ↑ Dolores Gómez Molleda (ed.): Actas del Congreso Internacional Cincuentenario de Unamuno. 1989, p. 32.
8. ↑ Dolores Gómez Molleda (ed.): Actas del Congreso Internacional Cincuentenario de Unamuno. 1989, p. 116.
9. ↑ Dolores Gómez Molleda (ed.): Actas del Congreso Internacional Cincuentenario de Unamuno. 1989, p. 96.
10. ↑ Dolores Gómez Molleda (ed.): Actas del Congreso Internacional Cincuentenario de Unamuno. 1989, p. 97.
11. ↑ cit. in Dolores Gómez Molleda (ed.): Actas del Congreso Internacional Cincuentenario de Unamuno. 1989, p. 20.
12. ↑ Dolores Gómez Molleda (ed.): Actas del Congreso Internacional Cincuentenario de Unamuno. 1989, p. 57.
13. ↑ Quoted in Dolores Gómez Molleda (ed.): Actas del Congreso Internacional Cincuentenario de Unamuno. 1989, p. 65.
14. ↑ Quoted in Dolores Gómez Molleda (ed.): Actas del Congreso Internacional Cincuentenario de Unamuno. 1989, p. 22f.
15. ^ Antony Beevor (traduit par Jean-François Sené): La Guerre d'Espagne . 3. Edition. Éditions Calmann-Lévy, Paris 2011, ISBN 978-2-253-12092-6 , pp. 191-193 .
16. ↑ More on the genesis of the text on the website of the Droschl literature publisher