The Spanish professor and philosopher Miguel de Unamuno. Photograph around 1930.
Gallery of Miguel de Unamuno
1924
Spain
Miguel de Unamuno in 1924.
Gallery of Miguel de Unamuno
1927
France
Miguel de Unamuno in 1927.
Gallery of Miguel de Unamuno
1928
France
Portrait of the Spanish poet and philosopher Miguel de Unamuno. The late 1920s.
Gallery of Miguel de Unamuno
1930
Spain
Portrait of Miguel de Unamuno with a man (unknown).
Gallery of Miguel de Unamuno
1930
37008 Salamanca, Spain
Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo, Spanish essayist, novelist, poet, playwright, philosopher, and Greek professor and later rector at the University of Salamanca. Around 1930.
Gallery of Miguel de Unamuno
1930
Madrid, Spain
Miguel de Unamuno, former rector of the University of Salamanca. Returned from exile he is, after his impassionate speech against the dictatorship and the Spanish King, surrounded by his devotees, which are mostly students. Madrid, Spain. Photograph. May 6th, 1930.
Gallery of Miguel de Unamuno
1930
Salamanca, Spain
A group of people welcomes Unamuno after his return to Salamanca, portrait on the balcony.
Gallery of Miguel de Unamuno
1930
Spain
Miguel de Unamuno in 1930.
Gallery of Miguel de Unamuno
1931
Salamanca, Spain
Miguel de Unamuno in 1931.
Gallery of Miguel de Unamuno
1933
Salamanca, Spain
Miguel de Unamuno in 1933.
Gallery of Miguel de Unamuno
1933
Spain
The French Ambassador Jean Herbette, Lerroux Garcia, Giral Pereira, Miguel de Unamuno, Jose Ortega y Gasset, and Luis Jimenez Assua in 1933.
Achievements
Membership
Royal Spanish Academy
Miguel de Unamuno was a member of the Royal Spanish Academy.
Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo, Spanish essayist, novelist, poet, playwright, philosopher, and Greek professor and later rector at the University of Salamanca. Around 1930.
Miguel de Unamuno, former rector of the University of Salamanca. Returned from exile he is, after his impassionate speech against the dictatorship and the Spanish King, surrounded by his devotees, which are mostly students. Madrid, Spain. Photograph. May 6th, 1930.
Selected Works of Miguel de Unamuno, Volume 1: Peace in War: A Novel
(The first English translation of Unamuno's first novel, p...)
The first English translation of Unamuno's first novel, published in 1897, when he was 33. Its setting is the Basque country of northern Spain during the Second Carlist War (1874-1876), a conflict he lived through as a child.
Selected Works of Miguel de Unamuno, Volume 4: The Tragic Sense of Life in Men and Nations
(The acknowledged masterpiece of Unamuno expresses the ang...)
The acknowledged masterpiece of Unamuno expresses the anguish of modern man as he is caught up in the struggle between the dictates of reason and the demands of his own heart.
Selected Works of Miguel de Unamuno, Volume 3: Our Lord Don Quixote
(This comprehensive edition in English begins with a volum...)
This comprehensive edition in English begins with a volume on the theme of Don Quixote, the greater part of which is devoted to The Life of Don Quixote and Sancho, followed by sixteen essays on diverse aspects of the Quixote motif. Originally published in 1914.
Selected Works of Miguel de Unamuno, Volume 6: Novela/Nivola
(The three remarkable pieces of fiction included in this v...)
The three remarkable pieces of fiction included in this volume are not so much novelets, novels, as nivolas, a form invented by Unamuno. Originally published in 1914.
Selected Works of Miguel de Unamuno, Volume 5: The Agony of Christianity and Essays on Faith
(Unamuno's long essay on Christianity as a state of agony ...)
Unamuno's long essay on Christianity as a state of agony is followed by nine essays including "Nicodemus the Pharisee," "Faith," and "What is Truth?" Originally published in 1931.
Selected Works of Miguel de Unamuno, Volume 7: Ficciones: Four Stories and a Play
(Unwilling to be bound by the categories of religion, Unam...)
Unwilling to be bound by the categories of religion, Unamuno rejected the laws that distinguish one literary genre from another. Thus, some of Unamuno's finest essays are short stories and vice versa. Included in this volume are four stories: Tia Tula; The Novel of Don Sandalio, Chess Player; The Madness of Doctor Montarco; Saint Manuel Bueno, Martyr and the play The Other. Originally published in 1976.
Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo was a Basque-born Spanish educator, philosopher, and author. His essays had a considerable influence in early 20th-century Spain.
Background
Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo was born on September 29, 1864, in Bilbao, Pais Vasco, Spain. His parents were Felix de Unamuno, a merchant who had managed to make a small fortune in Mexico, and Salome Jugo, seventeen years younger and deeply religious. Unamuno was the third of the six children of the marriage.
When Unamuno was still a child, he had to live two experiences that ended up defining his character, and which would later be reflected in writing in his first works: the death of his father and the siege of Bilbao with the outbreak of the third Carlist war. Both experiences and others are present in his works: Memories of childhood and youth and Peace in war.
Unamuno was not yet six years old when he lost his father Felix de Unamuno, who died on July 14, 1870, in Urberuaga of pulmonary tuberculosis.
Education
Miguel de Unamuno learned the first letters in the private school of San Nicolás, which was located in an attic of the Calle del Correo, and during the preparatory catechesis for his first communion, in the church of San Juan, he met, years later, who would be his girlfriend and wife: Concepción Lizárraga Concha.
Thus, upon completing his first studies at school and about to enter the institute, Unamuno witnessed the siege of his city during the Third Carlist War. Under the command of General Elio, the town was besieged by the Carlist troops from December 28, 1873, and by February 1874, the situation became even more serious when any supply was interrupted, and on the 21st of that same month, the bombing of Bilbao began. Finally, the war came to an end on May 2, 1874, with the entry of Liberal troops commanded by General Gutierrez de la Concha.
In this way, Miguel de Unamuno did not begin his high school studies until September 11, 1875, the date on which he passed his entrance exam at the Vizcaíno Institute. Both the entrance exam and the first course had to be done in his old school on the street of the Post because the Institute during the war had been converted into a military hospital. Santos Barrón was his teacher of Latin and Castilian, and Genaro Carreño his teacher of Universal Geography, subjects in which he obtained a high qualification.
Unamuno then completed the four remaining courses at the Institute, but he greatly disliked the method of rote learning that was applied in almost all subjects. He was bored, above all, by the Latin classes, History, Geography, and Rhetoric. He had no problem with Arithmetic, Physics, Geometry, or Trigonometry, and he liked Algebra. He also liked Philosophy, even though he did not appreciate the teaching of priest Félix Azcuénaga, since it was in his classes that he could leave his manifesto as an orator, often competing with his partner Andrés Oñate. And in the subjects taught by Fernando Mieg: Natural History, Physiology, and Hygiene, he managed to be outstanding, a consequence of the pedagogical system used by the teacher who knew how to arouse the curiosity and interest of his students.
Added to this, Miguel was a good draftsman, which is why he studied in the Bilbao workshop of Antonio Lecuona, but he himself confessed that he decided to give up his artistic career due to his lack of mastery over color. At the end of 1880, he entered the University of Madrid to study Philosophy and Letters, where he finished his studies on June 21, 1883, at nineteen years of age. In the middle of the following year, on June 20, he received his doctorate with a thesis on the Basque language entitled Critica del problem Sobre el Origen y prehistoria de la Raza Vasca, and in it he left in evidence his idea about the origin of the Vascos, an idea contrary to what in the years to come the Vasco nationalism that was then just founded by the Arana Goiri brothers, who advocated a Vasca race not contaminated by other races.
After his doctorate, Miguel de Unamuno returned to Bilbao and in 1884 he began to work as a professor of Latin and psychology in a school, published an article entitled alien element in the Vasco language, and another of a manners character, Guernica, collaborating in various national newspapers. In 1888, he gave presentations on his opposition to certain chairs both in institutes and universities in different cities of Spain. In 1890 he became a Professor of Greek language and literature at the University of Salamanca.
In 1901 Unamuno became rector of the university, but he was relieved of his duties in 1914 after publicly espousing the Allied cause in World War I. His opposition in 1924 to General Miguel Primo de Rivera’s rule in Spain resulted in his forced exile to the Canary Islands, from which he escaped to France. When Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship fell, Unamuno returned to the University of Salamanca and was reelected rector of the university in 1931, but in October 1936 he denounced General Francisco Franco’s Falangists, was removed once again as rector and was placed under house arrest. He died of a heart attack two months later.
Unamuno's first published work was the essays collected in En torno al casticismo (1895), in which he critically examined Spain’s isolated and anachronistic position in western Europe at the time. His Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho (1905; Life of Don Quixote and Sancho) is a detailed analysis of Miguel de Cervantes’ literary characters. Unamuno’s mature philosophy found its fullest expression in Del sentimiento trágico de la vida en los hombres y en los pueblos (1913; The Tragic Sense of Life in Men and Peoples), in which he stressed the vital role spiritual anxiety plays in driving a man to live the fullest possible life. This and other themes were explored in La agonía del cristianismo (1925; The Agony of Christianity). His other novels include Amor y pedagogía (1902; "Love and Pedagogy"), which describes a father’s attempt to raise his son scientifically, ending in failure and the son’s ruin; Niebla (1914; Mist); and San Manuel Bueno, mártir (1933; "Saint Manuel the Good, Martyr"), the story of an unbelieving priest. Unamuno’s El Cristo de Velázquez (1920; The Christ of Velázquez), a study in the poetic form of the great Spanish painter, is regarded as a superb example of modern Spanish verse.
(The first English translation of the Diario Intimo and a ...)
1967
Religion
As a boy, Miguel de Unamuno was intensely religious and wanted to become a saint. No doubt disgusted by the church's cultural alliance with arch-conservative forces in his native land, he gradually abandoned his childhood faith and rose to prominence as a poet, philosopher, and public intellectual.
When an attack of meningitis crippled then killed his young son, Raimundo, Unamuno sank into depression, convinced that God was punishing him - and his child - because he had abandoned his Catholic faith. He awoke one night, sobbing violently, having dreamt that "the Angel of Nothingness" was dragging him into an endlessly spiraling abyss.
Unamuno's Del Sentimiento Trágico de la Vida as well as two other works La Agonía del Cristianismo (The Agony of Christianity) and his novella "San Manuel Bueno, mártir," were included on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum of the Catholic Church until the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s and are still considered works that orthodox Roman Catholics are encouraged not to read.
Unamuno summarized his personal creed thus: "My religion is to seek for truth in life and for life in truth, even knowing that I shall not find them while I live."
Politics
In the 1890s, Unamuno joined the Agrupación Socialista de Bilbao (from 1894 to 1897) publishing: Around the casticismo, Peace in the war, the Sphinx, the Band, as well as numerous articles in the Spanish and Hispanic American press. A party that left in 1897 after suffering a great depression because of the cruel illness, without a possible cure, of his son Raimundo that also brought a religious crisis. Because of his constant attacks on the king and the dictator Primo de Rivera, he was dismissed several times and banished to Fuerteventura in 1924.
The burgeoning Republic was eventually quashed when a military coup headed by General Francisco Franco caused the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. Having begun his literary career as an internationalist, Unamuno gradually became a convinced Spanish nationalist, feeling that Spain's essential qualities would be destroyed if influenced too much by outside forces. For a brief period, he actually welcomed Franco's revolt as necessary to rescue Spain from radical influence. However, the barbarism and racism displayed by the Francoists caused him to oppose both the Republic and Franco. As a result of his opposition to Franco, Unamuno was effectively removed for a second time from his University post. Also, in 1936 Unamuno had a brief public quarrel with the Nationalist general Millán Astray at the University, in which he denounced both Astray and the Francoists as a whole. Shortly after that, he was placed under house arrest, where he remained until his death.
Views
Unamuno was an early existentialist who concerned himself largely with the tension between intellect and emotion, faith and reason. At the heart of his view of life was his personal and passionate longing for immortality. According to Unamuno, man's hunger to live on after death is constantly denied by his reason and can only be satisfied by faith, and the resulting tension results in unceasing agony.
Although he also wrote poetry and plays, Unamuno was most influential as an essayist and novelist. If his vigorous and iconoclastic essays have any common theme, it is that of the need to preserve one's personal integrity in the face of social conformity, fanaticism, and hypocrisy.
Unamuno's novels are intensely psychological depictions of agonized characters who illustrate and give voice to his own philosophical ideas.
Membership
Miguel de Unamuno was a member of the Royal Spanish Academy and the Sociedad de Amigos de Portugal.
Royal Spanish Academy
,
Spain
Sociedad de Amigos de Portugal
,
Spain
Personality
Many of Unamano's contemporaries were not fans of his work, particularly his poetry, but admitted that he has a unique and interesting personality. It was known that Unamuno loved children and he was always very whimsical and imaginative.
Interests
origami
Connections
In 1891 Miguel de Unamuno married the woman who was his love since childhood, Concha Lizárraga, with whom he had ten children.