Throughout his vast literary production, Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo (1864–1936) explored a wide variety of genres, like the novel, essay, theater and poetry. His writing was closely linked to the philosophical trends of the time and his Basque identity, being a key member of the generation of 98. With Fog, his most important novel, marked a style that anticipated the use of meta-fiction through an unreal character.
True to his republican and socialist political ideas, Unamuno was dismissed several times from his executive positions at the University of Salamanca and banished (voluntarily) because of his constant criticism of King Alfonso XIII. and the dictator Primo de Rivera during the 1920s. In fact, two months before the death of the Bilbao intellectual, Franco removed him by decree from his last term as rector in October 1936.
Most important moments in the life of Miguel de Unamuno
Birth and family
Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo was born on September 29, 1864 in Bilbao, Spain. He was the third of six children and the first boy of the unconventional (incestuous) marriage between the merchant Félix María de Unamuno and his seventeen-year-younger niece, María Salomé Crispina Jugo Unamuno. This controversial family context represented the embryo of the constant existential contradictions embodied in his works.
Death of his father and the war
When he was six years old, his father died. Shortly after completing his primary studies at the Colegio de San Nicolás, young Miguel witnessed the siege of his city during the Third Carlist War in 1873, an event later reflected in his first novel, Peace in war. From 1875 he studied high school at the Bilbao Institute, where he stands out for his excellent grades.
During the autumn of 1880 he moved to the Spanish capital to study Philosophy and Letters at the University of Madrid. There, he interacts with members of the Krausist movement. Four years later, he completed his doctoral thesis and returned to Bilbao with the intention of breaking into Basque society by writing articles, offering conferences and participating in political forums.
Unamuno, work and love
Until 1891 Unamuno would be "an unlucky opponent", the year in which he obtained the chair of Greek at the University of Salamanca and married his teenage sweetheart, Concha Lizárraga, with whom he had nine children: Fernando Esteban Saturnino (1872-1978), Pablo Gumersindo (1894-1955), Raimundo (1896-), Salomé (1897-1934), Felisa (1897-1980), José (1900-1974), María (1902-1983 ), Rafael (1905-1981) and Ramón (1910-1969).
The death of his son and the break
In 1894 he formalized his entry into the PSOE, although he left it three years after a deep spiritual crisis triggered by the death of his third child.or, Raimundo, in 1896 because of meningitis. When Peace in war was published in 1897, Unamuno was in a great religious and existential dilemma.
Already at that time there was a very perennial perception of uncertainty caused by the changes at the end of the century., reflected in the work Reconstitution and Europeanization of Spain (1898) by Joaquín Costa. In the midst of this circumstance, the “group of three” (Azorín, Baroja and Unamuno) and the so-called generation of 98 appeared with their subjective artistic-narrative approach to the country's decline and regenerationism.
The rector's position and his dismissal for political reasons
In the academic field, Miguel de Unamuno He continued to evolve until he was appointed rector of the University of Salamanca in 1900. The next fifteen years marked his most prolific time as a writer, as evidenced by Love and pedagogy (1902) Life of Don Quixote and Sancho (1905) Through the lands of Spain and Portugal (1911) The tragic sense of life (1912) and Fog (1914), among many others.
In 1914 the Ministry of Public Instruction removed him from his position as rector for political reasons., as he was always a man concerned about his sociocultural environment. Then, in 1918 he was elected councilor of the Salamanca City Council. A year earlier he published Abel Sánchez. A story of passion.
In 1920 he was elected dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters and in 1921 he was appointed as vice-rector. His constant attacks on King Alfonso XIII and the dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera produced a new dismissal, as well as a prosecution and sentence (which was never executed) to 16 years in prison for insults to the monarch.
Voluntary exile
From 1924 to 1930 he was voluntarily exiled in France. The last 5 years of his exile were spent in Hendaye (a town that is currently part of the French Basque Country). After the fall of Primo de Rivera, Unamuno was acclaimed on his return and joined the demands that called for the abdication of Alfonso XIII.
Return to the post of rector
After proclaiming the Republic in 1931, Unamuno was once again appointed rector of the University of Salamanca, President of the Council of Public Instruction and deputy of the Constituent Courts. Finally, he was recognized as rector for life after retiring in 1934 and a chair was created with his name.
Death of his wife and daughter
However, the death of his wife (together with that of his daughter Salomé in 1933) led him to withdraw from public life. In July 1936 the Civil War broke out, although he declared himself a republican in the first instance, he soon demonstrated his animosity towards the regime and led to the military rebellion. In those tense moments, the old writer did not allow himself to be manipulated, despite being dismissed and reinstated from his position.
Unamuno against Millán Astray
On October 12, 1936, on the occasion of the celebration of "the feast of the race", Miguel de Unamuno performed his last heroic act when he confronted General Millán Astray for his "hatred of intelligence." Only the interposition of Carmen Polo — Franco's wife — prevented a multitude of Franco fanatics from beating the venerable intellectual. But before leaving the place, Unamuno gave a response that is part of the Spanish historical ideology:
“You will win, but you will not convince. You will win because you have plenty of brute force, but you will not convince because to convince means to persuade. And to persuade you need something that you lack in this fight, reason and right. It seems useless to me to ask you to think about Spain ”.
Miguel de Unamuno.
Death
Miguel de Unamuno lived his last days under house arrest, at his home. There died suddenly on December 31, 1936.
Books of Miguel de Unamuno
Thoughts and philosophical lines of his work
Unamuno and religion
The contradictions between religion, science and the force of natural instinct are constant themes in his work. In this regard, the Basque writer expressed:
“My endeavor has been, is and will be that those who read me think and meditate on fundamental things, and it has never been to give them factual thoughts. I have always sought to agitate, and, at the most, to suggest rather than instruct ”.
In this sense, Andrés Escobar V. described in his literary analysis (2013) that Miguel de Unamuno “shows how in literature and in philosophy life and death are combined for all those who take part in it (author, characters and reader), as the very paradox of living doing a critical-reflective journey based on three concepts that are literature, philosophy and life ”.
This characteristic was evident in Peace in war (1897) whose title already causes - without preamble - a contradiction in the interlocutor. The Basque philosopher wrote in one of his paragraphs:
“In the monotony of his life Pedro Antonio enjoyed the novelty of every minute, the delight of doing the same things every day and the fullness of his limitation.
He lost himself in the shadow, he went unnoticed, enjoying, inside his skin like a fish in water, the intimate intensity of a life of work, dark and silent, in the reality of himself, and not in the appearance of others. His existence flowed like a gentle river current, with a rumor not heard and that he would not realize until it was interrupted ”.
Unamuno according to Luis Jiménez Moreno
According to Luis Jiménez Moreno of the Complutense University of Madrid, “Unamuno proposes a vital and tragic philosophya on the knowledge of concrete man in the impossibility of rationally understanding man due to the tragic combat of life with reason, because truth is what makes us live, seek the truth in life and life in the truth ”.
Consequently, life, death and reason dominate ideas in an ill-fated combat. and perpetual that express the author's own spiritual dilemma. Likewise, identity and transcendence prove to have an important place in Unamuno's lyrics. These aspects are very evident in his masterpiece Fog (1914), where he does not accept the desire to "want to be another is to want to stop being one who is".
Unamuno according to Katrine Helene Andersen
According to Katrine Helene Andersen from Mariae Curie-Skłodowska University in Poland (2011), “… since the first publications, Unamuno seems to ask himself the questions looking for the answer in the affirmation of a possible opposite. Around casticism (1895) integrates essays that expose some of the fundamental problems that will later haunt the thinker. "
In this essay Unamuno warns that he leans towards the method of “… alternative affirmation of contradictory; it is preferable to highlight the strength of the extremes in the reader's soul so that the environment takes life in it, which is the result of the struggle ”. The author calls this permanent dilemma "the rhythm of life."
Similarly, the contraposition of concepts is approached from a very dense perspective in The tragic sense of life (1912). There, Unamuno affirms “man, they say, is a rational animal. I don't know why it hasn't been said that it is an emotional or sentimental animal ”. However, the writer makes clear the direct implication between a rational being and the ability to philosophize, being more a virtue related to wanting.
It is a philosophical book with antagonistic ideas that coexist in the text naturally, as the following passage shows: “faith in immortality is irrational. And yet, faith, life, and reason need each other. This vital longing is not properly a problem, it cannot take on a logical state, it cannot be formulated in rationally debatable propositions, but it is posed to us, as hunger does ”.
Unamuno, Love and Pedagogy
Moreover, Unamuno demonstrated in the novel Love and Pedagogy (1902) the confidence that science confers on him when putting his theories into practice through "sociological pedagogy." Although the behavior of men and women can be delimited through "deductive marriage", love is present as that unpredictable element that leads to the triumph of the force of instinct over scientific precepts.
Quote by Miguel de Unamuno.
Unamuno, Abel Sánchez. A story of passion
One of his writings in which he explores Spanish sociocultural traits is Abel Sánchez. A story of passion (1917). It is a novel whose plot revolves around "cainism" (envy), capable of overlapping even the noblest virtues of the protagonists until it leads to the most dangerous and fatal impotence.
Poemaries and travel books
As for poetry, Unamuno perceived it as an art capable of reflecting his spiritual concerns. He developed the same common topics in his essays: anxiety and pain caused by the absence of God, the passage of time and the certainty of death. This tendency is demonstrated in books such as Rosary of lyrical sonnets (1911) The Christ of Velázquez (1920) Rhymes from within (1923) and Songbook of Exile (1928), among others.
Finally, a not so well known facet of Miguel de Unamuno was his travel books. And it is rare, because he published more than half a dozen texts (two of them, postmortem). Among those, the following stand out: Notes from a trip to France, Italy and Switzerland (1889, printed in 2017), Landscapes (1902) Through the lands of Portugal and Spain (1911) and Madrid, Castile (published in 2001).
