Miguel De Unamuno Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo (1864–1936) was a Basque academic, writer, and philosopher. Even though both his political and philosophical views were subject to radical changes during his lifetime, he is considered a key representative both of European existentialist philosophy and the Spanish cultural and literary movement known as the generation of 1898, which heavily criticized the corrupt system of government imposed during the Restoration period (1874–1931).

Unamuno was born in Bilbao, Spain, in 1864 and witnessed the siege of the city during the Third Carlist War (1872–1876). Soon after completing his studies in Madrid, where he briefly transitioned from Catholic traditionalism to socialism, he joined the University of Salamanca as a professor. In 1901, Unamuno became rector of the university, the first of a series of academic appointments from which he would be subsequently removed due to his political and intellectual positions. He remained in exile during most of Primo de Rivera’s military dictatorship (1923–1930) and was briefly engaged in active politics during the first years of the Second Spanish Republic (1931–1939). After being once again appointed a rector, he was elected to parliament as part of the socialist-republican coalition but soon came to despise Republican politics.

Initially, Unamuno welcomed the nationalist uprising led by General Francisco Franco in 1936, which he saw as a continuation of the Spanish “regeneration” movement to bring back the “pure values” and “Christian civilization.” However, weeks after the beginning of the conflict, Unamuno once again witnessed the horrors of repression and revenge as friends, colleagues, and students were systematically executed. After an argument with Fascist general Millán Astray during the opening session of the 1936 to 1937 academic year in Salamanca, in which Unamuno publicly withdrew his support for the nationalists, he was again dismissed and placed under house arrest, dying weeks later, on December 31, 1936.

After his temporary support for socialism, Unamuno moved away from rationalist views. In The Tragic Sense of Life (1913) he developed the concept of intrahistory, which was based on orality and personal experiences of common people instead of prevailing official historiography. Under the influence of Danish intellectual Søren Kierkegaard, Unamuno sought to understand agony and anxiety as forms of struggle in each individual’s search for faith, and, similar to other existentialist thinkers, he disregarded systematic or academic philosophy as misleading in the absurd quest for abstract rational knowledge. In spite of his religiosity, conflicts with the Catholic Church were frequent. Significantly, both The Tragic Sense of Life (1913) and The Agony of Christianity (1925) were banned by the church until the 1960s.

Even though Unamuno’s essays reflect much of his thought, most of his writings are fictional, including a vast collection of novels, short stories, poetry, and drama. His political and philosophical views are condensed and can be deciphered through masterpieces such as The Life of Don Quixote and Sancho (1967), Saint Manuel Bueno, Martyr (1954) or Abel Sánchez and Other Stories (1956). In any case, his works had a deep impact not only on Spain’s literary and political scene, especially visible through authors as Juan Ramón Jiménez or Antonio Machado, but also in the wider European context, where he was seen as an intellectual reference.

Bibliography:

Ferrater Mora, José, and Philip Silver. Unamuno: A Philosophy of Tragedy. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962.
Nozick, Martin, ed. Miguel de Unamuno: The Agony of Belief. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982.
Unamuno, Miguel de. The Agony of Christianity and Essays on Faith. Translated and edited by Anthony Kerrigan. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974.
Obras Completas. 16 vols. Edited by Manuel García Blanco. Madrid: Vergara Editorial, 1959–1964.
The Tragic Sense of Life in Men and Nations. Translated by Anthony Kerrigan. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972.

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