Dr. Alice C. Linsley
I lived in Spain during my High School years, and I majored in Spanish in college. I taught Spanish and also Philosophy at the High School and University levels. My final college paper to fulfill a requirement was on Don Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo. I found his books and his ideas fascinating because they are so Spanish. Unlike the theological and philosophical works of the Northern Europeans, they are not "systematic." They often are poetic, and they ring with sincere apologies for the tragic sense of life. Yet they retain hope, even as Quijote's hope for triumph over his foes never left him. Quijote's dying words to Sancho Panza were "Bring me my sword."
Because Unamuno's thought leaves wiggle room to explore, his disciples are free to wander down unexplored paths and to discover philosophically unfamiliar places. We are allowed to live with uncomfortable contradictions. This space is shrinking in our polarized world. Our time is not unlike the eve of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939).
Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo was a Spanish essayist, novelist, poet, playwright, philosopher, professor of Greek and Classics, and later rector at the University of Salamanca. In October 1936 he denounced General Francisco Franco’s Falangists, was removed as rector, and was placed under house arrest. He died of a heart attack two months later.A Man in search of Truth
For Unamuno truth is not easily found and often presents itself as paradox. His search for truth often pitted him against the clericalism of the Spanish Church. That clericalism took on fascist features once Franco took control.
The Catholic hierarchs of Spain denounced Unamuno as a heretic and banned his books. Bishop Gonzalez Caminero falsely claimed that "Unamuno perversely denies almost all of the fundamental dogmas of the Catholic religion."
Bishop Pildain of the Canary Islands called Unamuno "Hereje Maximo" in a widely circulated pastoral letter. His Excellency, the Most Reverend Sr. D. Antonion De Pildain y Zapiain, declared Unamuno the "greatest heretic and teacher of heresies."
By 1936, Unamuno, one of Spain's greatest modern thinkers, was slandered and banished from public life. That was the year the Spanish Civil War began, and the Spanish Church supported Franco against the Republican Government.
Unamuno's work is difficult to label. There are traces of existentialism of a Spanish flavor, and some elements of irrationalism. It is more precise to say that he searched for answers to existential questions, and abandoned rationalism to embrace the mysteries of Faith.
Perhaps he is best classified as a Christian Realist. He knew life was full of difficulties and inexplicable turnings. Yet he believed that there is a path that leads to God. "The road that leads us to the living God, the God of the heart, and that leads us back to Him when we have left Him for the lifeless God of logic is the road of faith." (The Tragic Sense of Life, Dover Publications, p. 186.)
In her excellent biography of Unamuno. Margaret Rudd writes about his final resting place in the Campo de San Francisco. "His crypt is in the wall to the left of the entrance; it bears the number 340, his number, and on it, beneath the crypt of Salome are inscribed Don Miguel's own words: "
Hide me, Father eternal, in your breast,
mysterious abode,
I shall sleep there, undone, I shall rest
from the toils of the road."
A Man of Humor
Miguel de Unamuno had a sense of humor. Johnstone G. Patrick writes, "Years before his exile, Salvador de Madariaga tells us, when King Alfonso was still a constitutional monarch, Unamuno had been granted an order reserved for rewarding intellectual merit. He was accordingly received in audience so that he could present his thanks to the King. "Sir," he began, "I am here to thank your Majesty for this order which I have fully deserved."
The King laughed outright. "How wonderful! They all come here telling me, 'Sir, I do not deserve it' "
A Man of Faith
Unamuno was well steeped in the Bible and his appreciation of biblical poetry as both sacred text and good literature is evident in what his writings. In his essay "Solitude" he expressed this appreciation claiming that the greatest among men is a lyric poet, "that is to say a real poet." A poet is a man who keeps "no secrets from God in his heart, and who, in singing his griefs, his fears, his hopes and his memories, purifies and purges them from all falsehood."
Related reading: The Message of Don Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo by Johnstone G. Patrick; Margaret Rudd, Lone Heretic; The White Terror in Spain
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