Miguel De Unamuno biography

Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo was born in Bilbao, Spain, on September 29, 1864. He was a writer, poet, philosopher and one of the main exponents of the Generation of ’98. In his literary production, he explored genres such as the novel, essay, theater, and poetry.

He was born in the street of Ronda of the old Bilbao. His parents were Felix de Unamuno, a merchant who had managed to make a small fortune in Mexico, and Salome Jugo, niece of this, seventeen years younger and deeply religious. Miguel was the third of the six children of the marriage.

When he 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.

Miguel 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. He 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, he 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.

“To believe in God is, in a certain way, to create him” Miguel de Unamuno

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.

He 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, he 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 1891 he married the woman who was his love since childhood, Concha Lizárraga, with whom he had ten children.

During this period he joined the Socialist Association of 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 possible cure, of his son Raimundo that also brought a religious crisis. Shortly after, and after several failed attempts, he dictated the Chair of Greek Language and Literature at the University of Salamanca, where he was appointed rector from 1901 until his dismissal in 1936, by order of Franco. He published his most famous works at this time: El Cristo de Velázquez, La tía Tula, Rosario of lyrical sonnets, Abel Sánchez, enjoying great recognition and admiration.

“It is detestable that spiritual greed that those who know something, do not seek transmission of that knowledge” Miguel de Unamuno

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. Months later, he was pardoned but decided to voluntarily exile himself to France; first to Paris and soon to Hendaye. He remained there until 1930, the year in which the regime of Primo de Rivera fell, and upon his return to Salamanca, he was received in a tremendous manner.

Miguel de Unamuno was also a deputy in Cortes from 1931 to 1933 in Salamanca and returned to practice as a professor of History of the Castilian Language. During these years he premiered many of his plays: El Otro, Sombras de Sueño, Medea. He is named Honorary President of the municipal corporation in perpetuity, President of the Council of Public Instruction, Life Rector, a citizen of Honor of the Republic and proposed to the Spanish Academy and for the Nobel Prize. But in 1936, he distanced himself from the Republican government and joined the military uprising. Thus, during the celebration of the Day of the Race of 1936 in the University, he had a confrontation with General Millan Astray, which led him to be secluded in his house under police surveillance, dying on December 31 of that same year, after suffering the loss of his beloved wife and his daughter Salomé. Work and life were closely related, hence the contradictions and paradoxes that Antonio Machado described as “quijotescas.”