Efe Salamanca

Salamanca

Updated Wednesday, March 6, 2024-18:05

  • Literature Fuerteventura celebrates Unamuno's centenary on the island to which he was exiled for writing against Alfonso XIII

The University of Salamanca has awarded the posthumous honoris causa to its

three-time rector

, the famous Bilbao intellectual Miguel de Unamuno, as compensation for the exile in Fuerteventura imposed on him by Primo de Rivera and which celebrated one hundred years in February.

The honoris has been received in his name by three of his grandchildren, who have promoted and thanked this recognition as an

"act of reparation for the unjust exile"

that he suffered on February 20, 1924 due to his criticism of the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera. .

"This honoris has been his for a century, when he was facing repressive power," said, visibly moved,

one of the only two grandchildren still alive

of those who got to know him, Miguel de Unamuno Adarraga.

His sister, Salomé de Unamuno Adarraga, has expressed how important this

recognition is for Unamuno's family

, who met six grandchildren but later had another seven.

The youngest of all,

Pablo de Unamuno, acted as sponsor

of the event and therefore gave the laudatio (the speech on merits), a defense of his grandfather's freedom of thought, his civic and social commitment, as well as as well as his extensive and complete intellectual activity.

"He did not like being given labels. As a

prominent representative of the generation of '98, he was a free thinker

, independently of political parties, something that did not distance him from concern for the collective good," he highlighted.

Ricardo Rivero, and the grandchildren of Miguel de Unamuno, Miguel, Salomé and Pablo, during the investiture ceremony as Doctor Honoris CausaEUROPA PRESS

The University of Salamanca was the only destination in the academic life of Unamuno, who prioritized his teaching activity above all others and was

rector for a total of 16 years in three periods

between 1900 and 1936, dismissed three times by the rulers of the time.

"When he arrives here he finds a dormant, stagnant, lazy institution. He goes so far as to comment in a letter: 'this university is spending everything on commissions, masses, masquerades and ceremonies,'" said his grandson, to also remember that He was pointed out

"for being Basque and for being a socialist"

when he confronted "the illiberal right with his liberal style."

"Unamuno saved the University of Salamanca"

In his speech, the current rector, Ricardo Rivero, solemnly stated that

"Unamuno saved the University of Salamanca":

"We must remember the situation he found, with a law that had harmed the Study and had concentrated the doctorate in Madrid" .

"Today we recognize in this university the most coherent of its professors, its most complete rector, the

most audacious intellectual of his time

, personal traits that would cost him exile and many other regrets, but that also made him a hero in capital letters and That's why we continue to remember him," he said.

Rivero has spoken of Unamuno as the

"perpetual rector" of the University of Salamanca, where he gives his name to the campus

, the rectory is his house-museum and even the sports center is named after him, something that the writer "would have liked" for his love of physical activity.

"Perhaps (this honoris) could have been approved earlier, but there has been unanimity, 'Unamunidad', and we have expressed our respect and admiration for Don Miguel to this day," he stressed, in reference to this recognition, the highest honor that can deliver the university, an

idea that two of his scholars proposed to Unamuno's grandchildren

: the French Hispanists Colette and Jean-Claude Rabaté