José Martínez Ruiz
Azorín | |
---|---|
Real Academia Española | |
In office 26 October 1924 – 6 March 1967 | |
Preceded by | Juan Navarro-Reverter |
Succeeded by | Guillermo Díaz-Plaja |
José Augusto Trinidad Martínez Ruiz, better known by his
Early life and education
José Martínez Ruiz was born in the village of Monòver, Spain in the province of Alicante on 8 June 1873.[1] He was the oldest of nine children and enjoyed reading in his youth. His father, a middle-class lawyer, was an active conservative politician and later became a representative and mayor, and a follower of Romero Robledo. His mother, a landowner, was born in nearby Petrer. From the age of eight, until he was 16, he attended a boarding school run by the Escolapius Fathers (Piarists) in his father's home town of Yecla in the province of Murcia.
From 1888 to 1896 he studied law at the University of Valencia, but did not complete his studies. Thereafter he began to write, publishing a monograph on literary criticism in 1893. Here he began to write for local newspapers, contributing articles to the radical journal El pueblo, edited by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez. He became interested in the ideas of Karl Krause, who argued that man could be reformed through education, and that openness to other nations' cultures could overcome national conservatism.
In 1895, Ruiz published Anarquistas literarios and Notas sociales, in which he presented the main
Career, writing and political evolution
Ruiz served as a conservative deputy in the
The outbreak of the Republic saw him re-adopt his old progressive political ideals. He abandoned ABC to write for the republican newspapers El Sol, La Libertad and Ahora. He edited Revista de Occidente, founded by José Ortega y Gasset, a journal promoting European philosophy, from 1923 to 1936.[2] At the outset of the Spanish Civil War, in 1936, Azorín fled to Paris, where he continued his literary career writing for the Argentine newspaper La Nación. A book reflecting on this period of exile, Españoles en París, was published in 1939.
When he returned to Spain on 23 August 1939, he found himself in "inner exile", along with other intellectuals who had not overtly supported the Franco regime during the conflict. He was at first denied a press identification card (tarjeta de periodista), but was supported by Ramón Serrano Suñer, at that time Franco's Interior Minister and president of the Falange. Accepting Franco’s regime was the price he had to pay in order to be admitted back, and he aligned with the dictatorship in a noted article in the right-wing journal Vértice.[3] He contributed again to ABC from 1941 to 1962. He published numerous new works which were redolent of his earlier literary successes, including Pensando en España and Sintiendo España.
Later life
In his old age, Azorín became a film enthusiast, writing numerous articles, some of which are reprinted in El cine y el momento, and claiming that "Cinema is the greatest form of art". He died in Madrid, Spain on March 2, 1967, at the age of 93.[4]
The political evolution that transformed Ruiz, a committed journalist as well as a revolutionary anarchist, into Azorín, a conservative member of parliament, as well as a sceptic and indulgent writer intimidated by Franco's regime, is key to understanding the division of his critics. Two different images of him were sustained, successive and irreconcilable personalities that cannot be studied at the same time without understanding the contradictions.
Honors
- 1917, Hijo Predilecto de Monòver.
- 1924, Elected to the Royal Spanish Academy
- 1946, Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic
- 1956, Grand Cross of the Civil Order of Alfonso X, the Wise.
- 1969, His home in Monòver established as a museum, Casa-Museo Azorín
Publications
See also
References
- ^ "José Martínez Ruiz". Britannica Kids. Retrieved 2020-08-04.
- ISBN 1884964303.
- ISBN 0838754139. Retrieved September 28, 2012.
- ^ "José Martínez Ruiz". Britannica Kids. Retrieved 2020-08-04.
- ^ "Azorín (José Martínez Ruiz) Biographical data and intellectual evolution". Literatur im Kontext. Universität Wien. Archived from the original on 27 November 2012. Retrieved 29 September 2012.
Further reading
- Sáenz, Paz, ed. (1988). Narratives from the Silver Age. Translated by Hughes, Victoria; ISBN 84-87093-04-3.
- "Azorín". La Cultura del XIX al XX en España (in Spanish). Fundación Zuloaga. Archived from the original on 17 November 2015. Retrieved 28 September 2012.