One of the important philosophers of the Spanish thought world: Who is Miguel de Unamuno?

He is one of the important intellectuals of the 98th Generation, who emerged against the moral, economic, political, and social destruction that occurred in Spain in 1898, when Spain lost its last colonies and went to war with the USA, and put forward the debate of Europeanization-Spanishization.

Miguel de Unamuno was born on September 29, 1864, in Bilbao-Ronda, the third of 6 children. He lost his merchant father when he was six years old; He is a quiet and introverted child. Many things that he experienced during his childhood will leave traces on him. Unamuno thinks that our childhoods and experiences from that period color our future lives: “The ideas we potentially bring into the world at birth are like a melody that develops and persists throughout our lives.”

Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo (29 September 1864 – 31 December 1936) was a Spanish essayist, novelist, poet, playwright, philosopher, professor of Greek and Classics, and later rector at the University of Salamanca. His major philosophical essay was The Tragic Sense of Life (1912), and his most famous novel was Abel Sánchez: The History of a Passion (1917), a modern exploration of the Cain and Abel story.

His dramatic and contradictory personality does not leave him alone in his childhood. He thinks that in order to preserve true inner freedom, it is necessary to preserve childhood with all its memories, influences, and emotions. All his works are almost like autobiographical interpretations of his memories, doubts, and feelings.

Unamuno is a sickly, sad but eager-to-learn young man. He experienced the first religious-belief crisis of his adolescence at the age of fourteen: “I was eating myself up with the fear of illuminating endless problems. I took a small notebook and began to develop a new philosophical method.” After finishing high school, they move to Madrid.

He begins to study modern theologians in Madrid; Hegel learns German by reading. learn Danish to read Danish philosopher and theologian Soren Kierkegaard in his native language; It is said that he speaks 14 languages. His desire to read German philosophers and to rationalize his belief caused him to give up his previous religious habit. This initiates his religious pursuit, which, because of his desire to understand God, will take place in all his works and in his entire being. It also grounds a big problem in him; It turns into an obsession in his life: the desire for immortality and the fear of death, which is the end of everything.

Uamono completed his university education in 1883. He holds a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Madrid and reads literature with the thesis "Crítica del problema sobre el origen y prehistoria de la raza basca" in 1884, with the thesis "Criticism on Origin and Prehistory of Basque Origins". He completes his career in philosophy and literature.

Back in Bilbao, he teaches privately at home and works as a temporary Latin teacher at the Vizcaya Institute. In 1885, he started to work at the Colegio de San Antonio as a teacher of Latin, psychology, logic, ethics and rhetoric. In 1886, he published his first story, Ver con los ojos (Seeing with the Eyes).

The situation in Spain leads Unamuno to write articles in an innovative style. Joins the Bilbao Socialist Group in 1894; For this reason, he often writes articles under the name "The Struggle of the Bilbao Classes". In 1891, he was appointed professor of Greek Language and Literature at the University of Salamanca. In the same year, he marries Concepción (Concha) Lizárraga Ecenarro, whom he has been in love with since childhood, and they have 10 children.

From the very beginning, Unamuno tries to express his thought on the basis of Hegelian dialectic and then begins to look for his crises on religion in the different philosophical intuitions of Spencer, Sören Kierkegaard, W. James, and H. Bergson. However, since the personal contradictions and paradoxes that emerged in his thinking prevented the development of a coherent system, he had to resort to literature.

At the age of 33, Unamuno experiences a very touching depression. He often cries and finds himself on the brink of despair because of his loss of faith and his search for the feelings of his childhood world. He spends days in his marriage when he is upset with great anxiety and cannot sleep; suddenly comes his cries that no one can console him. His wife hugs him and says: "What's wrong, son?". The next day, Unamuno goes to the monastery to regain his faith. “I had a sudden and severe depression. I understood the life I was living when my wife said "my son" while I was crying and saved me. The way he said "son" reminded me of my childhood days."

In those years (1898), the writers and intellectuals who took responsibility for the most important issues such as the political and social structure of Spain were called the "98 Generation". The 98 authors focused entirely on the problems of Spain, trying to develop society in an innovative and critical way. All writers try to find the historical essence of Spain and Spanishness and what it means.

His first novel, Paz en la guerra (Peace in War), which he described as a historical novel or novelized history, and whose subject was the Carlist Wars, which coincided with his childhood years, was published in 1897.

In 1914, Francisco Bergamín, Minister of Public Education and the Fine Arts dismissed Unamuno from the university rectorate for his declaring himself a supporter of the Allies, his insubordination to political questions about the position of the university senator, and his stance in favor of the war allies. Although legal action was taken against him in 1917 for his article criticizing the King of Spain, Alfonso XIII, and he was sentenced; forgiveness is granted.

In 1914, he published his key work, the novel Niebla (The Fog), which Unamuno characterized as "Nivola". In this work, Unamuno questions the purpose of human existence, his feelings, and his desire for eternity. The novel tells the strange and complicated story of the unemployed, powerless protagonist, Augusto Perez, with Eugenia, whom he falls in love with just after seeing her eyes one day. It describes the fog that formed in August's life when he fell in love, that is, the emotions and the delusions of his experiences and his questioning of them.

In 1917, Unamuno published his famous short novel, Abel Sanchez (Abel Cain), which was interpreted as a modern-day adaptation of the biblical quarrel between Abel and Cain.

In 1930, he became the Rector of the University of Salamanca and the Chairman of the Supreme National Council of Culture. He becomes a candidate from a small intellectual party called Al Servicio de la República; He was elected as a deputy between 1931-1933. However, this positive change was destroyed by General Francisco Franco and the Spanish Civil War broke out.

Miguel de Unamuno, who started his literary career as an internationalist, is now a nationalist. He thinks that Spain is too much under the influence of foreign powers; Although he was tolerant of Franco for a very short time with these concerns; Franco's practices against the opposition did not delay in making him the opposite. When he took part in the resistance front, he was expelled from the university for the second time in 1936.

Unamuno is a thinker who experienced the historical and metaphysical crises of Spain and witnessed the collapse of his country until 1936. These negativities constituted an important starting point in terms of showing the extent to which the national crisis carried human destiny by bringing the individual to the fore. Meanwhile, the Church's involvement in politics and resistance to every step taken led Unamuno, who grew up in a religious family environment, to become an atheist at some point in his life and to have dilemmas about the existence of God. The fact that the Church is pro-government causes Unamuno to go through great shocks.

Unamuno, who examines the problem of the individual, with an effective expressive power, feels the pain of his country in the depths of his heart and writes it in a subtle style. He realizes that he finds more satisfying answers to the problems that he cannot answer with his mind, while thinking with his mind and emotions about the problems that arise as a natural result of social and individual life, and questioning which one will find a solution to these problems.

Unamuno's works Del Sentimiento Trágico de la Vida (The Tragic Sense of Life), La Agonía del Cristianismo (The Suffering of Christianity) and San Manuel Bueno, mártir (Saint Manuel) are on the list of banned books of the Catholic Church. The last days of Miguel de Unamuno's life are spent under house arrest in 1936, under the close watch of the rebels, in subdued desolation, despair, and loneliness. He died suddenly at his home in Salamanca on December 31, 1936, at a regular afternoon meeting with a few of his friends.