Salvador de Madariaga y Rojo (23 July 1886 – 14 December 1978) was a Spanish "eminent liberal", diplomat, writer, historian and pacifist who was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Nobel Peace Prize and awarded the Charlemagne Prize in 1973.
Early life Salvador de Madariaga y Rojo was born on 23 July 1886 in A Coruña, Galicia, Kingdom of Spain. He graduated with a degree in engineering in Paris, France.
Career Madariaga returned to Spain and became an engineer for the Northern Spanish Railway Company. He then came into contact with Generación del 14 intellectuals. In 1916, he abandoned that for work in London as a journalist for The Times newspaper. Meanwhile, he began publishing his first essays. In 1921, he became a press member of the Secretariat of the League of Nations and chief of the Disarmament Section in 1922. In 1928, he was appointed Professor of Spanish at Oxford University for three years during which he wrote a book on nation psychology, Englishmen, Frenchmen, Spaniards. In 1931, the Second Spanish Republic appointed Madariaga as Spanish ambassador to the United States and a permanent delegate to the League of Nations; he kept the latter post for five years. Chairing the Council of the League of Nations in January 1932, he condemned Japan's aggression in Manchuria in such vehement terms that he was nicknamed "Don Quijote de la Manchuria". From 1932 to 1934, he served as ambassador to France. In 1933, he was elected to the National Congress and served as both Minister for Education and Minister for Justice. In July 1936, as a classical liberal, he went into exile in England to escape the Spanish Civil War. There, he became a vocal opponent of and organised resistance to the Nationalists and to Francisco Franco's Spanish State. In 1947, he was one of the principal authors of the Oxford Manifesto on liberalism. He participated in the Hague Congress in 1948 as president of the Cultural Commission and he was one of the co-founders in 1949 of the College of Europe. In his writing career, he wrote books and essays about Don Quixote, Christopher Columbus, William Shakespeare's Hamlet, and the history of Latin America. He strongly supported a united and integrated Europe. He wrote in French, German, Spanish, Galician (his mother tongue) and English. In 1973, he won the Charlemagne Prize for his contributions to the European idea and to European peace. In 1976, after Franco's death, Madariaga returned to Spain and became a member of the Spanish Royal Academy.
Personal life and death
In 1912, Madariaga married Constance Archibald, a Scottish economic historian. The couple had two daughters: Nieves Mathews (1917–2003) and the professor and historian Isabel de Madariaga (1919–2014). Constance died in May 1970. In November 1970, he married Emilia Székely de Rauman, who had been his secretary since 1938 and would die in 1991 at 83. Madariaga died at 92 on 16 December 1978, in Locarno, Switzerland.
Awards and recognition Madariaga received numerous prizes in his lifetime: including:
Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Spain (1936) Hansischer Goethe-Preis, University of Hamburg (1972) Charlemagne Prize (1973)
Legacy The Madariaga European Foundation has been named after him and promotes his vision of a united Europe and a more peaceful world. The 1979–1980 academic year at the College of Europe was named in his honour. An Oxfordshire blue plaque in honour of him was unveiled at 3 St Andrew's Road, Headington, Oxford, by his daughter Isabel on 15 October 2011.
Works
Madariaga wrote books in Spanish, English, French and German. He is best known for the novel El Corazón de Piedra Verde (Heart of Jade).
Selected books The Sacred Giraffe: Being the Second Volume of the Posthumous Works of Julio Arceval (1925) (science fiction novel) Englishmen, Frenchmen, Spaniards: An Essay in Comparative Psychology, Oxford University Press, 1929 Disarmament, Coward-McCann, 1929 Anarchy or Hierarchy, Macmillan, 1937 Christopher Columbus, Macmillan, 1940 The Rise of the Spanish-American Empire, Hollis & Carter; Macmillan, 1947 The Fall of the Spanish-American Empire, Hollis & Carter, 1947; Macmillan, 1948 Bolivar, Hollis & Carter, 1952 Morning without Noon, 1973 El Corazón de Piedra Verde, 1942 (Heart of Jade) War in the Blood (sequel to Heart of Jade) Spain: a Modern History Hernán Cortés – Conqueror of Mexico, Macmillan, 1941 The Blowing up of the Parthenon, 1960 On Hamlet, Hollis & Carter, 1948 Latin America, Between the Eagle and the Bear, Praeger, 1962
Poetry The Serene Fountain (1927) Elegy on the Death of Unamuno (1937) Elegy at the Death of Federico García Lorca (1938) Rose of Silt and Ashes (1942) Romances for Beatriz (1955) She who Smells of Thyme and Rosemary (1959) Poppy (1965)
Articles "Englishman, Frenchman, Spaniard," The Atlantic (April 1928) "An Admirable Variety: Further Diversities of National Character," The Atlantic (September 1928) "Disarmament--American Plan," The Atlantic (April 1929) "Spain: The Politics," The Atlantic (March 1937)
See also
Contributions to liberal theory List of peace activists
Notes
References
External links
Madariaga – College of Europe Foundation Archived 19 July 2016 at the Wayback Machine Madariaga tennis Club in A Coruña. Madariaga European College. Archival sources by and on Salvador de Madariaga can be consulted at the Historical Archives of the European Union in Florence Newspaper clippings about Salvador de Madariaga in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW Washington Post obituary
