Ernesto Giménez Caballero | |
|---|---|
_Ernesto_Gim%25C3%25A9nez_Caballero.jpg) | |
| Born | Ernesto Giménez Caballero (1899-08-02)2 August 1899 |
| Died | 15 May 1988(1988-05-15) (aged 88) |
| Alma mater | Central University,University of Strasbourg |
| Notable work | Genio de España,La Nueva Catolicidad |
| Political party | Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las JONS |
Ernesto Giménez Caballero (2 August 1899 – 14 May 1988), also known asGecé, was a Spanish writer, diplomat, and pioneer ofFascism in Spain. Director and founder of the avant-garde magazineLa Gaceta Literaria (1927–1932), his work has been categorized as being part of theFuturist andSurrealist movement, whileStanley G. Payne has described him as the SpanishGabriele d'Annunzio.
He took the baccalaureate education at theInstituto San Isidro.[1] Between 1916 and 1920 he took studies inLetras at the Central University (where he wrote for the Conservative journalFilosofía y Letras and helped to launch a "Group of Socialist Students", some of whose members would soon after establish theSpanish Communist Party),[2] and then collaborated for a time at the Centro de Estudios Históricos before moving to theUniversity of Strasbourg to work as lecturer in Spanish.[3] Influenced byJosé Ortega y Gasset's critique ofdemocracy, however, he became anationalist in the vein ofMiguel de Unamuno.[4]
He performed his military service inSpanish Morocco, although his 1923 book on the experience,Notas Marruecas de un Soldado, caused such outrage amongst the generals that he was imprisoned for a time before being pardoned by General and DictatorMiguel Primo de Rivera.[4]
As founder and Director of the avant-garde magazineLa Gaceta Literaria (1927–1932), literary critic forEl Sol newspaper, and collaborator of Ortega y Gasset'sRevista de Occidente, in those years he published his most notable avant-garde works:Carteles yLos toros, las castañuelas y la Virgen (1927),Yo, inspector de alcantarillas (surreal stories, 1928),Hércules jugando a los dados (1928),Julepe de menta (1929) yTrabalenguas sobre España (1931).
Giménez Caballero was also involved in the rising experimental film scene in Madrid, opening a cineclub withJuan Piqueras Martínez andLuis Buñuel in 1928. His works as a filmmaker in those years includeNoticiario del cineclub (1930),Esencia de verbena (1930), andLos judíos de patria Española (1931).[5][6]
But in 1928 he went toItaly and struck up friendships with such fascist thinkers asGiuseppe Bottai,Giovanni Gentile,Curzio Malaparte andFilippo Tommaso Marinetti, eventually becoming an adherent of fascist beliefs himself.
Having had already made a name for himself as anaesthetic writer, he announced his conversion to fascism in 1928 in an article inLa Gaceta Literaria,[7] a journal he had founded in 1927.[4] Dubbed the "Spanishd'Annunzio", his conversion saw him cut off from Spain's high culture which was dominated by Liberals, becoming what he described as "a literaryRobinson Crusoe".[8] In February 1929 he published "Carta a un compañero de la Joven España", considered the first intellectual manifesto of Spanish fascism.
Being married to anItalian, sister of the Italian Consul at Strasburg,[9] Giménez Caballero's fascism was largely derived from theItalian model of fascism whilst also including an international dimension in which he saw fascism as the future of theLatinCatholic world.[10] He had little sympathy forNational Socialism, which he saw as tooProtestant and northern, even going so far as foreseeing war between fascism and national socialism.[10]
Writing extensively about the decadence of modern society and fascism in his book 1932Genio de España, Giménez Caballero called for a re-establishment of theSpanish Empire to its former glory under a Mussolini-led Latin union.[4] His follow-up,La Nueva Catolicidad, underlined his commitment to Catholicism within a fascist framework.
Giménez Caballero was a promoter of culturalPhilosephardism, publishing several philosephardist pieces himself inLa Gaceta Literaria.[11] His Philosephardism—not exempt from contradictions—was no impediment to the outburst ofantisemitic ideas in Gecé, particularly once his Fascist romanism affirmed, although there is no clear boundary in the chronology.[12]
Gimenez Caballero declared his support for the plans ofRamiro Ledesma Ramos inLa Conquista del Estado (The Conquest of the State)[13] and became involved in hisJuntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista. However the writer was no political organizer and generally left control of the movement to Ledesma.[10] He went on to join theFalange Española y de las JONS and served on the council of the movement. However he was at odds with many of the ideas ofJosé Antonio Primo de Rivera, son of his former redeemer from jail, General Miguel Primo de Rivera. He was expelled from the Falange in 1936 after he began to work with theMallorca bankerJuan March Ordinas in the Partido Español de Patrones y Empresarios.[4] Later readmitted to the Falange, he fled to Italy during theSpanish Civil War, but from abroad encouragedFrancisco Franco tomerge the Falangists with theCarlists. He was rewarded for his encouragement with the post of Vice-Secretary for National Education in Franco's inaugural cabinet.[4]
One of the most bizarre of Giménez Caballero's actions was perhaps his unsuccessful attempt to marry Primo de Rivera's sister,Pilar, toAdolf Hitler, as a way to "soften" and "catholicize" the latter.[14]
After the Spanish Civil War he spent most of his time abroad, holding positions in the Spanish embassies inParaguay andBrazil before being appointed ambassador to Paraguay in 1958, a position he held for 12 years. In later life he continued as a writer, winning his final writing prize, Premio Espejo de España, for his workRetratos españoles (bastante parecidos) in 1985 whilst also directing a series ofdocumentary films. He claimed later in life, in his 80s to have become a follower ofanarcho-syndicalism.[15]
Giménez Caballero, who spent his last months following a surgical procedure to treatcataract in his house in theEl Viso colony under an ill condition and dealing with auditive disorders, finally died on 14 May 1988.[16]
