Set of thirteen unpublished letters from José Ortega y Gasset to Ramiro de Maeztu.-

Interesting set of thirteen unpublished letters that José Ortega y Gasset sent to Ramiro de Maeztu, some undated and others dated between 1909 and 1911, a period of intense ideological debate Between both.



The relationship between Ortega and Maeztu, although known, is not well documented. It is known that this relationship has been maintained since they met in 1902 until 1914, the year in which the Spanish Political Education League founded by Ortega the previous year began to function.



What for years was a close relationship both professionally and personally, led to enmity due to ideological disagreements and more specifically, as Juan Bagur Taltavull maintains in his thesis The idea of nation in the thought and political action of José Ortega y Gasset, "the radical rupture that will mean the evolution of Maeztu towards conservative nationalism"



The letters that we present show the fluidity of their relationship in these years prior to their rupture, before the distancing that occurs towards 1916 and that becomes evident in the second edition of Las Meditaciones del Quijote (1921) in which the dedication "To Ramiro de Maeztu, with a brotherly gesture" from the first edition of 1914 has disappeared.



Although it is true that some of the letters that we present show discrepancies in some aspects of their perception of the organization of the Spanish nation, they also reflect the respect and friendship that exists between the two in this period.

Then we extract the content of some of the letters:



-September 13, 1909. Dear Ramiro: Yesterday I met María (Ramiro''s sister)... I felt something similar when I saw my girlfriend for the first time, the who will soon be my wife, when I saw you, when I saw Hermann Cohen…. A brotherly hug, Pepe.

-Marburg, March 24, 1911. Dear Ramiro: Attach the letter from Fraud Montagne. As you can see we are going to be collaboration partners. Excuse me to tell you how concerned I am about the position to take in my letters (for now two monthly)... Journalism is fifty years behind in the whole world and does not respond as a form or organ to the function that already falls to it in the philosophy of the collective spirit... Yours fraternally, Pepe. Why don''t you come on the first train? It would be the best…

-Madrid, September 26, 1909: Dear Ramiro: although I have not yet seen the definitive list, I can tell you that María enters the School with number 1 and a few leagues ahead of all and all the others… In Spain the effervescence grows at times: we will see new things, surely not great. Hugs, Pepe.

-Marburg, February 13, 1911. Dear Ramiro: I am going to give you my opinion about the judgments in your letter... Do not forget the infinite chain: we try to make the Spanish communal, collective, cult: for this we are going to make a minority of communal, collective, fair; but let''s do it... Maria doesn''t need to work hard so much as to work well. … Health. A hug from Pepe

-Marburg, January 29, 1911: Dear Ramiro: I lower my pen with some anger and some pain: according to what Barnés writes to me, you have not met again. You are the most guilty of it for the same reason that you seemed the most enthusiastic…. A hug from your friend Pepe.

-Thursday, 25: Dear Ramiro: … I am finishing a folder on Morocco for “La Prensa”. Send me a letter as sending you my articles and their presentation. I have a foolish modesty to send that presentation myself. Warm hug, Pepe

-s/f: The Liberals are perfectly and absolutely dead. Moret is more unpopular than Maura: he is already literally an idiot... A hug, Pepe

-s/f: Dear Ramiro: I interrupt a long and reflective silence to send you that paper. My greatest satisfaction would be if your name was next to mine. Yours fraternally, Pepe. Spain rises.

-Thursday: Friend Maeztu: I see a very brief review of the book... It would be interesting if you made the book known... Your friend, Ortega.

-s/f: Dear Ramiro:... you tell me that you are a little sick: through your letter I seem to sense that you are sad. Take care, limit your work... I hope that in a couple of years something strong will come out of our workshop... He loves you very much, Pepe.

-Saturday, February 26. Dear Ramiro: do not be surprised that I write so little…. The crisis is indeed what you have felt: an indignity. All people endowed with any delicacy have experienced the same impression of infinite disgust. A hug, Pepe. State of the Spanish spirit today: absolute disorientation in the honest ones: only the base ones speak and are heard.

-s/f: Qº Ramiro: friendship has been and will always be between us and the harshness that I have ever sent you have always moved within that assumption. But I''m surprised that only this letter would have erased his anger…. I hope, however, that elements of another order do not intervene in your sadness…. I would be glad if you ever spoke to a boy, Sánchez Rivero, who used to live in Bilbao. Very intelligent, serene, serious and personal. This boy was an enemy of my opinions…he went to my class out of serious curiosity about the enemy. He worked more than anyone else throughout the course, this led him to learn about some things, to see the meaning of the background that many of our propositions have. Then he began to understand not only my things but also the cause of his old hostility towards them... We stumbled upon, then, the same thing that we intend to cure... A big hug, Pepe.

-s/f: Dear Ramiro: ... anyway the scoundrel remains and the responsibility of the government and the company is the same... Now they are trying to explain what happened in Barcelona as a world anarchist movement prepared in many parts of Spain... A hug, J. Ortega Gasset.