“Revista de Occidente” stores its legacy in the Caja de las Letras del Cervantes

Caja de las Letras Instituto Cervantes welcomed yesterday the legacy western magazine, the legendary publication founded in 1923 by the philosopher José Ortega y Gasset and celebrating its centenary this year. Four copies are stored in box number 914 of the old vault of the former Banco Santander Central Hispano, corresponding to each of the phases the magazine went through, as well as books by thinkers Javier Gom Lanzon, Diego Garroch, Adele Cortina and Remedios Zafra.

During one of his frequent walks in Madrid, José Ortega y Gasset came up with the idea of ​​founding western magazine, a new header with which you can see the world clearly. The philosopher was involved in several newspaper companies – newspapers Sun and Spain-, but he failed to develop his aspiration in any of them. The intellectual dreamed of addressing the public, which had begun to be “overwhelmed by chaos”.

A hundred years later, that initiative still exists. The director of the Instituto Cervantes, Luis García Montero, believes that the spirit of the magazine preserves the essence of the personality of Ortega y Gasset, who realized that the difficult situation in Spain at the beginning of the last century did not call for him to lock himself up as a professor.

“You had to mix with reality and its cultural demands. That’s why he realized that he had to do a good part of his work in newspapers. with western magazine he tried to find a middle ground between the newspaper, sometimes forced by urgency and superficiality, and the academic book, closed in the rigor of the university offices of the time,” he recalled.

In its first phase, western magazine He published 157 issues, and among his merits is that he brought together the greats of various literary generations: those of 1998, 14, 27 and 36. Not for nothing, among her collaborators were Ramón Gómez de la Serna, Rafael Alberti, Francisco Ayala, Federico García Lorca, Dámaso Alonso, Vicente Aleixandre, Pío Baroja, Rosa Chacel, Luis Cernuda, Juan Ramón Jiménez, María Zambrano, Américo Castro, Jorge Guillén, Ernesto Giménez Caballero, Gregorio Marañón, Eugenio Montes, Pedro Salinas and Eugenio d’Ors , among many others.

It was in 1924 that Gregorio Marañón published his first article about don Juan in the pages of the publication, pages that marked the passage of time when magazines were fundamental. “The so-called silver age of Spanish culture is inseparable from the power and space occupied by these magazines,” said García Montero. The magazine also launched a collection that spawned Gypsy romancefrom Lorca; to singJorge Guillen; and the eve of joyby Pedro Salinas.

The magazine soon became a transatlantic bridge, as distinguished Latin American intellectuals participated in it, welcoming ideas coming from Germany, France, Great Britain or the United States. Among the collaborators from across the pond were Pablo Neruda, Victoria Ocampo and Jorge Luis Borges. On its pages, the thoughts and works of Jean Cocteau, Franz Kafka, Sören Kierkegaard and Bertrand Russell have been translated into Spanish.

Modernity

The magazine’s current director, Fernando Rodríguez Lafuente, claimed that the title introduced modernity to Spain. “Spanish modernity simply meant something very simple, which is that ideas travel”, to contribute to the “symbolic fall of the Pyrenees”, pointed out Rodríguez.

The first epoch of western magazine It extends from its creation, in 1923, to July 1936, the period in which Fernando Vela was the editorial secretary. The second phase lasts from 1963 to 1975, the part in which José Ortega Spottorno, son of Ortega y Gasset, took command. With publications like Dialogue notebooks or Triumph, a creature enlightened by a philosopher soon became the cultural breeding ground for many leaders who would years later be instrumental in the Transition. The third phase lasted until 1977, a phase crossed by economic instability. Gregorio Marañón y Beltrán de Lis revived the magazine in 1980, under the leadership of Soledad Ortega Spottorno, daughter of the author Invertebrate Spain.

The director of the Juan March Foundation, Javier Gomá Lanzón, chose his work imitation and experience to leave in the Caja de las Letras, while Diego S. Garrocho chose About nostalgia. Damnatio memoriae. The legacy is rounded off with works minimal ethicsAdela Cortina, i fragile. Letters about anxiety and hope in a new cultureRemedios Zafra.