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‘The Foreign Modernity’: Symbolic Order and Science Policy at the CSIC During Early Francoism

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Science, Culture and National Identity in Francoist Spain, 1939–1959

Abstract

In this chapter, the author approaches the history of science under early Francoism from a cultural perspective. By analysing narratives, symbols, and rituals surrounding the Higher Council for Scientific Research (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, CSIC), he argues that this institution was designed to represent what was conceived as a specific Spanish path within the history of modern science. Following Antolín, the Higher Council was set up as a symbol which pointed to a catholic and pre-modern intellectual tradition. Eventually, the national narrative underlying the symbolic order of the CSIC of the 1940s became useless when Francoist discourses started embracing post-war developmentalism.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Cf. Juliá (2005): 34ff.; Álvarez Junco (2007): 413ff., 443ff.

  2. 2.

    As shown by the so-called Polemics of Spanish Science, cf. Álvarez Junco (2007): 383–496; Juliá (2005): 46–57. For a history of science in Spain in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the study of Sánchez Ron (1999) remains fundamental.

  3. 3.

    For the identification of ‘science’ with a ‘Europe’ synonymous with ‘modernity’ in the first third of the twentieth century, see, for example, Juliá (2005): 149–152.

  4. 4.

    For Spanish institutions, see Romero; Santesmases (eds.) (2008); Gómez; Canales (eds.) (2009); see later for the international institutions.

  5. 5.

    In addition to those already mentioned, we will only mention recent publications that summarise the general lines of research. See Puig-Samper (2007); Romero; Santesmases (eds.) (2008); Gómez; Canales (eds.) (2009).

  6. 6.

    See, for example, Otero Carvajal (ed.) (2014).

  7. 7.

    Cf. Gómez (2009): 13–47.

  8. 8.

    The studies of Malet (2008): 211–256; ID. (2019) already point in this direction.

  9. 9.

    Cf. Antolin Hofrichter (2018): 68–116; 321–335.

  10. 10.

    Cf. Malet (2019).

  11. 11.

    Cf. Stadler (2004); Vom Bruch (2002): 60–74; Orth (ed.) (2010); Guthleben (2003); Simili; Paoloni (eds.) (2001); Edgerton (2003): 759–776.

  12. 12.

    Both terms are already found in the CSIC’s founding law. BOE, 28 November 1939: 6669.

  13. 13.

    Recent research has revealed the importance of symbols in the ‘construction of Francoism’ and therefore also of its scientific institutions. For this aspect, see Box (2010); Michonneau; Núñez Seixas (eds.) (2014).

  14. 14.

    In this regard, see also, recently Malet (2019): 124–130.

  15. 15.

    The results of the research group that primarily studied this aspect in Melville (2001).

  16. 16.

    BOE, 28 November 1939: 6668.

  17. 17.

    We refer here mainly to the Institute of Spain, promoted by Pedro Sainz Rodríguez. Cf. Malet (2008).

  18. 18.

    BOE, 28 November 1939: 6668. The symbols of the Council were stipulated in BOE, 18 March 1940: 1897–1898.

  19. 19.

    BOE, 28 November 1939: 6668.

  20. 20.

    BOE, 31 July 1943: 7408.

  21. 21.

    For a first approach to the analysis of these Plenary Sessions, see Malet (2008): 211–256.

  22. 22.

    CSIC (1942): 33.

  23. 23.

    The budget for the National Edition of the complete works of Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo for the years 1942–1944 was 550,000 pesetas and that of the Jerónimo Zurita Institute was 900,000 pesetas for the same period. Calculations made from the budgets published in the Memoirs of the Council for the corresponding years.

  24. 24.

    General Archive of the University of Navarra, Collection of Albareda, 006/001/075, Letter from Enrique Sánchez Reyes to Alfredo Sánchez Bella of 3 October 1940. In general, see the correspondence between Albareda and Sánchez Bella archived in the General Archive of the University of Navarra, Collection of Albareda, 006/001.

  25. 25.

    CSIC (1942): 30.

  26. 26.

    The first six Departments were established in the BOE, 17 February 1940: 1201–1203. The remaining two were institutionalised in the BOE, 24 January 1948: 337–339.

  27. 27.

    The words of Schreiber are quoted in Albareda (1956): 43 (italics in the original). For more information on this conference, see Presas (1998): 343–357.

  28. 28.

    N.N.: ‘The Minister of National Education presided yesterday at the opening session of the fifth Plenary Session of the Spanish National Research Council’, ABC, 15 December 1944. The event was recorded and is available at the CSIC (1945): 1–2.

  29. 29.

    Cf. Guerrero (2007): 287–289.

  30. 30.

    This ‘spiritual Trust’ was stipulated in the BOE, 18 March 1940: 1898.

  31. 31.

    The Memoirs of the Council contain detailed protocols of the programme and the course of each of these Plenary Sessions.

  32. 32.

    CSIC (1946): 80.

  33. 33.

    The desire for external projection is evident, for example, in his correspondence with Alfredo Sánchez Bella, in the General Archive of the University of Navarra, collection of Calvo Serer 001/033/468–1: Letter from Rafael Calvo Serer to Alfredo Sánchez Bella of 4 April 1950. On Calvo Serer and his intellectual circle, cf. Prades (2012).

  34. 34.

    Ibid: 40.

  35. 35.

    CSIC (1951): 94.

  36. 36.

    Calvo Serer (1950).

  37. 37.

    CSIC (1943): 52.

  38. 38.

    Figure used in the CSIC (1942): 8, as well as in its correspondence, in General Archive of the University of Navarra, Collection of Albareda, 006/001/021–1 and 006/001/036–1, Letters from Albareda to Riviere of 4 June 1940 and 11 July 1940, respectively. Albareda’s traditional regionalism rooted in his youth, as highlighted by Malet . Cf. Malet (2009): 307–332.

  39. 39.

    CSIC (1942): 96.

  40. 40.

    Albareda (1951): 14.

  41. 41.

    Roger (1953): 131.

  42. 42.

    This is all explicitly stipulated in the BOE, 18 March 1940: 1898.

  43. 43.

    In the words of Ibáñez Martín, CSIC (1945): 45.

  44. 44.

    On the semantic obscurity and stabilising function of the symbols, see Boyer (2001): 641–643.

  45. 45.

    BOE, 28 November 1939: 6668.

  46. 46.

    CSIC (1951): 94.

  47. 47.

    Carrero Blanco (1950): 16.

  48. 48.

    Albareda (1951): 419.

  49. 49.

    For the German case, see, for example, Rohrkrämer (1999).

  50. 50.

    For the place of ‘technology’ within the representations of the nation in Europe, cf. Vogel (2008): 105–120.

  51. 51.

    Of the numerous publications that analyse this debate, the present text only mentions the studies of Saz (2003): 379ff.; Juliá (2005): 355ff.

  52. 52.

    Palacio Atard (1949): 179.

  53. 53.

    Pérez Embid (1949): 151.

  54. 54.

    Calvo Serer: (1947): 344.

  55. 55.

    However, some important figures, such as José María Otero Navascués, a promoter of technical research in the CSIC since early Francoism, and later also of nuclear energy, showed a clearly enthusiastic attitude towards the technical branches. Cf. Presas (2008).

  56. 56.

    Calvo Serer (1945): 32.

  57. 57.

    CSIC (1951): 67.

  58. 58.

    The introduction to the first institutional memory already praised the ‘Tree of Science that points to Heaven’, but ‘all this without stopping to look abroad’, CSIC (1942): VI.

  59. 59.

    Cf. Antolin Hofrichter (2018): 94–117; 321–335. See also Delgado Gómez-Escalonilla (2007): 269–277.

  60. 60.

    Particularly striking is the shift of financial and symbolic resources towards applied sciences from the early 1950s to the detriment of the sciences of the spirit. In this regard, see the budgets provided in the Memoirs of the CSIC, as well as the documentation in the General Archive of the Administration, Collection of the Education, Box 31/8811, ‘Explanatory memoir on the budget of the Spanish National Research Council for the years 1956/1957’, including 16 pp. with budget statistics and 17 pp. with comments and explanations. For an analysis of the relative weight of the sciences of the spirit in the budget and in the Plenary Sessions of the CSIC, see Antolin Hofrichter (2018): 71–80; 149–154; Malet (2019).

  61. 61.

    Cf. Botti (2008).

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  1. Duale Europäische Wirtschaftsakademie, Madrid, Spain

    Andrés Antolín Hofrichter

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  1. Department of Humanities, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain

    Marició Janué i Miret

  2. Department of Humanities, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain

    Albert Presas i Puig

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Antolín Hofrichter, A. (2021). ‘The Foreign Modernity’: Symbolic Order and Science Policy at the CSIC During Early Francoism. In: Janué i Miret, M., Presas i Puig, A. (eds) Science, Culture and National Identity in Francoist Spain, 1939–1959 . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58646-1_3

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