The modern sport and Unamuno

Jesús Castañón Rodríguez

Literature with sporting subject appears with the ’98 generation, a group of authors whose study has covered focuses about the distressed worry because of the Spain’s backwardness and the search for solutions in order to create a modern State by means of the imitation of foreign techniques and ideologies and also by means of the exaltation of a new patriotism (1).

This necessity for bringing up to date with concrete fulfillment required previously a modern and technical education and also a physical and spiritual renewal (2) where the modern sport becomes a subject for literature based on creation of several authors of the end of the century. Chronologically its predecessor is Miguel de Unamuno (3), with his habitual criticism based on the Spanish obscurantism and the European progress as well as the proposal of solutions which will expand the Latin-American world (4).

I 
FOR AN INTELLECTUAL VIEW OF THE MODERN SPORT

As a result of this role of reflection based on the search for a deep renewal, Unamuno interprets the sporting world which surrounds him without copying nor deforming it towards history and the intimacy searching for the emotional side of the things, to the extent of coming to the conclusion that the landscape conditions man the way he is (5). It carries out the role of the intellectual man as  the head of a political and social vanguard who resorts to the essay as literary genre in order to carry out sociological criticism.

He practices a literary genre constituted by the essay which handles directly the national aspect settled in several main lines: the understanding of the past with ideal and moral values, the problem of Spain and the urge for Europeanization, the extension of his ideals and reflections to his collaborations in American publications, and the debate between Europeanization and the traditional, authentic aspect in all his displays.

The journalistic essay as a way of expression

With this role of observer of the social vanguard, Unamuno states that the function of the university student is more in journalism than in teaching, with a dissemination of criticism of ideas which has to be explained with a tone “para hacer oír con los ojos” (to make people hear with his/her eyes) (6). This is the reason by which he collaborates in numerous Spanish and foreign publications (7). The Miguel de Unamuno’s sporting reflection is developed in publications of general information, in cultural magazines and in magazines specialized in modern sport, to be exact in publications from Basque Country -the magazine Euskalherria (1903)-; from Madrid -the dailies El Liberal (1920), El Sol (1932), Ahora (1933 and 1934), the magazines La Esfera (1915) and Nuevo Mundo (1915, 1917 and 1922) and the pedagogical publication Boletín de la Institución Libre de Enseñanza (1921); from Valladolid -the daily El Norte de Castilla- and from Catalonia -the sporting magazine from Barcelona (1923)-, as well as in publications of Argentina -the magazine La Baskonia (1907) and the daily La Nación (1920, 1923 and 1924)- and from Chile -the magazine Juventud (1921)-.

II
STAGES IN THE UNAMUNO’S SPORTING REFLECTION

The Miguel de Unamuno’s ideology about the modern sport starts from a thoughtful attitude about the creative reading and interpretation of Spanish articles and translations of foreign texts in cultural Spanish magazines. It shows a worry over the exterior world, from the own subjectivity, characterized by the realization of journalistic essays about sociological and ideological aspects in order to renew social structures and the individual people’s mentality with a tone based on regeneration. And just like in other writings of his own, these sporting texts have elements of humanistic and classic formation, education- with quotations from the Greek and Roman sport-, the worry about death- because sport is a display of militarism which is hidden by an exaltation of patriotism-, the contrast between national and foreign values with a special English influence, as well as the analysis of the relationships between men and sport by means of links of language and space. His sporting ideology has four main lines which are fundamental: modern sport as source of health, modern sport as element of affective expansion, modern sport as educational means in order to create a new man and an intellectual view.

Sport as source of health

A first way of thought consists of the consideration of the practice of modern sport as source of health.

It is connected with a stage of personal problems and health ones in Bilbao and family ones in Salamanca. As high school student in Bilbao, he got fond of mountaineering and going on a trip throughout the Basque woodlands, as a result of the daily long walks the doctor had prescribed in order to fight against his problems of narrowness of chest. Practice he carried out in Salamanca with long walks along the road of Zamora. Its beneficial effects are described by him like an expansion of the soul and like an acquisition of spirit based on freedom in order to enjoy calmly fugitive sensations and also in order to look much younger as far as the hard work is concerned (9). Later, as rector from Salamanca University he will exalt the influence of sport in health with the drawing of a gymnastic board as rehabilitation exercises in order to recover one of his daughters from the illness of bifid spine, according to a sketch which is nowadays in the House-Museum Unamuno in Salamanca.

Modern sport as affective expansion

A second way of thought corresponds to the description of the festive atmosphere of the restoration based on the pelota play in Bilbao at the end of the XIXth century with customs and manners pictures, within the framework of Basque cultural recovery which exalts customs, celebrations and folklore in an idyllic view of the rural aspect as a way of resistance to the incipient industrialization.

It includes reflections about the spectators of the sporting event: the division into factions with economic interests exalting passions, the journalistic articles of sport as if they were concise dispatch of war and the social literature of manners before, during and after the match (10).

Modern sport as a means in order to create a new man

A third way of thought and also a most complex one is based on the consideration of modern sport as an educational element which is able to crate a new man. Ideology he develops in Salamanca and also includes two aspects: the exaltation of the ancient culture from the Greeks as far as musculature is concerned and also the role of the modern pedagogy in this same labor.

On the one hand, the Unamuno’s personality turns out favorable to the spiritual regeneration of the race by means of the use of sport as a moral forge, within the generalized atmosphere in Europe, an atmosphere based on exaltation of the ancient culture from the Greeks as far as musculature is concerned in order to look for a complete man, well-balanced in body and soul. It is a facet of the “metarritmitis” or moral transformation of young people which will be distorted and deformed intellectually in the XXth century, a fact Unamuno reproaches with severity in essays based on criticism of the political system spread by means of the press, the Ateneo and the University chairs.

With modern sport the starting points for a spiritual regeneration linked to an educational ideal which is in the service of the larger part of the village and not in the service of a learned minority are created. A special and moral education, formation is created; this education is based on sincerity and authenticity of personal relationships, honesty and honorable behavior and level-headedness and poise of character- which tries to favor the human progress. Unamuno takes part in this yearning for spiritual renewal of Spain understood as pedagogical mission- which was developed by the Giner de los Ríos’s krausism (philosophical system based on a conciliation between theism and pantheism) by means of the activities of University Extension- trying to carry out a university extension in Salamanca in the style of Oviedo University (11).

And on the other hand, Unamuno has a great worry about the role of pedagogy and physical education as far as the construction of the new society prepared physically, morally and intellectually is concerned. In his works, writings, edited by dailies, sporting magazines and pedagogical publications- like the Boletín de la Institución Libre de Enseñanza-, he analyses the aspects, based on muscular gymnastics, military training, exercises for strengthening, walks and picnics and organized bodily games. In these exercises there are several considerations about the sporting values which favor the English and French pedagogy-to the detriment of the German conception-: the benefit of the physical exercise, the effort as progress and the control, regulation of the hierarchical social life with values imposed with intelligence, and not with violence and under duress (12). And the references to its Spanish adaptation are constant, adaptation by means of entities or organizations like the Institución Libre de Enseñanza (Free Institution based on Education), La Escuela Moderna (The Modern School), the Instituto Militar Pestalozziano (Pestalozziano Military Institute), the Batallones escolares (the school Battalions) and the Boy-scout.

His sporting thought coincides in essence with the labor developed by the Institución Libre de Enseñanza (Free Institution based on Education), which wanted to carry out the moral, intellectual, cultural and physical development as a way in order to get social progress with three main lines of action: the disinterestedness in gymnastics, except as a medical element, the disinterestedness in the school battalions and ritual ways of patriotism and the encouragement of the organized bodily games which are spread out from France, England and Germany in the second half of the XIXth century.

These three main lines of general course of action were carried out by the Francisco Giner de los Ríos’s pedagogical reform in 1888 (13), also by the Movimiento de Oviedo (Movement of Oviedo)one and by numerous members from the Institución Libre de Enseñanza (Free Institution based on Education), people who also carried out a pedagogical reform. By means of their informative bulletin they show a favorable provision to the massive dissemination of the bodily games from the Extensión Cultural (Cultural Extension), with activities for popularization and massive dissemination of scientific knowledge. This pedagogical task which appears in 1871 in England, is adopted by the Oviedo University in 1898 and in its sporting aspect it is developed by Adolfo Álvarez Buylla- favorable to the man’s integral education and also favorable to the fact of promoting an harmony between soul and body since 1888-,by Aniceto Sela- who considers the bodily games as school with a moral condition and also with a physical strength one in 1887, in imitation of the French educational ideas and of the Oxford and Cambridge Universities and by Adolfo Posada who is an specialist in the study of the French pedagogy. This process culminates in the participation of these three teachers in the Congress from Paris the 16th of June, 1894, in La Sorbona University, where the Olympic Games’ restoration is passed, approved (14).

The modern sport’s intellectual view

The fourth and last stage of Unamuno’s sporting reflection is carried out in Salamanca and during his exile, with an intellectual view of the Spanish sporting world which is later directed at several Latin-American countries. Unamuno criticizes the conversion of sport into a patriotic mission which opposes the educational mission which is upheld by the Institución Libre de Enseñanza (Free Institution based on Education) and it also rebels against the use of sport with political aims.

With his intellectual look on the modern sport in Spain, which was discussed in America later, it’s frequent the appearance of the following ideas:

a)The contrast between sport as unaware and exacerbated spirituality in contrast to intelligentsia which favors to man with common and average sense.
b) The criticism of sport as school based on chauvinistic morality and also a morality based on falsification of the patriotic feeling with an exaggeration of the unity without integration of differences nor search for an emotional and intellectual richness, which reaches its peak during the Primo de Rivera’s Military Directive. In civil life a civic training with a pre-military characteristic is promoted, this same civic training exalts chance, fate and several values which aren’t intellectual ones and which stop the spiritual renewal (15).
c) The characterization of sporting spirit as a way of reaction against intelligence.
d) The criticism of the professional sportsman /sportswoman’s vanity, though it maintains respect for the individual practice of the different sporting displays.
e)The accusation of the Flemish and social aspect based on the professional football, to the extent of the use of the arguments about football as sedative of the masses’ social criticism.
f) The excessive ritual of the bodily games included in the modern sport’s discipline after the restoration of the Olympic Games. Only football appears as freedom symbol in contrast to the physical education with a pre-military feature (16).
g) The prejudices the professionalism of sport causes in players’, amateurs’ and specialized press’s intellectual values.
h) The comparison between the modern bodily games’ crowd, also the pelota’s and the bullfighting world’s crowd.
i) The usefulness of sport as a way in order to characterize the Spanish society’s violence.

Unamuno explains these sporting ideas with a linguistic style characterized by simplicity in order to tell the facts with loyalty. Some of the most important features are: the presence of technical terms of modern sport, the use of anglicisms in an etymological sense in order to define the amateur’s social role, the lexical creativity with the suffixes -ero, -ismo in order to report the exaggerations about physical education and the modification of the repeated speech starting on sentences of classical languages. It is the case of the following terms: aficionado, cortada, chutar, dejada, deportero, deportismo, gentleman, goal, héroe, pelotari, pelotaire, saque, sportman, sportmanship and volea. The modification of the repeated speech is present at the transformation of Panem et circenses! into ¡Pan y pelotón! with the exaggeration of football, it’s also present at a process which culminates with the report of the masses’ political use in the stadium with the expression ¡Pasto y deportes!. References to classical heroes based on effort and also references to the Greek and Roman games of the classical world appear.

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Traducción: María Elena Martín Pérez