The failed creation of Oriental languages’ chairs (ancient Egyptian, Assyrian and Chinese) in the Universidad Central, Madrid

Abstract

In 1899, the member of the parliament and professor of History M. Morayta y Sagrario set a bill before the Spanish Congreso de los Diputados (House of Commons) to create three chairs of oriental languages in the Universidad Central of Madrid. This was the most serious attempt to create a Spanish academic field of studies on Orientalism in the 19th century. In the article, precedents for the creation of a scientific Oriental linguistic discipline in Spain and the causes of its limited presence in Universities are analysed. The author considers that it should be attributed rather to the scarce number of professional historians in the country and to the orientation towards the Magreb of the Spanish colonialism than to the lack of interest on these civilizations. The detail of the bill’s text are examined, specially its pretension to instruct young persons in European Faculties to prepare them for organizing a school of Oriental languages when they came back to their posts, and its immediate academic and legislative consequences. As a conclusion it is stated that it is through official academic institutions –and not through private ones– that Spanish Orientalism is sprouting in the last decades in the path pretended by M. Morayta’s objectives.