The ‘Wise Man’ or the ‘Traitor’? Gregorio Marañón with the intellectuals of Uruguay (Montevideo, 1937)

Abstract

In December 1936, Gregorio Marañón –who had spent the first months of the Civil War in Madrid– managed to leave Spain and began to publish in Paris virulent attacks against the Republic. In March and April 1937, thanks to an invitation from the Uruguayan Health Minister, he spent several weeks in Uruguay, Argentina and Chile. On arriving in Montevideo, he was given a warm welcome by dictator Gabriel Terra and pro-government writers,but was attacked by the opposition and by the majority of intellectuals. A study of Marañón’s impact in Montevideo permits a deeper understanding of a decisive period of his intellectual biography; it also offers an illuminating insight into the Uruguayan intellectual field, which was highly politicised and passionately aware of events in Spain. Intellectuals as important as Carlos Reyles, Emilio Frugoni, Elías Castelnuovo, Carlos Quijano and Fernán Silva Valdés intervene in the debate over the figure of Marañón.