Miguel de UNAMUNO (1864-1936). LA.S., Fuerteventura March 15 - Lot 506

Miguel de UNAMUNO (1864-1936). LA.S., Fuerteventura March 15, 1924, to the director of the newspaper Le Quotidien; 2 pages in-4; in Spanish (translation enclosed). Violent indictment of the dictatorship in Spain, after his deportation to the Canaries. He could have fled before "this act of weakness and cowardice on the part of the grotesque Directoire headed by Primo de Rivera"; he could have asked for a pardon in exchange for his silence: "the feeling of our duty to the fatherland, now debased and torn apart by dictators, prevented us from doing so. [...] Europe must know that a group of prostitute generals, gamblers and drunkards are indulging their sadistic instincts in Spain [...] Primo de Rivera, a monster of lightness, spends his nights in bawdy houses, not with a mistress, no, but in public brothels, where the most serious decisions are taken with an already foggy brain - a real challenge to human dignity. [...] In prostitution, they have united the sacristy and the Cuartel général of the casino generals"... Unamuno recounts the rise of the people in power, their spinelessness, calling Primo de Rivera a "royal peacock" and Martinez Avido a "dangerous madman". He stigmatizes their political incompetence, their "violent resentment of intelligence"... "It's not a question of right or left, reaction or progress, freedom or tyranny, but of seriousness, cleanliness and dignity. We cannot keep Spain at the level of a casino, of petty scoundrels, and what is worse, of calotine fools. And we cannot, we must not remain silent. We cannot even hope that the army will rise up against those who debase, degrade and wound it. Of the king, who is a prisoner, it is better to say nothing"...