Sánchez-Albornoz, Claudio

b. 1893, Madrid; d. 1984, Avila

   Historian

   One of the most important medieval historians of the twentieth century in Spain, Sánchez-Albornoz became professor of Spanish History in Barcelona in 1918, at the age of 25, and was elected to the Royal Academy of History in 1925, though it was to be another half-century before he delivered his inaugural address. A member of the Constituent Cortes of the Second Republic in 1931, he subsequently became a minister and later ambassador to Portugal. After the Civil War he went into exile in Argentina, where from 1942 he occupied a chair in the University of Buenos Aires. A liberal Catholic and lifelong Republican, he was head of the Republican government-inexile between 1959 and 1970.

   His name, however, will always be associated with that of Américo Castro, with whom he carried on an intense polemic for many years over the interpretation of medieval Spanish history. In works such as España, un enigma histórico (Spain, a Historical Enigma) (1956), Sánchez-Albornoz took issue with what he saw as Castro's obsession with genetic inheritance as a factor in the transmission of culture, and accused him of exaggerating Jewish and Muslim influence and playing down the artistic and intellectual contribution of Christians. In Sánchez-Albornoz's view, Castro was excessively pessimistic about Spain's capacity to overcome its inherited disadvantages. His own preferred approach was to emphasize cultural continuity, in line with his liberal belief in progress.

   See also: education and research; Francoist culture; historiography

   EAMONN RODGERS