Tierno Galván, Enrique

b. 1918, Madrid; d. 1986, Madrid

   Academic and politician

   Tierno Galván fought on the Republican side during the Civil War, and was interned in a concentration camp. Between 1948 and 1953, he was professor of Public Law in the University of Murcia, and from 1953 to 1965 occupied a chair in the University of Salamanca, where he helped to found a newsletter, the Boletín Informativo, which became the vehicle for popularizing British neo-positivist philosophy. The Salamanca group, as they came to be known, was pro-European in its outlook, and in 1955 launched a Sociedad por la Unidad Funcional de Europa (Society for the Functional Unity of Europe).

   In the mid-1950s, Tierno's political stance was close to that of the liberal monarchists of Union Española, but in the 1960s he moved closer to socialism. Already, in 1957, he had been imprisoned for his opposition to the Franco regime. His support for student demands led in 1965 to his dismissal from his chair, together with José Luis Aranguren and Agustín García Calvo. The following two years were spent at Princeton University. In 1967 he return to Spain and joined the still-illegal PSOE, but left in the following year to found his own Partido Socialista en el Interior (Spanish-based Socialist Party: the leadership of the PSOE was still located abroad), which in 1974 became the Partido Socialista Popular (Popular Socialist Party). In the first democratic elections (1977) he won a seat in the Cortes, and shortly after, his party merged with PSOE, of which he became for a brief period Honorary President. In 1979 he was elected Mayor of Madrid, with the combined votes of socialists and communists, a post which he occupied until his death. As mayor, "the old professor", as he was known from his Salamanca days, enjoyed enormous popularity, and gave a considerable boost to cultural life. Tierno's numerous publications include: Costa y d regeneracionismo (Joaquín Costa and the Regenera-tionist Movement) (1961), Acotaciones a la historia de la cultura occidental en la Edad Moderna (Observations on the History of Western Culture in the Modern Period) (1964), Leyes políticas españolas fundamentales (Fundamental Public Law in Spain) (1966), and Democracia, Socialismo y Libertad (Democracy, Socialism and Freedom) (1977).

   Further reading

   - de los Ríos, C.A. (1997) La verdad sobre Tierno Galván, Madrid: Anaya (a critical biography).

   ALICIA ALTED