The role of José Ortega y Gasset, José Gaos and other Spanish transterrados in the promotion of German culture in Latin America

Abstract

Cultural contacts between different countries are partly governed by official relations; however, sometimes surprising, unforeseen developments take place. Such seems to be the case with the Spanish exile in Latin America, which fosters a reception of German (and Spanish) culture not intentionally sought by the totalitarian or authoritarian political regimes that ruled Germany and Spain in the 1940s. To understand this peculiar situation, the specific development of politics and the humanities in Spain in the first decades of the twentieth century must be taken into account. In the first section, I will discuss the reasons for the reception of German philosophy and culture in Spain from the nineteenth century onwards. Then, in the second section, I will consider the dominant figure in the Latin American philosophical world in the first part of the twentieth century: José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955). In the third part, I will talk about José Gaos (1900- 1969) and some other Spanish transterrados (especially in Mexico), who became the main translators and transmitters of German culture in Latin America. In closing, I will present some conclusions based on the above.