HISTORICAL DICTIONARY A–Z - Spain and Portugal: A Reference Guide from the Renaissance to the Present - page 102

Baroja, Pío (1872-1956)
Spanish novelist
A Basque born in San Sebastian and trained
as a physician, Baroja gave up his rural
practice before age 30 to devote himself to
social issues. After two unsuccessful cam-
paigns for parliament as a Republican and
an unsuccessful period in the family busi-
ness, he became a full-time writer. His out-
put in this career choice was prodigious,
totaling nearly 100 volumes. Baroja's favor-
ite format was the trilogy of linked novels,
of which he produced 11. He also achieved
identification as the “heir” to B ENITO P ÉREZ
G ALDÓS , the 19th-century historical novel-
ist. Baroja chronicled, in a series of no less
than 22 volumes called Memorias de un hom-
bre de acción (Memoirs of a man of action,
1913-28), the adventures of a hero who
participates in all of the wars and upheavals
in Spain from the onset of the First Carlist
War to the fall of I SABELLA II. The sheer
mass of his writing has led some commen-
tators not only to hail him as the new
Galdós but as Spain's greatest novelist of
the 20th century, or even as Spain's greatest
modern writer. More restrained critics have
focused their praise on the consistency of
Baroja's preoccupation with social issues,
particularly the repression and degradation
of the lower classes. The multiplicity and
variety of his scenes and characters draw
the reader on, but often without a coherent
plot. His protagonists, moreover, have been
found wanting in individual traits or inner
motivations. Many of them, it has been
said, are simply excuses to follow a thread
of action from one moment or one scene to
another without much resolution of the
issues presented.
Baroja's ability to pursue a long literary
career through the changing sociopolitical

century was followed by a period of decline
and stimulated Catalan antagonism to the
emerging centralization of Spanish govern-
ment. Barcelona rebelled against the Madrid
regime during the mid-1600s and again in
the W AR OF THE S PANISH S UCCESSION . The
deterioration of its Mediterranean com-
merce and its exclusion from Spanish-
American trade until 1778 contributed to
Barcelona's decline as a financial center.
Barcelona experienced a renewal of for-
tune thanks to the Industrial Revolution,
and by the late 19th century had become a
thriving center of manufacturing and a
place of great wealth and political influ-
ence. Catalan industrialists, though usually
at odds with the thousands of workers who
swelled the city's population and who often
espoused anarchism, were joined with
them in sympathy for Catalan nationalism.
The revival of the region's distinct language
and culture, combined with the city's
increasing tendency toward radicalism,
generated conflict between Barcelona and
Madrid throughout the 20th century. The
bloody repression of a leftist uprising in
1909, the proclamation of an autonomous
government during the Second Republic,
and the city's prolonged resistance to the
forces of F RANCISCO F RANCO during the
S PANISH C IVIL W AR doomed Barcelona to
repression under the Franco regime (1939-
75). Since 1975 Barcelona has enjoyed a
renaissance in both its commercial and cul-
tural life. The dynamism of the new Barce-
lona was on display to the world during the
Olympic Games held there in 1992. While
Barcelona continues to be a major center of
intellectual life, its ambivalent relationship
with the Spanish state due to seemingly
endless debates over Catalan autonomy
present an ongoing problem.