Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
of Don Quixote and Sancho, 1905), Del sen-
timiento trágico de la vida ( The Tragic Sense of
Life, 1913), Niebla ( Mist, 1914), El Cristo de
Velázquez (The Christ of Velazquez, 1920),
and La agonía del cristianismo ( The Agony of
Christianity, 1925). His recurring major
themes are the human striving for personal
identity and the preservation of that iden-
tity beyond the limitation imposed by death,
and, more particularly, the Spanish charac-
ter as revealed in its history and cultural
manifestations. Unamuno is, thus, alter-
nately preoccupied with universal ques-
tions and the immediate crisis forced upon
the abstract thinker by the facts of his exis-
tence in a particular time and place. For all
his “Spanishness” (his Basque origins did
not seem to be an issue for him), many
Spaniards have found him as baffling as
those foreigners who characterize him as
impenetrably Castilian. Some have dis-
missed him as a heretic, while others have
praised him as profoundly Christian. What
those who know him best would probably
affirm is that Unamuno, the eternal stu-
dent of paradoxes, would have reveled in
all of the descriptions of him that have
been attempted.
Uruguay
Despite 16th- and early 17th-century explo-
ration and settlement in this region by
Spain, constant encroachment from Portu-
guese-ruled B RAZIL led to competing claims
and periodic flare-ups of military action.
The area designated as Colonia, including
the city of Montevideo, was alternately
under Spanish and Portuguese control. Pres-
ent-day Uruguay was included within the
Viceroyalty of L A P LATA from 1776 onward.
Known for a time as Banda Oriental, Uru-
guay followed Buenos Aires in declaring its
independence from Spain between 1811
and 1814; nevertheless, Brazil continued to
covet the area, formally proclaiming Uru-
guay as its Cisplatine Province in 1821. Uru-
guayans rebelled against Brazilian rule in
1825 and finally won general recognition of
their sovereignty in 1828.
 
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