A forgotten lecture given by Pío Baroja in 1933 in the context of his narrative work that year and the year before

Abstract

This work, which could be named “an episode in Pío Baroja as an anti-communist”, aims to revive his forgotten speech at el Ateneo, Madrid, February, 5^th, 1933. Since his lecture talked about his novel Los visionarios, 1932, it has been thought appropriate to establish before some sections related to the consideration of that novel.

Not only the novel, but the notes read by Baroja as well at el Ateneo, were inspired by the strong events and ideologies that years, among them and mainly the communism itself. His disagreement with it, implicit in the novel and explicit in his said activity at The Docta Casa, gave him such a disagreeable experience that he would never forget it, as it will be here shown. Considering the main sources of this study can be said that they are based specially on the author’s works themselves and on the Spanish Press in the early thirties of the past century.