The Diplomat
The Instituto Cervantes’ Caja de las Letras will receive tomorrow in Madrid the legacy of the group of Spanish exiles who helped forge the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the most important in Ibero-America.
The ceremony will take place at the Institute Cervantes headquarters on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the UNAM-Spain Mexican Studies Center and will be attended by Luis García Montero, director of the Instituto Cervantes; Enrique Graue Wiechers, rector of the UNAM; Rosa Beltrán, professor at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters and director of the UNAM’s General Directorate of Literature; and Jorge Volpi, director of the UNAM-Spain Mexican Studies Center.
During the event, the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) will deposit a legacy in the Institute’s Caja de las Letras “as a tribute to the large group of Spanish exiles who joined various areas of the sciences, humanities and arts, and contributed to forging what is today the largest and most important Ibero-American university,” according to the Cervantes.
In June 1939, 84 years ago, the Sinaia arrived at the Port of Veracruz from France, the first of several ships that transported to Mexico almost 25,000 Spanish refugees fleeing the Spanish Civil War in search of a better future.
“Among them arrived a large number of educated personalities in various fields who immediately boosted budding disciplines and supported the formation of new generations of researchers and academics at the National University and other educational institutions in Mexico,” the Institute continued.
These personalities include figures such as Luis Buñuel, Enrique Díez-Canedo, Ramón Xirau, Félix Candela, Pedro Bosch Gimpera, José Giral, José Puche, Juan Comas, Ignacio and Cándido Bolívar, José Gaos and Luis Recaséns Siches, among others, to whom UNAM would like to pay a new tribute on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of its headquarters in Spain.
