Juan Antonio Ortega y Medina. Intimate Portrait

Abstract

Throughout this text, Alejandro Salafranca Vazquez anthropologist and grandnephew of the famous historian Ortega y Medina, depicts a sentimental portrait of the great Spanish humanist who was forced into exile in México. Salafranca narrates a personal account through an intimate dialogue between a young student, Salafranca and a wise teacher, Ortega y Medina. The author depicts the character in short frames, revealing his most intimate details. Member of the Mexican Academy of History, Ortega y Medina is shown in the flesh and bone, leaving aside his intellectual legacy, showing his most human angle. This account tells a story of the sweet but reserved man and the joyful child raised in Molinillo and Peña street that throughout the years and after completing his studies at the Normal school in Constitucion square, leaves Málaga in order to fight for the Republic in the Civil War. Shortly after Ortega y Medina arrived in México in 1941, having been on exile from the French concentration camps, he built a long and prolific career as professor for México’s National University (UNAM), where he became an important pillar of Mexican Contemporary Historiography.