Felix Andrés Urabayen Guindo (1883-1943) was a Spanish writer, journalist and politician who was part of the so-called Generation of 14, a group that aimed to bring a profound and innovative social change to Spain.
He also stood out as an essayist. Art, his passion, was one of the themes he developed in this genre. Urabayen's work has shades of intellectuality, and at the same time combines the subtle with the pleasant.
The reality, the symbolic elements and a shrewd criticism, are part of the characteristics of his work. He was also an author who dedicated himself to describing the city of Toledo in several of his writings.
Urabayen has been considered one of the greatest exponents of Navarrese narration in the early years of the 20th century. Within this type of narrative, the trilogy made up of The cursed neighborhood, Pyrenean centaurs Y Under the Navarrese oaks.
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Felix was born on June 10, 1883 in Navarra, specifically in the town of Ulzurrum. He came from a poor family. His father was Bonifacio Urabayen, who worked in the fields, and his mother was María Guindo, a housewife. The writer had a brother named Leoncio.
The first years of Urabayen's education were in Ulzurrum, later the family changed their address. In 1893 they went to live in Pamplona. In that city the writer studied high school, and also studied what was known as "teaching", a course that culminated in Zaragoza.
After having completed his education or teaching career, Félix served as a substitute teacher in various locations in Navarra. Some time later he got a permanent position in Huesca and Salamanca. Later, in Castellón, he worked as a teacher of pedagogy.
In 1911 Urabayen went from teaching to Toledo, also as a pedagogue, and in 1913 he was part of the department of letters at the Escuela Normal Superior de Maestros. Félix's life passed in Toledo until 1936, hence the development of his writings about that city.
Little is known about the sentimental or private life of Félix Urabayen. However, it is known that he was married to Mercedes de Priede Hevia from Toledo, a young woman with a rich father, and that he was a teacher in physics and chemistry. The couple had a daughter named María Rosa.
Félix Urabayen was also interested in politics. For a time he was chairman of the committee of the Republican Action political group. In 1936 he ran for election as a candidate for the Republican Left party; for the city where he lived, Toledo, ranked third.
The Civil War brought negative consequences for Urabayen. For a time he had to take refuge in the Mexican embassy in Madrid. In 1939 he was arrested by order of Franco, after an addition on the dictator's policy in his work Don Amor returned to Toledo.
The writer spent a time in jail along with other intellectuals such as the writers Antonio Bueno Vallejo and Miguel Hernández. One year later, exactly on November 19, 1940, he was released, and his life began to shorten..
When the writer was released from prison, his health began to deteriorate, doctors detected lung cancer. With no hope of life, and in economic misery, he sought the support of his brother Leoncio, who received him at his home, located in the city of Navarra..
The agony of the disease gave him intervals of time that allowed him to write one last work: Under the Navarrese oaks. The novel was published years after his death, it was a dedication to the poet Antonio Machado. Urabayen died on February 8, 1943 in the Spanish capital.
The work of Félix Urabayen was framed within symbolism, and at the same time in criticism. His ability as an observer gave him tools to describe social realities in an accurate way, while what he saved in his memory allowed him to describe sublime effects..
Sometimes the author showed in his work his feelings of pessimism and disappointment with life, perhaps because, during his time, Spain experienced overwhelming social and political conflicts. He wrote with humor and irony, and with impeccable language.
The years that he lived in Toledo inspired him to describe the landscape and customs of that land, as with his native Navarra. The way he described the environments was charged with lyrical and beauty. For him the way of expressing reality had to be delicate.
The following were the most outstanding titles of the writer from Navarra, with a Toledo heart:
- Toledo: mercy (1920).
- The last stork (1921).
- Toledo the stripped. Road Stamps (1924).
- The cursed neighborhood (1924).
- On the paths of the believing world (1928).
- Lyrical serenade to the old town (1928).
- Pyrenean centaurs (1928).
- Hardly exemplary lives (1931).
- After trotera, santera (1932).
- Don Amor returned to Toledo (1936).
- Under the oaks of Navarre (1965).
The content of the author's works was controversial and at the same time contradictory, due to the structure of his characters and the way he put the stories together.
Although Urabayen has been considered a good essayist, due to his criticism and vision of the Spanish social context of the 20th century, many scholars do not consider him to have been a good novelist. This was due to the fact that he repeated the ideas many times, which perhaps made him boring, and he did not know how to complement them..
Even with all these aspects against, the author managed to position himself in the Spanish intellectual world. The fact of having been a man of detail and astute in language, brought him closer to a select group of readers who valued his work for the character and appreciation with which it was written..
Félix Urabayen was a writer who perhaps did not stand out in any literary or intellectual movement, but he knew how to do his work from the authenticity. With charisma, irony, nostalgia, measure and passion, he captured the convulsion of a country that was screaming for change.
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