Scientists in exile 1939-2009

Scientists in exile 1939-2009
 

From 5 November 2009 to 28 May 2010
 

Venue: Lluís Alcanys Hall - Palau Cerveró

From Monday to Friday, from 10 to 14 and from 16 to 20 h.

Saturday, from 10 to 14 h.

Nota de premsa [+]

Julián Fuster Ribó, Cirujano. URSS. 1956. Arxiu personal de Julián Fuster Ribó

Julián Fuster Ribó, en la Guerra Civil Española. Arxiu personal de Julián Fuster Ribó

Curator: Josep LLuís Barona Vilar

Organised by Universitat de València

Also sponsored by Bancaixa

The exhibition Scientists in Exile 1939-2009 will be presented on the occasion of the Conference The Republican scientific exile. A historic review 70 years later, to be held on 5-6 November at Palau de Cerveró, both the conference and exhibition venue. 

DESTINED TO EXILE

According to recent research, more than 270,000 prisoners packed the Spanish prisons at the end of the Civil War. Almost 500,000 republican citizens were sent to concentration camps. The tragedy and social fracture had dramatic consequences for Spain’s personal and social life. The exile, imprisonment, and disqualification of doctors, pharmacists and scientists caused huge damages in Spanish society. After the War, the country’s intellectual and professional elite went into exile, the group of exiled scientists making up a leading core in Spanish science. Of course, we must not forget those who died as a result of the war or those whose lives were cut short by an inner exile -much harder to assess- which affected people who were imprisoned, punished, banished or executed.

The generations of scientists who were forced to exile shared an ideal of modernisation and common biographical references. Mexico and France were the main destinations but also Venezuela, the United States, Argentina, Cuba, and the Soviet Union. Thousands of people settled down in Mexico; more than 300 were university professors, 500 were doctors, and over a hundred were scientists and professionals from other areas: chemists, pharmacists, physics, biologists, anthropologists or mathematicians.

Laboratorio de Sueroterapia dirigido por el Dr. Murillo. 1905?. Archivo General de la Administración

Julián Fuster Ribó, Cirujano. Kenguir (Kazatihstan) URSS. 1956. Museu d’Història de la Medicina de Catalunya.

Initially, those in exile predicted Franco’s fall following the defeat of fascist regimes in World War II. Despite deep political tension between the republicans in exile, the group of scientists and professors tried to keep close. They set up the Unión de Profesores Universitarios Españoles en el Exilio (UPUEE) in Paris, first presided by the hygienist and parasitologist Gustavo Pittaluga, who had been in charge of the Spanish health system and represented Spain in the United Nations’ Committee on Hygiene. Medical and scientist associations were also set up in Mexico, like the Ateneo Ramón y Cajal or the Mexican Medical Society. Among the members of the UPUEE there were 20 scientists, like Ignacio Bolívar, Blas Cabrera, Odón de Buen, Francisco Giral and Enrique Moles, and some 50 medical professors like Jesús M. Bellido, Isaac Costero, Joaquín D'Harcourt, José García Valdecasas, Francisco Grande Covián, Teófilo Hernando, Gonzalo Rodríguez Lafora, Manuel Márquez, Rafael Méndez, Emilio Mira, Juan Negrín, Severo Ochoa, August Pi Sunyer, José Puche, and Pío del Río-Hortega, a group that represented the main leaders of Spanish scientific-medical research.

Dibujo anatómico. 1937?. Fundación Juan Negrín

Albert Einstein en Tarrasa. 24 feb. 1923. Archivo General de la Administración.

As from 1940, the publication of the journal Ciencia. Revista hispanoamericana de ciencias puras y aplicadas became an integrating element for the exiled scientists. Uncertain of its continuity, it was published for 35 years (1940-1975), its value to analyse an important part of the scientific production in exile being unquestionable. Its goal was to incorporate research conducted by Spanish scientists anywhere in the world and to become a major reference for the exiled Spanish scientific community. Its first director was Ignacio Bolívar, who was replaced shortly before his death by Blas Cabrera, and then by Cándido Bolívar and José Puche.

The part played by the exiled Republican doctors was key to Mexican society. In the early 1940s, they accounted for nearly half of the country's health professionals. In addition, they commissioned health care facilities and hospitals based on their experience and the projects undertaken by the Spanish republic. The training in public health fostered by the Rockefeller Foundation in Spain as from the 1920s became highly relevant in countries like Venezuela, where Santiago Ruesta held different health policy posts and José María Bengoa implemented pioneering policies to fight hunger in the countryside. We shall not forget the leading role played in that country by public-health visiting nurses, one of the pillars of domiciliary and primary health care during the Republican period.

Some countries were temporary destinations, like Great Britain, where a significant number of Spanish scientists lived during their first exile years to later move on to Latin America. This was the case with Pío del Río-Hortega, Cajal’s disciple. After spending some time in Oxford he travelled to Argentina, or Juan Negrín, who first took refuge in London and then moved to Paris, where he died. Others stayed in the United Kingdom, like Josep Trueta, who reached great prestige in Britain’s academic world, for he became the first orthopaedics professor of Oxford University.

Carta a Juan Negrín sobre la conferencia “Ciencia y Gobierno” de la British Society for the Advance Science. 1941. Fundación Juan Negrín.

Caricatura del Dr. Giral. Portada revista Gracia y Justicia. 1 abril 1933. Museo de la Farmacia Hispana – UCM

Physicians and scientists also went into exile in France, basically in Paris and the most important cities in the south, particularly Toulouse. Many Catalan scientists found shelter there, like Jesús Mª Bellido Golferichs, and many others ended up in Venezuela, like August Pi i Sunyer, who became a physiology professor in Caracas and set up the country’s first physiological research institute.

A significant group of exiled doctors specialised in public health took on high positions at the World Health Organisation in Geneva and also at the Pan-American Health Office. Marcelino Pascua, Director General of Health during the Reformist Biennium (1931-1933), ran the Health Statistics Department of the WHO; Julián de Zulueta ran international campaigns to fight malaria; José Antonio Nágera worked in microbiology, José María Bengoa supervised the campaigns for improved nutrition in poor countries both for the WHO and the FAO, and many more. The Spanish health experts exiled after the Civil War therefore made up an important group of professional experts in health-related international organizations.

Camilla Soula i August Pi i Sunyer. Tolosa del Llenguadoc. Francia. 1939. Museu d’Història de la Medicina de Catalunya.

Exili - Doro Balaguer