Peace in War

The 1874 siege of Bilbao, which forms the narrative framework of Paz en la Guerra, was witnessed from the inside by Unamuno, who at the time was a 10-year-old boy.

[2] His literary record was null: at about this time he started publishing articles in local papers, and some of them resembled the format of short stories.

The regime, usually named "Restoration", was monarchy combined with parliamentarian liberal democracy; two key parties were interchanging at power and fundamental flaws of the system – its elitism, corruption and caciquismo – were not clearly visible yet.

Carlism, defeated in the civil war 22 years before, appeared to have been a threat long gone, reduced to a second-rate party which abandoned its insurgent ideas.

The most evident case is a 1887 story Solitaña; it features a fictional character which bears some resemblance to Pedro Iturriondo and contains “themes and preoccupations” developed in Paz en la Guerra.

[11] In 1891 the author confessed in a private letter that initially he intended “una novelita corta” which he planned to finish in 3-4 months; later it grew to “novela histórico-político-religiosa-etc-etc” and there was still 1-2 years needed to complete it.

[12] Though Unamuno partially relied on his own infantile memories from the times of war, he also extensively consulted archival copies of newspapers issued during the siege, e.g. La Guerra.

[15] Unamuno’s key advisor in publishing matters was José María Soltura Urrutia, a wealthy Biscay intellectual who eventually financed the edition.

The book was printed in December 1896[17] by the Bilbao firm Imprenta Muller y Zavaleta,[18] but it got officially released in January 1897[19] by the Madrid publishing house Librería de Fernando Fé.

[38] Major: Secondary: other: The narrative features also some historic figures, like Manuel Santa Cruz, Antonio Lizárraga or the claimant Carlos VII.

In 1933 he published an article, titled Paz en la guerra, which provided some insights into his mindset when writing the novel and his reflections on the subject in mid-1930s.

[53] Because of his articles in French press Unamuno became a fairly known author north of the Pyrennees,[54] but Paz en la Guerra did not attract attention.

In Britain,[58] where Unamuno's novels "never made much headway",[59] Peace in War appeared thanks to Anthony Kerrigan, Allen Lacy and Martin Nozick (London/New York 1983).

The first French translation[60] appeared in Canada, the work of Alain Guy and Louis Jolicoeur (Paix dans la guerre, Montreal 1988).

[61] The last globally spoken language the work was translated into was Russian; Владимир Валериевич Симонов published it as Мир среди войны (Санкт-Петербург 2000).