He was a Spanish politician and professor who was born and died in Madrid. After participating in the civil war with the Republican army in 1942, he graduated in Law and in 1945, in Philosophy and Literature, subjects in which he later gained his Doctorate. He was professor of Political Law at the University of Murcia between 1948 and 1953 and the University of Salamanca between 1953 and 1965. He was removed from this last position for supporting the student demonstrations against Franco.

After being sent into exile he worked as a guest professor at Princeton University (USA) between 1966 and 1967, and upon returning to Spain in 1968 he founded the Socialist Party, which became known as the Partido Socialist Popular (Popular Socialist Party) in 1974. He was elected as the representative of Madrid through this party in the legislative elections in June 1977. The following year he joined the PSOE party and was appointed as the honorary chairman. In April 1980 he was elected Mayor of Madrid and was re-elected in April 1983.

In his years as Mayor he became known for his famous public speeches because of his ability to combine the true feelings of the Madrid people and the new feelings required by a modern and cosmopolitan Madrid. These were the years known as the ‘Movida Madrileña’.

He was a confessed agnostic, socialist who never renounced Marxism and a convinced Republican who pragmatically accepted the Monarchy as the solution for re-establishing democracy in Spain. The first government of the Monarchy reinstated him to his role as professor at the University of Salamanca and he later held the position of professor of Political Law at the Autonomous University of Madrid.

He was the author of many books, the most notable being:  Sociología y situación (1954); Costa y el regeneracionismo (1961); Humanismo y sociedad (1964), Diderot como pretexto (1965); Conocimiento y ciencias sociales (1966), Antología de Marx y La rebelión juvenil y el problema de la universidad (1972); Tradición y modernismo (1973); Sobre la novela picaresca y otros escritos (1974).

 

Bibliography:

News about Enrique Tierno Galván in El País.

Jorge Novella Suárez, El proyecto ilustrado de Enrique Tierno Galván: biografía intelectual y política, Madrid, Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales, 2001.

 

Carolina Rodríguez López

 

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