Pío Zabala y Lera was born in Zaragoza on 19 November 1879. He was the son of historian Manuel Zabala y Urdaniz and he first studied with the Jesuits then at the Universities of Valencia and Madrid in the Faculties of Philosophy and Literature and Law, where he obtained the award for excellence. In 1904 he defended his doctoral thesis, which addressed the history of the University, at the Central University. In 1906 he became the professor of modern and contemporary history at the University of Valencia and shortly after moved to Madrid. There he combined his role as a university professor with his political activities.  Zabala was part of the Maurist conservatives, a political party of people ideologically aligned with the political project of Antonio Maura, when it was founded in 1913.

Zabala was first elected as a Court representative in the 1912 elections and retained his position in 1919. His speeches on the parliamentary platform were infrequent but powerful. They all focused on one of his most pressing concerns, the poor operation of universities and criticism of the Free Learning Institution and the Committee for Advanced Studies, organisms that he believed were favoured by the State.

Zabala’s political career led to him holding several positions in the Ministry of Public Education. From April 1919 he was head of the General Management of Primary Education and worked alongside Silió in drafting the Decree that granted autonomy to universities in May 1919 and in 1921 he was appointed deputy secretary of the Ministry of Public Education. At the start of the 1930s, Zabala worked as an advisor for public education (from 1928) and as an active member of the University of Madrid Patronage (from 1930).

As a result of the recurring crisis from the growing student unrest, the University of Madrid was closed when Zabala joined to form part of the Academic Senate. The Rector, Blas Cabrera, resigned and Zabala was appointed to the position after an electoral process. On 25 March 1931, the Ministry of Public Education recognised Zabala as Rector of the University of Madrid due to strict “reasons of urgency”. As the classes were interrupted in the days following the proclamation of the Republic, and in the expectation that the new authorities of the recently formed Ministry of Public Education would request their resignations, all of the Madrid University authorities resigned on 27 April. Some of them resigned because they preferred to wait for the new ministry to ratify them, and others, such as Zabala, because they profoundly disagreed with the new political direction they were heading in. His first role as Rector was, therefore, very short.

In September 1936, at the start of the Spanish Civil War, Zabala was permanently removed from his position as a professor at the University of Madrid by a decree signed by the government of the Republic in Valencia. His professional work was then based in the Institute of Secondary Education in San Sebastian. From here he maintained frequent contact with the leaders of the nationalist faction, in particular, Pedro Sainz Rodríguez, once he was appointed the Minister of National Education in January 1938. As a result of this relationship, Zabala was appointed to other positions that he would come to be recognised for: President of the Drafting Commission of the university reform project and Rector of the University of Madrid, a position he held from March 1939 until 1951. The nature of his collaborations with the nationalist faction meant that he was declared exempt from purification Ministry of National Education in 1940.

He was a member of the Royal Academy of History, spokesperson for the board of the CSIC (Spanish National Research Council), member Raimundo Lulio and Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo patronages, Vice-Director of the Jerónimo Zurita Institute of History and Director of the magazine Hispania from its first edition in 1940 to 1958. He was also President of the first section of the National Board of Education, the commission of National Education of the Courts and advisor to the Kingdom. He retired in 1951 and died in Madrid in 1968 having withdrawn from almost all his activity.

Find out more:

Carolina Rodríguez López, La Universidad de Madrid en el primer franquismo: ruptura y continuidad (1939-1951), Madrid, Dykinson-Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, 2002, pp. 307-351.

Pío Zabala y Lera, España bajo los Borbones, Zaragoza, Institución Fernando el Católico, 2009. [Edition and introductory study by Carolina Rodríguez López].

 

Carolina Rodríguez López

 

Go to The University during the Franco Regime

Rectors: Pío Zabala y Lera