Dionisio Ridruejo
Dionisio Ridruejo was a Spanish poet and political figure born on October 12, 1912, in Burgo de Osma, Spain. His early life was marked by the death of his father, which left him in a household that nurtured his literary inclinations through folk tales and songs. Although initially pursuing a law degree, Ridruejo's passion for writing led him to journalism and a significant career within the Falange Española, a right-wing political party. Throughout the late 1930s, he held various influential positions, including national propaganda officer, while simultaneously cultivating relationships with notable writers and artists of his time.
As he grew disillusioned with the Falangist party and the Franco regime, Ridruejo resigned from his political roles and faced increasing repression for his dissenting views, which included imprisonment and censorship. Despite these challenges, he continued to write and publish poetry, eventually going into exile in 1962 due to the oppressive political climate in Spain. His later years were spent in Paris and other locations, where he remained active in literary and political discussions until his death on June 29, 1975. Ridruejo's life reflects the complex interplay of art, politics, and personal conviction during a turbulent period in Spanish history.
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Subject Terms
Dionisio Ridruejo
Writer
- Born: October 12, 1912
- Birthplace: Burgo de Osma, Soria, Spain
- Died: June 29, 1975
- Place of death: Clínica de la Concepción, Madrid, Spain
Biography
Dionisio Ridruejo was born on October 12, 1912, in Burgo de Osma, in Soria, Spain, the only son of merchant and banker Dionisio Ridruejo Martín and mother Segunda Jiménez Ridruejo. Starting with the death of his father when he was only three, his life would be a conflicted one, rife with social and political problems.
When his father died in 1915, Ridruejo was raised with his sisters by his mother and a supportive great-aunt and maternal grandmother in a home were he had no formal literary exposure. However, his grandmother influenced his proclivities by telling romantic tales and sharing folk songs. Ridruejo was writing poetry by the time he was thirteen.
Enrolling at a school in Segovia, which was led by the Marist Brothers, Ridruejo went on to Jesuit school in Valladolid, and then finished his early education at the Jesuit Charmartin de la Rosa in Madrid in 1927. Having originally intended to study engineering at the Escuela de Ingenieros Industriales, he instead attended the Universidad de María Cristina in El Escorial from 1928 to 1934 and then the Universidad de Madrid, earning a law degree he would never use. Instead, he pursued his calling as a writer, and from 1935 to 1936 spent the year studying journalism at El Debate in Madrid, the only place in Spain where such a course was offered.
A teenager conscious of and sympathetic to Falangist ideals, Ridruejo published his first poems in the right-wing publication El Gurriato in 1929, and made his first political appearance by joining the Falange Española (with his three sisters) in May of 1935. These actions would take him to a number of short-term but successful and therefore important party positions. From 1936 to 1941, Ridruejo served as propaganda officer in Segovia, moved up to the position of regional chief of the Falange, and then moved even higher to the post of national propaganda officer. At the same time, opposing the unification movement within, he would protest, and speaking directly to Generalissimo Francisco Franco of his dissent, he resigned from his final post in April of 1937.
That did not deter his getting named director general of propaganda in February of 1938, a position he wrote about in later memoirs as one which “plunged him into the jungle del poder, the jungle of power.” He is office became an ideal meeting place for the writers and artists of the period. He entertained essayist Pedro Laín Entralgo, poets, Luis Felipe Vivanco and Leopoldo Panero, novelists Ignacio Agustí and Juan Antonio Zunzunegui, painters A. José Caballero and José R. Escassi, sculptor Emilio Aladrén, and dramatist Gonzalo Torrente Ballester, for example. This confluence fostered the collaboration on and cofounding of the 1940 Spanish magazine Escorial. As active as he was politically and socially at this time, Ridruejo also kept busy writing baroque and romantic poetry, which moved from homage to women and weddings, for instance, to more personal works. When printed in 1939, these volumes were made into a limited run of books on fine-grade paper, each decorated by hand.
Ridruejo grew dissatisfied with the party, with the nation, and with Franco. The poet resigned from his post as director general of propaganda for the party, and gave up his political aspirations altogether. Ridruejo continued to write. He also enlisted in the Blue Division as it functioned in the Russian campaign, one he believed in, as he maintained that fascism was the new model for a “rational Europe” and was the ideal way for defeating the Soviets.
His poetry now influenced by Antonio Machado and departing from the neobaroque of his earlier works, Ridruejo would bring in the dark side of the imaginary and the ideal of earlier writings. But the fascist support he showed would falter a bit, when in 1942 his poor health forced him to leave Russia. On his way back home to Spain, Ridruejo visited Germany, meeting with people who “exemplified the dangers of Adolf Hitler and his followers.”
Back in Spain, Ridruejo broke all ties with the Falangist party, abandoned the government-supported Escorial, and wrote to Franco outlining what he had done, why he had done it, and how changes should be made within the party. With no response, he used the rest of the summer to try his hand at law, but in October of 1942, he got an answer to his (continued) political dissent: He was put under police surveillance, forbidden to leave Ronda, disallowed the publishing of “certain books of poetry,” prohibited from writing for any newspaper, and prevented from receiving the Premio Nacional de Literature he was awarded. He was financially strapped and intellectually stymied.
After being awarded in December of 1942 the Cruz Roja de Mérito Militar for his time served in the Blue Division, in February of 1943 he was permitted a move to Barcelona. The move approved in May, Ridruejo could finally publish again, which he did with the nine years of poems he had written and those he had upon sentencing prepared for publication. He also continued to write, and married Gloria de Ros—on June 26, 1944—with whom he was allowed to move into a rental home in Llavaneras. The couple was allowed to take a brief honeymoon to Majorca, the both spouses would collaborate on artistic works in later years.
On his honeymoon, Ridruejo met with Manuel Hedilla, a Franco opponent under confinement on Majorca, and resuscitated Franco’s distrust: Ridruejo was again under house arrest—though somewhat freer or taking the liberties to publish, write for local newspapers, and speak somewhat freely. In fact, at the urging of friends, in January of 1947, he secretly met with Franco. Though he openly and directly expressed his opinions on the necessary changes Spain could make to thwart future violence, and though he never received an equally open or direct response, his arrest limitations were lessened, allowing him to move about and to any part of Spain, save Madrid, its outskirts, and Valladolid.
The restrictions were all but lifted by 1948’s end, and a high government official helped him get a job in Italy with Prensa del Movimiento, a job without any political involvement. Before he could begin his new job, a successor replaced his government sponsor; and though he altered Ridruejo’s contract to allow for more involvement and political coverage, Ridruejo refused. Instead he chose the work of a “simple journalist” at Agencia Parisa, which he did until June of 1950, when he returned to Spain, became director of Radio Intercontinental, and returned to founding literary journals.
With the urging of his cofounder, industrialist Alberto Puig, in 1952 he coedited Revista, a Barcelona publication that gave Ridruejo free range of expression—which he used to discuss, once again, political changes—this time those movements concerning the working classes and unions. Once again, Ridruejo faced adversity and adversaries: His publication was censored, and his group and school lectures, which inevitably included criticisms of the Franco regime, incited new charges against the zealous political activist.
No longer invited to lecture, Ridruejo continued his active involvement with militant students, which he had begun in 1954. In 1956, he was imprisoned for helping one university group petition for the right for free expression for young writers. This fueled a protest so violent that one Falangist was shot to death. Again in 1957, Ridruejo was jailed for refusing to “modify his antigovernment activities,” although his 1959 trial resulted only in a suspended sentence, in favor of a reprieve because it was the year of Pope John XXIII’s coronation. With the new decade, Ridruejo returned to writing, publishing a complete edition of his poetry in 1961 and an autobiographical work in 1962, a few months before he was forced to choose between permanent exile or confinement on the island of Lanzarote. Ridruejo chose exile.
His choice took him to live in Paris, to travel to New York to give political speeches, and to visit the University of Puerto Rico to teach Spanish literature and civilization. His opting for exile and Paris also saw him collaborating, editing, and writing more, and found him attempting twice more to slip into Spain—the first failing, the second getting as far as Madrid, where he was again arrested and put in prison.
In 1966, a speech incited his next arrest, along with a fine of twenty-five thousand pesetas. Following this last arrest, Ridruejo continued writing, lecturing, teaching, and traveling. He continued making clear his political concerns until June 26, 1975, when he entered the Clínica de la Concepción in Madrid. He died there three days later of a heart attack.