Más allá de los Pirineos: Imagen de la ciencia española en los libros de los viajeros checos a finales del siglo XIX e inicios del siglo XX

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The aim of the study is to offer an image of Spanish science and education in the works of Czech travellers of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, especially Ota Pinkas, Jaroslav Guth, Vaclav Kybal, Josef Muldner, Jan Rambousek, Karel Capek, but also others. The study focuses on those characteristics of Spanish intellectual environment which Czech travellers (and others) perceived as ‘specifically Spanish’. We examine the issue of Spanish ‘otherness’, Arab knowledge and its influence on Spanish culture, Spanish mysticism, irrationalism, alleged fanaticism, and the so-called ‘abulia’ and their relation to the nature of scientific knowledge. In the context of discussions on Europeanisation of Spain and controversy about the existence of a Spanish science in the Renaissance, we also examine Czech descriptions of the Spanish Golden Age and reflections on the need of Europeanisation of Spanish knowledge. Although in some respects, the views of Czech intellectuals coincided with contemporary opinions regarding the nature of the ‘Spanish spirit’, they neither questioned nor denied the importance or even the very existence of Spanish Renaissance science. Instead, they tended to present them, from a historical perspective, as unique and worthy of attention.