Expediente de concesión de la medalla del mérito al Trabajo a D. Ramón Menéndez Pidal, 1965 (Central Archive Ministry of Labour, Migration and Social Security)
In 2018-2019, the double anniversary of the 50th anniversary of the death (1968) and the 150th anniversary of the birth of Ramón Menéndez Pidal (1869) is commemorated under the name of Biennium Pidalino. The Ministry of Labor, Migration and Social Security modestly joins this event with the publication of the record of awarding the gold medal to work awarded in 1965, three years before his death.
Don Ramón Menéndez Pidal (1869-1968) was one of the representatives of what has been called the “Third Spain”. To return to what was left after the Civil War, he had to pay the price of a kind of internal exile, his removal from the management of the Spanish Academy and the abandonment of the projects he directed in the suppressed Center of Historical Studies and Board of Extension of Studies. His subsequent and gradual recognition by the Franco regime is evidenced by the late award of this medal, whose explanatory statement includes an involuntary apology when he admits that “When considering intellectual work and constancy in it, it is not possible to silence in Spain the figure and name of DON RAMÓN MENËNDEZ PIDAL…”