Generation of '98

The intellectuals included in this group are known for their criticism of the Spanish literary and educational establishments, which they saw as having characteristics of conformism, ignorance, and a lack of any true spirit. Their criticism was coupled with and heavily connected to the group's dislike for the Restoration movement that was occurring in Spanish government.

The group that has become known as The Generation of '98 was affected by several major events and trends in Spanish history. According to Carr's definition of the group, most of them were born in the 1870s. These men were especially informed by Spain's defeat and humiliation in the Spanish–American War in 1898, which crystallized into two distinct political movements, Republicanism and Carlist Monarchism, marked by the oscillation of power (a zeal for reform characterized these years of Spanish history): • "The Glorious Revolution" in 1868 and the following six years of revolution, in which the country overthrew Queen Isabella and the monarchy and then had to try to fill the political void with a stable government. • The First Spanish Republic of 1873 lasted only 22 months. • The Restoration project of Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, was an attempt to create a constitutional monarchy based on Victorian Britain, which began shortly after Cánovas was appointed prime minister by Alfonso XII in 1874. A system called turno pacífico ("peaceful alternation") was devised in which two political parties alternated control of the government, by means of a heavily orchestrated and controlled electoral process. The Restoration was reasonably successful in restoring political stability, but finally ended with the Second Spanish Republic in 1931.

The first intellectual criticism took place at the dawn of the Restoration movement. In 1875, the minister for development, Manuel Orovio (1817–1883), sought to reinforce traditional "Spanish values" such as the dogma of contemporary Spanish Catholicism by an edict known as the Decreto Orovio.

This "crackdown" was a response to various attempts, notably but not exclusively by the intellectual elite listed below, to introduce some form of liberal democracy both in Spanish academic life and in the wider society. Several progressive professors were dismissed from the Central University of Madrid for promoting the ideas of Karl Christian Friedrich Krause (1781–1832), a German philosopher who advocated Krausism.

In 1876, these dismissed professors, led by Francisco Giner de los Ríos, founded the Institución Libre de Enseñanza (ILE), or The Free Educational Institution, a secular private educational institution that started with university-level instruction and later extended its activities to primary and secondary education. Their work constituted an indirect repudiation of the official instruction of the time, which they had found ineffective, insufficient, and subject to suffocating control by political and religious interests. The Institution departed from this norm by stressing the importance of intellectual freedom and moral self-improvement.

Some of the key intellectual minds of the Generation of '98 include: • Joaquín Costa • Ángel Ganivet • Miguel de Unamuno • Ramón del Valle-Inclán • José Martínez Ruiz (Azorín) • Pío Baroja • Antonio Machado • Manuel Machado • Ramiro de Maeztu • Consuelo Álvarez Pool • Manuel B. Cossio