The congress that never was: the Madrid International Congress of Psychology (1936)

Abstract

The 11th International Congress of Psychology did not take place in Madrid in September 1936, as initially planned. Instead, it was held in Paris in July of the following year. The finding of a so-far unpublished correspondence between the main organizers of the event, the Spanish psychologists José Germain and Emilio Mira, and the Swiss psychologist Edouard Claparède, makes it possible to gain new insight into the circumstances preventing its celebration in Madrid. This paper aims at shedding some light on such circumstances by unraveling the social and political context alluded to in these letters, and connecting their contents with other significant events and documents on the various organizational aspects of the congress.