History and importance

The questionnaire was drafted and carried out by the aforementioned department at the Athenaeum thanks to the work of its president Dr Rafael Salillas, with the collaboration of Julio Puyol, Constancio Bernaldo de Quirós, Enrique García Herreros, Guillermo Pedregal and R. Camarón.

The questionnaire, one of the most complete of the time, was sent to villages all over Spain. The 289 replies received by the Athenaeum (the loss of the originals makes it impossible to know the informants’ professions, cultural level and age) were filed in folders that disappeared during the Spanish Civil War. From this material, a transcript was made; this is what we hold today. It includes almost 20,000 cards.

'All in all, the information obtained through this survey is truly exceptional, absolutely essential for the study of Spanish rural society from the end of the last century to the present, as it can serve as a valuable point of comparison today.' (Carmelo Lisón Tolosana: Social anthropology in Spain. Madrid, 21st Century, 1971).