Julián Besteiro Fernández was a Spanish socialist politician, elected to the Cortes Generales and in 1931 as Speaker of the Constituent Cortes of the Spanish Republic. He also was elected several times to the town council of Madrid. During the same period, he was a university professor of philosophy and logic, and dean of the department at the University of Madrid. He was imprisoned after the Civil War and died in jail.

The Institución Libre de Enseñanza was a pedagogical experience developed in Spain for more than half a century (1876-1939). It was inspired by the Krausist philosophy introduced at the Central University of Madrid by Julián Sanz del Río, and had an important impact on Spanish intellectual life, as it carried out a fundamental work of renewal in Restoration Spain.