Background
Manuel Azana was born on January 10, 1880, in Alcala de Henares, Spain, to middle-class parents.
(A principios de 1937, Manuel Azaña se ve obligado a reclu...)
A principios de 1937, Manuel Azaña se ve obligado a recluirse en la sede del Parlamento catalán a causa de una revuelta interna republicana. Durante esos días escribe La velada en Benicarló, su testamento político publicado en 1939 simultáneamente en París y Buenos Aires. Consciente de que la guerra civil está ya perdida, Azaña busca sus causas en la identidad española y realiza un certero y brillante análisis sobre los errores cometidos por ambos bandos. Al mismo tiempo, lanza un canto en favor de la paz, consciente de que la violencia bélica hipotecará el desarrollo de España durante los siguientes 50 años. Esta edición, conmemorativa del 80 aniversario de la República y del 75 del inicio de la guerra civil, incluye un apéndice gráfico sobre la vida del propio Azaña.
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Manuel Azana was born on January 10, 1880, in Alcala de Henares, Spain, to middle-class parents.
He attended the Colegio de Maria Cristina at the Escorial. In 1898 Azaña entered the University of Madrid to study law, after which he spent several terms at the Sorbonne. The experience in Paris gave him an introduction to the kind of Europeanism that was the theme of the literary and cultural movement called the Generation of 1898 in Spain.
After practicing law in Paris, Azana returned to Spain with anticlerical views and a taste for radical politics. During the 1920s Azana was secretary general of the Ateneo de Madrid, the most prestigious intellectual club in Spanish society, and worked as a writer, a translator, and a journalist. Perhaps his best work is the biography of the 19th-century writer Juan Valera, an outspoken social critic. In 1930 Azana became president of the Ateneo. By this time he had begun to move into politics by organizing a small party called Accion Republicana. With the advent of the republic in April 1931, Azana was named minister of war in the provisional government and immediately proceeded with a reorganization of the military, which heartened radicals who felt the services had long been too powerful. In October 1931 upon the resignation of Niceto Alcala Zamora, he became premier. Azana remained prime minister until September 1933, a time of great importance in the history of the republic. His ministry was marred in a number of ways. Azana's anticlericalism made him reluctant to intervene in anarchist attacks on the Church, but he did pass the stringent Law for the Defense of the Republic to punish political dissenters. His harshness in January and August 1932, and again in January 1933, against his political opponents did a great deal to introduce a climate of violence into Spanish politics. Increasingly he came to rely upon Socialist support and thus fatally divided public opinion, though the division probably was inevitable. In any case, when his administration found it impossible to maintain momentum in the wake of the economic crisis of the early thirties, the right triumphed in the elections of 1933 and Azana was succeeded by Alejandro Lerrox.
The right-wing government kept a close watch on Azana, and when, in October 1934, rioting in Asturias threatened to plunge the country into civil war, Azana was imprisoned for some months.
In 1935 he became spokesman for a renewed left coalition that in January and February 1936 won a controversial election under the banner of the Popular Front. Azana returned to the premiership until May 10, when he replaced Alcala Zamora once again, this time as president of the republic.
When civil war broke out in July, Azana's influence diminished after he appointed the moderate Diego Martinez Barrio as prime minister. Azana left Madrid in the fall of 1936, never to return permanently, and he spent much of the civil war period in virtual isolation in Catalonia. After the fall of Barcelona, Azana went into exile in France.
He died in Montauban on November 3, 1940.
(A principios de 1937, Manuel Azaña se ve obligado a reclu...)
(Azan?a (Spanish Edition) Jan 01, 1980 Azaña, Manuel ... 8...)
(Book by Azaña Manuel)
(Rare book)
In 1930 he became a member of a liberal republican party, Republican Action (Acción Republicana), in opposition to the dictatorship of General Miguel Primo de Rivera.
In 1934 he founded the Republican Left party, the fusion of Accion Republicana with the Radical Socialist Republican Party, led by Marcelino Domingo, and the Organización Republicana Gallega Autónoma (ORGA) of Santiago Casares Quiroga.
Azana was married to Dolores de Rivas Cherif.