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Revision as of 09:54, 18 August 2007
Antonio Maura y Montaner (Palma de Mallorca, May 2, 1853 - Madrid, December 13, 1925) was Prime Minister of Spain on five separate occasions:
- October 23, 1900 to March 6, 1902 and
- January 25, 1907 to October 21, 1909
Biography
Born in Palma de Mallorca, Montaner studied law in Madrid. He was a prolific watercolorist and often painted scenes of nature or old buildings from a simpler era.
He entered the Cortes in 1881 as a liberal delegate for Majorca, but later joined the Conservative party. In 1886 he held the position of vice-president of the Congress. As prime minister, he attempted to carry out a reform plan, but this was opposed by the liberals. He fell from power after the brutal suppression of an uprising in Barcelona in 1909, called the Tragic Week.
Montaner was a hero of a youth movement, the (Mauristas), who wanted him as a new head of state of Spain during a time of substantial resentment of King Alfonso XII. Montaner later headed coalition cabinets with other parties (1918, 1919, 1921–22), he did nothing to advance non-democratic methods. Many of his followers later supported the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera, but he remained aloof from Primo de Rivera and King Alfonso XII.
Antonio Maura came into the political arena founding a party to fight "caciques" culture which he considered as the cancer of Hispanic political groups and an obstacle towards liberal and democratic institutions. When Antonio Maura was Prime Minister during the reign of king Alfonso XIII, he spent summers at the estate of Can Mossenya [an historic part of the Royal Chartreuse of Jesus of Nazareth where Chopin and George Sand had also been the previous century]. Azorín, who admired him at the time, traveled from the continent to meet Maura. The International Foundation Can Mossenya - Friends of Jorge Luis Borges has named an entrance to its historic estate "Gate of Friendship - Azorín and Maura" after this encounter.
Descendants
- Gabriel Maura Gamazo (Duke of Maura, son of Antonio, historian and Minister of work in the last government of the reign of Alfonso XIII)
- Miguel Maura Gamazo (Minister of Security in the first government of the Spanish Republic, son of Antonio)
- Honorio Maura Gamazo (Playwriter and monarchist deputy, son of Antonio killed by leftist militia at the beginning of the Spanish Civil war, 1936)
- Luisa Isabel Álvarez de Toledo y Maura, (Duchess of Medina-Sidonia)
- Jaime Chávarri (film director)
- Actress Carmen Maura
- Jorge Semprún Maura,comunist and former Education secretary of Spain during the Premiership of Felipe González
- Carlos Semprún Maura, writer and journalist, brother of Jorge. Both lived in Paris as their father was a governor who went into exile after they lost in the Spanish Civil War.