Antonio Maura Montaner
Encyclopedia
Prime Minister of Spain
The President of the Government of Spain , sometimes known in English as the Prime Minister of Spain, is the head of Government of Spain. The current office is established under the Constitution of 1978...
of Spain
Spain under the Restoration
The Restoration was the name given to the period that began on December 29, 1874 after the First Spanish Republic ended with the restoration of Alfonso XII to the throne after a coup d'état by Martinez Campos, and ended on April 14, 1931 with the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic.After...
on five separate occasions: 5 December 1903-16 December 1904, 25 January 1907-21 October 1909, 22 March 1918-9 November 1918, 14 April 1919-20 July 1919, and 13 August 1921-8 March 1922.
Early life and education
Born in Palma de MallorcaPalma de Mallorca
Palma is the major city and port on the island of Majorca and capital city of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands in Spain. The names Ciutat de Mallorca and Ciutat were used before the War of the Spanish Succession and are still used by people in Majorca. However, the official name...
on the Balearic Island
Balearic Islands
The Balearic Islands are an archipelago of Spain in the western Mediterranean Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula.The four largest islands are: Majorca, Minorca, Ibiza and Formentera. The archipelago forms an autonomous community and a province of Spain with Palma as the capital...
of Majorca, Maura studied law in Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
.
Marriage and family
In 1878 Maura married Constancia Gamazo y Calvo, sister of Germán Gamazo y Calvo. They had several sons and a daughter together (see below), many of whom have been prominent in Spanish and European history.Political career
He entered the Cortes GeneralesCortes Generales
The Cortes Generales is the legislature of Spain. It is a bicameral parliament, composed of the Congress of Deputies and the Senate . The Cortes has power to enact any law and to amend the constitution...
in 1881 as a liberal delegate for Majorca, but later joined the Conservative party. In 1886 Maura was elected as vice president of the Congress of Deputies.
As prime minister, he created the Spanish Institute of Provission
Frederick H. Shaw
Frederick Howard Shaw He was born in the Naval Station of Ferrol in North-western Spain on 20 October 1864 and died in the Spanish Capital on 11 August 1924) after a long and prolific political career...
and he attempted to carry out a reform plan, but this was opposed by the liberals. He fell from power after his suppression of an uprising in Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
in 1909, called the Tragic Week. The execution of Francesc Ferrer
Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia
Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia was a Spanish Catalan free-thinker and anarchist....
, who was charged with leading the Tragic Week uprising, provoked a European-wide outcry which contributed to Maura's downfall.
Maura was a hero of a youth movement, the Mauristas, who wanted him as a new head of state of Spain at a time of substantial resentment of King Alfonso XIII
Alfonso XIII of Spain
Alfonso XIII was King of Spain from 1886 until 1931. His mother, Maria Christina of Austria, was appointed regent during his minority...
. This and Maura's ambition caused him to fall out with the King. Maura later headed coalition cabinets with other parties (1918, 1919, 1921–22), but he did nothing to advance unconstitutional methods. Many of his followers later supported the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera
Miguel Primo de Rivera
Miguel Primo de Rivera y Orbaneja, 2nd Marquis of Estella, 22nd Count of Sobremonte, Knight of Calatrava was a Spanish dictator, aristocrat, and a military official who was appointed Prime Minister by the King and who for seven years was a dictator, ending the turno system of alternating...
, but he remained aloof from both Primo de Rivera and King Alfonso XIII. Maura had first entered the political arena to fight the "caciquismo
Cacique
Cacique is a title derived from the Taíno word for the pre-Columbian chiefs or leaders of tribes in the Bahamas, Greater Antilles, and the northern Lesser Antilles...
" culture, which he considered a cancer of Spanish political culture and the main obstacle towards authentically democratic institutions.
When he was Prime Minister during the reign of Alfonso XIII, he spent summers at the estate of Can Mossenya, historically part of the Royal Charterhouse
Charterhouse
A Charterhouse is a Carthusian monastery. The word is derived from Chartreuse, the first monastery of the order having been established in a valley of the Chartreuse Mountains.It can refer to numerous monasteries:It can also refer to:...
of Jesus of Nazareth in Majorca. Chopin and George Sand
George Sand
Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, later Baroness Dudevant , best known by her pseudonym George Sand , was a French novelist and memoirist.-Life:...
had stayed there in the previous century. Azorín
José Martínez Ruiz
José Augusto Trinidad Martínez Ruíz, also known as Azorín , was a Spanish writer and literary critic.-Early life and education:Martínez Ruiz was born in Monovar, Alicante in 1873...
traveled from the continent to meet Maura there.
Maura became a prolific watercolorist, often painting scenes of nature or old buildings from past eras.
He died in Torrelodones
Torrelodones
Torrelodones is a municipality in the northwest of the Autonomous Community of Madrid, Spain. It is situated 29 kilometers northwest from the city of Madrid...
, Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
in 1925.
Legacy and honors
- The International Foundation Can Mossenya named an entrance to its historic estate the "Gate of Friendship - Azorín and Maura" after the men's encounter.
Descendants
- Gabriel MauraGabriel Maura GamazoGabriel Maura Gamazo was a Spanish politician and historian. He was the son of Antonio Maura - who was Prime Minister of Spain on five occasions. Gabriel was active in the Liberal-Conservative Party and served as Labour Minister in the last government cabinet of Alfonso XIII before the...
y Gamazo, (son) 1st Duke of Maura, historian and Labour Minister in the last government of the reign of Alfonso XIII - Honorio Maura y Gamazo, (son) playwright and monarchist deputy, killed by leftist militia at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, 1936
- Miguel MauraMiguel MauraMiguel Maura Gamazo was a Spanish politician of the first third of the twentieth century.He was a son of the leading Conservative politician of the Restoration monarchy, Antonio Maura...
y Gamazo, (son) Minister of Security in the first government of the II Spanish Republic - Susana Maura Gamazo, (daughter) married José María Semprún Gurrea, a governor in the Republic of Spain, and was mother to Jorge and Carlos Semprun
- Jorge SemprúnJorge SemprúnJorge Semprún Maura was a Spanish writer and politician who lived in France most of his life and wrote primarily in French. From 1953 to 1962, during the era of Francisco Franco, Semprún lived clandestinely in Spain working as an organizer for the exiled Communist Party of Spain, but was expelled...
y Maura, (grandson) novelist, Communist, and Cultural Minister of Spain during the premiership of Felipe GonzálezFelipe GonzálezFelipe González Márquez is a Spanish socialist politician. He was the General Secretary of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party from 1974 to 1997. To date, he remains the longest-serving Prime Minister of Spain, after having served four successive mandates from 1982 to 1996.-Early life:Felipe was... - Carlos Semprún y Maura, (grandson) writer and journalist, brother of Jorge. Both Jorge and Carlos have been long-time residents of France; their father was a republican governor who took his family into exile after the Republic lost the Spanish Civil WarSpanish Civil WarThe Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
- Luisa Isabel Alvarez de Toledo, 21st Duchess of Medina Sidonia, (great-granddaughter)
- Jaime ChávarriJaime ChávarriJaime Chávarri y de la Mora is a Spanish actor, screenwriter and film director. His mother María de la Mora y Maura was a maternal granddaughter of Antonio Maura....
y de la Mora, (great-grandson) film director