Manuel Azana
From Philosopedia
Azaña Díaz, Manuel [President] (10 January 1880 - 3 November 1940)
Azana, the son of a Catholic alcalde, was born into a family of wealth but was orphaned at an early age. In 1897 he was awarded a lawyer's license by he University of Zaragoza in 1897, and he received a doctorate by the Universidad Complutense in 1900.
As a youth, he discarded his creed, and he was a critic of the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera, publishing a manifesto against him and King Alfonso XIII in 1924.
An anti-clerical Republican, he became Minister of War during the Revolution of 1931, was imprisoned in Barcelona by the right-wing government in 1934, and later was named Premier.
Azana was behind a series of laws which secularized Spain. In 1936, he became President of Spain and, when the Italians and Germans crushed the Republic, Azana fled to England and never returned to Spain.
His political and moral stand on freedom, as illustrated in his commentaries in La velada en Benicarló, illustrated his insistence on the need to liberalize Spain. His biggest battle was against the narrowness, hypocrisy, and dominance of the Catholic Church. This is shown in his first novel, El jardín de los frailes.
A lover of art, music, and literature, he was awarded Spain's 1926 National Prize for Literature.
Azana was said by Daniel de Bois-Juzan in Celui qui fut Pedro Muñoz to have had, possibly, a male lover in addition to his wife. The Azañas were childless.
