Manuel Azaña

Biography

Manuel Azaña was born in 1880 in Alcalá de Henares into a well-off family and lost both parents while still a child. He took a law licence at the University of Zaragoza in 1897 and a doctorate in Madrid in 1900, then entered the civil service at the registries directorate in 1909. He wrote for newspapers such as El Imparcial and El Sol, reported from the Western Front during the First World War, served as secretary of the Ateneo de Madrid from 1913 to 1920 and edited the reviews La Pluma and España in the early 1920s.

Drawn to republicanism, he joined Melquíades Álvarez's reformists in 1914, co-founded Republican Action with José Giral in 1926, attacked the Primo de Rivera dictatorship in print and signed the Pact of San Sebastián in 1930. When the Second Republic was proclaimed in April 1931 he became Minister of War and cut back the officer corps; in October he succeeded Alcalá-Zamora as prime minister. His coalition with the Socialists passed labour, education, agrarian and anticlerical reforms, but lost the right and the far left alike, and he was forced out in September 1933.

In 1934 he merged his party with others into Republican Left. Arrested after the October 1934 rising on charges that soon collapsed, he emerged with greater standing and organised the Popular Front, which won the February 1936 election. He returned as prime minister and in May 1936 was elected President of the Republic. During the Civil War he lived mostly in Catalonia and near Valencia, appealing in a 1938 speech for 'peace, pity and pardon'.

As the Nationalists overran Catalonia he crossed into France on 5 February 1939 and resigned the presidency on 3 March. Protected by Mexico after the fall of France, he died at Montauban on 3 November 1940. His diaries and his play La velada en Benicarló remain key sources on the Republic.