Constancia de la Mora

Constancia de la Mora Maura (28 January 1906 – 27 January 1950) was a Spanish political activist, author and Republican official during the Spanish Civil War. Born in to a conservative aristocratic family, she became a communist militant and directed the Foreign Press Office of the Second Spanish Republic.[1]

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is de la Mora and the second or maternal family name is Maura.
Constancia de la Mora
Born
Constancia de la Mora Maura

(1906-01-28)28 January 1906
Madrid, Spain
Died27 January 1950(1950-01-27) (aged 43)
Guatemala
Occupation(s)Author, politician
Political partyCommunist Party of Spain
SpouseIgnacio Hidalgo de Cisneros (div 1941)

Her mother was the daughter of Antonio Maura, five time Prime Minister of Spain.[2]

Constancia married for the first time Manuel Bolín from Málaga (brother of Luis Bolín, censor of the foreign press in Franco's provisional government), with whom she had a son, and later with the general and Commander of the Republican Air Force, Ignacio Hidalgo de Cisneros. She was the first woman to remarry secularly in Catholic Spain.[3]

During the Spanish Civil War she decided to join the Communist Party, and visited the Soviet Union with her husband, where Joseph Stalin and other Soviet authorities promised to send military aid to the Republicans.[1]

She was appointed censor and head of the Republican Foreign Press Office, based in Valencia.[4] After the defeat of the Spanish Republic, de la Mora went into exile in Mexico, where she published her autobiography Doble esplendor (In Place of Splendour).[Note 1] Eleanor Roosevelt, who was a prominent supporter of the Republican cause, presented the book in New York.[5]

She died at the age of 44 in a traffic accident in Guatemala.[1] Her friend, Nancy Johnstone, the writer and erstwhile hotelier, was with her in the car and survived the crash, but disappeared in mysterious circumstances shortly afterwards.[6]

References
  1. Ellis, Robert Richmond (1993). "CONSTANCIA DE LA MORA: "ARISTÓCRATA, REPUBLICANA, COMUNISTA", AND FEMINIST". Romance Notes. 34 (1): 31–38. ISSN 0035-7995. JSTOR 43802658.
  2. "Revista Clarín » Constancia de la Mora. Una vida, ¿dos autobiografías?". Retrieved 2022-12-27.
  3. "Constancia de la Mora: La aristócrata pionera del divorcio en España y defensora de la libertad | Onda Cero Radio". www.ondacero.es (in Spanish). 2022-02-22. Retrieved 2022-12-27.
  4. See Never More Alive: Inside the Spanish Republic by Kate Mangan, who worked for Constancia in Valencia.
  5. "Constancia de la Mora, aristocratica e comunista | Cultura, ATLANTE | Treccani, il portale del sapere". www.treccani.it (in Italian). Retrieved 2022-12-27.
  6. See introduction to Sombreros are Becoming by Nancy Johnstone, The Clapton Press, 2023.
  1. In Place of Splendour was recently republished by The Clapton Press.
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