University of Minnesota Morris Digital Well University of Minnesota Morris Digital Well FLARR Pages Journals Fall 2008 FLARR Pages #63: Soledad Gustavo and the Spanish Cultural Canon James Wojtaszek University of Minnesota - Morris Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.morris.umn.edu/flarr Part of the European History Commons, and the Spanish Literature Commons Recommended Citation Wojtaszek, James, "FLARR Pages #63: Soledad Gustavo and the Spanish Cultural Canon" (2008). FLARR Pages. 52. https://digitalcommons.morris.umn.edu/flarr/52 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at University of Minnesota Morris Digital Well. It has been accepted for inclusion in FLARR Pages by an authorized administrator of University of Minnesota Morris Digital Well. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 75 File Under: -Anarchist FLARR PAGES # 63 Movement The Foreign Language Association of the Red River in Spain Volume #2 Fall 2008 broke the plates. More frequently, copies of "Soledad Gustavo and the Spanish Cultural La Revista Blanca simply disappeared in Canon," James Wojtaszek, UMM the mail or were seized, making it necessary to deliver the journal by hand. Some ex!les Alongside her husband Federico Urales wondered at the time how it could continue (pseudonym of Joan Montseny), Soledad to exist at all without government Gustavo (pseudonym of Teresa Maiie) was protection, raising questions about its active and influential in Spain's anarchist loyalties. In all likelihood the publishers did movement of the late nineteenth and early have some agreement with government twentieth centuries. The couple published officials not to print any specific material numerous articles and were founders and editors on domestic politics, because none ever of the journals La Revista Blanca and Tierra y 'appeared. La Revista Blanca remained a Libertad (Land and Liberty). The first of these theoretical publication and did this very was published in two different incarnations, first well, its loyalties clearly on the anarchist in the early 1900s and again in the 1920s; the side. A whole generation received a second phase is particularly noteworthy in that it remarkable education in libertarian was published during the height of the Primo de philosophy (74). Rivera dictatorship. As Robert W. Kerns points The couple, and later their daughter as well, out in his study Red Years Black Years: A published essays, politically motivated novels Political History of Spanish Anarchism, as the designed to spread anarchist ideals in an dictatorship took hold and instituted its program accessible format, and translations of important of repression in the name of restoring domestic essays and works of fiction into Spanish. Thei~ order against the threats of anarcho-syndicalism work continued until the outbreak of the Spanish and Catalan regionalism, and as many of the Civil War, when the family migrated to France nation's activists went into exile, "one outlet in and, shortly thereafter, Gustavo died of cancer. Spain continued to provide an encouraging While not generally included in the traditional forum for libertarian opinion. The Revista literary canon of peninsular studies, their names Blanca had been publishing in the face of are common in socio-historical studies of the enormous odds." When the journal was first period and occasionally in more literary studies published from 1898-1905, it was just after the such as Lily Litvak's El cuento anarquista couple had returned from exile in England for a (faunas, 1982). brief period. The retreated from the business of As is often the case with historical publishing for some time while raising their only couples, however, Federico Urales is generall! daughter, Federica Montseny, who would later featured prominently in discussions of anarchist become Minister of Health under the government cuiture and more specifically in discussions of of the Second Republic, the first woman to ever the family and their political activities, while achieve such a position in Spain. When they Soledad Gustavo is generally mentioned in a resumed publication of the journal in 1923, it secondary capacity, when mentioned at all, either was also with the collaboration of their now as Urales's wife or as the mother of their later adult daughter, who had been educated according famous daughter Federica Montseny. A number to the progressive ideologies of both parents. of historical accounts of the family's activities Still, as Kerns reiterates, have tended to overlook Gustavo's contributions, There was no freedom of the press in particularly in the later stages of the publication Primo's Spain, and the publication of each of La Revista Blanca. In Kern's previously issue was a battle. On numerous occasions, mentioned study, for example, he states that the the Civil Guard raided the print shop and "force" behind La Revista Blanca "came from 76 Federico Urales and his daughter Federica making a reputation for herself and had become Montseny." In his account they "published, known and respected in political circles before edited, and hand-set the type and usually her association with Urales; obviously together contributed many of the articles, while also they formed a fruitful alliance, but one in which finding time to print fifty or so short novels that both played an active role. Federica Montseny wrote, many of them on One of the few cases in which feminist themes, between 1923 and 1936" (75). Gustavo's importance as a figure within the It seems that even in Federica Montseny's progressive reform movements of the early autobiography Mis primeros cuarenta a.nos twentieth century can be found in Martha _(Plaza & Janes, 1987), her mother, while Ackelsberg's study titled Free Women of Spain: obviously a figure worthy of respect and Anarchism and the Struggle for the responsible for her daughter's upbringing and the Emancipation of Women. She recounts an inculcation of strong political beliefs, does not anecdote from Soledad Estorach, one of the shine through the narrative the way that her founders of the group "Mujeres Libres" that was father often does. active in Spain in the 1930s through the end of All of these details tend to discount the the Civil War, who, in a later interview, role and the contributions of Soledad Gustavo remembers that, when she arrived in Barcelona within the Montseny family. It is true that in the at the age of 15, she "was reading newspapers second incarnation of La Revista Blanca she and magazines, and trying to find 'communists' assumed a somewhat secondary role in relation (her term, certainly not one that Gustavo would to her husband and daughter, but, as I will .use to define herself). She goes on to say: outline later, she continued to take an active role The first person I went to see, in fact, was in the publication and contribute on a fairly Federica Montseny's mother, Soledad regular basis even at this stage, in the form of Gustavo, because she was a woman! I book reviews, editorials, historical articles and a didn't know how to get in contact with number of different features related to the these people. And I figured that those publication's progressive ideals. More people who were writing about communism importantly, it should be noted that Gustavo must somehow.. .live differently. I had been played a crucial and more prolific role in the first reading La Revista Blanca, and I saw that incarnation of La Revista blanca., often this woman Soledad Gustavo wrote for contributing pieces under her name and various them, so I went to the address given in the other pseudonyms. A recent brief biography of magazine and asked to see her. l was shown Gustavo written in Catalan by Joaquin Mico y right in. I guess they thought l was a Millan designates her as the primary director of compaiiera. She received me without any the journal at this stage. Before meeting Federico understanding... .l can't even remember Urales, she had already been publishing articles what I asked her. Probably 'how do I find in El vendaval (Tbe Gale), a local newspaper in people; And she said, ' All you have to do her native town of Vilanova y la Geltru on the is find an ateneo in your barrio.' And she outskirts of Barcelona, and had established more or less threw me out" (62). herself as an important figure as one of the first Granted, this may not be the most flattering or female lay teachers in Spain. She would later favorable appearance for Gustavo (and frankly I become a supporter ofFrancesc Ferreri Guardia, somewhat question the accuracy of the translated the well-known educational reformer. Gustavo interview), it certainly does point to her also had begun writing for the anarchist reputation among the intellectual community of publication El Productor before meeting and the time and her clear presence as a contributor later marrying Urales (it should be pointed out to the later stages of La Revista Blanca. that by some accounts this was a common law At an anarchist convention in Madrid in marriage, while by others a "civil marriage," but 1899, Gustavo delivered the keynote address in either case a nontraditional arrangement for titled "La sociedad futura" ("The Future the time), and had made the acquaintance of Society"), in which she spoke against the major anarchist figures like Ricardo Mella, dangers and corruption inherent in the strong, Anselmo Lorenzo and Tarrida de Marmol, She central state, and advocated radical ideals such had delivered a speech with the title "El amor women's rights, free love, and the abolishment libre" (free love) at "El certamen socialista.," a of the state in favor of the ideal of self­ convention of socialists held in Barcelona in motivated, independent participation in the 1889.