Maura Y Montaner, Antonio

Maura y Montaner, Antonio (äntō`nyō môr`ä ē mōn`tänār), 1853–1925, Spanish politician. He entered the Cortes in 1881 as a liberal but later joined the Conservative party. As premier (1903–4, 1907–9), he attempted to carry through an ambitious but reactionary program for reform (a "revolution from above"), but he was fiercely opposed by the liberals. He fell from power after the brutal suppression of an uprising in Barcelona in 1909 (caused by the call-up of Catalan troops to fight in Morocco). His great abilities and authoritarian personality made him the hero of a semi-Fascistic youth movement. But when he later (1918, 1919, 1921–22) headed coalition cabinets, he did nothing to advance non-democratic solutions. Although many of his followers joined the Primo de Riveira dictatorship, he personally isolated himself from it.

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Maura Y Montaner, Antonio 

Born May 2, 1853, in Palma de Mallorca; died Dec. 13, 1925, in Torrelodones, near Madrid. Spanish statesman and lawyer.

Maura, a member of the Liberal Party, was elected to the Cortes in 1881 for the first of many terms. In 1901 he went over to the Conservative Party and soon became its leader. From 1892 to 1895 he was minister of colonies; in 1897 he became minister of justice; and in 1903 he became minister of internal affairs. He served as prime minister from 1903 to 1904, from 1907 to 1909, and in 1918, 1919, and 1921-22. Hoping to halt the growth of the revolutionary workers’ movement by political maneuvers, he founded the Institute of Social Reforms in 1902. In 1909 he suppressed a rebellion in Barcelona (the Bloody Week). From 1923, as a partisan of constitutional monarchy, he opposed the growing dictatorship of Primo de Rivera.