Álvaro Alcalá-Galiano y Osma (Madrid, 29 April 1886 – 28 July 1936) was a Spanish writer, literary critic, historian, and journalist, frequent contributor to newspaper ABC and magazine Acción Española. As a monarchist, he was influenced by Charles Maurras. While he was pro-Allied during the First World War, his writings later extolled Italian fascism and spread anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and a strong anti-communism sentiment. He was a member of Spanish Renovation during the Second Republic and was executed at the beginning of the civil war in the Republican zone due to his support for the coup and his fascist ideology.
He held the title of marquis of Castel Bravo.
Contents
Biography
Family origins and early years
He was born in Madrid on 29 April 1886 as an heir to the County of Casa-Valencia. His father, Emilio Alcalá-Galiano had been minister of state and would later hold the post of Spanish ambassador to the United Kingdom. His mother was Ana de Osma y Zavala, a native of Lima, cousin of Guillermo de Osma y Scull, and a noblewoman of the Order of Queen Maria Luisa. The other children born to the marriage of the Counts of Casa Valencia were Consuelo, María Teresa, Juan, and Emilio. On his father's side, Álvaro was the great-grandson of Vicente Alcalá Galiano, who served as general treasurer during the War of Independence (1807–1814). Meanwhile, on his mother's side, he was the grandson of Joaquín José de Osma y Ramírez de Arellano, the Peruvian foreign minister.
Starting in 1915, he would develop a letter-writing relationship with his cousin, Peruvian nationalist José de la Riva-Agüero y Osma, marquis of Montealegre de Aulestia, whom he would have met in 1913. He was a member of the Ateneo de Madrid and also a fan of wrestling in his youth. Around 1915, he was living in the palace built by his parents, located at number 5 Paseo de la Castellana in Madrid.
Pro-Allied period
Alcalá-Galiano was a staunch defender of the Allied cause during the First World War
—a rarity in Spanish aristocratic circles, where Germanophilia ran rampant. He authored four books on the conflict, published between 1915 and 1919. Around this time, he also wrote compilations of literary studies.
Apart from his inclination as a supporter of the Allies, the categorization of Alcalá-Galiano's ideologies during this period varies depending on the author. According to historian Maximiliano Fuentes Codera, he would have conceptualized the war at first in rigid terms as a conflict between the right and the left. Back then, according to historian Ignacio Peiró Martín, Alcalá-Galiano would have been un escritor cosmopolita, monárquico y liberal. Meanwhile, historian Javier Moreno Luzón identifies his brand of opinion journalism during the conflict as that of an uncategorizable proaliado a fuer de maurrasiano. Alternatively, his contemporary Emilia Pardo Bazán, who reviewed several of his works, described him in 1915 as intelectual de sangre azul y conservador abolengo. By royal decree of 23 May 1918, the nobility title of marquis of Castel Bravo del Rivero was reinstated for him and his descendants.
After the rise of Bolshevism in Russia, Alcalá-Galiano changed his geopolitical vision, replacing Mitteleuropa with Russia as the main focus of concern for Spain.
Maurrassisme and anti-Semitism
As an admirer of the political doctrine of French intellectual Charles Maurras—leader the so-called "integral nationalism"—Alcalá-Galiano criticized the Vatican for having turned its back on him. During the 1920s and from the pages of newspaper ABC, Alcalá-Galiano spread his anti-Semitic ideas stemming from Maurrassisme, as well as his favorable opinions on Italian fascism and viscerally anti-parliamentary positions. He became an advocate of repression against the "red threat" in the press, and by the start of the decade he was already adhering to the conspiracy theories of the extreme right and recalcitrant anti-communism. Moreover, he was an unconditional admirer of Benito Mussolini and, after the coup by Miguel Primo de Rivera in September 1923, he referred to the differences between both dictatorships, as follows:
En España al fin ha sonado la hora. No ha sido tal como hubiéramos deseado; es decir, un Mussolini español, un fascismo civil, ajeno a la política oficial, que ocupase repentinamente los ministerios, los ayuntamientos y las oficinas del Estado. Pero no había opción. España, como indiqué en estas columnas a principios del actual verano, se hallaba ante el siguiente dilema: o dictadura, o revolución. Por desgracia, a falta de dictador que anhelaba la parte sana del país, ha tenido que ser el elemento militar el encargado de dar realidad a los anhelos nacionales.
Alcalá-Galiano was a contributor to newspaper ABC and a sympathizer and collaborator of magazine Acción Española during the Second Republic, as well as a member of political party Spanish Renovation. Furthermore, he stood out as an antisemita de pluma, since he published La caída de un trono in 1933—in which he blamed the fall of the Bourbon monarchy on a conspiración judeomasónica—and in the pages of ABC, he also praised the anti-Semitic measures taken by Adolf Hitler in Germany. He would also insist on the idea of a Masonic infiltration in Spain during the Second Republic. After the failed Sanjurjada military coup in August 1932 and the resulting closure of Acción Española by the government, he was sent to the Cárcel Modelo prison for a while, along with other collaborators of the magazine.
In February 1934, disillusioned with the ups and downs in the evolution of the nascent fascist movement of Falange Española (FE) and unable to effectively exercise violence on the workers' movement, Alcalá-Galiano did not hesitate to refer to Spanish fascism—contrary to its European counterparts—as platónico. Also, while meddling with the FE and coinciding with the burial of Falangist Matías Montero, he reproached it for its inaction in the face of the attacks it was being subjected to. He suggested that the FE should carry out a plan of indiscriminate violence. Moreover, amid the controversy, he maintained that:
Death
At the beginning of the Civil War, Alcalá-Galiano was arrested at his home by members of checa number 1 of Radio Comunista and taken to Vallecas with his brother, the count of Romilla. They were both executed on 28 July 1936 after having been subjected to a summary trial, due to their fascist ideology.
Works
—— (1908) Impresiones de arte (prologue by Emilia Pardo Bazán)
—— (1912) Del Ideal y de la Vida
—— (1914) El Príncipe Iván
—— (1915) La Verdad sobre la Guerra. Origen y aspectos del conflicto europeo (with translations into English and French)
—— (1916) España ante el Conflicto Europeo, 1914–1915
—— (1917) Junto al volcán: impresiones del frente occidental
—— (1919) El fin de la tragedia: la Entente victoriosa y la España neutral
—— (1921) Una voz... en el desierto
—— (1926) Fuego y Cenizas
—— (1928) Entre dos mundos, seguido de un ensayo sobre la decadencia de Europa
—— (1933) La caída de un Trono
—— (1934) Renovación Española ante la sociedad.