Basilio Álvarez

Born in Ourense in 1877, was ordained priest in 1902.[1] On 1907 he settled in Madrid,[2][3] although by 1912 would return to Beiro, Galicia.[4][5] His career as a religious was characterized by an unorthodox interpretation of the rules of the Catholic Church, where there is no choice of celibacy[5] —but in fact came to have two children.[6] These circumstances, among others, were the reason that between 1914 and 1928 was suspended by the Church.[7] He has been described as a "picturesque" personality.[8]

On his journalistic work he collaborated in publications such as La Nueva Época,[9] El Eco,[2][10] Galicia,[2] Acción Gallega, El Parlamentario or La Zarpa.[11] He was also director of the Catholic newspaper El Debate[7][2][12] and author of works such as El cural rural (1904),[2][3][13] Por los agros celtas (1907),[14] El libro del periodista (1912),[4][15] Abriendo el surco (1913),[14] among others. His works and his meetings were in Spanish language.[16]

He was one of the founders of the movement Acción Gallega, linked to the Galician agrarianist movement.[3][4][17] He was known for his criticism of the caciquismo as an agricultural agreement that dominated medieval Galicia known as "foro".[18] After 1913 he began to closer his speech to the workers movement[19] and around 1915 Basilio Álvarez proposed collaboration with socialists and republicans.[20] Opposite to centralism, advocated a federal structure in Spain. Some have drawn parallelism s between the rhetorical style and language of Álvarez —which has come to be described as "incendiary",[5] "cult",[21] passionate[22] or "Baroque"—[4][21] with those of Alejandro Lerroux.[23] Basilio Álvarez was a "charismatic orator".[24]

In the early 1930s he joined the Radical Republican Party,[25][26] with which it secured the 1931 deputy act for the circumscription of Ourense.[13] He however left the group in 1935,[27] for to be a member of a party the ephemeral Manuel Portela Valladares' Party of Democratic Center in 1936.[27] Following the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War he went into exile. He died in 1943 in Tampa, Florida.[27]