Antonio Maura - Political Career

Political Career

He entered the Cortes Generales in 1881 as a liberal delegate for Majorca, but later joined the Conservative Party. In 1886 Maura was elected as vice president of the Congress of Deputies.

As prime minister, he created the Spanish Institute of Provission and he attempted to carry out a reform plan, but this was opposed by the liberals. He fell from power after his suppression of an uprising in Barcelona in 1909, called the Tragic Week. The execution of Francesc Ferrer, who was charged with leading the Tragic Week uprising, provoked a European-wide outcry which contributed to Maura's downfall.

Maura was a hero of a youth movement, the Mauristas, who wanted him as a new head of state of Spain at a time of substantial resentment of King Alfonso XIII. This and Maura's ambition caused him to fall out with the King. Maura later headed coalition cabinets with other parties (1918, 1919, 1921–22), but he did nothing to advance unconstitutional methods. Many of his followers later supported the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera, but he remained aloof from both Primo de Rivera and King Alfonso XIII. Maura had first entered the political arena to fight the "caciquismo" culture, which he considered a cancer of Spanish political culture and the main obstacle towards authentically democratic institutions.

When he was Prime Minister during the reign of Alfonso XIII, he spent summers at the estate of Can Mossenya, historically part of the Valldemossa Charterhouse in Majorca. Chopin and George Sand had stayed there in the previous century. Azorín traveled from the continent to meet Maura there.

Maura became a prolific watercolorist, often painting scenes of nature or old buildings from past eras.

He died in Torrelodones, Madrid in 1925.