Basilio Álvarez Rodríguez


Category: Priest, political activist
Birth Date: 10th August 1877 († 15th November 1943)
Birth Place: Ourense
 Curriculum

He studied Secondary Education in Ourense. He was ordained as a priest when he was very young after having studied at the Seminary of St Fernando. He collaborated in El Heraldo Gallego, which was founded and edited by Valentín Lamas Carvajal. In 1907 he moved to Madrid and collaborated in the magazine Galicia. In 1910, he did a good work for the movement Galician Action. He defended the agrarian reform movement and the improvement of agriculture. Due to his radical speeches, the Bishop removed him from his parish in Beiro (Ourense). Then he gave up priesthood and took a degree in Law. In 1915, he travelled to Argentina and back to Spain again he founded the newspapers El Parlamentario in Madrid and La Raza in Ourense. In 1931, he became a deputy at the Government of the Second Republic. He lived in exile in Cuba and USA, where he died in 1943.

 Work & Activities

In 1904, he published a pamphlet titled El cura rural criticising the newspaper La justicia that encouraged the peasents not to pay for tributes to the Church. In 1907, he published Por los agros celtas, which is a collection of stories about Galicia. In 1909 he published Hablando con los santos and then El libro del periodista (Madrid, 1912) and Abriendo el surco (Cuba, 1914). In his book Dos años de agitación política (1933), he explained his experience as a politician during the Republic Government.