Álvaro de Albornoz

Álvaro de Albornoz y Liminiana (June 13, 1879, Asturias – October 22, 1954, Mexico) was a Spanish lawyer, writer, and one of the founders of the Second Republic of Spain.

He began his early studies in his native town of Luarca, then he went to the University of Oviedo to study law. During his university years he experienced the excitement of the Republican Party in Oviedo which was very common in the intellectual circles at that time. Some of his professors were Leopoldo Alas "Clarín" and Adolfo Álvarez Buylla, a knowledgeable Marxist and founder of the Sociology Seminary at the Faculty’s Library. After Oviedo, Albornoz continued to Madrid where he was influenced by Francisco Giner de los Ríos and the "Institución Libre de Enseñanza." Throughout these years, his social and political beliefs were shaped and reinforced.

He then returned to Luarca, where in 1899 he and Amalia Salas were married. April 29, 1900, in Luarca, the couple's first child, Maria de la Concepción ("Concha") was born. The next year came "Alvarito," their son. Albornoz practiced law for ten years. He became more active with socialist activities and wrote for the "La Aurora Social," a political newspaper in Asturias. In 1909, he became a member of Lerroux’s Radical Republican Party. He was elected to the Spanish parliament in 1910. Following the 1914 elections, Albornoz left politics and the Radical Republican Party to practice law and spend more time writing.

In 1929, when in the "Cárcel Modelo of Madrid" Albornoz would found, along with Marcelino Domingo, the new Radical Socialist Republican Party (which, in 1934, would merge with other parties to become the Republican Left.

In 1930, Albornoz was court martialed by the Supreme Court of War and Navy. He was successfully defended by attorney Victoria Kent, the first woman to ever pass the Spanish bar. Albornoz was acquitted of all charges.

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