Carmen Velacoracho de Lara (1880s–1960) was a Spanish-Cuban writer, journalist,
feminist,
monarchist, and
women's rights activist. She was co-author of El libro amarillo (The yellow book), a pro-feminist manifesto published in Cuba in the early 20th century, which she drafted along with her husband, landowner Pío Fernández de Lara Zalda.[1]
With
Digna Collazo, she founded the Feminist Party in 1918,[2] as well as the women's organization Aspiraciones (Aspirations) in Cuba at the beginning of the 20th century.[3] She also was director of various women's publications, including the newspaper Aspiraciones[4] (which she founded in 1912)[1] and the magazines Realidades,[5]La voz de la mujer, and Revista Protectora de la Mujer.[6] Besides these she was editor-in-chief of Mujeres Españolas, a magazine founded in 1929.[3]
During the 1920s Velacoracho left Cuba for a time to live in the United States.
1928 saw the
Havana premiere of El descubrimiento de América (The discovery of America), a film she had directed.[7] It received a prize at the first Spanish Congress of Cinematography in
Madrid the same year.[8]
In 1931, together with her daughter, she joined
Popular Action, and in 1932 she began the publication of Aspiraciones in Spain, under their joint direction. She spent some time in jail for having sympathized with the
Sanjurjada coup.
Velacoracho was an active
antisemitic propagandist during the
Second Republic, and in the early years of
Francoist Spain she also published antisemitic and
anti-American tirades, even claiming that the Jews controlled the United States. However this conspiracy theory did not make a large impression on the bulk of
Falangists.
During
World War II, her open antisemitism led her to become a
Nazi sympathizer. She wrote two biographies of
Adolf Hitler, whom she characterized as a champion of Christianity.
She died in Madrid in 1960.
Works
Dos hombres: Mussolini y Hitler (Madrid, Editora Aspiraciones, 1943)
Un caudillo (Madrid: Imprenta Europa, 1943)
References
^
abcdMoya García, Concepción; Fernández-Pacheco Sánchez-Gil, Carlos. "Carmen Belacoracho: una mujer periodista, productora de cine y líder feminista en el primer tercio del siglo XX" [Carmen Belacoracho: a woman journalist, film producer, and feminist leader in the first third of the 20th century]. In Branciforte, Laura; González Marín, Carmen; Huguet, Montserrat;
Orsi, Rocío (eds.).
Actas del primer congreso internacional 'Las mujeres en la esfera pública. Filosofía e historia contemporánea' [Proceedings of the first international congress 'Women in the public sphere. Philosophy and contemporary history'] (PDF) (in Spanish). pp. 332–354. Retrieved 3 October 2016.
^
abArce Pinedo, Rebeca (2008). Dios, patria y hogar: la construcción social de la mujer española por el catolicismo y las derechas en el primer tercio del siglo XX [God, homeland, and home: the social construction of the Spanish woman by Catholicism and rights in the first third of the 20th century] (in Spanish).
University of Cantabria. p. 252.
ISBN978-848-102-460-9.
^Sáiz, María Dolores; Cruz Seoane, María (1996). Historia del periodismo en España [History of journalism in Spain] (in Spanish). Alianza. p. 574.
ISBN978-842-068-159-7.
^Gil Pecharromán, Julio (2013). Sobre España inmortal, solo Dios. José María Albiñana y el partido nacionalista español (1930–1937) [On immortal Spain, only God. José María Albiñana and the Spanish Nationalist Party (1930–1937)] (in Spanish). Editorial UNED. p. 226.
ISBN978-843-626-662-7.
^Album del cincuentenario de la Asociación de Reporters de La Habana 1902–1952 [Album of the 50th anniversary of the Havana Reporters' Association 1902–1952] (in Spanish). Havana Reporters' Association. 1952. p. 440.
^Rodríguez Esteban, José A. (1996). Geografía y Colonialismo: La Sociedad Geográfica de Madrid (1876–1936) [Geography and Colonialism: The Geographical Society of Madrid (1876–1936)] (in Spanish).
Autonomous University of Madrid. p. 412.
ISBN978-847-477-607-2.