Luis Rodríguez Figueroa

Luis Rodríguez Figueroa (pseudonym Guillón Barrús ; born November 19, 1875 in Puerto de la Cruz , † August 21, 1936 at sea off Tenerife ) was a Spanish writer and politician.

Life

Luis Rodríguez Figueroa came from a wealthy family in Puerto de la Cruz. His father was a Republican on the city council. Luis Rodríguez Figueroa studied law in Granada and practiced the profession of lawyer from 1896, first in his hometown, from 1918 in Santa Cruz de Tenerife and La Laguna . He was from 1912 to 1915 city council in Puerto de la Cruz, member of the island parliament and chairman of the Republican youth organization of Tenerife. From 1920 he was a city councilor in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, where the Republican Party held a majority of the seats at that time. In the elections of February 16, 1936 , he was elected as a candidate of the Republican Left in the Popular Front as a member of the Cortes Generales , the parliament in Madrid. He became known in public as one of the lawyers who defended the workers indicted in a general strike in Hermigua , La Gomera in 1934 before a court martial in Santa Cruz, with the Guardia Civil in a bloody clash .

The politician and writer developed in his literary work from a poetry of homeland-related romanticism to a politically and socially justified, literary accusation. The historical novel El Cacique attracted great political attention when it was published in 1901.

Luis Rodríguez Figueroa was a co-founder of the Castalia newspaper and wrote for many other local newspapers.

There are different versions of the circumstances of his death. What is certain is that when he came ashore from Tenerife in Cádiz in August 1936 (i.e. after the start of the civil war ) , he was arrested by nationalist troops and was supposed to be brought back to Tenerife. It can be assumed that he was murdered on the crossing and thrown into the sea.

Appreciations

Commemorative plaque for Luis Rodríguez Figueroa

In his hometown of Puerto de la Cruz , a street was named after him after 1975 and a plaque was placed on the site of the house where he was born.

Works

Of his works, only the novel El Cacique has been re-edited by the municipality of La Laguna since 1975 (2008) . An “Antología poética” by the author and a book with the title “Del regionalismo a la revolución” are in preparation in the Colección Biblioteca Canaria de Textos Políticos series .

• Guillón Barrús and Leopoldo O'Shanahan Rodriguez de la Sierra: El Cacique , Excmo. Ayuntamiento de San Cristobal de La Laguna, ISBN 84-505-7310-6

Other novels that are not commercially available are: Preludios (1898), Venus Adorata (1902), El Mencey de la Arautapala (1919), Nazir (1925), Banderas de la democracia (1935).

literature

• Sebastian de la Nuez: Luis Rodriguez, el hombre y el Poeta , in Anuario de Estudios Atlanticos, Madrid-Las Palmas, 1979