Manuel Azaña

Manuel Azaña Díaz (Spanish pronunciation: [maˈnwel aˈθaɲa]; 10 January 1880 – 3 November 1940) was a Spanish politician who served as Prime Minister of the Second Spanish Republic (1931–1933 and 1936), organizer of the Popular Front in 1935 and the last President of the Republic (1936–1939). He was the most prominent leader of the Republican cause during the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939.

A published author in the 1910s, he stood out in the pro-Allies camp during World War I. He was sharply critical towards the Generation of '98, the reimagination of the Spanish Middle Ages, Imperial Spain and the 20th century yearnings for a praetorian refurbishment of the country. Azaña followed instead the examples of the French Enlightenment and the Third French Republic, and took a political quest for democracy in the 1920s while defending the notion of homeland as the "democratic equality of all citizens towards the law" that made him embrace republicanism.

After the Proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic in April 1931, Azaña became Minister of War of the Provisional Government and enacted military reform, looking to develop a modern armed forces with fewer army officers. He later became Prime Minister in October 1931.

The Spanish Civil War broke out while he was President of Spain. With the defeat of the Republic in 1939, he fled to France, resigned from office, and died in exile only a year later at age 60.