33 Facts About Manuel Senante

Manuel Senante Martinez was a Spanish Traditionalist politician and publisher, until 1931 adhering to the Integrist current and afterwards active in the Carlist ranks.

Manuel Senante is known mostly as the longtime editor-in-chief of the Madrid daily El Siglo Futuro.

Manuel Senante's brother Francisco Senante Llaudes was a locally recognized composer and maestro.

At unspecified time Manuel Senante Llaudes married a girl from Alicante, Maria Teresa Martinez Torrejon.

The couple had at least 3 children, Manuel Senante born as the oldest one.

The young Manuel Senante was brought up in a fervently Catholic ambience; in the 1890s he studied law in Barcelona and Madrid.

Manuel Senante married Josefa Espla Rizo, daughter of the Alicantine merchant marine captain and a local Alicantine municipal counselor.

Manuel Senante followed in the footsteps of his father and entered the publishing business, serving as member of the board of El Siglo Futuro in the 1930s; during early Francoism he served as municipal judge in Madrid.

Manuel Senante's grandfather was a subscriber of the Carlist daily El Siglo Futuro in the 1870s and in the 1880s, when the newspaper followed the breakaway Integrist path; his father engaged in politically loaded public disputes.

Manuel Senante associated with the Conservative Party in 1897 and commenced his long editorial career first by contributing and later by running a local party Andalusian daily, La Monarquia.

Manuel Senante started to contribute to El Siglo Futuro himself in 1901, initially with short informative pieces.

Manuel Senante stood as a candidate of Liga Catolica, a newly formed electoral platform promoted by the Church in Spain.

Manuel Senante fielded his candidature in the south-Levantine city of Orihuela, but was defeated by the famous liberal politician, Francisco Ballesteros.

Manuel Senante engaged in setting up La Voz de Alicante, the daily which first appeared in 1904 and which he managed as a director.

Manuel Senante was active in local party structures; his formal position remains unclear, but in 1906 he was already representing the provincial Integrist junta.

Manuel Senante stood as an Integrist candidate from the same Azpeitia district in course of the following 7 election campaigns of 1910,1914,1916,1918,1919,1920 and 1923, always emerging victorious.

The mainstream Carlists usually refrained from fielding counter-candidates, though at times other parties presented their contenders; twice Manuel Senante was declared triumphant having faced no competition and elected according to the notorious Article 29.

Manuel Senante governed his actions by the principle of defending the sacrosanct Catholic religion, which marked the most visible thread of his activity: defending rights and privileges of the Church against secularization, usually promoted by the Liberals.

Manuel Senante sided with the hierarchy both in case of nationwide disasters like Semana Tragica, the event he interpreted mostly in religious terms, and minor though publicity-gaining controversies, like a dispute over possible sale abroad of an antique Zamora pyxis, possessed by the Church.

Manuel Senante kept steering the Alicantine daily when the death of Ramon Nocedal vacated the chairmanship of El Siglo Futuro.

For three decades Manuel Senante was its strategic director, editor and manager, setting the political line rather than contributing himself.

In terms of ideological outlook Manuel Senante followed the Nocedals closely; El Siglo Futuro remained an ultraconservative, vehemently anti-liberal and then anti-democratic vehicle of pursuing traditional values centered on the Catholic faith.

Manuel Senante opposed new Christian-democratic format of mobilization already in the previous decade, first confronting Luis Coloma but later targeting Grupo de la Democracia Cristiana and Maximiliano Arboleya.

Manuel Senante entered Accion Catolica executive in the early 1930s; his firm monarchical stance was increasingly incompatible with accidentalist position taken by Herrera.

Manuel Senante welcomed the Republic with hardly veiled antipathy, which following quema de conventos turned into horror and enmity.

Manuel Senante demonstrated no hesitation when forming the united Carlist organization, Comunion Tradicionalista.

In 1932 Manuel Senante entered Junta Suprema Tradicionalista, executive of the new party, representing Levante and Andalusia.

Manuel Senante joined managing board of Editorial Tradicionalista, a company taking ownership of El Siglo Futuro, and together with fellow ex-integrist Lamamie dominated within the body, triggering grumblings about Integrist domination in the party.

Manuel Senante was increasingly disappointed by nationalist turn of the Basque campaign; despite his Restauracion and dictatorship defense of Vascongadas fueros, Senante viewed the autonomous campaign with suspicion.

Manuel Senante tried to resume parliamentarian career not in Gipuzkoa but in his native Alicante; outmaneuvered during coalition talks he ran as independent and was defeated both in 1933 and 1936.

Manuel Senante avoided almost certain incarceration by seeking refuge in a foreign diplomatic mission and eventually made it to the Nationalist zone in the summer of 1937, installing himself first at the Olazabals' estate in San Sebastian, later in 1938 moving to Vitoria.

When trapped in the Republican zone Manuel Senante was unable to participate in internal Carlist disputes related to amalgamation into FET, but afterwards, when nominated member of Junta Nacional Carlista de Guerra, he adopted a hostile stand.

Manuel Senante remained on friendly terms with the primate, cardinal Segura, especially as in the 1940s Carlism enjoyed probably best-ever relations with the Spanish Catholic hierarchy, since the 1830s at best lukewarm towards the movement.