Lucia Sanchez Saornil was a Spanish poet, painter, anarchist and feminist icon. Her early highly erotic paens to female beauty, were written under the male pseudonym of Luciano de San-Saor, at a time when homosexuality was criminalised . She fought against the fascists in the Spanish Civil War. She is know best remembered for being one of the founders of Mujeres Libres, a group of working class politically active women who struggled against patriarchy. They tried to create an autonomous female community to empower women to realize their individual potential within the larger anarcho-syndicalist movement.
She was also a leading light in the avant garde literary movent of this era.
She was also active in the CNT in Madrid ( The National Confederation of Labour).
Though openly lesbian, after the failure of the Spanish Revolution, she spent her later life in a rather clandenstine existence, exiling herself to France,but would return secretly to Spain on occasions, to Madrid and to Valencia.
She died of cancer in Valencia in 1970.
The Song of Mujeres Libres
Fists upraised. women of Iberia
towards horizons filled with light
paths afire
feet on the ground
face to the blue sky.
Affirming the promises of life
we defy tradition
Let us mold the warm clay
pf a new world born of suffering.
Let the past crumble into oblivion!
What is yesterday worth to us!
We want to write anew
the word WOMAN
Fists upraised, women of the world
towards horizons filled with light
on paths afire
onward, onward
toward the light.
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