CARMEN DE BURGOS Y SEGUÍ: BIOGRAPHY, STYLE, WORKS AND PHRASES - LITERATURE - 2025

Carmen de Burgos y Seguí (1867-1932) was a writer, journalist, translator, and also a defender and activist for women's rights. She was part of the Generation of '98, and some of her writings were signed with the pseudonyms Colombine, Perico el de los Palotes, Marianela and Honorine.

Carmen's work was focused on developing the role of women in society, beyond being a wife, mother and homemaker. Its mission was to include it in cultural, academic and intellectual actions, through independence and freedom.

Carmen de Burgos. Source: Not stated. Unknown, via Wikimedia Commons

Carmen de Burgos was a prolific writer, that is, her works were many. Essays, novels, newspaper articles, and translations made up the variety of her writings. The Fantastic Woman and I Want to Live My Life were some of her recognized titles.

Biography

Birth and family

María del Carmen Ramona Loreta was born in Almería, on December 10, 1867, into a wealthy family, who owned mines and lands. Her parents were José de Burgos y Cañizares and Nicasia Seguí y Nieto. Carmen de Burgos was the oldest sister of the ten children her parents had.

Carmen's school education

Carmen de Burgos's parents were concerned about giving their children a careful and quality education. They did not discriminate based on sex, so the future writer received the same teaching as her male brothers, hence perhaps her interest in female equality.

Early marriage

In 1883, when Carmen was only sixteen years old, she married the journalist and painter Arturo Álvarez y Bustos, despite the fact that her father disagreed. The husband, who was twenty-eight years old, was the son of the governor of Almería, and was also in charge of Almería Bufa, an ironic magazine.

Academic Formation of Burgos

The fact of having married prematurely did not prevent Carmen de Burgos from training professionally. In 1895, when she was twenty-eight, she graduated as a teacher in primary education, and three years later in higher education in the Spanish capital. That year her daughter Maria was born.

Shortly after graduating, in 1901, he began to practice in Guadalajara. Meanwhile, Carmen's married life was not solid, and she began to unravel. Her husband was not what she believed, in that moment she understood her father's opposition.

End of your marriage

Carmen de Burgos went through unpleasant experiences during her married years, her husband was unfaithful to her on many occasions. Added to that was the death of her first two children at an early age. However, in 1901 the writer chose to leave home and start over.

Carmen de Burgos, determined, went with her daughter María to Madrid, taking with her the pain of having lost her two oldest children. Her beginning was firm, the following year she obtained a column in the newspaper El Globo, which was called Female Notes, and in 1903 the Universal Newspaper also opened its doors and signed her articles as Colombine.

Path to success and recognition

The journalistic activity of Carmen de Burgos led her to be recognized as a professional in the area, something unprecedented in the Spain of her time. In addition, her press writings began to generate controversy, because she touched on issues such as divorce in a still conservative and traditional society; this, in the long run, cost him the censorship by the Franco dictatorship.

At the same time, he was in charge of spreading ideas, thoughts, lifestyles and fashions that were totally new to Spain, which resulted in it having both allies and detractors. Later, in 1905, he won a scholarship to expand knowledge at the educational level, and traveled through France and Italy. Carmen became the female role model.

Between activism and love

In 1906, after returning from her trip to Europe, she wrote a series of articles in the newspaper El Heraldo de Madrid in favor of the right of women to vote. She also formed a group of modernist gatherings, where important intellectuals of the time coincided. Her presence was respected in each space, preceded by her remarkable verb.

Carmen de Burgos, photo from 1913. Source: Not stated, via Wikimedia Commons

It was precisely in those literary meetings where he met who would become his new love, the nineteen-year-old and future writer, Ramón Gómez de la Serna. Admiration, friendship and love came together every afternoon at the Burgos house; and in 1909, against the gazes of the talkers, they began the relationship.

Burgos everywhere

In 1907 Carmen de Burgos served as a teacher in the town of Toledo, but she traveled regularly to Madrid. Later, in 1909, she was a correspondent for the newspaper El Heraldo, regarding the events in Barranco del Lobo, where Spanish troops fell to soldiers from the African Rif region.

In 1909 the father of his daughter, Arturo Álvarez y Bustos, passed away. What happened meant that the relationship with Gómez de la Serna was better viewed by conservative society. Although de la Serna and de Burgos did not get married, the affair lasted for about twenty years.

Murky waters

Carmen de Burgos' daughter, María, decided to dedicate herself to acting, then in 1917 she married the actor Guillermo Mancha and they went to live in America. However, thirteen years later the marriage ended, and she returned to Spain.

Carmen tried to help her, but her daughter was unsuccessful, and she had also become addicted to drugs. The greatest surprise was taken by the writer when she discovered that María and de la Serna had an affair. Although the affair lasted a short time, de Burgos emotionally broke with her partner permanently.

Good harvest for Carmen

In 1931, when the government of the Second Republic began, the campaigns and actions that Carmen de Burgos had carried out bore fruit. Divorce, female vow, and civil marriage were approved. From that date on she was part of the Republican Radical Socialist Party, occupying an important position.

The writer also published the novel I want to live my life in that year, and was also part of the board of the International League of Iberian and Hispano-American Women. Carmen de Burgos also joined Freemasonry, something strange for this group. The anti-ecclesiastical position of the writer was always evident.

Death of the writer

The death of Carmen de Burgos was sudden, on October 8, 1932 she felt bad during an event. They took her home, where she was quickly treated by her doctor and friend, Gregorio Marañón. However, the efforts were in vain, because he died the next day; she was sixty-four years old.

Tomb of Carmen de Burgos and family, in the civil cemetery of Madrid. Source: Strakhov, via Wikimedia Commons

His departure moved both intellectuals and politicians. It was not for less, his work, by then already enjoyed importance in all areas and had penetrated deep into Spanish society. His remains rest in the Madrid Civil Cemetery. During the Franco regime his work was banned due to its liberal content.

Style

The style of Carmen de Burgos y Seguí's work had a clear, precise and forceful language, due to the themes it developed. In addition, her writings were characterized by being realistic, innovative and modern; the freedom and independence of her personality were reflected in her essays and articles.

His work was of a social and cultural nature. Through his pen, he managed to ensure that women were valued within Spanish society as a being capable of undertaking and developing just like men. His frequent themes were feminism, the female vote, divorce and the inclusion of women.

Plays

Novels

- Do you want to eat well? Practical kitchen manual. It was reissued in 1931 and 1936.

- The woman in the home. Home economics (Date unknown).

- Health & Beauty. Hygiene and toilet secrets (Date unknown).

- The vote, schools and trades of women (Unknown date).

- Art of being elegant (Unknown date).

- Art of knowing how to live (Unknown date).

- Treasure of beauty. Art of seducing (Unknown date).

- The art of being loved (Unknown date).

- The modern kitchen (Unknown date).

Short novels

- The treasure of the castle (1907).

- Paths of life (1908).

- The poison of art (1910).

Portrait of Carmen de Burgos, by Julio Romero de Torres. Source: Julio Romero de Torres, via Wikimedia Commons

- The indecisive (1912).

- The justice of the sea (1912).

- Frasca the fool (1914).

- Bad loves (1914).

- Villa María (1916).

- The usurers (1916).

- The black man (1916).

- The unexpected (1916).

- The persecutor (1917).

- Passions (1917).

- The best film (1918).

- All except that one (1918).

- Two loves (1919).

- The flower of the beach (1920).

- The loves of Faustino (1920).

- Honeymoon (1921).

- The enchanted city (1921).

- The meddler (1921).

- Article 438 (1921).

- The Russian princess (1922).

- The murdered suicide (1922).

- The cold woman (1922).

- The longing (1923).

- The foreigner (1923).

- The boredom of love (1923).

- The one who married very young (1923).

- The miniature (1924).

- The mane of discord (1925).

- The nostalgic (1925).

- The missionary of Teotihuacán (1926).

- Mercy (1927).

- Ran out of it (1929).

- The demonized of Jaca (1932).

Translations

- The story of my life. Mute, Deaf and Blind by Helen Keller (1904).

- The Mental Inferiority of Women by Paul Julius Moebius (1904).

- The Evagenlios and the second Christian generation by Ernesto Renan (1904).

- The Russo-Japanese War of Leo Tolstoy (1904).

- In the world of women by Roberto Bracco (1906).

- Sixteen years in Siberia by León Deutsch (1906).

- The Uncrowned King by Georges de Bouhelier (1908).

- The conquest of an empire by Emilio Salgari (1911).

- Physiology of pleasure by Pablo Mantegazza (1913).

- The mornings in Florence by John Ruskin (1913).

- Tales to Mimí by Max Nordau (1914).

- The Amiens Bible by John Ruskin (1916).

Phrases

- "We have to live in the interior landscape of our souls."

- "The true progress of the peoples is in ethics."

- "I believe that the future belongs to us."

- “One of the things that should preferably attract the attention of society, due to its great importance and necessity, is the culture and education of women, on which civilization and the progress of peoples depend. To take care of the education of women is to take care of the regeneration and progress of humanity ”.

- "Social evil comes from ignorance and obscurantism, salvation is in education and work…".

- "My aspirations are that on the foundations of this devastated society, the society of the future will rise."

- “… The true progress of the peoples is based on ethics, no nonsense or conventionalism; human laws based on the same nature, love of brothers for all; that individual rights end where the pain of others begins ”.

- "Then I went to the city… and I, who believed that all of humanity was good, saw its little things, its miseries… and I felt the pain of the sorrows of others, and I wept with the oppressed and envied the worlds where men do not live."

References

1. Carmen de Burgos. (2019). Spain: Wikipedia. Recovered from: es.wikipedia.org.
2. Carmen de Burgos. Biography. (2019). Spain: Instituto Cervantes. Recovered from: cervantes.es.
3. Cornejo, J. (2019). Carmen de Burgos, among other things, the first Spanish war correspondent. Spain: Rinconete. Cervantes Virtual Center. Recovered from: cvc.cervantes.es.
4. Jiménez, M. (S. f.). Carmen de Burgos I followed. Spain: Biographical Dictionary of Almería. Recovered from: dipalme.org.
5. Carmen de Burgos, Colombine: "the true progress of the people is in ethics". (2013). Spain: Flores del Desierto. Recovered from: floresdeldesierto.es.