Joan Montseny

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Joan (or Juan) Montseny i Carret (also known under the pseudonym Federico Urales; August 19, 1864, Reus—March 12, 1942, Salon-de-Provence) was a Catalan Anarchist.

A tunnelling worker, he joined the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party in 1885. In 1888, he was appointed general secretary of the National Federation of tunnelling workers. Montseny married Soledad Gustavo (pseudonym of Teresa Mañé i Miravet), a secular teacher in Vilanova i la Geltrú, and the two became local figures of Anarchism in Reus. Their political options made the authorities close down their school, and Joan Montseny was detained in Barcelona's Montjuïc.

He took exile to the United Kingdom, returning under his assumed name. Settled in Madrid, he started publishing the newspaper La Revista Blanca in 1898. Although he benefitted from an amnesty, the paper was shut down in 1905.

Montseny began working in agriculture, as well as writing literary pieces (essays, plays, and the novels La Novela Ideal - 1925, La Novela libre - 1929, El Luchador - 1931). In 1914, he declared himself in favor of Spanish participation in World War I. Together with his wife and their daughter Federica Montseny, he started publishing a new version of La Revista Blanca in 1923.

By the side of his daughter throughout the Spanish Civil War, Joan Montseny was forced to flee for France in 1939 (as the troops of Francisco Franco defeated the remaining Republican armies). He died in an internment camp.