Filomena Dato Muruais (1856 – 1 May 1926) was a Galician feminist and writer in

Castilian Spanish In English, Castilian Spanish can mean the variety of Peninsular Spanish spoken in northern and central Spain, the standard form of Spanish, or Spanish from Spain in general. In Spanish, the term (Castilian) can either refer to the Spanish langua ...

and the Galician language. Remaining in

Galicia Galicia may refer to: Geographic regions * Galicia (Spain), a region and autonomous community of northwestern Spain ** Gallaecia, a Roman province ** The post-Roman Kingdom of the Suebi, also called the Kingdom of Gallaecia ** The medieval King ...

all her life, she joined movements associated with Galician culture and to liberate women from stigmatization. Of the three poetry books published by Spanish women in the 19th century, one was by Dato.

Biography

Filomena Dato was born in

Ourense Ourense (; es, Orense ) is a city and capital of the province of Ourense, located in the autonomous community of Galicia, northwestern Spain. It is on the Camino Sanabrés path of the Way of St James ( Camino de Santiago), and is crossed by t ...

, 1856. Little or almost nothing is known about Dato's life in a personal sense, beyond the great friendship that she established with her contemporaries

Sofía Casanova Sofía Casanova (30 September 1861 – 16 January 1958) (formally in es, Sofía Guadalupe Pérez Casanova, pl, Zofia Casanova-Lutosławska) was a poet, novelist, and journalist, the first Spanish woman to become a permanent correspondent in a f ...

and

Emilia Pardo Bazán Emilia Pardo Bazán y de la Rúa-Figueroa (16 September 185112 May 1921), countess of Pardo Bazán, was a Spanish novelist, journalist, literary critic, poet, playwright, translator, editor and professor. She is known for introducing naturalis ...

. Excluding this, most of her biographical data is related to her social and cultural work. Dato wrote for various magazines and journals, and was awarded prizes. As with Catalan contemporaries, her early writing was in Castilian before she switched to Galician. Her poetic compositions were published in newspapers such as ''El Heraldo Gallego'', ''Galicia Recreativa'' and ''Album Literario.'' She participated in the

Rexurdimento The ''Rexurdimento'' ( Galician for Resurgence) was a period in the History of Galicia during the 19th century. Its central feature was the revitalization of the Galician language as a vehicle of social and cultural expression after the so-call ...

, the literary movement that revitalized the Galician language as a means of expression, following in the likes of

Valentín Lamas Carvajal Valentín Lamas Carvajal (1849–1906) was a Spanish journalist. He was one of the founders of Royal Galician Academy. He studied high school in his hometown and in 1870 he moved to Santiago de Compostela Santiago de Compostela is the capit ...

. Dato was a fervent feminist, in alignment with Rosalía de Castro. In fact, these two poets are the best representatives of the feminist lyric of 19th century Spain, in a historical context in which

machismo Machismo (; ; ; ) is the sense of being " manly" and self-reliant, a concept associated with "a strong sense of masculine pride: an exaggerated masculinity". Machismo is a term originating in the early 1930s and 1940s best defined as hav ...

was the dominant ideology, not only among people without cultural training, but also among intellectuals. These still asked questions such as if women had a soul, if they had conscience and remorse, or if they were the bearers of sin by inheritance from Eve, among others, being very frequent in social and philosophical debates. It was a time of adversity for women like Dato herself, Rosalía de Castro or

Cecilia Böhl de Faber Cecilia is a personal name originating in the name of Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of music. The name has been popularly used in Europe (particularly the United Kingdom and Italy, where in 2018 it was the 43rd most popular name for girls born ...

(Fernán Caballero), which gives her literary production greater value. The feminist claim and defense of the aforementioned woman is very present in ''Follatos'' (1891), her only book in the Galician language; it was dedicated to Infanta Sabela Francisca de Borbón. The book is a compilation of forty-five poems as a complaint against gender stereotypes, in addition to including a series of writings on religiosity and intimacy, very much in the line of typical 19th century Romanticism. Dato continued to dedicate her life to the world of literature, despite the blindness that she was acquiring, practically until her death at age 70, in

A Coruña A Coruña (; es, La Coruña ; historical English: Corunna or The Groyne) is a city and municipality of Galicia, Spain. A Coruña is the most populated city in Galicia and the second most populated municipality in the autonomous community and ...

, 1 May 1926.

Awards and honours

Dato received awards in numerous literary competitions. She won three awards in 1887 for her notable poem "Defensa das mulleres", in addition to being one of the five awarded poets at the Juegos Florales de Tui in 1891. In 1906, she was appointed a corresponding member of the Real Academia Gallega, along with other contemporaries such as Carmen Beceiro, Emilia Calé and Sofía Casanova.

Selected works

* ''Punumbras'', 1880 * ''Follatos'', 1891 * co-author, ''Las mujeres españolas, americanas y lusitanas pintadas por sí mismas'' * essay on Benito Jerónimo Feijoo's "Defensa de las mujeres"

References

Sources

* Alvarellos, Enrique (1993). ''Mulleres destacadas de Galicia''. ISBN 84-85311-96-5. (in Galician) * Couceiro Freijomil, A. (1951). ''Diccionario Bio-bibliográfico de Escritores I''. p. 342. Editorial de los Bibliófilos Gallegos. (in Spanish) * Fernández del Riego, Francisco (1992). Diccionario de escritores en lingua galega. Sada: Ediciós do Castro. p. 110. (in Galician) * Gran Enciclopedia Galega. 2005. ISBN 84-87804-88-8. (in Galician) * VV.AA. (2010–2011). ''Dicionario biográfico de Galicia''. 1. Ir Indo Edicións. p. 320. (in Galician) * BIBLIOTECA VIRTUAL GALEGA (2006). (in Galician)

External links