Antònia Fontanillas

Antònia Margarita Aurora Fontanillas Borràs (29 May 1917 – 23 September 2014) was a Catalan anarcho-syndicalist activist, journalist and historian. Coming from an anarchist family, she joined the anarchist movement at an early age, affiliating with the graphic arts union of the National Confederation of Labour (CNT) and the Libertarian Youth. She worked for Solidaridad Obrera during the Spanish Civil War and clandestinely distributed the paper after the fall of Barcelona, before fleeing into exile in France. She remained active in the exiled anarchist movement, and after the Spanish transition to democracy, she joined the General Confederation of Labour (CGT) and wrote several works about the history of Spanish anarchism.

Antònia Fontanillas Borràs was born on 29 May 1917, in Barcelona.^[1] She was raised by a multi-generational Catalan anarchist family,^[2] the granddaughter of Martí Borràs and Francisca Saperas. When she was eight years old, her family emigrated to Mexico, where she received an education and immersed herself in libertarian literature. After her father was expelled from the country, the family returned to Catalonia in 1933.^[3]

Upon her return, she found work as a lithographer,^[4] and affiliated herself with the National Confederation of Labour (CNT), an anarchist trade union confederation.^[5] She later became a delegate of its graphic arts section.^[6] She also became an active member of the Iberian Federation of Libertarian Youth (FIJL), a newly-established youth wing of the Spanish anarchist movement.^[7] Federico Ruffinelli, the organisation's propaganda secretary, encouraged her to take positions of responsibility within the organisation.^[8]

Following the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, Fontanillas attempted to enlist in the confederal militias and take part in the planned Mallorca landings.^[9] She and two of her friends convinced Juan Yagüe, the leader of the Red and Black Column, to allow them to join the column for the planned expedition.^[10] Her friends took part in the expedition, which was ultimately unsuccessful in its aim of capturing the island; Fontanillas herself was persuaded to stay behind by her father.^[11] Instead, she went to work as an administrator at the offices of the anarchist newspaper Solidaridad Obrera,^[12] where she first began her career as a writer.^[13] Observing the ongoing Spanish Revolution, Fontanillas reported that the "barriers of convention" were broken down and that "one breathed in a different kind of atmosphere, more natural, more human".^[14] Later into the war, Fontanillas was discouraged from joining the Mujeres Libres, an anarchist women's organisation, by the FIJL, which gave her the "false impression" that it was an organisation for older women.^[15]

Following the fall of Barcelona to the Nationalists in 1939, Fontanillas stayed behind in the city, remaining active in the underground anarchist movement.^[12] In 1945, she typeset at least fourteen issues of Solidaridad Obrera and clandestinely distributed them throughout the city.^[1] From 1946 to 1948, she acted as a liaison between anarchist prisoners and their lawyers. In 1953, she and her partner Abel Paz fled over the border,^[3] going into exile in France.^[16] They settled in Clermont, where they joined up with the exiled Spanish Libertarian Movement, coordinated with the maquis and edited the Bulletin of the Libertarian Youth. In 1958, Fontanillas broke up with Paz and moved with their son to Dreux.^[3] There she joined a theatre group, worked with the local branch of the CNT and published the newspaper Frente Libertario.^[1] She also began a relationship with Antonio Cañete Rodríguez, who she stayed with from 1960 until he died in 1979.^[3]

After the Spanish transition to democracy, she took part in several congresses of the CNT, before joining the breakaway General Confederation of Labour (CGT) in 1983. She nevertheless agitated for reconciliation between the splintered factions of the anarchist movement, remaining critical of her own organisation.^[3] She spent the rest of her life preserving the historical memory of her generation of Spanish anarchism.^[17] She participated in many cultural and literary events, worked for the International Centre for Research on Anarchism (CIRA) and penned several books under various pseudonyms.^[1] Among them, she wrote a biography about Lucía Sánchez Saornil, the founder of the Mujeres Libres.^[18] Fontanillas died on 23 September 2014, in Dreux.^[1]

Fontanillas' papers are collected in the International Institute of Social History.^[1] Historian Danny Evans dedicated his book about the Spanish Revolution to Fontanillas, say her commitment to preserving the historical memory of the period was an inspiration to him.^[19] Elena Duque placed her in a collective biography of anarchist women, alongside Sara Berenguer, Pepita Carpena, Joaquina Dorado and Conxa Pérez, who all had similar experiences and life stories.^[20] José Luis Gutiérrez Molina said that her biography "encapsulates the history of anarchism in Spain".^[1]

• De lo aprendido y vivido (Dreux, 1996)
• Vidas cortas pero llenas. 80 aniversario de la fundación de la FIJL (Badalona, 2012)
• Lucía Sánchez Saornil: Poeta, periodista y fundadora de Mujers Libres (Madrid, 2014)