HISTORICAL DICTIONARY A–Z - Spain and Portugal: A Reference Guide from the Renaissance to the Present - page 227

I

Ibárruri, Dolores (1895-1989)
Spanish politician
Born to a working-class family in the
Basque province of Vizcaya, Ibárruri left
school at an early age to earn her living.
She nevertheless displayed eloquence in
articles for labor union publications and
was already well known as an agitator
when she joined the newly formed Com-
munist Party in 1920. Under the pseud-
onym La Pasionaria (the Passion Flower),
she was already famous as a street orator
and proponent of class warfare when she
was elected to the Cortes (see CORTES ) after
the establishment of the Second Republic.
The S PANISH CIVIL WAR of 1936-39 brought
her international notoriety as she exhorted
the Republican forces with such slogans as
“No pasarán” (“They shall not pass”) and
“Es mejor morir de pie que vivir de rodillas”
(“It is better to die on your feet than to live
on your knees”). Following the collapse of
the republic, Ibárruri was welcomed by the
Soviet Union as Spain's most prominent
Communist leader. She remained there
during World War II (in which her son was
killed while serving in the Red Army). With
the end of the Franco dictatorship in 1975
and the subsequent legalization of the
Communist Party, Ibárruri returned to
Spain where she was reelected to the Cor-
tes. Within a few years her advancing age

led her to withdraw from active politics,
but she was named honorary president of
her party. A dynamic and outspoken cham-
pion of her cause, La Pasionaria was
undoubtedly the best known Spanish
woman of the 20th century.

Ignatius of Loyola, Saint (Ignacio
López de Loyola) (1491-1556)
Spanish religious leader
Born in the Basque province of Guipúz-
coa, the youngest son of a noble family,
Ignatius (later to be known as Ignatius of
Loyola) spent his youth as a page in noble
households and, for a time, at the court of
King F ERDINAND V. He then followed a mil-
itary career until badly wounded at the
siege of Pamplona in 1521. While recover-
ing from his injuries, spiritual topics, which
were his only available reading, turned his
mind to the religious life. A year of her-
mitlike isolation and meditation confirmed
him in his decision.
Ignatius spent more than a decade repair-
ing the defects of his early education, study-
ing in B ARCELONA and at the Universities of
Alcalá and Salamanca, where his intensity
and enthusiasm won him a following
among pious students but led to his inter-
rogation by the S PANISH I NQUISITION , pre-
sumably on the ground that he was caught

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