Sofía Casanova (30 September 1861 – 16 January 1958) (formally in , ) was a poet, novelist, and journalist, the first Spanish woman to become a permanent correspondent in a foreign country and a war correspondent. She was a cultured woman, well known in the literary circles of the time. In her work she highlighted the human aspect of her chronicles as a correspondent for the newspaper ABC in Poland and Russia, where she reported on the suffering of the civilian population during the wars she covered, adding literary value. Her activity throughout Europe allowed her to experience events such as the First World War, the fall of Czarist Russia, the emergence of the Bolshevik regime, and the Second World War. She wrote for newspapers such as ABC, , El Liberal, and El Imparcial, for the magazine Galicia, for other Galician publications, and for the international press, such as the Gazeta Polska and the New York Times. Of Catholic and monarchical convictions in the Spanish Civil War, she joined the Francoist ranks. Her long life allowed her to leave behind a broad collection of writings covering all literary genres.
Family and youth
Casanova descended from a multinational family. Her paternal grandfather, Vicente Pérez Losada, was Portuguese by birth; he married a Madrid girl, herself daughter to a family born in Mexico but of Basque origin. They settled in Orense and this is where Casanova's father, Vicente Pérez Eguía, was born; he worked as a lithographer. Casanova's maternal grandfather, Juan Bautista Casanova Pla Canela, was from Ferrol, but he spent many years in navy service in Spanish possessions in Nueva España. He married a girl of Dutch descent from New Orleans; both settled in La Coruña shortly before the birth of their daughter, Rosa Casanova Estomper.Martínez Martínez, Rosario (1999), "Sofía Casanova. Mito y literatura", Santiago pp. 17-26, Casanova was an illegitimate child, a rather unusual and scandalous case in Spain and Galicia at the time.Pazos, Antón M. (2010). Vida e tempo de Sofía Casanova (1861–1958) (in Spanish). Santiago de Compostela. p. 19. Her father married her mother in January 1863; according to various sources the couple had either one or two more children. In 1865 Vicente Pérez abandoned his family and moved to Madrid; none of the sources consulted provides any details on his occupation or private life. Few years later he disappeared. According to some authors he left Spain for America;Martínez Martínez, Rosario (1999), "Sofía Casanova. Mito y literatura", Santiago p. 32, other biographers have doubts and note that the ship he allegedly had boarded sunk on the Atlantic, yet he was not on the passenger list; At that time he was already a fugitive; in 1871 he was wanted by the Madrid judiciary for embezzlement and fraud.Diario Oficial de Avisos de Madrid, 13 February 1871 One more scholar claims that by the mid-1880s he was already dead.
The abandoned mother and her children stayed in A Coruña, supported financially by Juan Bautista Casanova. Casanova spent her childhood at the Pazo del Hombre in , in the A Coruña province, and began her studies at the local Doña Concha school. In 1873 the family – including her mother, brothers, and maternal grandparents – took up residence in Madrid. The first years in the capital were initially very hard for the young girl; unaccustomed to Castilian heat she was longing for Galician climate, and given financial misery of the family, she had to support the economy by giving lessons. Their standing improved upon receiving a heritage from Casanova's paternal family.Pazos 2010, pp. 19-20
In Madrid, Casanova frequented the Conservatorio, where she began to study poetry and declamation. Her first poems were published when she was fifteen years old, in the Faro de Vigo. It was not she but her mother who sent them to the newspaper after finding them in her room. Casanova's talent for poetry was recognized in the most select literary circles that she frequented assiduously. She started to make friends in the Madrid literary world, above all with Blanca de los Ríos. She was noticed by Marquis of Valmar, who facilitated publications of her poems in the Madrid titles , , , and and in the Barcelona-based ; she was also publishing in the Galician and . In the early 1880s she has already earned her name as a promising, young poet.Ochoa Crespo, Pedro (2016), "Género e identidad sexual como discurso. Sofía Casanova y la Primera Guerra Mundial" [PhD thesis Complutense], Madrid, p. 167
At the court of Alfonso XII
Already by 1872, her poetry was presented during literary evenings at Teatro de Variedades;La Coorespondencia de España 3 March 1874 during the following few years she got used to stage appearances when reading her poemsEl Solfeo 5 July 1877 and it seems that in the late 1870s she was already moderately successful.El Imparcial 20 February 1880 In the early 1880s, she earned her name as a promising, young poet, praised as "".El Pabellón Nacional 13 October 1882 By that time she also began a career of an actress; between 1878 and 1882 she was noted as performing for Teatro EspañolEl Globo 8 September 1878 or Teatro de Alhambra.El Democrata 3 April 1881 She initially appeared in the press under her proper surname "Sofía Pérez Casanova";See a selection of press notes from the early 1880s, available at Hemeroteca Digital service in the early 1880s, she was referred to as "Sofía Casanova".
At an unspecified time, either in the late 1870s or in the early 1880s, Casanova became the protégé of Ramón de Campoamor, who in turn introduced her to the literary gatherings of Marquis of Valmar, and of , later Count of Andino, tutor of King Alfonso XII. At the literary evenings she maintained contact with intellectuals of the time, including and Bernard Shaw. Among the women writers she knew were Concepción Jimeno Gil, her younger friend Blanca de los Ríos, Sofía Tartilán, Filomena Dato, and Emilia Pardo Bazán. She started to appear at the court, invited to recite great Spanish poetry but also to declaim her own works. Casanova was particularly appreciated by the king himself. One anecdote has it that even the prime minister Antonio Cánovas was kept waiting in the antechamber while Alfonso XII could have not brought himself to interrupt Casanova reciting poetry.Meissner, Karol, Las tres muertes de Sofía Casanova, [in:] Galeon service [retrieved 24 May 2019]
In 1885, Casanova published her debut volume, a collection of poetic pieces titled . The book was financed by the king himself; the set was prologued by , a poet and literary critic fairly popular at the time, working for a number of prestigious periodicals.La Ilustración Española 22 May 1883 Publication of her debut volume increased Casanova's popularity, and in 1885, some papers started to celebrate her as a poet with "" (roughly translates to "Inspired spirit and a beautiful face. Youth and grace weave at her temples, adorned with golden curls, a crown of attractions and charms. Poverty adds a halo of irresistible sympathy").La Epoca 11 May 1885
In these circles, in June 1886, Campoamor introduced her to a young Polish nobleman, later to become philosopher and professor, Wincenty Lutosławski, who had arrived in Madrid from France. Lutosławski became infatuated with Casanova almost immediately; the two corresponded for some four months before she declared having fallen in love with him as well. Though Lutosławski's parents remained highly skeptical about marrying a foreigner, he remained firm and the couple were married in the church of San Marcos on 19 March 1887. However, they signed a secret document, in which both consented to unilateral rupture should any of the parties wish to go his/her own way.Pazos 2010, pp. 20-21
Unhappy marriage
After the wedding, the couple spent their honeymoon in Portugal. Later, they initially moved to Lutosławski's family estate in Drozdowo, where they were very pompously greeted by Casanova's in-laws. Initially, she communicated with her husband and his family only in French; it was only gradually that she was picking up more and more Polish. According to many accounts, she soon won the hearts and minds of all the Lutosławski family with her natural, cheerful, open and unassuming personality. Following a brief spell in Switzerland, where Lutosławski obtained his PhD title, they spent the next few years shuttling across Russia, as Lutosławski was either employed or was seeking employment in universities of Dorpat, Helsinki, Moscow and Kazan. They returned to Drozdowo in 1895 and lived there intermittently until 1899. By that time, they had already four children, all of them daughters: María, Izabela, Yadwiga and Halina, born between 1888 and 1897. Yadwiga died of dysentery in 1895, plunging Casanova into a severe depression. The couple and their family traveled to Galicia every summer, which allowed Casanova to maintain a direct relationship with her homeland. Absorbed by family duties Casanova has almost ceased to write; her only literary attempt of the time is a set of short stories based on her own experiences in what was still an exotic country to her, , published in Madrid in 1894. The volume was translated into Polish and went to print as in 1907.
In the early 20th century, the Lutosławski couple moved from Russia to Austro-Hungary and settled in Krakow, where Lutosławski was employed by the Yagiellonian University. Their house at became sort of a cultural and social hub; every Wednesday they staged literary sessions with eminent local writers taking part. It is there that Casanova came to know a number of Polish writers and politicians; the latter category included the nationalist leader Roman Dmowski. In 1908 the family returned to the Russian Empire and moved to Warsaw, though at that time the couple had already grown apart. Some biographers point to their not having had male children as an influence on the separation, as Wincenty began to have relationships with other women in search of an heir to his surname. Others emphasize the increasingly odd behaviour of Lutosławski, whose extravagant lifestyle and theories suggest mental instability. He developed an idea of spiritual purification of the Polish nation by means of moral sanity and abstinence. He followed it himself including somewhat eccentric means like physical exercises practiced naked; they stupefied Drozdowo peasants and Galician fishermen alike. When he unexpectedly sold their Warsaw house, in 1909, Casanova decided to return to Spain and take her youngest daughter with her; she settled in Madrid in the house of her brother Vicente. Lutosławski remarried, much to the indignation of his own family, who sided entirely with Casanova.
Literary recognition
Casanova's continuous moves combined with her literary experience and her study of language allowed her to master six other languages in addition to Spanish and Galician: French, English, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, and Russian. These became key knowledge for the translations that she would carry out in the future. Her trips also allowed her to meet personalities from the intellectual and political world such as Tolstoy, Marie Curie, and Morel-Fatio, whose opinions about the Spanish she collected in books and conferences. She made literary contributions to ABC, El Debate, Blanco y Negro, , and , and her home in Madrid became a meeting place for Basilio Álvarez, , Ramón y Cajal, , , and Castelao, who would illustrate her book (1909). She maintained an intense social life, giving lectures and participating in so-called "social works". During the Krakow period she came to know and befriended a number of Polish writers, including Stanisław Wyspiański, Rydel, Kasprowicz and Władysław Reymont.