Pepita Not

{{Short description|Catalan anarchist militant (1897–1938)}} {{Use British English|date=February 2026}} {{Use dmy dates|date=November 2022}} {{Infobox person | honorific_prefix = | name = Pepita Not | honorific_suffix = | native_name = | native_name_lang = | image = Pepita Not.jpg | image_upright = | landscape =  | alt = Pepita Not, wearing short dark hair and a floral dress | caption = Not in 1934 | pronunciation = | birth_name = Josefa Not Bosch | birth_date = {{Birth date|1897|11|23|df=y}} | birth_place = Torregrossa, Catalonia, Spain | baptised =  | death_date = {{Death date and age|1938|06|04|1897|11|23|df=y}} | death_place = Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain | death_cause =  | body_discovered = | resting_place = Montjuïc Cemetery | resting_place_coordinates =  | burial_place =  | burial_coordinates =  | monuments = | other_names = | siglum = | citizenship =  | education = | alma_mater = | occupation = Maid, cook | years_active = | era = | employer = | organisation = ''Los Solidarios'' | known_for = | style = | term = | predecessor = | successor = | party = | otherparty = | movement = Anarchism | opponents = | boards = | spouse =  | partner = Ricardo Sanz | children = Floréal, Violeta | parents =  | mother = Magdalena Bosch Lleonart | father = Salvador Not Cases | relatives = | family = | callsign =  | awards = | website =  | module = | module2 = | module3 = | module4 = | module5 = | module6 = | signature = | signature_type = | signature_size = | signature_alt = | footnotes = }}

'''Josefa "Pepita" Not Bosch''' (23 November 1897 – 4 June 1938) was a Catalan anarchist activist. Born to a poor peasant family in the province of Lleida, her family moved to Barcelona, where she was forced to work as a housekeeper from an early age. She entered into a free union with the Valencian anarchist militant Ricardo Sanz and helped him hide from the police. During the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera, Not smuggled money, weapons and correspondence for the anarchist militant group ''Los Solidarios''. After the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic, she went into prisoner support activism. Following the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, she fell gravely ill while pregnant with her second child and died from acute leukemia.

==Biography== ===Early life=== Josefa "Pepita" Not Bosch was born in the Catalan village of Torregrossa,{{Sfnm|1a1=Dupuy|1y=2012|2a1=Gallart Fernàndez|2a2=Lladonosa Giró|2y=2020|2p=57|3a1=Íñiguez|3y=2001|3p=436}} on 23 November 1897.{{Sfn|Gallart Fernàndez|Lladonosa Giró|2020|p=57}} She was born into a family of poor peasants,{{Sfnm|1a1=Dupuy|1y=2012|2a1=Gallart Fernàndez|2a2=Lladonosa Giró|2y=2020|2p=57|3a1=García Francés|3y=2017|4a1=Íñiguez|4y=2001|4p=436}} and was the second of seven children.{{Sfn|Gallart Fernàndez|Lladonosa Giró|2020|p=57}} Her mother, Magdalena Bosch, died while she was still young.{{Sfn|Gallart Fernàndez|Lladonosa Giró|2020|pp=57-58}} Her family subsequently moved to the Catalan capital of Barcelona.{{Sfnm|1a1=Dupuy|1y=2012|2a1=Gallart Fernàndez|2a2=Lladonosa Giró|2y=2020|2p=58|3a1=Íñiguez|3y=2001|3p=436}} Her father, Salvador Not, forced her to begin working at the young age of 11.{{Sfnm|1a1=Gallart Fernàndez|1a2=Lladonosa Giró|1y=2020|1p=58|2a1=Íñiguez|2y=2001|2p=436}} She found a job as a maid and cook,{{Sfnm|1a1=Gallart Fernàndez|1a2=Lladonosa Giró|1y=2020|1p=58|2a1=Íñiguez|2y=2001|2p=436}} at the house of a wealthy French family on carrer de Balmes. The family forced her to work long hours without food, while her father kept most of her wages, which made her strongly dislike them both.{{Sfn|Gallart Fernàndez|Lladonosa Giró|2020|p=58}}

===Activism=== Towards the end of World War I, in early 1918, Not met the young Valencian trade unionist Ricardo Sanz at a carnaval and they quickly fell in love,{{Sfn|Gallart Fernàndez|Lladonosa Giró|2020|p=58}} beginning a relationship together.{{Sfnm|1a1=Dupuy|1y=2012|2a1=Gallart Fernàndez|2a2=Lladonosa Giró|2y=2020|2p=58|3a1=García Francés|3y=2017|4a1=Íñiguez|4y=2001|4p=436}} When the war ended, Catalonia experienced an economic crisis, leading to the Canadenca general strike and the outbreak of a civil conflict, during which several trade unionists (including friends of Sanz) were assassinated.{{Sfn|Gallart Fernàndez|Lladonosa Giró|2020|pp=58-59}} Through Sanz, Not first became involved in the Spanish anarchist movement.{{Sfnm|1a1=Dupuy|1y=2012|2a1=García Francés|2y=2017|3a1=Íñiguez|3y=2001|3p=436}} During these years, she began working at the home of an Argentine family, who gave her much better working conditions including hours of free time, which allowed her to become closer with Sanz. She moved out of her own family home into his, where she was welcomed warmly. When Sanz was fired during an industrial dispute, he was able to rely on Not for support. As the civil conflict intensified, Sanz joined an anarchist militant group and was soon wanted by the police. With Not's help and support, he became a fugitive, going into hiding in his hometown.{{Sfn|Gallart Fernàndez|Lladonosa Giró|2020|p=59}} By the time he returned to Barcelona, Not had lost her job, as her employers had returned to Argentina and she decided to remain behind with Sanz. She was able to find work as a cook for another wealthy family, while Sanz worked at an iron foundry. With money from an indemnity from Sanz's former employer, they furnished their house, and in 1922, they entered into a free union with each other.{{Sfn|Gallart Fernàndez|Lladonosa Giró|2020|pp=59-60}}

Following the establishment of the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera, in December 1923, Sanz was arrested and imprisoned by the new regime. While pregnant with their first child, she continued working to support their family and brought her imprisoned partner food and clean clothes twice per week. She gave birth to their son, Floréal (named after the second month of spring in the French Republican calendar), in Lleida on 2 April 1924. She continued supporting Sanz during his five years of imprisonment, even as he was transferred from Barcelona to various prisons throughout the country.{{Sfn|Gallart Fernàndez|Lladonosa Giró|2020|p=60}} During this time, she joined the anarchist militant group ''Los Solidarios'',{{Sfnm|1a1=Dupuy|1y=2012|2a1=Gallart Fernàndez|2a2=Lladonosa Giró|2y=2020|2pp=60-61|3a1=García Francés|3y=2017|4a1=Íñiguez|4y=2001|4p=436}} which Sanz had co-founded in 1922 to resist political repression against the anarchist movement.{{Sfn|Gallart Fernàndez|Lladonosa Giró|2020|pp=60-61}} Not was one of only a few women in the group, alongside Ramona Berni, Juliana López and {{ill|María Luisa Tejedor|ca}}.{{Sfnm|1a1=Christie|1y=2008|1p=20n12|2a1=García Francés|2y=2017}} As she was unknown to the police, she was able to act with some amount of operational freedom.{{Sfn|Gallart Fernàndez|Lladonosa Giró|2020|pp=60-61}} Together with Berni, she developed the group's communications and liaison network.{{Sfn|García Francés|2017}} She travelled around the country, smuggling money and weapons for the group, and handling their mail, which brought her to Aragon, Euskal Herria and Asturias, and then back to Catalonia.{{Sfnm|1a1=Dupuy|1y=2012|2a1=Gallart Fernàndez|2a2=Lladonosa Giró|2y=2020|2pp=60-61|3a1=García Francés|3y=2017|4a1=Íñiguez|4y=2001|4p=436}} While continuing to work and care for her family, she carried out clandestine activism for the group, maintaining their lines of communication and distributing their propaganda throughout Barcelona. On one occasion, while she was still pregnant, she smuggled one million pesetas from a robbery in Asturias to Barcelona.{{Sfn|Gallart Fernàndez|Lladonosa Giró|2020|pp=60-61}}

thumb|right|Not and her son Floréal in 1934 [[File:Santillán y Sanz.jpg|thumb|right|Ricardo Sanz (right) organising militia columns at the Pedralbes barracks]] Following the fall of the dictatorship and the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic in 1931, a general amnesty was declared, allowing many exiled and imprisoned members of ''Los Solidarios'' to return to their lives in Barcelona. Not quickly established contact with the returned activists and their partners, and when Sanz returned to the city, they moved into a flat in El Poblenou.{{Sfn|Gallart Fernàndez|Lladonosa Giró|2020|p=61}} Not then became involved in prisoner support activism, alongside Rosario Dolcet and Llibertat Ródenas.{{Sfnm|1a1=Dupuy|1y=2012|2a1=Gallart Fernàndez|2a2=Lladonosa Giró|2y=2020|2p=61|3a1=García Francés|3y=2017|4a1=Íñiguez|4y=2001|4p=436}} She agitated for better conditions for prisoners and visited them in order to find out what they needed, details on which she passed on to the prisoner support committee and their lawyers. According to Sanz, she led some of the group's "most dangerous missions", all while she continued working as a housekeeper.{{Sfn|Gallart Fernàndez|Lladonosa Giró|2020|p=61}} With the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936, Not stayed at home to care for her son and partner, who was busy overseeing the formation of the confederal militias during the early months of the war. After the death of Buenaventura Durruti in November 1936, Sanz left home to assume command of the Durruti Column (later the 26th Division), leaving Not behind, pregnant with their second child. From their home in Poblenou, Not helped meet the needs of the family members of the combatants who fought under Sanz.{{Sfn|Gallart Fernàndez|Lladonosa Giró|2020|p=61}}

===Death=== Not's second pregnancy was difficult, causing her health to deteriorate. Her situation was exacerbated by the constant bombardments of the city, which forced her to find refuge at a friend's house in Cerdanyola del Vallès, leaving her son in Barcelona to finish his secondary schooling. When she gave birth to her daughter, Violeta, on 1 January 1938, Not fell gravely ill. Sanz was not able to leave the front to visit his new daughter or his ailing partner.{{Sfn|Gallart Fernàndez|Lladonosa Giró|2020|pp=61-62}} Following the Nationalists' Aragon Offensive, Sanz fell back to the Segre and moved his family to the nearby city of Solsona. Not's health continued to deteriorate, forcing her to move back to Barcelona seeking urgent medical attention. She was diagnosed with acute leukemia and the doctors attempted to treat her, but it was too late.{{Sfn|Gallart Fernàndez|Lladonosa Giró|2020|p=62}}

Pepita Not died from her illness on 4 June 1938.{{Sfnm|1a1=Dupuy|1y=2012|2a1=Gallart Fernàndez|2a2=Lladonosa Giró|2y=2020|2p=61|3a1=García Francés|3y=2017|4a1=Íñiguez|4y=2001|4p=436}} Her obituary was published on the following day in ''Solidaridad Obrera'' by Joan Garcia Oliver, who remembered her as a kind and loyal anarchist militant who had "lived for others".{{Sfn|Gallart Fernàndez|Lladonosa Giró|2020|p=62}} At 11:00 on 7 June, her body was buried in the Montjuïc Cemetery; her funeral was attended by many anarchists, trade unionists, political and military officials, including Sanz.{{Sfn|Gallart Fernàndez|Lladonosa Giró|2020|pp=62-63}} After Not's death, Sanz left Violeta in the care of Flora Barranco Garcia and sent Floréal to a French children's home while he continued fighting; Floréal would die in Bonnac on 26 January 1940. At the end of the war, Sanz fled over the border with Violeta. Following the Nazi occupation of France, Sanz was interned in Camp Vernet then transferred to a concentration camp in Djelfa. After the liberation of France, he returned to the country, married and had two more children with Josefina Martínez, and wrote a series of books about the civil war. He died on 25 October 1986.{{Sfn|Gallart Fernàndez|Lladonosa Giró|2020|p=64}}

==References== {{reflist|2}}

==Bibliography== {{refbegin|2}} *{{cite book|last=Christie|first=Stuart|author-link=Stuart Christie|year=2008|title=We, the Anarchists: A Study of the Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI)|publisher=AK Press|isbn=9781904859758|lccn=2007939202}} *{{Cite encyclopedia|last=Dupuy|first=Rolf|author-link=Rolf Dupuy|date=2012-07-16|title=NOT, Josefa "PEPITA"|encyclopedia=Dictionnaire international des militants anarchistes|url=https://militants-anarchistes.info/spip.php?article8492 |access-date=2022-10-15 |language=fr}} *{{cite journal|last1=Gallart Fernàndez|first1=Felip|last2=Lladonosa Giró|first2=Vicent|year=2020|title=Pepita Not i la lluita per la llibertat (1897-1938)|journal=Mascançà: Revista d'estudis del Pla d'Urgell|issue=11|pages=57–65|url=https://raco.cat/index.php/Mascanca/article/view/377017|language=ca|issn=2014-4814}} *{{cite magazine|last=García Francés|first=Kike|date=June 2017|title=Justicieras, Solidarias y Nosotras: Las mujeres en los grupos de acción anarquistas|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211203233624/https://rojoynegro.info/articulo/justicieras-solidarias-y-nosotras-las-mujeres-en-los-grupos-de-accion-anarquistas/|archive-date=2021-12-03|url=https://rojoynegro.info/articulo/justicieras-solidarias-y-nosotras-las-mujeres-en-los-grupos-de-accion-anarquistas/|language=es|magazine=Rojo y Negro|issue=313|issn=1138-1019}} *{{Cite encyclopedia|last=Íñiguez|first=Miguel|year=2001|title=Not, Pepita|encyclopedia=Esbozo de una enciclopedia histórica del anarquismo español|location=Madrid|publisher=Fundación de Estudios Libertarios Anselmo Lorenzo|isbn=9788486864453|oclc=807322760|page=436|language=es}} {{refend}}

==Further reading== {{refbegin|2}} *{{Cite book|last=Berenguer|first=Sara|author-link=Sara Berenguer|year=2008|title=Mujeres de temple|location=València|publisher=Editorial l’Eixam|language=es|isbn=9788496014770}} *{{cite book|last=León-Ignacio|first=Jacinto|year=1981|title=Los Años del pistolerismo: Ensayo para una guerra civil|language=es|location=Barcelona|publisher=Planeta|isbn=9788432036002|oclc=802420580}} *{{cite book|last=Sanz|first=Ricardo|author-link=Ricardo Sanz García|year=1966|title=El sindicalismo y la política, Los "Solidarios" y "Nosotros"|location=Tolosa|publisher=Imp. Dulaurier|language=es|oclc=1406083608}} *{{cite book|last=Sanz|first=Ricardo|year=1978|title=Figuras de la Revolución Española|location=Valencia|publisher=Ediciones Petronio|language=es|isbn=9788472506206}} *{{cite book|last=Sanz|first=Ricardo|year=2015|orig-year=1976|title=Los hijos del trabajo, el sindicalismo español antes de la guerra civil|edition=2nd|location=Barcelona|publisher=Editorial Descontrol|language=es|isbn=9788416553273}} *{{cite book|last=Termes|first=Josep|author-link=Josep Termes|year=1987|title=Història de Catalunya|volume=6|location=Barcelona|publisher=Edicions 62|language=ca|isbn=9788429726015|oclc=928039216}} {{refend}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Not, Pepita}} Category:1900 births Category:1938 deaths Category:20th-century anarchists Category:Activists from Barcelona Category:Anarchists from Catalonia Category:Deaths from acute leukemia Category:Deaths from leukemia in Spain Category:Housekeepers Category:Maids Category:People from Pla d'Urgell Category:Prisoners' rights activists Category:Smugglers Category:Spanish women activists Category:Spanish women of the Spanish Civil War (Republican faction)

Pepita Not

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