Aurora Rodríguez Carballeira (April 23, 1879 – December 28, 1955) was a Spanish woman who was convicted of the murder of her daughter Hildegart Rodríguez Carballeira, whom she conceived as part of a

eugenicist Eugenics is a set of largely discredited beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetics, genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter the frequency of various human Phenotype, phenotypes by ...

scientific experiment. She was sentenced to 26 years in prison, and died of cancer while imprisoned at the Ciempozuelos mental asylum.

Biography

Aurora Rodríguez Carballeira was born in 1879, at her family home on Magdalena street, in Ferrol,

A Coruña A Coruña (; ; also informally called just Coruña; historical English: Corunna or The Groyne) is a city and municipality in Galicia, Spain. It is Galicia's second largest city, behind Vigo. The city is the provincial capital of the province ...

, Spain, to Francisco Rodríguez Arriola () and Anna Carballeira Lopes. Her family and the environment she grew up in have been described as

upper-class Upper class in modern societies is the social class composed of people who hold the highest social status. Usually, these are the wealthiest members of class society, and wield the greatest political power. According to this view, the upper cla ...

. After Carballeira's sister Josefa gave birth to a son,

Pepito Arriola José "Pepito" Rodríguez Carballeira (December 14, 1895 – October 24, 1954) was a Spanish child prodigy pianist and eventual master violinist. He was the cousin of Hildegart Rodríguez Carballeira. Origins Pepito was born in Ferrol, his ...

, she left him in the care of Carballeira (who was then sixteen years old). Carballeira educated him until he became a

child prodigy A child prodigy is, technically, a child under the age of 10 who produces meaningful work in some domain at the level of an adult expert. The term is also applied more broadly to describe young people who are extraordinarily talented in some f ...

. Josefa then took him to

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

, where he had enormous success as a musician. Pepito's success strengthened Carballeira's reformist and eugenicist ideals and led her, in addition to her concerns for

women's rights Women's rights are the rights and Entitlement (fair division), entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st c ...

, to decide to raise a perfect woman to prove the virtues of eugenics. She wanted a father who could never claim paternity of the future baby, so she conceived the child with a military priest in

Lleida Lleida (, ; ; '' see below'') is a city in the west of Catalonia, Spain. It is the capital and largest town in Segrià county, the Ponent region and the province of Lleida. Geographically, it is located in the Catalan Central Depression. It ...

named Alberto Pallás. Carballeira had three sexual encounters with Pallás as a "physiological collaborator". After discovering that she was pregnant, Carballeira moved to Madrid to give her daughter the life she had planned for her. The experiment initially met Carballeira's expectations, and Hildegart became an international celebrity. However, the freedom in which Hildegart was brought up led her to choose differing political commitments and she attempted to gain independence from her mother. Aurora was unwilling to forego control over her daughter's life, and was also affected by

paranoid Paranoia is an instinct or thought process that is believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety, suspicion, or fear, often to the point of delusion and irrationality. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of con ...

delusions that there was an international conspiracy to ruin the "perfect" result of her eugenicist experiment. As a result, she killed Hildegart on June 9, 1933, shooting her four times while the teenager was asleep. Carballeira's own explanation for the murder was, "The

sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

, after discovering the most minimal imperfection in his work, destroys it." Carballeira never regretted murdering Hildegart and repeatedly said that she would do it again. Carballeira was sentenced to 26 years in prison, serving most of it in the Ciempozuelos mental asylum. Until her medical records were found in 1977, Carballeira was believed to have become one of the "disappeared" during the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War () was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republicans and the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the Left-wing p ...

, but she actually died of

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving Cell growth#Disorders, abnormal cell growth with the potential to Invasion (cancer), invade or Metastasis, spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Po ...

in the Ciempozuelos psychiatric facility on December 28, 1955. She was buried in a mass grave.

Works inspired by her life

Literary

* * (Screenplay for the film by Fernán Gómez based on the novel by Eduardo de Guzmán.) * Llarch Roig, Joan, ''Hildegart, la virgen roja'', Barcelona, Producciones editoriales, 1979. * Hackl, Erich, ''Auroras Anlaß'', Diogenes Verlag, Zúrich 1987 * * (Study of Aurora's clinical history at the Ciempozuelos hospital.) * Cal Martínez, María Rosa, ''A mí no me doblega nadie: Aurora Rodríguez, su vida y su obra (Hildegart)'', Ediciós do Castro, Sada (La Coruña), 1991. * Domingo, Carmen, ''Mi querida hija Hildegart'', ed. Destino, 2008. * Martini, Antonietta, ''Infierno: Ribellarsi al Destino. Traduzione e studio de La virgen roja di Fernando Arrabal'', Edizioni Accademiche Italiane, Saarbrücken, 2014. * (It is the fifth novel in the Episodes of an Endless War series.)

Film

* '' My Daughter Hildegart'' (1977), directed by

Fernando Fernán Gómez Fernando Fernández Gómez (28 August 1921 – 21 November 2007), better known as Fernando Fernán Gómez, was a Spanish actor, screenwriter, film director, theater director, novelist, and playwright. Prolific and outstanding in all these fiel ...

, with a script by the director himself and by

Rafael Azcona Rafael Azcona Fernández (24 October 1926 – 24 March 2008) was a Spanish screenwriter and novelist who worked with some of the best Spanish and international filmmakers. Azcona won five Goya Awards during his career, including a lifetim ...

. Aurora is played by

Amparo Soler Leal Amparo Soler Leal (23 August 1933 – 25 October 2013) was a Spanish film actress. She was married to Adolfo Marsillach from 1954 to 1956, and to film producer Alfredo Matas from 1969 until his death in 1996. She worked often with Luis García ...

.
''The red virgin''
(2014), directed by Sheila Pye. Aurora is played by

Maribel Verdú María Isabel Verdú Rollán (born 2 October 1970), better known as Maribel Verdú (), is a Spanish actress. She is the recipient of numerous accolades throughout her career spanning nearly four decades, including two Goya Awards for Best Act ...

. * ''Hildegart oder Projekt: Superwoman'' (2016), directed by Barbara Caspar.Las críticas
Hildegart o el proyecto Superwoman, de Barbara Caspar
/ref> * ''

The Red Virgin ''The Red Virgin'' () is a 2024 biographical drama film directed by Paula Ortiz from a screenplay by Eduard Sola and Clara Roquet. It stars Najwa Nimri and Alba Planas as respectively Aurora Rodríguez Carballeira, Aurora and Hildegart Rodríguez ...

'' (2024), directed by

Paula Ortiz Paula Ortiz Álvarez (born 8 January 1979) is a Spanish Film director, director, screenwriter and Film producer, producer who works for Get in the Pictures Productions and Amapola Films, teaches Audiovisual Communication at the University of ...

, with

Najwa Nimri Najwa Nimri Urrutikoetxea (; born 14 February 1972) is a Spanish actress and singer. In 1996, Nimri formed the musical duo ''Najwajean'' along with producer Carlos Jean, launching ''No Blood'', an early instance of a trip-hop album in Spain. S ...

as Aurora and Alba Planas as Hildegart.

Notes

References

Bibliography

* * Cal Martínez, María Rosa (1991). ''A mí no me doblega nadie: Aurora Rodríguez, su vida y su obra (Hildegart)''. Sada (La Coruña): Ediciós do Castro, 2010, . * De Guzmán Espinosa, Eduardo. ''Aurora de sangre'', Madrid: Gregorio del Toro, 1972. * * * Rendueles Olmedo, Guillermo. ''El manuscrito encontrado en Ciempozuelos: análisis de la historia clínica de Aurora Rodríguez'' Madrid: Endymion, 1989, . {{DEFAULTSORT:Rodriguez Carballeira, Aurora 1879 births 1955 deaths People from A Coruña Feminist eugenicists Feminism and history Militant feminism Spanish eugenicists Spanish female murderers Spanish feminists 20th-century Spanish criminals Spanish people convicted of murder People with schizophrenia Eugenics in Spain 20th-century Spanish women People convicted of murder by Spain