Aquilino Mata has died and a sad silence takes over the old airfields, the old planes and the sepia photos of the pilots of yesteryear. Mata, who died on Friday in Barcelona, where he lived, at the age of 76, after dealing with cancer, showing the fortitude and courage of the dorsal machine gunner of a Katiuska in the worst aerial battle, is one of the people who has most fought in our country for the memory of the aviators of the Second Republic who fought in the Civil War. From his various positions in the Association of Aviators of the Republic (Adar) – he was currently the honorary president of the Catalan-North-Balearic Delegation of the entity – he led numerous initiatives to investigate, recover, disseminate and achieve public recognition of the history of the pilots, crews and mechanics of the Gloriosa, as Republican aviation was known.
To achieve this, he worked tirelessly, committing his time, his effort and even his personal money (he was a successful businessman) with a devotion and enthusiasm that would long justify our honoring him. But in addition, Aquilino Mata was what is called an excellent person, kind, generous, endearing, affable and endowed with an infectious sympathy that often manifested itself in a very characteristic benevolent and amusing irony. His colleagues from Adar remember and value him “at the time of embarking on his last flight” as “a constant in the development of the association to preserve the memory of the aviators of the Republic and their circumstances, planning in different aspects, both technical and economic level”. And they emphasize that under the presidency of Aquilino Mata, “Adar has achieved international recognition as a firm apolitical memorial association.” In 2016, Mata received in Moscow, in front of 6,000 people and with great international echo, the Order of Saint Andrew, in recognition of his merits at the head of Adar and his research into the memory of the Spanish and Russian pilots who fought for the Republic. One of the first reactions to his death has come precisely in Cyrillic, from the hands of the journalist Serguei Brilev, who has highlighted the “luminous memory” that Mata leaves behind and has praised “the care with which the association he presided has preserved the historical memory of the republican aviators and their Soviet comrades.”
Among his tasks, always carried out with an exemplary commitment that has practically not diminished until his death, the search for Spanish and Soviet pilots missing during the Civil War stands out, to which he devoted enormous efforts; tributes to fallen airmen by placing plaques, monoliths and other monuments at the points where their forgotten remains rested; the procurement of computer, audiovisual and library material for Adar's headquarters on Guifré Street in Barcelona; and the intense collaboration and participation with interpretation centers and museums with projects and different types of material such as the reproduction of different types of 1/1 scale fighter or bomber aircraft that fought in the Civil War. Among these devices in the creation of which Mata was involved are the Polikarpov I-16 Mosca of the CEBE of Gandesa, the Polikarpov I-15 Chato of the CIARGA of Els Monjos or the Tupolev SB-2 Katiuska of the CAHS of La Sénia.
Precisely the Katiuskas were the bombers flown by Aquilino Mata's father, Jaume Mata Romeu, born into a peasant family from Arboçar de Avinyonet (Alt Penedès) and one of the most legendary squadron leaders of the Republic (he carried out missions of great audacity and participated in the sinking of the Balearics). The memory and example of his father, who, along with other surviving comrades of the war, set himself the task of locating and regrouping the diaspora of republican aviators scattered throughout the country, are certainly not foreign to Aquilino's vocation to recover his memory. world and was the first president of Adar.
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Aquilino Mata, born in Asturias during his father's post-war ordeal, was always wherever there was an activity related to the republican aviators. From the large mass tribute events (such as the one dedicated in Barcelona in 2021 to the drivers and mechanics and which was especially starred by Carmen Negrín, daughter of the Chatos driver Rómulo Negrín and granddaughter of the President of the Republic Juan Negrín) to the delivery of a piece of the plane in which his father killed the son of pilot sergeant Mariano Brufau last April in Agramunt (Lleida). He was tireless and among the arduous tasks that he set for himself – and I attest – was always to ensure that Adar and his initiatives, and with them the old republican aviators and his history, were present as much as possible in the media. Communication.
Aquilino Mata, consul of Kazakhstan in Barcelona, constantly traveled to the countries of the former USSR, often taking advantage of his commercial interests, in search of information about the Spanish aviators who trained at the famous Kirovabad flight school (currently Kandja, Azerbaijan). Although he was not a professional historian, he learned his way around the old Soviet archives with the expertise of an Antony Beevor, and extracted a lot of important data. He also made friends with local historians and descendants of Soviet pilots. Adar and Dipatri's sessions at the Mundet Campus of the University of Barcelona (UB) were largely the result of these contacts. Soviet participation in the Spanish war 80 years later, which brought together numerous specialists in 2017.
It will be impossible to forget Aquilino Mata, for his selfless dedication to the memory of the aviators and also for the affection and even affection that he shared with those of us who knew him. With that profile that responded so well to his name and that he seemed to be crying out for a leather pilot's hat and the somewhat mischievous smile, his hands full of documents and his heart full of enthusiasm. This is how we will remember it.
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