Alfonso Daniel Rodríguez Castelao died 75 years ago in exile in Buenos Aires. Galician deputy during the Second Republic, popular artist and concise and sharp writer, theorist of Galician nationalism and supporter of the Popular Front, Castelao is one of the most prominent public figures in 20th century Galicia. And its history. The BNG has proposed this Tuesday, January 7, just the day of the anniversary of his death, that the regional Parliament also recognize him as the first president of Galicia. It was from the Consello de Galiza, an organization conceived as the Galician Government in exile, between its creation in 1944 and its own death in 1950.
The initiative of the BNG, the largest Galician nationalist formation today – is the second force in the autonomous Chamber, with 25 of 75 seats; holds the mayor’s office of the community’s capital, Santiago de Compostela, and has a deputy in Congress and a senator-, seeks “official and legal recognition.” “It is about rescuing our democratic memory, doing justice and recognizing that the first president of this country, in his own right, was Castelao from exile,” declared Ana Pontón, leader of the Bloc, at an event in Pontevedra, where he lived for two decades. the also founder of the Galeguista Party.
Almost at the same time, the Pantheon of Illustrious Galicians of Santiago de Compostela, which has housed his remains since they arrived in 1984 from La Chacarita, not without controversy – the nationalist left understood that their will was not respected – also celebrated Castelao. This was the tribute called by the cultural institutions: the foundation in his name, the Consello da Cultura Galega and the Museo do Pobo Galego. It was attended, among other authorities, by the president of Parliament, Miguel Santalices, and the Minister of Culture, José López Campos, both from the PP.
The speech of López Campos, who a few weeks ago announced that 2025 will be the Castelao Year with dozens of dissemination activities, painted him as “a singular figure of Galician culture and politics.” “If today in Galicia we can enjoy autonomy and democracy, it is thanks to people like Castelao,” said the councilor, “but also to other anonymous people who fought in much darker times.” He did not take up his role in the Galiza Council, even though the Chamber chaired by his party colleague commemorated in November for the first time an anniversary of the exile body, 80 years of its constitution “as trustee of the autonomist will of the Galician people.” that had been expressed in the statutory referendum of June 1936.”
This Tuesday, Santalices preferred not to deviate from the usual rhetoric of the Galician right and spoke of the “humanist facet and non-exclusive Galicianism of Castelao”, which he related without hardly any nuances to “a model Transition hand in hand with concord and the state of right”. They listened to him, then the socialist president of the Deputation of A Coruña, Valentín González Formoso, and the nationalist mayor of Santiago, Goretti Sanmartín, also intervened.
Brilliant caricaturist and author of ‘Sempre en Galiza’
Alfonso Daniel Manuel Rodríguez Castelao was born in Rianxo (A Coruña) in 1886 and died in Buenos Aires (Argentina) in 1950. Doctor by training, distinguished member of the modernist Xeración Nós, author of emblematic works of Galician literature such as Cousas (1926), You dous de semper (1934) or Your hair should not fall in lovewas also a brilliant caricaturist, oil painter of merit, and creator of the shocking albums of drawings from the Civil War martyr galicia, Militias and Attila in Galicia. In 1931 he was one of the founders of the Galeguista Party, for which he was elected deputy in the Republican Cortes within the lists of the Popular Front. Exiled in Argentina, there he wrote his political and vital will, Always in Galiza (1944), which has served as the historical basis for many of the subsequent developments of left-wing and progressive Galician nationalism.
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