intruder,
a project that started out of a simple search
In January 12th, 2022, when I was looking for academic material to fuel my Premaster paper on the artist Christian Boltanski, to my surprise, a galician book popped out as the second result of my search; after my first reaction, to smile, I suddenly remembered that I actually hadn’t set a galician filter for my search1, but spanish and english alone. A million thoughts ran through my head in half a second and a much bigger and sarcastic smile came to my face: I had a mission.
Bibliotheek intruder is a project on sociolingüistics, archives and databases, and big small changes that each one of us can do to contribute to society.
How did I find the books that are mistaken?
By making a thorough search through key words; I think I used “Galicia”, “Santiago de Compostela”, “Galego” and “CGAC”, and that is why I got the most results either from the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela or about galician language linguistics. This also means that there are probably several more books in the same situation, because my search was very segregated2.
Why am I doing this?
In my case, I have always found the unknown difficult to approach, I rarely embark myself into something I don’t have under control because of fear of failure mainly. But lately I have been really trying to push myself out of that, and train the thought that what matters is not if I am the perfect person to execcute what I want to happen, if the people on the other side does not estimate it, or if it will not lead to anything; what matters is that I’m doing it, for myself, for galician and for galicians.
Even when this is not in any case a guide or a proper manual, it is a legitimate witness of my own journey. To follow along might serve you at least of company for the next time you find a mistake that is easier to overlook. I hope this story of mine gives you courage to take a step towards your own little quest.
I know it might seem unimportant or even a bit scary, but big changes are always smaller ones all together.
For the outsiders, or those who would like to learn more, I have gathered a brief historic context of what Galician language, and therefore us, galicians, are facing. I have retrieved this directly from a website that had an english version and quite a good summary of the topic; I have revised it and approve it as a fellow Galician with a notion of general culture.
“Galicia is from 8th century the main influence centre in the area which also includes Asturias, León and the North of Portugal. In this context, Galician language is the exclusive language in oral use, with a decreasing competition of Latin in writing. [...]
The biggest splendour period of Galician literature is between 12th and 15th centuries. Galician language becomes the lyric language all over the Peninsula except in Catalonia (trobadouresque poetry).
At the end of the medieval period (14th-15th centuries), the most glorious of galician letters, galician language and literature go into a decadence period. Several facts provoke the progressive decadence, among which we can stand out: the autochthonous nobility displacement, who lost in the dynastic fights for the Crown of Castile, supporting Pedro I against Henrique II of Trastámara and later (1475-1479) Xoana the Beltranexa against the future Isabel the Catholic; the defenceless in which galician middle-class, who dedicated themselves to a flourishing trading which mainly used our maritime routes, was left; the loss of autonomy of galician church, etc.
During the long period of three centuries -16th, 17th and 18th, called DARK CENTURIES- Galician language was absent from written uses, opposite to Spanish which enters a process of fixing and codification which gives it the category of cultural language. But it is still the normal communication way of almost all its population. Parallel to this emptiness in erudite literature, it survives the line from popular lyric in the form of cradle songs, blind songs, carnival, prophecies, legends, romances, tales, farces, etc. Many of them came to present time by oral transmission.
In 18th century the denouncing voices from the ‘illustrated’ emerge and show their worry about the underdevelopment of Galicia and offer renewing proposals in the economic, social and cultural life. "Rexurdimento" (Resurgence) is the name with which we know 19th century in the history of our literature and it expresses a recovery evolution not only literary, but also cultural, politic and historical. All over the century, after the end of absolutism and the beginning of constitutional monarchy, different galician movements based on the defence of Galicia singularity and its different personality are born. The first of them, appeared about the 40's, was the ‘Provincialismo’ (provincialism), which denounced the social isolation of the country and secured the social valuation of its art, habits and history. These movements were removed from politics after their support to Solis' unsuccessful military revolt, -Carral martyrs' execution- and they sheltered under the cultural and literary world.
The publication of Cantares Gallegos (Galician Songs) in 1863, a totally written in galician language work by Rosalía de Castro, is what inaugurates the full resurgence.” The day it was published, May 17th, celebrates nowadays the ‘Día das letras galegas’, a vindication and celebration date for Galician language but especially Galician literature. Each year, it is dedicated to a different Galician writer that was of relevance throughout their time for the Galician literature scene and overall culture.
“Rosalía de Castro spreads out from our frontiers with the quality of her work so that she incorporates to the history of universal literature. Her verses have been the object of a lot of studies and translations to different languages. [...] Curros Enríquez was one of the favourite writers for the readers of his time. Undoubtedly because his poetry denounced injustices (forums, oppression, emigration, ...) and defended progressive ideas. The consolidation of galician prose isn't achieved until 20th century, but at the end of 19th century we found outstanding precedents: Maxina ou a filla espúrea (1880) by Marcial Valladares, first Galician contemporary novel.
The presence of galician language in newspapers contributes to give prestige to the language. One of the last manifes-tations of the Resurgence in 20th century was the constitution of the Royal Galician Academy (1905). [...] At the beginning of 20th century, it is produced an advance in the identification with the language, provoking a quality jump in its use. The Irmandades da Fala (Language Fraternities) are born and Galicia is included in the Nations Society in Geneva.
In 1920 the publication of Nós starts, a magazine which gives the name to a generation who secured (and achieved) to extract galician literature from folklore and from Castilian culture unilateral influence. Galician culture goes in contact with European aesthetic ideas and galician language is used in scientific works.
In the 20's it is created the Galician Studies Seminar and the van European movements appear with the so-called ‘Xeración do 25’ (1925 Generation), showing a great creative originality. The most outstanding figure in this period is Castelao, a classic in galician culture in every area in which he showed his art and with a great political significance, represented either by his essayist work -Sempre en Galiza- or by his work at the Galeguista (Galician) Party, playing an important role in the approval of the Statute of Autonomy of Galicia in 1936. Galician language reaches for the first time the recognition of "Galicia official language" in this Statute, although it didn't manage to have a practical application due to the beginning of the Civil War.
The end of the Civil War and the beginning of the ‘long night’ -the long night meaning the francoist dictatorship3- provoked the disappearance of galician language in the public scene, education and socioeconomic activities. Those men who had the exile as the only way -Castelao, E. Blanco Amor, Luís Seoane, Rafael Dieste...- managed to keep alive the culture flame, the language and Galicia identity. Galician cultural development has its scenery now in Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico and Cuba, among other countries. [...]
The key piece for the recovering of writing uses on the inside is the creation of Galaxia Publishing in 1950. [...]
From the 60's there are going to be changes in the economic and social sector and a small attenuation of censure. The Galician Letters Day is established and the publishing world is extended with Ediciós do Castro (Castro Publishing), the cultural associations defending galician language... Galician university is not isolated from these worries and takes an active role in the process of recovering with the creation in 1965 of the Galician Language and Literature Lectureship and six years later, the Galician Language Institute.
The restoration of the democratic regime in Spain fixes the conditions for the normalization of galician language. According to what is disposed in the Spanish Constitution of 1978, the Statute of Autonomy of Galicia (1981) establishes that galician language is, together with Spanish, the official language of Galicia.
In the 15th of June in 1983, Galician Parliament approved, with the consensus of every parliamentary group, the Law for the Linguistic Normalization of Galicia which becomes the legal tool for the exercise of the linguistic rights of galician people.”
What this historic summary doesn’t explain explicitly is that censorship and oppression of Galician language has always been in favor of Spanish/Castilian language, acting the latter as the hegemonic and colonial oppresive language in Galician territory.4
This has led Galician society to a situation of diglossia in which spanish is considered to be the language for academic, work, relevant, formal situations, and galician gets disregarded as the ‘at home’ language, what grandpas speak.
Galician has been and is currently an endangered, minoritized language, and therefore its use -and mostly its not use- is political.
The presence of Galician books at the Universities’ libraries in Antwerp (and internationally in general) is relevant for me personally, but also for Galician society due to everything above explained. That is why the fact that especially books, as something so symbolic for our history, are correctly and rigorously managed with the catalogue reflecting the linguistic reality is undoubtedly something the Library Administration should aspire to.
Bibliography:
http://www1.euskadi.net/euskara_lingua/PDF/Galicia/Ingles/GA_IN_HI.pdf
1 “10 anos CGAC. 1993-2003” was a book I immediately identified as in galician because ‘years’ is aNos in galician, unlike spanish aÑos
2 Update, I actually did run into at least 5 more books in the same situation throughout the proccess of documenting these ones, not even actively looking for them
3 I’m not very happy with the fact that this source doesn’t refer directly to the dictatorship’s willing actions to eliminate galician language, using terms like “dissapearance”, when it is documented how the regime’s police would arrest people believed to be speaking galician outside of their homes, children beaten up at school by their teachers for speak it, or severely censored in the written. In addition, a fact I believe to be relevant is that Franco himself was Galician, which reflected the part of the population embracing a self-hatred and spanishist mindset.
4 There have been cases of the same situation throughout the whole ‘spanish’ territory, like the famous one in Catalunya, but also other lesser known internationally as Euskadi, València or Asturias.