Narrative Fiction in Galiza:1

 [1] I have chosen to use ‘Galiza’ and ‘Galizan’, as opposed to the official English spellings, ‘Galicia’ and ‘Galician’, given that English obtained the name for this community from Spanish. ‘Galiza’ is found in the initial texts written in the Luso tongue, but was gradually replaced by ‘Galicia’ as this kingdom was ruled, practically since the beginning of its existence, by the Leon-Castille crown. Though ‘Galicia’ has been the correct denomination according to o galego oficial (the officially sanctioned orthographic, morphologic and lexical standard for the Galizan language, which was institutionalized in 1982), the new normativa de concordia (July 2003) now accepts ‘Galiza’, but only in literary use. ‘Galicia’ remains the official word for all other uses. My objective behind promoting the use of ‘Galiza’ in English is to draw attention to the linguistic and cultural different-ness of this community (or nation) within the Spanish state. In O galego (im)possível Rodrigues Fagim analyzes the linguistic proximities between Galizan and Portuguese, and alludes to a valuable study by Montero Santalha, which shows the progressive replacement of ‘Galiza’ by ‘Galicia’ in judicial texts beginning in the Middle Ages: ‘O estudo de Montero Santalha documenta Galiza de forma sistemática nos textos literários que vam de meados do [século] XIII a fins do século XV. Polo contrário, naqueloutros de caracter jurídico aparecen 30 Galiza e 7 Galicia no período entre os séculos XIII–XIV. No segundo período, seculos XV–XVI, o panorama e outro: 5 Galiza e 34 Galicia. Isto é, simplesmente, um reflexo fidelíssimo do que sócio-culturalmente se passou naquela altura. Nos séculos seguintes, a Galiza só lhe restou desaparecer’ (Rodrigues Fagim 2001, p. 168). In addition to using ‘Galiza’, I must also make clear that in my spelling of words and names in Galizan, I use not the guidelines of o galego oficial, which uses Spanish orthography and accentuation, but those of a normativa dos máximos, which is very similar to Portuguese. This normativa employs Portuguese orthography and punctuation, while preserving words, expressions and verb conjugations that exist in Galizan but not in Portuguese. Whenever quoting a passage or employing words from Pensa nao, I leave the text in its original state and do not adapt it to the normativa dos máximos. For this reason, the reader will find, as one of several examples, the name of the village in the novel spelled as both ‘Sernanselle’ (which is how it appears in the novel) and ‘Sernanselhe’ (with Portuguese orthography) when I use the name without quoting it. Another example is the spelling of ‘Maria’, which in the novel appears as ‘María’, but in the normativa dos máximos does not have the accent mark. For an in-depth study on the conflict between those Galizans who endorse the normativa oficial and those who defend the normativa dos máximos (also known as the conflict between the autonomistas—or isolacionistas—and the lusistas—or reintegracionistas), see my forthcoming book chapter, ‘Portuguese or autonomist ortography for the Galizan language? An analysis of the conflito normativo’ in the volume Contemporary Galician Studies published by the Modern Language Association in 2006–07.

The Long Path between Oblivion and Memory

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Notes

 [1] I have chosen to use ‘Galiza’ and ‘Galizan’, as opposed to the official English spellings, ‘Galicia’ and ‘Galician’, given that English obtained the name for this community from Spanish. ‘Galiza’ is found in the initial texts written in the Luso tongue, but was gradually replaced by ‘Galicia’ as this kingdom was ruled, practically since the beginning of its existence, by the Leon-Castille crown. Though ‘Galicia’ has been the correct denomination according to o galego oficial (the officially sanctioned orthographic, morphologic and lexical standard for the Galizan language, which was institutionalized in 1982), the new normativa de concordia (July 2003) now accepts ‘Galiza’, but only in literary use. ‘Galicia’ remains the official word for all other uses. My objective behind promoting the use of ‘Galiza’ in English is to draw attention to the linguistic and cultural different-ness of this community (or nation) within the Spanish state. In O galego (im)possível Rodrigues Fagim analyzes the linguistic proximities between Galizan and Portuguese, and alludes to a valuable study by Montero Santalha, which shows the progressive replacement of ‘Galiza’ by ‘Galicia’ in judicial texts beginning in the Middle Ages: ‘O estudo de Montero Santalha documenta Galiza de forma sistemática nos textos literários que vam de meados do [século] XIII a fins do século XV. Polo contrário, naqueloutros de caracter jurídico aparecen 30 Galiza e 7 Galicia no período entre os séculos XIII–XIV. No segundo período, seculos XV–XVI, o panorama e outro: 5 Galiza e 34 Galicia. Isto é, simplesmente, um reflexo fidelíssimo do que sócio-culturalmente se passou naquela altura. Nos séculos seguintes, a Galiza só lhe restou desaparecer’ (Rodrigues Fagim 2001, p. 168). In addition to using ‘Galiza’, I must also make clear that in my spelling of words and names in Galizan, I use not the guidelines of o galego oficial, which uses Spanish orthography and accentuation, but those of a normativa dos máximos, which is very similar to Portuguese. This normativa employs Portuguese orthography and punctuation, while preserving words, expressions and verb conjugations that exist in Galizan but not in Portuguese. Whenever quoting a passage or employing words from Pensa nao, I leave the text in its original state and do not adapt it to the normativa dos máximos. For this reason, the reader will find, as one of several examples, the name of the village in the novel spelled as both ‘Sernanselle’ (which is how it appears in the novel) and ‘Sernanselhe’ (with Portuguese orthography) when I use the name without quoting it. Another example is the spelling of ‘Maria’, which in the novel appears as ‘María’, but in the normativa dos máximos does not have the accent mark. For an in-depth study on the conflict between those Galizans who endorse the normativa oficial and those who defend the normativa dos máximos (also known as the conflict between the autonomistas—or isolacionistas—and the lusistas—or reintegracionistas), see my forthcoming book chapter, ‘Portuguese or autonomist ortography for the Galizan language? An analysis of the conflito normativo’ in the volume Contemporary Galician Studies published by the Modern Language Association in 2006–07.

 [2] There exist, to date, 38 Civil War novels written in Galizan, of which only one was published before 1974. Since 1990, an average of one Civil War novel per year has been published.

 [3] This is the number Bieito Alonso quotes (1996, p. 271). Fernández Prieto also uses Alonso's figure (1993, p. 51).

 [4] Marc Wouters describes the information void that inevitably kept Galiza outside the postwar common research ground: ‘Con movementos de tropa e subministro de munición, roupa e patacas non se describe unha guerra. O sufrimento non queda reflectido debidamente nas poucas fontes de que dispomos’ (Wouters 1993, p. 8).

 [5] Historian Herminio Barreiro also endorses the Republic as a model for the present: ‘Estamos a falar sen dúbida dos cinco anos máis fondos, modernizadores e determinantes do século XX español. Visto dende hoxe, a setenta anos de distancia daquel 14 de abril esplendoroso e magnífico, agrándasenos o seu significado, a súa memoria, o seu peso histórico. ¡Todo pasou naqueles anos! … E, se queremos mirar cara adiante e proxectar un futuro aceptable, apetecible, vivible, precisamos retornar a aqueles anos aurorais, inmarcescibles, plenos’ (Barreiro 2001, p. 58).

 [6] A very interesting project would be to analyze O valo de Manselle's concepts of rebuilding the decadent present as a sine qua non for paving the way for the future, as well as the poem's epic features. Though thematically different—O valo's five poems do not deal with the Republic or the Civil War, but rather describe the efforts of a present-day village to rebuild its community—the epic language of the poem, as well as its themes of recuperating historical memory and presenting the Galizan rural community as dynamic, carry over to Pensa nao. Worthy of quoting is the dedicatory, which the author wrote in my copy of O valo: ‘O val de Manselle é unha aperta pétrea, poderosa, feita coas mans xenerosas dos que procuran un mundo mellor desde a raíz’.

 [7] Since the nineteenth century Galiza has been un país de emigrantes.

 [8] Likewise, the conjugation of the preterite changes. For example, instead of the standard foron, the Dodro dialect uses fono. Rosalia de Castro, who was from Dodro, used these dialectalisms in her poetry composed in Galizan.

 [9] Angueira explained in regard to the novel fermenting over time in his mind: ‘Eu esta novela escrebin-a mentalmente polas entrevistas persoais até que un dia rebentei porque xa tiña que escreber dunha vez; entón fisicamente elaborei borradores dos capítulos, da estructura, anotacións…’ (Angueira, personal interview, 15 July 2001).

[10] This historian seems to use the word myth too loosely. Pehaps legacy would be a better choice.

[11] Note that I write ‘decades’ of work and not just the five years of the Republic. Galiza had been forging a civil society and moving towards a democracy since the late nineteenth century.

[12] Within the historical genre, the Spanish Civil War constitutes the most prominent subject matter, while novels dealing with the postwar and Francoist period come in second.

[13] In Galizan, the synonymous adjectives of ‘penso/a’ could be ‘inclinado/a’, ‘pandeado/a’, ‘pendido/a dun lado’.

[14] Méndez Ferrín argues that once the fascist rebellion takes place, the narration moves from the initial disorientation of the characters to a focusing on the boat: ‘Desconcerto inicial. No interior do conto os personaxes accionan, móvense sen centro. Vai concentrándose todo nun punto. Unha barca ou nao ou gamela “pensa”, isto é: Mal feita e pandeada para un costado’ (Méndez Ferrín 2000).

[15] Throughout the novel, the river is often personified. In fact, the last sentence of chapter 6—immediately before the section that begins the narration of the fascist rebellion—describes the river as being prepared to carry on its back the boats to the ocean: ‘Púxose de néboa a braña e o Ulla grande baixa ensaiando, preparado para levar ao lombo as naves cara o mar’ (Angueira 1999e, p. 148).

[16] Before murdering Camoiras, Xacobe da Dominga yells at him: ‘–¡Ímosche corta-los collóns, fodedor!’. Camoiras replies: ‘Téstollos á túa muller de recordo’ (Angueira 1999e, p. 186).

[17] Martínez Bouzas briefly alludes to these ‘cryptic’ messages when speaking about the dialecticisms that have ‘resonancias dos nosos grandes escritores perfectamente integrados no seu texto, de xeito que semellan de propia colleita’ (Martínez Bouzas 2000, p. 113).

[18] Daniel Alfonso Castelao, as I mentioned at the beginning of the article, was one of the two representatives in Madrid of the Galizan leftist nationalist party (the Partido Galeguista). When the rebellion broke out he was in Madrid, and thus escaped the immediate persecution and trauma that occurred in Galiza.

[19] Angueira explained his motive behind including the Castelao message: ‘A derradeira lección do mestre de Castelao era a de morrer pola República e as Liberdades (os meniños víano morto). Non todos somos heroes. Nun libro sobre a represión en Nigrán (cerca de Vigo) lin unha historia similar a esta, a dun mestre, casado e con fillos, que quixo salva-la vida con donativos ó Alzamento e á Falanxe. Non lle serviu de nada. E humano o seu comportamento e eu non quería caer en heroísmos demasiado prototípticos para salvar unha causa. Por outro lado, aí está elevado por contraste o papel de Camoiras’ (Angueira, email to the author, 17 October 2001).

[20] Another reference appears at the beginning of the same sub-chapter in which Camoiras and the teacher are murdered. The ‘A iaugua corría polo seu camiño. Noite roxa…’ (Angueira 1999e, p. 184). In this case, the first sentence is from a Rosalia de Castro poem, while the second belongs to Cortázar. This combination could very well be another manifestation of the duality mentioned earlier concerning the author's local–universal philosophy.

[21] This desire seems to be most probably unconscious. Angueira wrote in regard to his masquerading of verses and literary references: ‘Moitas citas non son premeditadas, saíronme cando escribía. Sobre todo as de Rosalía e Manuel Antonio’ (Angueira, email to the author, 17 October 2001).

[22] I think that Angueira's including Cortázar in this totalizing concept of Galiza connects to the cosmopolitan part of the Ulha metaphor, which, as we saw, can be viewed as encompassing both the local and the universal.

[23] The description on the back of the novel's cover also captures this metaphoric meaning of a Galiza that resists until the present: ‘Pensa nao é a metáfora dunha Galicia aberta e en marcha, que onte e hoxe se adapta e resiste na dura travesía en procura da súa supervivencia cultural e política.’