30.33% of Galicians speak always in Galician while 21.55% do so in both languages, although they use Galician more than Spanish. According to data from the 2018 Galician Institute of Statistics, the latest published in its study on the knowledge and use of Galician, there is also 24.21% of the regional population that always speaks Spanish. He Galician is an absolutely official languageco-official in the autonomous community -by virtue of article 3 of the Constitution-, and although its use has been falling over the years, in the eighties the Linguistic Normalization Law was approved, in order to recover the use of the language in public life and in spaces such as education, culture or the media.

However, the ‘Galician celebration‘ is even earlier: since 1963 it is celebrated every may 17th Día das Letras Galegas (Galician Letters Day), an initiative approved by, precisely, the person who is being honored in 2023: Francisco Fernandez del Riego, one of the presidents of the Royal Galician Academy (RAG). The festivity has reached the point of becoming a public holiday in Galicia, included in the Work calendar of the whole community.

Why is it celebrated on May 17?

In March 1963, Fernández del Riego sent the Academy a proposal signed by three academics, Manuel Gómez Román, Xesús Ferro Couselo and himself, requesting that this day be declared Galician Letters Day. May 17 was the day chosen because it was on that date, although a century earlier, when the more than well-known ‘Cantares Gallegos’ by Rosalía de Castroone of the best-known works of one of the most recognized figures in literature (and key in the feminist movement).

“Year after year, the date of the death of [Miguel de] Cervantes, with the nomination of Day of the book. It was devised to exalt the book written in Spanish as a festivity. It seemed to me that since Galicia has its own literature and language, it would be convenient for have a similar symbolic party“, Fernández del Riego wrote in that letter, as recorded in his memoir, ‘Camiño andado’. The idea was that Galicia would have a “cultural festival dedicated especially to the exaltatory and disseminating memory of the letters of our language”.

For all this symbology, the one who would later be one of the presidents of the Academy chose to propose May 17. The idea advanced and on April 28 of that year, in an ordinary meeting, the proposal to declare Galician Letters Day on May 17 was unanimously approved, and the initiative was therefore sent to the Ministry of Information and Tourism. However, it was 1963, and as the Academy itself remembers, the Franco regime “did not usually grant permits for the exaltation of non-official languages” within the state. Galicia was preparing to celebrate it, even before it was approved, and only five days after May 17, the Ministry responded: on May 17 the Galician language could be celebrated. At that time, the Ministry was headed by Manuel Fraga, who held this position until 1969.

The first honoree, Rosalía. In history, only five women

That first year had to be dedicated to Rosalía de Castro. But throughout history, there have not been many women honored on the Día das Letras Galegas. To date, there have only been five women to whom this festivity has been dedicated: the second to be Francisca Herrera Garrido, in 1987, 24 years after this day was born. The next one had to wait another 20 years, Maria Marinoto whom it was dedicated on May 17, 2007. And eleven more years María Victoria Moreno Márquez had to wait to be recognized in 2018.

A year earlier, in 2017, the Pontevedra City Council, together with the Polo Correo do Vento collective, launched an initiative, #PropónUnhaMuller (‘Propose a woman’) to increase the number of female names among the tributes on Galician Letters Day. María Victoria Moreno was one of those claimed, as she was also Xela Ariasthe last woman honored to date, in 2021. But they were not the only ones: Pura Vázquez, María Balteira, Isabel de Castro, Luisa Villalta, Luz Pozo Garza, Filomena Dato, Clara Corral, Avelina Valladares, Xosefa Iglesias…

The initiative was successful, and in 2018 Día das Letras Galegas was for women. Also that of 2021. Although the intention was not to stay there, but “denounce the historical injustice of the role of women in culture and in other spheres of society”. Polo Correo do Vento pointed out then the need to “make known to women who wrote in Galician or worked in defense of the language”.

Paco del Riego, a country and a culture

In 2023, the person honored on this Galician Letters Day is Francisco Fernandez del Riego, writer, politician and one of the main personalities of Galicia as far as defense of Galician culture is concerned. Member of the Galician Party and author of numerous books, Del Riego entered the Academy at the end of the 1940s and, almost five decades later, presided over the institution. Clearly inspired by the great figures of Galicianism (Rosalía de Castro, Curros Enríquez, Antón Villar Ponte… the three honorees throughout history some May 17), her great influence comes from the Vicente Risco’s theory of Galician nationalism.

Survivor of the Spanish civil war, during which he joined the rebel side as “the only way to save his life”In the middle of the conflict, he founded Editorial Galaxia with Jaime Isla Couto, from which ‘Grial. Galician Magazine of Culture’, which continues to be published today. A prolific writer and disseminator of Galician culture, it was during his exile in Argentina that he published works such as ‘Galician popular dances’ or ‘Galicia no espello’. Died at age 97 in 2010, he has been a key figure in the defense of the Galician in lifeand has not ceased to be honored since his death.