SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA, 8 (PRESS EUROPE)
The Galician Parliament will draft the popular initiative bill for the restoration of the “reliable” text of the Galician anthem and its diffusion, and which aims to “restore the true text, so that everyone, and especially the new generations, know, sing and interpret correctly” the original text.
The legal services have given the green light to the debate, before which it will be necessary to collect the minimum of 10,000 signatures by the committee promoting this legislative initiative, made up of 30 people.
In the report of the lawyers of the Chamber –of last December 5th–, collected by Europa Press, the requisites necessary for admission to the process of the initiative are reported, all possessed by the promoters, among which there are intellectuals and personalities from the orbit nationalist.
Therefore, after examining the file, and since it “meets the minimum material and formal requirements” required by the regulation, the legal services have reported “favourably” so that it can be discussed in the Galician Chamber if it continues with the established procedure.
The interpretations over the years of the Galician anthem and its different written forms have led to an accumulation of errors, which this popular legislative initiative registered on November 29 at the Pazo do Hrreo, promoted by around thirty of them, now intends to correct. people including the entities Via Galega and Galiza Cultura and the musicologist and researcher of the score of hymns Fernado López-Acua and Manuel Ferreiro, who contributed a study on the situation.
It is not the first attempt that has been made to try to adapt the legal text to the originality of the poem written by Eduardo Pondal since 1996, approximately in 2002 and 2017-2018, as Ferreiro himself recalled in disseminating the initiative.
Specifically, the motivation refers to castilianisms and ‘hyperenxebrismos’ such as rauco/rouco or iorantes (it was written ignorant, in the original form), as well as to the disfigurement of the original expression through a “process of textual trivialization, passing from ‘clan’ –town– to ‘chan’ –land–.
As stated in the text, Eduardo Pondal himself “was aware of these textual distortions” when in a letter dated January 11, 1913 he warned that “the text contains many errors”, but “unfortunately Pondal’s state of health did not permit the corrective and restorative” that the promoters of this initiative believe the time has come to implement.
LEGAL TEXT
The bill includes four articles, the first of which is to modify article 4 of the law 5/1984 on Galician symbols to fix the text of the anthem in the first four stanzas. Also included is another modification, in this case of the third additional provision of this same law to include the complete text that corresponds to the hymn, including those modifications.
The popular legislative initiative provides for a third article for the Xunta to impose on all public institutions and companies dependent on it, such as radio and TVG, the “complete reproduction, singing and interpretation” of the anthem.
Finally, the proposal envisages that the Xunta produce a popular edition of the restored lyrics according to the text created by Eduardo Pondal, together with the score of the anthem, with the aim of distributing it, spreading it and making it massively popular in Galician society, individually , in all educational centres, musical and choral groups, marching bands, sports bodies, cultural associations or any other civic body.
The writer and professor of the University of A Corua Pilar García Negro also spoke in the presentation of the initiative, recalling that the MPs of the Galician Chamber have already been able to view the documentation supporting the restoration of the anthem in one day in 2017 and recalled that the texts can be consulted at the headquarters of the Royal Galician Academy (RAG).
