Oral Literature, Legacies of Exile, and Contemporary Interventions: From Castelao’s Alba de groria (1948) to Goretti Sanmartín’s Alba de Compostela (2023)

Abstract

This article uses an exilic legacy to enhance reflexivity on how a past event may be used for intervening in an ongoing present. The text analyzes the appropriation that Goretti Sanmartín –philologist and mayor of Santiago de Compostela– made of the speech pronounced in Buenos Aires in July 1948 by republican exile Alfonso Daniel R. Castelao. In 2023, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Castelao’s speech, Sanmartín instituted an annual celebration aimed at highlighting the civil society of Santiago de Compostela, a city drowned by processes of gentrification and over-tourism. This original appropriation of Castelao’s legacy differs from the abuse of decontextualized quotes, conceived of as self-evident, to which the exile’s legacy has been repeatedly subjected. The delicate attention required by a particularly ephemeral part of the exilic legacy, such as oral literature, is at the kernel of the article’s effort to connect the two discourses with the respective contexts of their enunciation.