Souto

SLIDE 1: I am going to do a short presentation about Galicia. Ive already told you about Galicia when we were watching Butterfly. In the movie we were able to see a view of Galicia as a rural space and thats the image most of people have (of course I am talking about people who had heard about Galicia but havent visited it). SLIDE 2: If you keep asking these same people they would probably have heard about the amazing food and wine, but they will probably remark how green everything is and how much it rains there. And all that it is true! SLIDE 3: Galicia is quite mountainous, a fact which has contributed to isolate the rural areas, hampering communications, most notably in the inland. As an example, Santiago de Compostela, the capital city, has an average of 129 rainy days. Galician cuisine often uses fish and shellfish. The empanada is a meat or fish pie, with a bread-like base, top and crust with the meat or fish filling usually being in a tomato sauce including onions and garlic. Caldo galego is a hearty soup whose main ingredients are potatoes and a local vegetable named grelo (Broccoli rabe). The latter is also employed in Lacn con grelos, a typical carnival dish, consisting of pork shoulder boiled with grelos, potatoes and chorizo. Centolla is the equivalent of King Crab. It is prepared by being boiled alive, having its main body opened like a shell, and then having its innards mixed vigorously. Another popular dish is octopus, boiled (traditionally in a copper pot) and served in a wooden plate, cut into small pieces and laced with olive oil, sea salt and pimentn (Spanish paprika). This dish is called Pulpo a la gallega or in Galician "Polbo Feira", which roughly translates as "Galician-style Octopus". There are several regional varieties of cheese. The best known one is the so-called tetilla, named after its breast-like shape. Other highly regarded varieties include the San Simn cheese from Vilalba and the creamy cheese produced in the Arza-Curtis area. The latter area produces also high-quality beef. A classical dessert is filloas, crpe-like pancakes made with flour, broth and eggs. When cooked at a pig slaughter festival, they may also contain the animal's blood. A famous almond cake called Tarta de Santiago (St. James' cake) is a Galician sweet speciality mainly produced in Santiago de Compostela.

Souto SLIDE 4: Some people (and I find out that specially others Spaniards from other areas) would remind you that Galicia is the birthplace of notable (I am being sarcastic here) people like Franco, Mariano Rajoy or even Fidel Castro (although this is not totally accurate: Castros parents were Galician). SLIDE 5: And of course people that are into fashion (or money) will point out that ZARA is as well from Galicia. Amancio Ortega is ranked by Forbes as Spain's richest man; Europe's second richest man; and the fifth richest man in the world in 2011. So I guess after all this you are really interested in knowing more things about Galicia. I really think it has a lot of things to offer (some of them may be similar to other regions in Northern

Spain but most of them you wont find them anywhere else in the country.) And I guess these are the ones that make us (Galician) if not special at least different from the rest of Spain. And some of these differences (history, culture, and language) are based in Sigue siendo un lugar donde se conservan muchas de las tradiciones antiguas y rurales (es parte de lo que somos) pero tambin es un lugar al que ha llegado la modernidad. SLIDE 6: As you already know Galicia is in the northeast of Spain, just above Portugal. As I already mentioned it is an autonomous community Its component provinces are A Corua, Lugo, Ourense and Pontevedra. Besides its continental territory, Galicia includes Arousa Island, and the archipelagos of Ces, Ons, Slvora Island, Cortegada Island, Malveiras Islands, Sisargas Islands, and other minor isles and islets. Galicia has roughly 2.79 million inhabitants as of 2011, with the largest concentration in two coastal areas

Souto SLIDE 7: The capital is Santiago de Compostela, in the province of A Corua. A Corua is the most populous city with 220,581 habitants Vigo is the second most populous city with 206,411 habitants

SLIDE 8: Two languages are official and widely used in Galicia, Galician, a Romance language which, along with Portuguese, descends from medieval Galician-Portuguese, and Castilian. As with many other Romance languages, Galician-Portuguese emerged as a literary language in the Middle Ages, during the 12th-13th century, when a rich lyric tradition developed. However, in the face of the hegemony of Castilian Spanish, during the so-called Sculos Escuros ("Dark Centuries"), from 1530 to 1800, it fell from major literary or legal use, revived again during the 19th century Rexurdimento with such writers as Rosala de Castro, Manuel Murgua, Manuel Leiras Pulpeiro, and Eduardo Pondal. In the 20th century, before the Spanish Civil War the Irmandades da Fala ("Brotherhood of the Language") and Grupo Ns included such writers as Vicente Risco, Ramn Cabanillas and Castelao. Public use of Galician was largely suppressed during the Franco dictatorship but has been resurgent since the restoration of democracy. Medieval or Old Galician, more usually known today by linguists as GalicianPortuguese, was the language spoken in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia. Old Galician diverged into the two modern languages of Galician and Portuguese when the County of Portugal became the independent Kingdom of Portugal. The two modern languages still share some mutual intelligibility, particularly in northern Portugal where they are joined by a dialect continuum. Despite the positive effects of official recognition of the Galician language, Galicia's socio-linguistic development has experienced the growing influence of Spanish, a major world language. The drift toward Spanish is ascribed to the growth of urban centers, the emergence of a Galician middle class, and the worldly influences of education and the media.

Galicia has partial self-governance, in the form of a devolved government, established on 16 March 1978 and reinforced by the Galician Statute of Autonomy, ratified on 28 April 1981. There are three branches of government: the executive branch, the Xunta de Galicia, consisting of the President and the other independently elected councillors;[44] the legislative branch consisting of the Galician Parliament; and the judicial branch consisting of the High Court of Galicia and lower courts.

Souto Galicia's public healthcare system is the Servizo Galego de Sade (SERGAS). It is administered by the regional government's Ministry of Health Galicia's education system is administered by the regional government's Ministry of Education SLIDE 9: In comparison to the other regions of Spain, the major economic benefit of Galicia is its fishing Industry. Galicia is a land of economic contrast. While the western coast, with its major population centers and its fishing and manufacturing industries, is prosperous and increasing in population, the rural hinterland the provinces of Ourense and Lugo are economically dependent on traditional agriculture, based on small landholdings called minifundios. However, the rise of tourism, sustainable forestry and organic and traditional agriculture are bringing other possibilities to the Galician economy without compromising the preservation of the natural resources and the local culture. Galicia was late to catch the tourism boom that has swept Spain in recent decades, but the coastal regions (especially the Ras Baixas and Santiago de Compostela) are now significant tourist destinations. SLIDE 10: For well over a century Galicia has grown more slowly than the rest of Spain, due

largely to emigration to Latin America and to other parts of Spain. Like most of Western Europe, Galicia's history has been defined by mass emigration. There was significant Galician emigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to the industrialized Spanish cities of Barcelona, Bilbao, Zaragoza and Madrid and to Latin America - Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela, Brazil and Cuba in particular. One notable example of that emigration is that of Fidel Castro, whose father was a Galician immigrant and mother was of Galician descent. SLIDE 11: The Gallaeci were originally a Celtic people who have occupied for centuries the territory of modern Galicia and northern Portugal, were limited to the south with the Lusitanians

Souto and to the east with the Astures. In ethnic terms, they were the firsts Galicians (word derived from Gallaeci). The Gallaecian habitat was based in fortified villages that receive the name of

Castrus (hillforts), ranging its size from small villages with less than a hectare (more common in the north), and great hillforts with more than 10 hectares, named "Oppida" or "Citnia", being this last type, more common in the southern half of the traditional settlement. GAITA The north of Iberia (the former Kingdom of Gallaecia) was never put under real control and were not the most ideal place for the Moors, SLIDE 12: In 813 the most important religious event of the medieval Christian Europe happened, the discovery in Galicia, an ark whose remains were attributed to the apostle Saint James. According to Christian tradition, in this year, a hermit saw near to "Libredon" (ancient Santiago de Compostela) a star on a marble ark. Warned by him, the bishop of Iria Flavia, Teodomiro travelled quickly to the place, identifying the remains as found the decapitated body of the apostle James. SLIDE 13: Galicia also boasts a rich oral tradition, in the form of songs, tales, and sayings, which has made a vital contribution to the spread and development of the Galician language. Still flourishing today, this tradition constitutes a priceless cultural heritage, much of which is shared with Portugal. Meigas, Romasanta, Santa Compaa