Vicente Risco - Encountering Galicianism

Encountering Galicianism

Beginning in 1917, Vicente Risco entered the Irmandades da Fala under the influence of Antón Losada Diéguez, and on December 18, 1917 he gave his first speech in the Galician language, an act of support for Francesc Cambó. In the 1918 campaign for Parliamentary Elections, he made many speeches in the district of Celanova, to no acclaim. In July 1918, Risco began writing articles for A Nosa Terra. He tried to improve the status of Galician literature, writing about Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, Apollinaire and Omar Khayyam.

Soon Risco had become the main theoretician and leader of Galician nationalism, and in November 1918 he played an important role in the I Nationalist Assembly.

In 1920 he published the book Theory of Galician Nationalism, considered the foundational text of Galician nationalism. Risco took ideas from Murguía and combined them with philosophical irrationalism, geographic determinism, neotraditionalism and ethnography; he defined the nation as a natural entity based on land, race, language, social organization, and national sentiment. He valued Galicia's geographical and cultural connection to Celtic history and the Atlantic region, as opposed to Spain's Mediterranean heritage.

In 1920 he started the magazine Nós, where he wrote over 100 articles until its cancellation in July 1936. He also directed the ethnographic section of the Seminario de Estudos Galegos. In 1922 he married María Carme Fernández Gómez. In 1923 his first son, Antón Risco, was born.

Risco initially supported the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera, because he saw in it the opportunity to destroy the caciquist system and accept the role of provincial deputy in Ourense thinking of the possibility of the establishment of a Commonwealth of Galicia, similar to the Commonwealth of Catalonia.After his rupture with the Irmandade da Fala da Coruña and A Nosa Terra he wrote for Rexurdimento, the newspaper of the Irmandade Nazonalista Galega (Galician Nationalist Brotherhood), although he returned to A Nosa Terra after a short time.

In April 1930 he travelled to Berlin, living there for four months and delivering a course in ethnography at the University of Berlin. After that he became more conservative and Catholic. He wrote a book, Mitteleuropa, in which he described his European trip.