Many hope for it, many work for it. In the slow but gradual process of collectively forging the Second Galizan Republic, we must take a moment to reflect on the short-lived but highly symbolic proclamation of the First Republic back on June 27th 1931.
Those were convulse days for Galiza (and not only) following a general strike and a number of popular uprisings in the capital city of Compostela.
Galiza had suffered and lost a war of independence and, since then, had also lost all remains of any possible self-sufficiency becoming further impoverished. The last straw came to be the cancellation of the railway works between Zamora and Ourense. This was the perfect excuse for left-wing leaders Pedro Campos Couceiro and Antón Alonso Rios to press on the idea that the only solution for Galiza was to look after itself as a free country once again, overcoming its colonisation, imposed isolation and regaining its national dignity.
Hence, on that day Antón Alonso Rios was solemnly appointed as the President of this new, called to be fully independent, Republic.
The Spanish government was very swift in its response, agreeing to resolve all claims in other cities before the news reached them. This way, the general strike was deactivated and the workers were somewhat satisfied with the trade and labour accords not knowing that, by then, the provisional Galizan government had been disbanded by force. Timing was crucial. In fact, the proclamation had only been followed up in the city of Ourense and in a few other towns and villages.
However, and although ephemeral, this event permanently defined the main goal that Galizanist parties would follow from then on: the establishment of a free State (not so dissimilar from the Irish situation at that time).
It also had a profound psychological impact, while it helped fixing the new symbols of a Galizan Republic (amends to coat of arms and flag) and their acceptance by the general population.
In any case, the so-called Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) saw the victory of Spanish pro-Fascist nationalists and rise of the Francoist dictatorship, which brutally repressed any dissidence and curtailed any attempt or self-government. Alonso Rios himself went through a personal ordeal and eventually passed away in Argentina as President of the Conselho da Galiza (legitimate Galizan Government in exile).
Thus today we are still many who believe that only a completely independent Galiza – The Second Galizan Republic – is the only way forward to a more prosperous future for everybody.