SAN MILLÁN DE LA COGOLLA (LA RIOJA), June 9 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The president of the regional government, Gonzalo Capellán, has asked citizens that this La Rioja Day “serves us to reaffirm our identity.” To “rejoice in all the path we have traveled together, in all the achievements achieved and to face with hope, determination and enthusiasm the collective challenges that lie ahead.”
All on a day in which the regional president has also highlighted “the importance of being and feeling Rioja.”
Gonzalo Capellán made these statements during the traditional institutional speech held on the occasion of La Rioja Day in San Millán de la Cogolla.
On this occasion, and due to inclement weather, the event was held in the Main Refectory of the Yuso Monastery. The Government delegate in La Rioja, Beatriz Arraiz, the president of the Parliament of La Rioja, Marta Fernández, and the mayor of Logroño, Conrado Escobar, among other authorities, attended.
Furthermore, during the institutional event different musical interpretations could be heard such as ‘Sonata (in D Major)’ by the composer Mateo Pérez de Albéniz, performed by the Orden de la Terraza. Also ‘Las Glosas’ by Emiliano Valdeoliva and the interpretation of the poem ‘Yo el maestro, Gonzalo de Berceo’, also by Valdeoliva.
Prior to the Rioja president’s speech, ‘Fandango’ from the Spanish Suite, by Enrique de Ulierte, was played by the Order of the Terrace.
After reminding the people of La Rioja who are abroad and sending them “all our affection”, the President of the La Rioja Government stressed that “not only have we existed as a collective reality for a long time, but also that the feeling of being La Rioja is formally recognized.” since the approval of our Statute of Autonomy on June 9, 1982″.
“UNION”
For Capellán “unity has been, is and will always be the key to moving forward in the joint challenge of building the future of our land, of building every day, with everyone’s efforts, a better Rioja. The Rioja we want, the one we we deserve, La Rioja for which we will fight and which, without a doubt, together we will achieve.”
All of this – he indicated – “in the land where the written Spanish language for the first time – and philologically complete – began to take shape.”
The regional president has detailed that our autonomous community as a territory, “has a long and rich history.” This is attested to by “the multiple vestiges of an extraordinary historical, artistic and cultural heritage present throughout our geography.”
After touring different Rioja enclaves, Capellán wanted to make special mention of the Monastery of Suso, “an authentic melting pot where the Visigothic, Mozarabic and Romanesque styles bear witness to the fusion of cultures that have forged our land.”
“RECONTEMPLATE THE GLOSS”
But also, he explains, “in the Suso scriptorium all those glosses were written that translated the Latin writing of the cultured monks into the Romance that the people already spoke. Annotations on some codices that came to make up the richest documentary heritage of Spain, jealously guarded for centuries until 1851 in these Emilian monasteries”.
Then they left La Rioja, “but their intellectual and moral property will perpetually belong to this land where we hope to be able to contemplate it again, live, with our own eyes and those of all who wish to visit our land, always open.”
After this journey through history, Capellán has defended “those own, distinctive features that characterize us, also make up a culture. History and culture are two marks that are indelibly imprinted on any collective identity. But culture is not exhausted in the legacy received, is permanently revitalized, updated and enriched”.
For this reason – he explains – “on this La Rioja Day, the work and essential contribution of Rioja creators is recognized with the Arts and Culture Award. On this occasion represented by the artist Rafael Pérez, who with the genuine forms and The aesthetic beauty that he has been able to imprint on clay has made him an internationally renowned ceramist.
The Rioja Federation of Municipalities has also been awarded the La Rioja Medal, which is “the best expression of our territory. “La Rioja does not exist and cannot be fully without each and every one of its municipalities.”
IDENTITY
In his intervention before the authorities, Capellán has also advocated for unity “in the construction of the present and future of La Rioja, which constitutes part of the very way of being and feeling like Rioja, of our identity.”
“An identity that we continue to define in the present and we have to continue complementing in the future with those traits that we want to define La Rioja,” defended the president.
For this reason – he relates – “if La Rioja as a collective project includes us all as people, we must ensure that all people can truly feel fully included. I am convinced that the collective will of the people of Rioja is to build a region of solidarity, of people that they care about others, that as a moral imperative we engage in selflessly doing good to others: only in this way can community truly be built.”
“We Riojans can feel proud of being at the head of Spain and well above the European average. We want and must continue to progress along this path.” And the socioeconomic development of our region “will be maximum from that spirit of collaboration.”
From that conviction – he explains – the recognitions of this day are completed by distinguishing Fernando Riaño, as an Illustrious Riojano. “He is so for displaying his Riojanidad throughout the world as vice president of the World Organization of the Blind and in the performance of his responsibilities within the Once Social Group. But he is so, above all, for his humanity and for perfectly representing “that trait that we want to permeate the identity of La Rioja in solidarity that we are building together.”
“LA RIOJA HAS A GREAT FUTURE”
“And let no one doubt it for a single moment: La Rioja has a future, a great future, whose path has behind it the support of a rich past, but above all a splendid future,” stated the president.
All because “although we are a small land, we have initiatives, capabilities and the determined aspiration to undertake great future projects together, in all the fundamental areas of our life and well-being.”
The Rioja president recalls that we will work for a Rioja “where all people enjoy equal opportunities, where all people enjoy full freedom and the necessary means to develop their personal and professional projects, where our landscape continues to be the natural environment , singular, sustainable in which we live”.
A Rioja -in short- “of welcoming, enterprising, fighting people willing to win together a better future, which we should not wait for to come on its own, but rather for it to be the result of daily collective effort, achieved from today, from the present “.
The La Rioja Day event in San Millán has ended with the interpretation of the anthem of La Rioja and that of Spain, by the Order of La Terraza.
