Alexandre Bóveda

Alexandre Bóveda Iglesias (Orense, June 4, 1903 – Caeira, Poyo, August 17, 1936) was a Spanish Galician nationalist politician murdered by the rebels at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. He was one of the most relevant intellectuals of the time in Galicia, being the driving force of the Galeguista Party, according to Castelao's own words.

Biography

From a very young age he dedicated himself to the study of French and accounting. He studied commercial expertise in La Coruña on his own while teaching classes to younger students at a school in Ourense. A regular reader of Nós Magazine, he soon began writing in La Zarpa by Basilio Álvarez. It is in the pages of this newspaper where he makes himself known to the world as a great communicator.

Then he participated in some competitions in Madrid for one of the ten positions of head of the State Treasury, achieving number one. Because of this, Calvo Sotelo offers him a position on his Change Intervention Committee but Bóveda rejects the offer and returns to Galicia to work in the Treasury Delegation of Orense. After passing other exams, he went to Pontevedra to occupy the position of Head of Accounting at only 23 years old. He soon makes contact with the gathering chaired by Castelao and Losada Diéguez at the Café Méndez Núñez and will be involved in the activities of the two Galicians. Both introduced him to politics and other fields such as the Polyphonic Choir, where he met Amalia Álvarez Gallego, whom he married in 1930 in the Monastery of San Juan de Poyo and with whom he would have five children.

In 1932 he participated in the pro-statute assembly that was held in Santiago de Compostela and was elected a member of the drafting commission. He will have a very active role in the drafting of the statute and in the assembly of municipalities that is created to debate it.

In 1933 he was elected a central member of the Autonomy committee chaired by Bibiano Fernández-Osorio Tafall, while Enrique Rajoy, a close friend of Bóveda, was the secretary of said committee. On October 20, 1934, a ministerial order was published imposing a forced administrative assignment on him in the Treasury Delegation of Cádiz, returning to Galicia in 1935 after obtaining a place in the treasury delegation of Vigo.

In 1936 he participated in the electoral campaign as a Popular Front candidate for the province of Orense while taking office in the tax office of Pontevedra.

On July 20, 1936, he was arrested after the triumph of the uprising in Pontevedra and was imprisoned. In August he is tried, along with the socialist deputy Amando Guiance, for a crime of & # 34; treason & # 34; and sentenced to death on August 13. The sentence was carried out on August 17 on the mountain of A Caeira, in Poyo, next to Pontevedra.

In said trial, he expressed his desire to be buried under the Galician flag with these words:

My natural homeland is Galicia. I love her fervently, I would never betray her, even if they gave me centuries of life. I love her beyond my own death. If the court understands that by this inward love the death penalty must be applied to me, I will receive it as a sacrifice for it. I did my best for Galicia and would do more if I could. If I can't even want to die for my homeland. Under his banner I wish to be buried, if the court judges that I must be.

Xosé Sesto, after Bóveda's death, was quick to place the Galician flag under his jacket.

The murder of Alexandre Bóveda is incorporated into the Argentine Complaint against the crimes of Franco's regime. The Provincial Council of Pontevedra supports and promotes the reparation of the leader of the Galeguista Party and also that of its president in 1931 Amancio Caamaño and the head of the Provincial Committee of the Popular Front Ramiro Paz.