Republic of Galicia

The Galician Republic (Galician: República Galega) was a European state. The republic was an ephemeral passage in the history of Galicia. It lasted only a few hours on 27 June 1931, a day ahead of the election to the Second Spanish Republic's Constitutional Assembly. On that date, left-nationalist leaders Pedro Campos Couceiro and Antón Alonso Ríos declared that full independence from Spain was the only way for Galicia to overcome its secular backwardness and to regain its national dignity. The temporary cancellation of railway construction connecting Zamora with Ourense was the immediate trigger of the events; however, the historic marginalization of the country – then overwhelmingly rural and Galician-speaking – was at the core of the movement, which negotiations between Spanish forces and the Galician instigators eventually defused. A number of leftist organizations and champions of Galician national sovereignty still celebrate the date.