Rexurdimento

The Rexurdimento (Galician) was a period in the History of Galicia during the 19th century. Its central feature was the revitalization of the Galician language as a vehicle of social and cultural expression after the so-called séculos escuros ("dark centuries") in which the dominance of Castilian Spanish was nearly complete. The Galician Rexurdimento coincides with the Catalan Renaixença.

Romanticism led to a revival of regionalism in the Iberian Peninsula. Languages besides the official Castilian Spanish were reevaluated. In contrast to the universalizing Age of Enlightenment, a positive value was placed on regional traditions, languages, and dialects. In Galicia, Castilian Spanish had become the language of the cities and of the bourgeoisie, while Galician had become a largely rural language without a live literary tradition. This created some degree of diglossia, with Castilian Spanish dominating literary and business use, and Galician being strictly a language of daily life.

The transitional phase from the séculos escuros to the Rexurdimento is referred to by literary historians as the Prerrexurdimento. Within the Prerrexurdimento, two phases can be roughly distinguished, before and after the unsuccessful Solís Uprising of 1846. The first phase involved a rather diffuse revival of the Galician language; the second is more concentrated, including the first new Galician-language works in centuries to gain acclaim.

From 1840 onward, groups of intellectuals saw Galicia as a backward region whose advancement was dependent on the formation of a regional or national identity. This provincialist movement centered at the University of Santiago de Compostela; its most prominent figure was Antolín Faraldo Asorey.

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