Antonio Fraguas y Fraguas

Category: Historian, anthropologist, ethnographer, geographer, librarian.
Birth Date: 28th Decembre 1905 († 5th November 1999)
Birth Place: Loureiro de Cotobade (Pontevedra)

Día das Letras Galegas
 Curriculum

He studied at the Secondary School in Pontevedra. In 1928, he took his degree in Arts at Santiago University. A year later he took his doctor's degree with a thesis titled El Colegio de Fonseca. This year he also became a member of the Seminary of Galician Studies, where he made research tasks in the sections of Geography and Ethnography. He also collaborated in the Institute of Galician Studies 'Padre Sarmiento' as librarian and secretary. He joined the Galician Party and at the beginning of the Civil War (1936) he was removed from his chair, devoting himself to private tuition until 1950. This year he got a new chair for Secondary Education and moved to Lugo. In 1951, he became a member of the Galician Academy. In 1959 he came back to Santiago and worked as a teacher at the Secondary School 'Rosalía de Castro'. In 1976, ?the Museo do Pobo Galego? (Galician Museum) was founded and was nominated as President. In 1992 the Xunta de Galicia (Galician autonomous Government) nominated him as General Chronicler for Galicia.

 Work & Activities

Antonio Fraguas made a wide bibliographic production (books, brochures, articles, speeches...). Within this great production we will only mention some works such as Geografía de Galicia (Santiago, 1953), Galicia insólita (A Coruña, 1973), La Condesa de Pardo Bazán y el folklore (offprint of the magazine of the Institute ?José Cornide? about Studies in A Coruña, 1974-1975), La Sociedad de 'Amigos del Arte' de Santiago de Compostela. Apuntes para su historia (A Coruña, 1976), Literatura popular en torno al casamiento, embarazo y parto (Madrid, 1976), Geografía de un lugar (Santiago, 1978), Murguía. O patriarca (A Coruña, 1979), O Entroido nas terras do Sul de Cotobade (Nós, 1930), O culto ós mortos (Nós, 1932), As lendas da fonte Pormás (Nós, 1932), El edificio del Instituto Padre Sarmiento de Estudios Gallegos (Santiago, 1947), and many others. He also collaborated with other people of Galician Culture making works such as Los castros de la Tierra de Saviñao (Zaragoza, 1953) together with Florentino Cuevillas, Catálogo de la Exposición del Instituto Padre Sarmiento de Estudios Gallegos (1965) with José Filgueira Valverde and so forth. He also published many historic and bibliographic articles in different Galician newspapers, being the most outstanding Unha serán na Catedral (published in A Nosa Terra in 1929), Temas Literarios. La danza popular (published in El Progreso in 1951), Literatura Gallega (El Progreso, 1951), Libros y autores gallegos (El Progreso, 1952), Realidad y leyenda de la montaña lucense (El Pueblo Gallego en 1952), El Botafumeiro de la Catedral de Santiago (El Progreso, 1954), El Corpus en la Campiña (El Ideal Gallego en 1959), De Bayona a Tuy por la Guardia (Vida Gallega en 1959), Fiestas pontevedresas (Vida Gallega en 1959), El litoral lucense (Vida Gallega en 1960), Normas del clima en Compostela (La Voz de Galicia en 1960), La presencia de la concha motivo jacobeo (La Voz de Galicia en 1965), El mapa geológico de Galicia (El Correo Gallego en 1975), Los Fueros Municipales de Santiago (El Correo Gallego en 1975), En el Hogar de Rosalía (El Correo Gallego en 1975), Lembranza de un etnógrafo (El Correo Gallego en 1976) among others.

 Other Interesting Aspects

He bestowed his library of about 20,000 volumes on the Museo do Pobo Galego (Galician Museum). He was rewarded with the Gold Badge of the Galician Museum and Castelao's Medal.