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The Día de Andalucía (Day of Andalucia or Andalucia Day) is celebrated on February 28 and commemorates the 1980 referendum on the Statute of Autonomy of Andalucia, in which the Andalucian electorate voted for the statute that made Andalucia an autonomous community of Spain.
In many municipalities and cities of Andalucia, people decorate their balconies with the flag of Andalucia and with bunting echoing its green-and-white bars.
Cultural competitions are often held in conjunction with the day.
In some cities, especially in the Málaga area, schools are closed for a Semana Cultural (cultural week), also known as Semana Blanca (white week).
The Friday before is often a day of celebration in schools with a traditional Andalucian breakfast (desayuno andaluz), consisting of a slice of toasted bread with a thin layer of olive oil and tomato. Pupils colour pictures that refer to the symbols and insignia of Andalucia, its history and customs, put on plays and sing the regional anthem, the Himno de Andalucía.
Blas Infante – Father of Andalucia
Blas Infante Pérez de Vargas (Casares, Spain; 5 July 1885 – Seville, Spain; 11 August 1936) was a Spanish Andalucista politician, writer, historian and musicologist, known as the father of Andalucian nationalism (Padre de la Patria Andaluza).
Infante was a Georgist idealist who initiated an assembly at Ronda in 1913. This assembly adopted a charter based on the autonomist Constitución Federal de Antequera written in 1883 during the First Spanish Republic. It also embraced the current flag and emblem as “national symbols”, designed by Infante himself based on various historic Andalucian standards. During the Second Spanish Republic, the Andalucismo was represented by the Junta Liberalista, a federalist political party led by Infante.
Infante was among numerous political figures who were summarily executed by Franco’s forces when they took over Sevilla at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. As both a regional autonomist and a kind of libertarian socialist, he twice “merited” inclusion on their liquidation list.
His last residence in Coria del Río now hosts the Museum of Andalucian Autonomy.
Hymn of Andalucia
The anthem of Andalusia is a musical composition by José del Castillo Díaz with lyrics by Blas Infante. The music is inspired by the Holy God, a popular religious song that the peasants and day labourers of some Andalucian regions sang during the harvest. Blas Infante knew this song by being a notary in the town of Cantillana where it is interpreted as a song of rogatives. Blas Infante brought this song to the knowledge of Maestro Castillo, who adapted and harmonized the melody. The lyrics of the anthem appeal to Andalucians to mobilise and ask for “land and freedom”, through a process of agrarian reform and a statute of political autonomy for Andalucia, within the framework of Spain.
The anthem of Andalucia was presented by the Municipal Band of Sevilla, under the direction of José del Castillo, at a concert held at the Alameda de Hércules on July 10, 1936, a week before the start of the Civil War. During the Franco regime only one manuscript for piano was preserved.
