Memory and testimonies of the draining of the Lagoa de Antela

For the people of A Limia, the draining of the Lagoa de Antela is not merely a chapter of history: it is a divided memory. In 2014, the outreach project lagoadeantela.es collected testimonies from people aged 79 to 95 from Baronzás, Lamas, Morgade and Xinzo, without full names in most cases, and their opinions do not coincide ^[1]. This page summarises what they say, with that caveat: they are voices from a small sample, not a statistical study.

Who defended the draining

A worker of the Instituto Nacional de Colonización, who arrived in Xinzo in 1966, remembers that his job was to work the farms with the combine harvester and sow maize, because people had no machinery; to gain access to a farm one had to submit an application and pay a rent of 4,000 pesetas a year for about nine hectares, and the farms later passed into the property register ^[1]. Other neighbours consider that the lagoon "was a pool of stagnant water" where there were only frogs and birds and that the draining brought plots, potatoes, wheat and maize; a co-operative member from Baronzás says that she and her family planned to emigrate to Switzerland or Germany and stayed because they were given a farm and could buy a tractor ^[1]. A 95-year-old man stresses that the frog catchers "led a very slave-like life", getting up at four in the morning to catch frogs and eggs ^[1].

Who missed it

Other voices recall what was lost: the livestock that grazed on the "old lagoon" in summer, the bión that was cut for bedding in the stables, the trees, the flowers and the birds ^[1]. A neighbour from Morgade said he always opposed it, but that under the Dictatorship one could not speak; that the frog catchers were not consulted and that to obtain a good plot it helped to be rich ^[1]. An 82-year-old woman from Xinzo sums up: "it was a very great loss, there was a lot of wildlife and many kinds of flowers, and now all there is is potatoes" ^[1]. Vilar de Santos Town Council, for its part, sums up in its history that the draining in the 1950s and 1960s caused serious economic and social damage and more emigration ^[5].

Health: a malaria focus?

The 1956 Royal Order justified the work with two reasons, gaining farmland and eliminating a focus of insalubrity ^[2]. Serafín González, in the book A memoria asolagada, records the opinion of a Xinzo doctor that malaria and typhoid fevers were the product of the harsh reality and isolation of the comarca, not of the lagoon: an outbreak of 84 cases of typhoid in a village of 46 inhabitants came from the village spring ^[2].

The laguneros and the town

According to Martínez Cerredelo, the arrival of the INC workers, known ever since as the laguneros, and the investments gave the town of Xinzo a boost; many stayed for good and started families ^[3]. Channelling the river through the urban stretch required demolishing the old Toural bridge ^[3].

Otero Pedrayo’s farewell

On 4 October 1958, Ramón Otero Pedrayo published in La Región the article "Se quiebra el mágico cristal", which Martínez Cerredelo reproduces in facsimile ^[3]. It is the best-known farewell to the lagoon.

2018: sixty years later

For the 60th anniversary of the start of the works, the platform "Amig@s das Árbores da Limia" circulated the statement "Antela, quen nola dera", which denounces the "greatest environmental outrage" in the peninsula, recalls that Otero Pedrayo was among the few who protested and calls for learning from the mistakes of the past ^[6].

Long-term assessment

lagoadeantela.es summarises the consequences: a space of great ecological value was lost, native vegetation was destroyed or burned to gain cropland, intensive agriculture centred on the potato was introduced and soil impoverishment forced the use of fertilisers; the State did not complete the planned irrigation and it was the farmers themselves who organised their irrigation system ^[4]. On the present state and restoration, see The Lagoa de Antela today.

Links

• Lagoa de Antela
• The draining of the Lagoa de Antela
• Antela in photography and in memory
• Antioquía, the drowned city

Sources

1. lagoadeantela.es, «Testimonios sobre la desecación de la laguna», 2014. https://lagoadeantela.es/testimonios-sobre-la-desecacion-de-la-laguna/
2. lagoadeantela.es, «La desecación de la laguna durante la dictadura franquista» (cita a Serafín González, A memoria asolagada). https://lagoadeantela.es/desecacion-lagoa-de-antela-dictadura/
3. Edelmiro Martínez Cerredelo, «Se quiebra el mágico cristal», Historia de Xinzo, 02-05-2014. https://historiadexinzo.wordpress.com/2014/05/02/se-quiebra-el-magico-cristal-desaugamento-da-lagoa-de-antela-por-r-otero-pedrayo/
4. lagoadeantela.es, «Consecuencias de la desecación de la laguna». https://lagoadeantela.es/consecuencias-de-la-desecacion-de-la-laguna/
5. Concello de Vilar de Santos, «Historia». https://vilardesantos.gal/historia/
6. Vía Lethes, «Antela, quen nola dera (1958–2018)», comunicado de Amig@s das Árbores da Limia, 2018. https://vialethes.es/antela-quen-nola-dera