| Abstract | In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: History & Memory 14.1/2 (2002) 37-64 In the Spanish national mythopoeia the battle of Covadonga is remembered as the “cradle of the Reconquest.” Fought in the mountain fastness of the Picos de Europa in northern Spain in 718, just seven years after the Muslim invasion had destroyed the Kingdom of the Visigoths, the battle cannot have amounted to much more than a minor skirmish between a small band of Asturian warriors and the Muslim expeditionary force sent to crush their resistance. But royal and monastic chroniclers later transformed this insignificant encounter into a miraculous victory that marked the beginnnings of the Asturian monarchy and its seven-century-long campaign to expel the “Moors” and to restore the lost territorial and religious unity of the peninsula. The year 2001 was a commemorative year for the Marian shrine that has been identified with the site of the battle since the ninth century. To celebrate the centenary of the completion and consecration of the basilica of Our Lady of Covadonga, the archbishop of Oviedo, the Patronato Real de la Gruta y Sitio de Covadonga, and the government of the Autonomous Community of Asturias sponsored an exhibition entitled “Covadonga: Iconography of a Devotion” that illustrated the evolution of the shrine from its modest beginnings to its current status as an important destination for pilgrims and tourists. Some 15,000 persons viewed the exhibit, including the Prince of Asturias, don Felipe de Borbón, the heir to the Spanish throne, whose visit coincided with the feast day of the Virgin and the annual holiday of the Principado de Asturias on 8–9 September. (Under the constitution of 1978, Spain is divided into seventeen “autonomous communities,” of which the Principado de Asturias is one.) Several hundred civil, religious and military dignitaries (including national and local leaders of Spain’s governing party, the Partido Popular) participated in the politico-religious ceremonies at the basilica. Meanwhile, thousands of Asturians attended more secular festivities organized near the beach in Gijón. The Socialist president of the Principado took advantage of the holiday to announce an ambitious plan of environmental and monumental protection for Covadonga, which is expected to amount to 2.6 billion pesetas. The commemoration of 2001 triggered a contest for control of the meaning of Covadonga in the collective memory of Spaniards. For the organizers of the exhibition, Covadonga was a symbol of a nonconfessional Asturian identity; accordingly, their exhibit foregrounded the historical evolution of the shrine in response to changing cultural and political conditions, an approach that implied a critical distance from the Marian devotion. This historicist perspective was subtly repudiated by the Asturian ecclesiastical authorities, however, who took the image on a tour of the diocese and encouraged pilgrimage to the shrine throughout the summer in order to demonstrate the continuing vitality of popular religiosity. The politico-religious ceremonies sponsored by the center-right Partido Popular and the church also reaffirmed the historic link between the Spanish state and the Catholic faith. Prince Felipe, in contrast, focused his public remarks on Covadonga as the birthplace of the Spanish monarchy, recalling that he had been invested as Prince of Asturias at Covadonga in 1979. In counterpoint, the Socialist regional government emphasized not the collective memory of Covadonga but its economic potential, by announcing investments in economic infrastructure, jobs and tourism. Asturian regionalists, including the organizers of the exhibition, expressed frustration that the welter of competing voices obscured the primary significance of Covadonga. In their view the centennial offered a golden opportunity to attract national attention to a shrine that was a “site of reference of Asturian identity.” Instead, the Virgin’s well-publicized pilgrimage throughout the region had tainted the commemoration, raising fears of a revival of “covandonguismo”—that is, of the National Catholic ideology and cultural politics associated with the Francoist dictatorship. Equally disappointing was the lack of interest in the commemoration outside Asturias. The failure of the Patrimonio Nacional in Madrid to lend several valuable works to the exhibit was interpreted as an inexplicable affront, given the significance of Covadonga for the nation and the monarchy. Most vexing to Asturian regionalists, however...
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