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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.(1)
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.(2)
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...