[English
version]
(by
Xoan Paredes)
Professor
Francesco Benozzo (Modena, Italy, 1969) is one of the big names
behind the Paleolithic Continuity Paradigm,
claiming that the there is a clear continuity in the origins and
development of European peoples, origins which may also be placed
further back in time to what it is commonly considered. This shift in
the understanding of European archaeology, prehistory and linguistics
is of the utmost relevance for Galicia and (Northern) Portugal, as it
sets this territory at the centre of the genesis of the so-called
Celtic Culture, among other aspects.
With
two PhDs in linguistics and philology by the universities of Bologna
(Italy) and Aberystwyth
(Wales),
he currently lectures at the former Italian university. However,
Francesco Benozzo is not limited by the formalism that usually
accompanies academic life. He is also an acclaimed poet and harpist,
with a large number of published works and music, leading to his name
being proposed for a Nobel Prize in Literature.
We
will be most fortunate to welcome him this coming April (2-3) in the
fifth edition of the Jornadas das Letras
Galego-Portuguesas (Pitões
das Júnias, Montalegre, right at the Galician-Portuguese border),
where he will be discussing these and many other topics, as outlined
in the following interview.
-
What
was the first thing that got your attention about Galicia and North
Portugal? Was it something purely academic or was there any other
factor that made you focus on us?
Since
I was a child my instinct suggested that the original meaning of
things lies in peripheral areas and locations. I don’t just mean
“peripheral” in a geographical sense but, mostly, in a poetic
one. This is one of the reasons why I went to live to Wales (and not
England) for a few years, and it is also the reason why I left my
hometown of Modena, in Northern Italy, and decided to live in the
mountains. I also believe that, as academics, we must study and
concentrate on “peripheral” traditions: folk traditions,
dialects, oral texts, cultures of the marginal people and so on,
because what is now perceived as “marginal” and “peripheral”
was, in many cases, the original centre of what we currently perceive
as being at the centre.
Galicia
and North Portugal have always been part of this “poetic
topography” of mine and of my poetic conception, starting from
their legends and traditions, and from great poets such as the
medieval troubadours, to even Rosalia de Castro or Eduardo Pondal.
-
Do you think that the Iberian north-west can be considered the origin
of "Celticity" in the Peninsula from a linguistic point of
view?
Not
only. I think that it can be considered the origin of Celticity in
all of Europe.
-
What
is your opinion on the relationship between the Celtic world and
Tartessos, as Prof. Koch postulates?
John
[Koch] has produced an extraordinary work in the last decade about
that. I don’t see any linguistic reasons that could deny this
postulated connection. The problem with Koch’s theory is that it
limits itself to the late Bronze Age, which comes in contradiction
with his idea of “Celts from the West”. If we speak of
ethnogenesis instead, we must go beyond the restrictions of written
sources and have the ability to connect them with other sorts of
sources such as legends, traditions, genetics, ethnotexts or
dialectal lexicon. Consequently, we'll be able to speak of
“Paleolithic Celts” for this area. Within this framework,
Tartessos can be seen as one of the many “recent” written relicts
of a much older situation.
-
Why do you think there is this renewed effort in some parts of Europe
to debunk the term "Celtic", or even the existence of a
Celtic culture?
For
three main reasons. Firstly, being myself an anarchist, I would say
that there is an innate tendency of those in power to exclude
diversity and, above all, to “centralise” any kind of strategy
connected to their power. Thus, as we know, since their proto-history
the Celts have always been the “losers” in geopolitical terms,
and have then been excluded from any power play of the European
elites.
Secondly,
we can find a general discomfort with Celticity if compared to the
official and standardised cultures which, in a way, rule the world.
In other words, to admit that the many-sided, coloured, rural,
disquieting, stratified, archaic Celtic culture can be part of us is,
in many cases, difficult to accept for people raised with the
certainty and the conformist myth of stability and with a superficial
knowledge of European history.
Lastly,
and in connection to the above-mentioned reasons, Celtic culture
represents, in psychoanalytic terms, the subconscious of Europe,
which causes a continuous attempt to repress and suppress it.
-
As an accomplished researcher, but also poet and musician, is there
any connection between your academic work and your artistic work? Or
do you keep both worlds separate?
I
hope that these three aspects live together, as it happens with
different elements of a same landscape. My expectation is probably to
look like a musician who studies philology, a poet who plays the
harp, and a philologist who composes poems.
-
After
all your travels and research, how would you summarise the "Celtic
character"? For example, when you come to Galicia-North
Portugal, what do you feel in connection to other Celtic territories?
First
of all, there is a special feeling with the sea, which is different
from the one I have observed in other communities such as the Faroese
or Mediterranean ones. In Celtic lands this feeling is linked to a
“legendary” and melancholic attitude in perceiving the landscape
and seascape, and the capacity to connect places with stories. There
is also a clear, innate, not predictable, musical perception of the
world. Furthermore, there is the consciousness of the archaic and
civilising value of things that have been forgotten elsewhere, such
as the sharing of drinks, food and stories.
At
the V Jornadas das Letras Galego-Portuguesas,
Prof. Benozzo will give a presentation entitled “A
prehistoric Atlantic landscape. Paleo-mesolithic ethnogenesis and
ethnophilology of the Galician and Portuguese traditions”.
The
event is free and open to the public. Prof. Benozzo's talk with be in
English with translation into Portuguese.
