Xosé Manuel Beiras

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Xosé M. Beiras is one of the most outstanding personalities in the present Galicia and in the recent Galician history. His name is a reference to the most part of the political and cultural initiatives that thru the last 35 last years have opened new expressing channels in all the Galician society.

Born in Compostela in 1936, his teaching work started in the 60's as a professor in the Faculty of Law in Madrid and later as the titular professor of Political Economy in the Faculty of Law in Santiago de Compostela. His research and essay work on social and economic analysis produced so outstanding books as O atraso económico de Galicia [The Galician economic backwardness] (1973), A Galicia rural na encrucillada [The rural Galicia in the crossroad] (1976), O proceso de modernización da agricultura galega [The modernisation process in the Galician agriculture], Por unha Galicia liberada. Ensaios de economía e política (1984), [For a freed Galicia. Economy and Politics Essays], Prosas de combate e maldicer (1991), O estado da nación [The state of the Nation], and so on. Presently he is preparing along the professor Abel López the work A poboación galega no século XX [Galician population in the 20th century]. He is also the author of a big number of scientific works already published in specialized magazines.

As a distinguished antifascist fighter, his political work started in 1963, in underground movement, as a founder member of the Partido Socialista Galego [Galician Socialist Party]. In the spring of 1982 he participed in the constitution process of the Bloque Nacionalista Galego [Galician Nationalist Block], and he became a member of its National Counsel and Permanent Comission from its beginning. Presently he is a member of the Galician Parliament from 1985, national speaker of the BNG and candidate to the Presidency of the Xunta.