Bicentennial of "La Pepa"

In 2012, Cadiz celebrates the bicentennial of "La Pepa" (the Constitution of 1812)

The city will present a new image and a number of cultural activities to remind us of its international relevance.

Cadiz is a mandatory trip in 2012 as the city will spend all year celebrating the approval of the first Liberal Magna Carta of Europe on March 19, 1812, Saint Joseph's Day, which was promulgated in the Oratorio San Felipe Neri and known lovingly as “La Pepa” by the citizens of Cadiz.

Cadiz will celebrate and premiere a new image, as "The Twelfth" will provide the capital new infrastructures such as the arrival of a high speed train and the second bridge over the bay, which will reach a height of 180 metres and will become an emblem of the capital. Today, it is one of the largest engineering projects in Spain.

 On the horizon in 2012 is the desire to give an economic, social, political and cultural boost to the Bay of Cadiz, as a thank you to the modern and generous “Cadiz spirit”. It's also to remember those brave times in which Napoleon's army invaded Spain and this southern city fought back, never to be conquered.

How could we not celebrate- while the French bombarded the city with more than 15,000 missiles, Cadiz continued with its intense theatrical activity and even decided to sing to the war, making the song lyric "con las bombas que tiran los fanfarrones, se hacen las gaditanas tirabuzones" ("with the bombs that the cocky French soldiers threw, the girls of Cadiz made ringlets") a classic. The music was based on a real event: the bomb that fell near the Women's Hospital had more lead than gunpowder in it, and was used by the women of Cadiz as rollers to fix their curls.

The festivities will last throughout the year with performances, cavalcades, historical reenactments, conferences, concerts, gatherings of ships, parades and food tastings. And Cadiz will even recover the flavours of two centuries ago, when, despite the French siege, there was no shortage of ice cream or sorbet with those who walked where the bombs didn't strike.

On the cultural front, Cadiz will be the Ibero-American Culture Capital and among all the leisure and cultural activities, those that stand out are the premiere of the play State of Siege by Albert Camus, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra concert, led by Daniel Barenboim in August, the Music of the Cadiz Courts series and the show Viva La Pepa 2012 by Cadiz pianist Manuel Carrasco.

A big focus is on the VIII Ibero-American Biennial of Architecture and the most important political and institutional event will take place with the celebration of the XXII Ibero-American Heads of State and Government Summit.

Cadiz will rediscover important places, renovated for the occasion, such as the Oratorio San Felipe Neri, which hosted the debates of the Courts and the drafting of "La Pepa." Both the church and the annex building will be open to the public in March as an interpretation centre of "La Pepa". This Magna Carta for the first time established popular sovereignty, separation of powers, freedom of expression, freedom of the press and universal education. It was instrumental in the modernisation of Spain, America and Europe.

From the Parador to the Lottery

The new Parador Hotel Atlántico will also open its doors in 2012.

Other activities that give special relevance to Cadiz and project its image at a national level are the "El Niño" lottery draw on January 6 and the "La Pepa 2012" national lottery draw on March 24 because they remind us that it was in the Courts of Cadiz where the national lottery was established, as remembered by a plaque in the San Antonio Plaza in the capital.

All of this helps to give relevance to the signing of a text that forever changed the way we understand politics in Spain. Therefore, academic and political activities are mixed with a plethora of cultural and civic activities to celebrate the values ​​that "La Pepa" established in modern societies.

The Consortium for the Commemoration of the II Centennial of the Constitution of 1812 was created in 2007 as a managing body of the National Commission established to organize and plan activities relating to the commemoration of the bicentennial of this fundamental text under the honorary presidency of their majesties King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia.

In 2010, San Fernando celebrated the establishment of the first General and Extraordinary Courts of Spain in 1810 on the then named “Isla de León“. They would reap their fruits in Cadiz in 1812 with the approval of the first Spanish Constitution, the first liberal constitution in Europe. In art.13 it states that "the aim of government is the happiness of the nation."

With this text, Spain put aside the precepts of the Old Regime, the inherited right and absolute monarchy to embrace values ​​that are today essential, such as national sovereignty, the right to education, and freedom of the press and thought. These rights were the seed of a new society where the nobility and the Inquisition were abolished, the reform of agriculture was addressed and new safeguards for criminal law were established. Liberties, civil rights, and the concept of citizen were born with it... the values ​​that opened the door to modernity.