Prince of Asturias Awards 1981–2014. Speeches

P rince of A sturias A wards 1981-2014. S peeches 7 Juan Iglesias has done intense, exemplary educational and research work, and for over sixty years has taught generations of Spanish and Latin American jurists, who are indebted to him for a solid moral and legal training and have fortunately been forever infected by his love for justice. Deeply rooted in his profound sense of morality, respect and education, his studies on Roman Law clearly show the Roman substratum of Western culture. This very same culture was born along on Spain’s ardent desire to civilize, was kept alive by such institutions as the Colegio de México, and flowered on a new continent. The fact that this Award for Social Science has been jointly conferred is further invitation for us to continue to encourage the coming together and dialogue between different cultures. María Zambrano —exiled in Mexico and honoured with the first of our Awards for Literature in 1981— passed on to us a sentence which might sum up the sixty years of the concern of the Colegio de México and of Juan Iglesias when she said, “You have made no mention of the most important aspect of any personal life: sacrifice.” Every year we count on the presence and testimony of art and artists, a marvellous counterpoint to the terrible extremes that we human beings go to on occasions. The Polish musician Krzysztof Penderecki, an exceptional artist, a great friend of Spain, receives this year’s Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts. A talent for innovation and a taste for tradition, technical mastery and spiritual inspiration, a social stance and lyricism combine in few contemporary creative artists. Krzysztof Penderecki is not only one of the greatest twentieth-century composers, but is also an outstanding teacher, a performer and orchestra conductor. He has had towitness adverse social situations and hismusic has been a rousing plea for sincerity and dignity at a time when artists suffered oppression and persecution either because of their ideas or for being intellectuals who remained faithful to creating in freedom. His compositions will be affectionately linked forever more to the reality and spirit of the latter half of the twentieth century, which is hallmarked by the most incredible human progress and by the most distressing confrontations between peoples. The worst of realities and the aspirations of the spirit, his own country and a world fraternity combine and are present at all times in the music of our Laureate. His sincerity, his intelligent use of romantic forms and his all-encompassing spirituality have transformed this musician into an exceptional communicator. His greatness and originality lie precisely in this ability to communicate so movingly through his music. Krzysztof Penderecki allows our times to express themselves through his music. Thus, protest and acceptance, sorrow and passionate religiousness, all that is divine and all that is human, all rise forth from his musical notes. We exhort him to continue in this way! This year’s Award for Literature has been bestowed on the British writer Doris Lessing. Born in what used to be Persia, we can rightly say that the geography of her heart, far more so than the geography of the different countries she has lived in, has been sculpted by an awareness of injustice and the suffering of others. A traveller from country to country because of her father’s work, she has put her compassion and rebelliousness to use to fight for a more humane and fairer society. She has given shape in her works to her commitment against racism, against inequality and her defence of womanhood. With uncompromising independence, she has opposed inter-cultural confrontation and the disasters of emigration. Doris Lessing has been ahead of her time in confronting many of the thorny issues of our times. But perhaps what most particularly sets her apart from others is her concern for the problems of the situation of women, to such an extent that her person and her work are an inevitable benchmark for all those women who are committed to the fight for their dignity. Having suffered them in her own person, Doris Lessing has also warned us against the utopias “No cause, no project, no collective aspiration can serve as justification for carrying out, encouraging or justifying terrorism in any of its guises.”