The praise that Princess Leonor pays to the trajectories of the laureates at the Princess of Asturias Awards overflowed this year, by sheer reality. A sign that the public university immersion of the heiress is beginning to bear fruit? Be that as it may, the firstborn of the Bourbon-Ortiz line was more concrete than ever in her speech, with direct references from geopolitics to daily life, in an indisputable synthesis of the state of affairs.
“Young people are asking ourselves questions,” said Princess Leonor. “How to maintain enthusiasm in these times of deep social disillusionment, of disbelief and inequalities, of conflicts, extremisms, populisms, technological wars, hybrid wars, liquid realities, ‘realpolitik’, threats, uncertainties, all amplified also by social networks, macroeconomic figures and the cost of living…”.
The heir to the throne wanted to speak about her generation. Not to overlook the sign of the times on which only the adult world seems to have rights. “How does my generation face such complexity,” asked the Princess of Asturias. “How do we digest speed and disillusionment, what many consider lack of expectations and impossibility to plan a life, to have a good job, a house…”.
And she continued, addressing the winners: “But in the face of such chaos; here, today, in Oviedo, how can I present myself to you as sincere, not naive nor apocalyptic, not cynical nor dramatic. How do I convey here the meaning and importance of observing our laureates closely, since they contribute to maintaining our capacity for wonder, for curiosity, and our need to trust? Because yes, we need to trust”.
The Princess Leonor Appealed to Hope
Despite the dark portrait of the situation, Princess Leonor honored her generation and aligned with the general sentiment of the youth: she appealed to hope. “Two years ago I spoke of hope when I quoted a poem by Serrat,” she recalled. “I invoke it again, precisely because I sense some discouragement, perhaps skepticism, perhaps indignation… Václav Havel, who also stepped on this stage one day, said that hope is not the conviction that things will turn out well, but the certainty that there are things that make sense and that it is worth defending no matter what.”
Los reyes Felipe y Letizia, mientras Leonor leía su discurso.
It was not the only reference by Leonor to the hope the world has placed in her generation, for at the beginning of her speech she recounted an anecdote about her father that indeed elaborated on the new beginning that each generation brings with it. The heiress recalled the 1981 ceremony, when the philosopher María Zambrano, the first and only woman awarded in that inaugural edition of the Princess of Asturias Awards, addressed a very young King Felipe (then Prince of Asturias).
“The philosopher and writer had been in exile for four decades, and, while thanking the prize, told my father that in him ‘a light is lit in which a presence flutters where what is young and unprecedented come together, the hope of a history that opens’,” recalled Princess Leonor. “My father is now on his way to sixty, but that afternoon he listened very attentively to what was said there, he was thirteen. In her words, María Zambrano referred not only to the foundation, not only to Spain, to that Spain of 1981, October 1981. She spoke of the young and the unprecedented. She spoke of hope.”
Leonor’s Passion for Cinema
Convicted and convincing with this hope, Princess Leonor extolled the laureates’ trajectories, highlighting their talents. She was particularly meticulous with Studio Ghibli, recounting a charming family anecdote about their films. “My recollection goes back to the following scene: my mother takes us to see Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea. For Sofía it is her first movie in a cinema! She is not yet two years old and sits on my mother’s lap. I am hypnotized by the story.”
The proof of how much she values Hayao Miyazaki’s films, and of the increasing refinement of her speeches, is that she wanted to end her intervention with a quote from one of his films. “So I keep asking myself: yes, it makes sense to honor these women and these men,” she said, referring to the laureates. “And now remember a verse by Paul Valéry that Miyazaki, one of the founders of Ghibli, rescued in one of his works: ‘The wind rises… one must try to live!’ Thank you very much.”
