Luís Garcia, President of the Legislative Assembly of the Autonomous Region of the Azores, presided this week over the opening of the bibliographic exhibition 50 Years of the Constitutional Autonomy of the Azores: Readings on the Region at the Biblioteca Pública e Arquivo Regional João José da Graça in Horta.

The exhibition, organized in partnership with the Azorean Parliament, forms part of the broader commemorative program marking fifty years of Azorean Autonomy — a milestone that continues to invite not only celebration, but reflection on the political, intellectual, and cultural journey that transformed the islands during the democratic era.

In his remarks, Luís Garcia emphasized that Azorean Autonomy was not built solely through institutions or legal frameworks, but also through ideas, debate, and collective imagination.

“Autonomy was also constructed through ideas,” he stated, recalling that before becoming fully institutionalized, autonomy already existed “in thought, in writing, in public debate, and in the persistence of many Azoreans who believed the islands should possess greater capacity to decide their own destiny.”

For the President of the Azorean Parliament, that intellectual dimension remains essential to understanding the deeper meaning of the autonomous process.

“Autonomy must be remembered, but also studied, understood, and valued,” he declared, describing the exhibition as “an important contribution toward deepening the historical, cultural, and intellectual dimensions of Azorean autonomy.”

The exhibition gathers a significant collection of works dedicated to Azorean history, politics, society, identity, and institutional development, offering visitors a literary and documentary cartography of the archipelago’s autonomous experience over the last half century.

Luís Garcia also highlighted the collaboration established between the Legislative Assembly and the Biblioteca Pública e Arquivo Regional João José da Graça, praising the joint effort involved in selecting and assembling the collection of books, studies, and historical documents now on display.

According to the parliamentary leader, the partnership allowed organizers to gather “a highly significant body of studies, documents, and testimonies connected to the reality of Azorean autonomy.”

Beyond the exhibition itself, García emphasized the broader civic and cultural mobilization surrounding the fiftieth anniversary commemorations.

He noted the participation of schools, associations, cultural institutions, researchers, and community organizations across the islands, interpreting this collective involvement as proof that autonomy transcends political structures alone.

“Autonomy does not belong only to political institutions,” he said. “It belongs to the Azorean people.”

During the ceremony, the President of the Legislative Assembly also donated several works to the library’s permanent collection, including a biography of João Bosco Mota Amaral, the historic first President of the Azorean Government; a volume dedicated to members of the Legislative Assembly; 1974 by José Andrade; and IRMA, winner of the most recent edition of the Prémio Literário Vitorino Nemésio.

The exhibition 50 Years of the Constitutional Autonomy of the Azores: Readings on the Region will remain open to the public Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Saturdays from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m.

More than a retrospective, however, the exhibition functions as an invitation to reconsider the meaning of autonomy itself.

For half a century, autonomy has shaped the political, economic, educational, and cultural life of the Azores. It altered the relationship between the islands and Lisbon, transformed local governance, expanded educational opportunities, strengthened infrastructure, and gave the archipelago a stronger voice within both Portugal and Europe.

Yet the exhibition also suggests something quieter and perhaps more enduring: that autonomy was never solely a constitutional arrangement.

It was, and remains, an act of collective self-recognition.

A long effort by islanders to think themselves not as a distant periphery of the nation, but as active participants in shaping their own Atlantic future.

And perhaps nowhere is that journey more visible than in the books themselves — those pages where generations of Azoreans debated, imagined, questioned, defended, and ultimately wrote the intellectual foundations of modern Azorean identity.

Translated and adapted from a Press Release.