The Ministry of Culture marks National Culture Day on January 15 with a host of concerts, recitals, exhibitions, guided tours and creative workshops organized in Bucharest and throughout the country, a release to Agerpres informs.
The lineup of events includes a celebration evening organized on Saturday, starting with 19.00 hrs, together with the “I.L. Caragiale” National Theater in Bucharest, the National Opera House and the “Mihai Eminescu” National Theater in Chisinau, which will see prominent artists of the said institutions, such as actors Diana Decuseara, Ghenadie Galca, Iurie Focsa, Aliona Triboi, Oana Pellea, Mariana Mihut, Maia Morgenstern, Horatiu Malaele, soprano Teodora Gheorghiu, mezzo-soprano Ruxandra Basache, tenor Daniel Magdal and baritone Iordache Basalic, perform on the stage of the Bucharest National Theater.
“We have a sacred duty. That of honoring our personalities, works of art and national heritage. I encourage Romanians, from the youngest to the oldest, to continue to respect their history, national identity and traditions, because they are the only calling card that will never lose value. Many happy returns!,” Culture Minister Lucian Romascanu wrote.
The program also includes two films that present the history of the National Theater in Chisinau and of the Bucharest National Opera House, both of which turn one century old this year, a recital of poems by Mihai Eminescu and a concert by the Orchestra of the National Opera House in Bucharest.
An art exhibition courtesy of ArtSafari will be on display in the foyer of the Bucharest National Theater, featuring among others works by great painters Nicolae Tonitza and Nicolae Grigorescu.
The event will be broadcast live by national television channels TVR1, TVR International and TVR Moldova, with Moldovan and Romanian Culture Ministers Sergiu Prodan and Lucian Romascanu delivering addresses.
The institutions under the Culture Ministry’s authority will organize physical and online events to honor the day.
The Ministry of Culture also finances 23 cultural projects and actions through the financing program dedicated to the National Culture Day that has RON 500,000 earmarked this year.
The National Culture Day was established under Law No. 238 of December 7, 2010 on January 15, which carries special significance for Romanian culture as the birthday 172 years ago of national poet Mihai Eminescu, a source of pride for Romanians and a towering personality of his time. Translated into most languages of the globe, Eminescu is read and appreciated on all continents as the last great romantic of the world, and features today in Romania’s hall of fame alongside sculptor Constantin Brancusi, philosopher Mircea Eliade, violinist and composer George Enescu and others.
Romanian Academy President: Let us cherish national values placing them all in the European intellectual concert
On the eve of National Culture Day, President of the Romanian Academy Ioan-Aurel Pop urges cherishing national values “the way they are”, cultivating the “sweet as honeycomb” Romanian language without ostentation and affectation, and placing them all in the European intellectual concert.
“European culture does not exist per se, because it is not the product of a European people or a European language. European culture exists through national cultures which express the specificity of each people, in the context of the common European heritage,” Ioan-Aurel Pop told AGERPRES.
The Academy President considers that the celebration of Romanian culture on the birthday of poet Mihai Eminescu is not fortuitous, as he is “definitely iconic” in the constellation of the country’s spiritual creators.
“He was not declared the epitome of Romanian culture by some court, nor was he imposed by any state institution, but by life itself, by the great collective personality of the Romanian people, and therefore he cannot be judged, admonished or taken off the pedestal though someone’s will. In his work Eminescu expresses in a nutshell the entire history of Romanian and European culture. Eminescu’s verse is classical like that of Horatius, Virgil and Ovid, he sings the gallant love and honor of medieval knights just like the bards and troubadours of yore, he depicts the 15th century Middle Age of Prince Alexander the Good as Victor Hugo did in Notre Dame de Paris for the French space. But Eminescu also anticipates the world of the future, projecting through his apprehension of the lightspeed reality and the eternally moving ideational universe the Romanian cultural and scientific creation in the last century of the second millennium and towards the third millennium. Born at a precise time (January 15, 1850) and in a certain place (in the Upper Country of Moldavia), Eminescu’s creation ended with his earthly passing at a premature age, but he was touched by an angel’s wing and was destined for eternity,” said the academician.
For Ioan-Aurel Pop, “Eminescu is European, because he expresses the essence of the Romanian spirit, and is the most representative Romanian creator because he fitted the common European denominator”, so that from this point of view he can stand with good reason “in the lineup formed – let’s say – of Adam Mickiewicz, Petofi Sandor and Taras Shevchenko, representative of the Central-Southeast European side of continental romanticism.”
