The Department of Culture celebrates St. George's Day

The Department of Culture celebrates, once again, the great public, social and popular celebration of St. George's Day, with a series of initiatives that cover many aspects of the celebration and that will be disseminated on the networks with the hashtag # AmorPerLaCultura. In the morning, the Minister of Culture, Natàlia Garriga, will take part in cultural events, meetings of writers and book fairs in Barcelona and will close the day in Montblanc, where she will attend the performance of "The legend of Sant Jordi", which will have place in the walled enclosure of the Ducal Villa.

Thus, after recovering the face-to-face activities, this year the Letters to Parliament initiative returns, on 22 April at 1 pm, with the participation of Councilor Garriga. It is an act of homage that the Institution of Catalan Letters (ILC) and the Parliament of Catalonia organize every year around Sant Jordi and that this year will take place in the Hall of Sessions of the Parliament. On the occasion of the ninetieth anniversary of the constitution of the Chamber, texts will be read by writers who were deputies or workers in the 1930s and by a selection of authors who, at the time, from journalism and literature, went reflect that moment.

On the other hand, on April 22, at 4 pm, the Baptism of the Generalitat de Catalunya Railway Trains will return, in which convoys are named with the names of the writers whose commemoration is being celebrated. This year, the Institution of Catalan Literature is planning to name units with the names of Gabriel Ferrater, Joan Fuster and Aina Moll. Councilor Garriga will take part in the baptism. In addition, within the facilities of Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat (FGC), you can visit small-format exhibitions and watch short videos on the monitors of the wagons so that users know more about the protagonists of the official commemorations.

On April 22, the ILC and FGC are also organizing a contest on Instagram: #LletresAFerrocarrils. FGC users will be required to photograph trains or citations of the authors with whom various railroad units are christened and upload them to their Instagram stories by tagging @Lletrescatalanes and @ fgc.cat. Among all the participants, there will be a raffle for an ILC publishing game and four tickets for the Montsec Astronomical Park.

On St. George's Day, the ILC organizes the second edition of #JocSantJordi on the Internet: a battery of 30 literary questions. Participants will be able to answer and discover curiosities, biographical aspects, works, etc. of the authors of Catalan literature. In addition, on April 23, DIPLOCAT resumes the program of international visitors in which it invites a dozen journalists from different countries to live the day in person.

The day is celebrated throughout Catalonia. Thus, on April 23 at 9:30 am, in Girona, the literary breakfast of Sant Jordi takes place, in the Territorial Services of Culture, in the Casa Solterra. This year, with the title “Poets Girona”, the poets Quim Español and Rosa Font will take part. On the other hand, the Territorial Services of Culture in Tarragona will host, on April 25, the conference "Joan Fuster: a heterodox among heterodox", on the centenary of his birth, by professor and writer Jordi Martí Font. The second part of the event will consist of reading excerpts from the work of Fuster, by the Department of Catalan Philology of the Universitat Rovira i Virgili, the Association of Professionals in Catalan Language and Literature and the School of Letters of Tarragona.

The museums of the Generalitat de Catalunya will offer open doors on Sant Jordi Saturday. Specifically, the following participate: the Museum of Archeology of Catalonia (all its headquarters: Barcelona, Empúries, Girona Olèrdola and Ullastret); the Museum of the History of Catalonia ; the National Museum of Science and Technology of Catalonia ; the National Archaeological Museum of Tarragona (headquarters of Tinglado 4, Paleo-Christian Museum and Necropolis, Roman Villa of the Mountains and Centcelles Monumental Complex), and the Girona Art Museum .

In Barcelona, the Museum of the History of Catalonia is organizing the storytelling session "Dragons from all over the world and how to find them ", aimed at children aged 3 and up. The activity will take place on St. George's Day, at 11 am. Also in Barcelona, on the same day, the Museum of Archeology of Catalonia offers the family activity “ Hero for a day! ”. And, the next day at 11 a.m., a role-playing game. In Empúries, anyone who comes to visit the site will be able to enjoy a very special virtual visit to Empúries through virtual reality technology; in Ullastret, throughout the weekend, the audiovisual with the virtual reconstruction of the archaeological complex of Ullastret will be screened in the immersive room, and in Olèrdola you can enjoy the visit " Olèrdola, 4,000 years of history ", on Sunday, April 24th.

In Girona, once again, the Girona Art Museum celebrates this day with the schools. On Friday 22 April, from 10 am, there will be a children's show about Sant Jordi for the initial cycle of primary school. The proposal, free of charge, is provided by the company Creixent amb Art and will tell various stories about the festival: from the classic story of St. George to other stories in which the medieval protagonists are a little different from stereotypes which we have in mind: forced princesses, loving dragons, and peaceful knights.

On the other hand, the National Archive of Catalonia will exhibit to the public, at its headquarters in Sant Cugat del Vallès, several showcases with a dozen outstanding heritage pieces that it keeps in its library. It will also make public a timeline with a selection of twenty personal collections of prominent creators , accessible through Online Archives, and a gallery of images of about fifty writers preserved in the Archive, also accessible on line.

There will also be book presentations in various regional archives of Catalonia. The Maresme Regional Archive will present the book El Maresme yeyé on Thursday 21 April. Collection of the tourist postcard from the 1960's-1980's in the Maresme and beyond , which will accompany an exhibition with the same name, and the next day, April 22, the book En la construcción de la cultura del catalanisme al Maresme. The Floral Games of Mataró of 1904 and the literary contest of the New Constancy of 1905 . In Caldes d'Estrac, on April 24, there will be a day around the presentation of the book La Sardana del Segle XX, with the performance of the Orfeó de Sant Vicenç, which will perform several pieces and a sardana audition “ Caldetes ”recovered from the documentary collection of Maestro Mont, kept in the Maresme Regional Archive, with an exhibition by a sardana group. In the Baix Empordà Regional Archive, the author Glòria Rebugent Expósito will present the book Un biberó amb sort, with the participation of the writer and journalist Xavier Sala Roig. The event will take place in the auditorium of the Archive in La Bisbal de l'Empordà on Wednesday 20 April at 8 pm. In the counties of Camp de Tarragona, the Baix Penedès Regional Archive has organized, on Wednesday 20 April, at the Casa de Cultura de l'Arboç, the presentation of the book Farmàcia, poesia i società al Vendrell, by Joan Ramon and Soler (1851-1900). Study of his legacy in the Baix Penedès Regional Archive, the work of Neus Oliveras Samitier, who will take part in the event together with the director of the Archive and the mayor of the municipality. At the A. Garcia Lorca del Vendrell Cultural Center, you can see the exhibition “ The life and work of the Vendrell musician Benvingut Socias Mercadé (1877-1952) ”, also organized by the Baix Penedès Archive. Finally, in Cervera, the Arxiu Comarcal de la Segarra organizes an exhibition on Sant Jordi posters that are preserved in the archive.