STA, 8 February 2020 - Poems by France Prešeren will be read at several events on Culture Day, when Slovenia pays tribute to its most celebrated poet and celebrates art. A number of events will take place around the country and many museums and galleries will open their doors to visitors free of charge.
Culture Day is also an opportunity to reflect upon the role Romantic poet Prešeren (1800-1849) and culture play for the nation.
The Slovenians like to say they have survived under foreign rule as a nation due to their language and culture, and the authorities decided back in 1945 to declare 8 February Culture Day in remembrance of the day when Prešeren died.
Today's main ceremony will be held in front of Prešeren's home in Vrba, the village in the north-western Gorenjska region where he was born.
The tiny village is eager to cherish the memory of its most famous former resident, and has big plans to turn create a venue where the poet could be properly celebrated and presented to the public in a modern way, including with new facilities offering food from Prešeren's times.
Visitors to his home, which has long been a tiny museum dedicated to Prešeren, will this year have an opportunity to see a new permanent exhibition on the poet.
The Association of Theatre Actors will put on its annual Culture Day reading of Prešeren's poetry in front of the monument dedicated to him in Ljubljana, as well as in Maribor and Nova Gorica.
Kranj, the city where Prešeren served as a lawyer before he died, will organise the annual outdoor Prešeren Fair and Culture Minister Zoran Poznič will lay a wreath at the poet's grave. Poznič and Prešeren Fund Board chairman Ira Ratej will host a reception for this year's Prešeren Prize laureates.
The top national accolade for outstanding lifetime achievements in arts was conferred last evening on photographer Stojan Kerbler and on choreographer Milko Šparemblek.
The prizes for achievements in the past three years went to graphic designer Nejc Prah, actress Nina Ivanišin, composer and accordionist Luka Juhart, film director Rok Biček, translator Suzana Koncut and costume designer Alan Hranitelj.
The laureates will also join President Borut Pahor at the Presidential Palace in the morning, which will be open to the public. Pahor, who will earlier lay a wreath at the Prešeren Monument in Ljubljana, will address the visitors on the occasion.
Meanwhile the National and University Library (NUK) in Ljubljana will put on display manuscripts, translations and printed versions of Prešeren's Zdravljica (A Toast).
The patriotic and pacifist poem in which Prešeren makes a case for Slovenian identity is one of his best known poems, and one of its stanzas is the Slovenian anthem.
NUK said the poem "brings a deep humanitarian message, and its free-thinking and cosmopolitan verses are still topical today".
Prešeren Prizes conferred at Culture Day ceremony
STA, 7 February 2020 - The Prešeren Prizes, the top national accolades in arts and culture, were conferred Friday on the eve of Culture Day, a public holiday dedicated to artists. The two lifetime achievement prizes went to photographer Stojan Kerbler and choreographer and dancer Milko Šparemblek.
The 81-year-old Kerbler, the first photographer ever to win the Prešeren prize, recounted how in his early career photography had not been considered art.
He said started changing in the 1960s, when a younger generation of photographers unburdened by the war started to make a mark, gradually establishing it as an art.
But with Slovenia still lacking a photography museum, he called on the authorities to finally establish a museum dedicate solely to photography.
Šparemblek, at 91 probably the oldest active choreographer in the world, dedicated the award to his colleagues in dance and theatre and paid special tribute to the legendary Slovenian ballet dancers Pia and Pino Mlakar, who achieved global fame in the first half of the 20th century.
Six Prešeren Fund Prizes for accomplishments over the past three years were also handed out. The recipients are designer Nejc Prah, actress Nina Ivanišin, composer and accordionist Luka Juhart, film director Rok Biček, translator Suzana Koncut and costume designer Alan Hranitelj.
This year's ceremony, taking place in the Cankarjev Dom arts centre in Ljubljana, was the work of director Vito Taufer, with actor Tadej Toš the host.
Taufer took the text of the Slovenian national anthem Zdravljica (A Toast) by France Prešeren (1800-1849) as the starting point, drawing on its ideas of friendship, mutual respect, peace, kindheartedness and freedom. The ceremony featured a recitals, a choral rendition and even a pop version of Prešeren's work.
The honorary speaker was the president of the Prešeren Fund management board Ira Ratej, who stayed true to tradition in a scathing speech by highlighting the precarious state of financing in culture and status of artists in society.
Describing herself as a "the average cultural parasite working in the public sector," she said it was tragicomic that year after year artists have to prove their value to society, whereas many people continue to denigrate artists by accusing them of being good-for-nothings who receive budget funds.
This year's Culture Day ceremony has also been accompanied by warnings about issues in Slovenian culture.
Standing out is Thursday's letter by the Glosa trade union of culture, which issued an appeal to Culture Minister Zoran Poznič, as well as his predecessors and successors, to stress culture workers need a minister that is a competent talking partner.
The union argues culture workers are time and again faced with a "wall of silence, arrogance or simply unwillingness or inability to work well in culture's favour".
