By: P.T., STA
Culture Day, which celebrates art and culture on 8 February by remembering the acclaimed Slovenian poet France Prešeren, will try to inspire hope despite being largely observed remotely. Writer Feri Lainšček and architect Marko Mušič will receive the Prešeren Prizes, the top national lifetime achievement accolade.
As usual, this year’s national ceremony will be held on the eve of the public holiday, yet it has been pre-recorded and will be broadcast on TV in the evening.
Its main motto is Summons Hope!, said Jožef Muhovič, who heads the board of the Prešeren Fund, which gives out the Prešeren Prizes and produces the ceremony.
It is to highlight that human creativity, culture and art are what we can lean on at a time of ordeals and what we can be proud of on the 30th anniversary of statehood, he explained in a statement for the STA.
“Summons Hope” comes from Prešeren’s Zdavljica (Toast), a poem from the mid-19th century whose seventh stanza has become the lyrics of Slovenia’s national anthem.
Apart from Lainšček and Mušič, the recipients of six Prešeren Fund Prizes for achievements over the past three years are poet Brane Senegačnik, violinist Lana Trotovšek, theatre director Tomi Janežič, film director Matjaž Ivanišin, painter Sandi (Aleksander) Červek, and architects Blaž Budja, Rok Jereb and Nina Majoranc.
Culture Day, a bank holiday, is usually packed with cultural events and it will be no different this year, it is just that the majority of the events will be online.