STA, 7 February 2021 - 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.
Prešeren's poems traditionally recited in front of the monument to the poet in the centre of Ljubljana will be broadcast live on national public radio.
Thirty actors and actresses will interpret them in Radio Slovenija's studios accompanied by live music. What is more, the poems will resound, with the help of sound systems, in the streets of Ljubljana, Koper, Celje, Maribor and Nova Gorica.
Many museums, galleries, libraries and theatres will make available online various events and productions, with the Kranj Theatre, which bears Prešeren's name, broadcasting a talk with this year's Prešeren Prize laureates.
Cankarjev Dom, the country's largest cultural house, will offer most of its recorded productions made since the first lockdown last spring, including concerts.
The Slovenian Cinematheque will honour director Matjaž Ivanišin with the online screening of his short films and a talk with him.
Feri Lainšček, who comes from the Prekmurje region, will be honoured with a performance of literature and music at the regional Murska Sobota Library.
Folk-rock singer-songwriter Vlado Kreslin, who was also born in Prekmurje, will give an online concert from a venue in Ljubljana which will be revealed on the day of the concert.
