You have to see the love that this country has for solemnity when identifying symbols are touched. The comments of the writer Eduardo Mendoza on the Day of Sant Jordi have raised a dust worthy of better causes. With what is falling in the world, and here we put passion into diatribes that all they do is distract us from important debates.
It bothered me that I questioned the character of the party. First, because of how “overwhelming” it is becoming due to overcrowding. And then, for the proposal to disassociate it from the figure of Sant Jordi, who he said was “an abuser of animals who surely did not know how to read”, to be left only with the celebration of Book Day.
You are quite right about the first. Sant Jordi is a bright day, which gives us a very pleasant image of ourselves: books and roses as symbols of civility and the streets full of people walking happily. But like everything that involves large masses, you have to be careful: you can also die of success.
Regarding the separation of Sant Jordi from Book Day, the first thing we should agree on is that Eduardo Mendoza is very free to consider and propose what he sees fit, without this affecting in any way the esteem we have for him or his worth as a writer. But if what the writer intended is to resignify the Day of Sant Jordi to remove the identity symbolism that comes with the fact that the Book Day coincides with the patron saint of Catalonia, we must tell him that, jokingly or seriously, it is a vain attempt, just as it would be to ask the Aragonese to dispense with the Virgin of Pilar in the Zaragoza festivities. There are traditions that come from very far away and if they have survived so long, it is because people want them to last.
As has been recalled these days in various articles, including an excellent one by Xavier Theros in the newspaper We buy, What has roots is the celebration of Sant Jordi. It is the basis of the party. Book Day is the superimposed element. Sant Jordi was decreed patron saint of Catalonia in 1456 and even then it was associated with Valentine’s Day. But the celebration of the rose festival is of pagan origin and, therefore, much earlier. The legend of the holy warrior who saves a princess from being devoured by a dragon took hold in the 13th century and spread throughout Christendom. If it has gone through so many centuries it is because, like many other medieval symbols, it has been stripped of the significance it once had. And by the way, the dragon has never been an animal.
Book Day, on the other hand, was established in 1931 and for several years it was celebrated on October 7 with more pain than glory. It was the booksellers’ guild that had the happy idea of moving it to April 23 and linking it to Sant Jordi’s Day. As has been seen, it was a very successful initiative. So it’s better not to touch it. The symbiosis between Sant Jordi, the dragon, the book and the rose works very well.
The independence movement has reacted to Eduardo Mendoza’s provocation with large doses of overacting and certain Madrid press has come out in defense of the latest Prince of Asturias award, presenting him as a victim of the “independence inquisition.” What an exaggeration!
