Guanajuato, Gto., For 52 years, “Guanajuato people have enjoyed the International Cervantino Festival (FIC), because for us it is a great celebration in honor of Miguel de Cervantes.
“How can we not be grateful, if his work helped us to resurrect as a city, to live again; It gave us the vitality that we had lost with so many tragedies and so many wars.
Today, the city of Guanajuato is more Cervantes than La Mancha, in Spain
expressed to The Day the Guanajuato chronicler Eduardo Vidaurri.
He reiterated that “Cervantes is present in practically all spaces of the city: we have the Miguel de Cervantes alley, squares in which representations have been held, not only of Cervantes’ hors d’oeuvres, but of other great writers of the Golden Age, and the student girls, a passion for early music.
“Guanajuato is a city impregnated with the spirit of Cervantes, it is a cultural heritage of humanity for its extraordinary baroque architecture, for the great works of hydraulic engineering, for the great work that mining did, which positioned this town as one of the centers most important silver extractors in the world in the 18th century.
Most of the coins circulating in the world at that time were made with silver that had been extracted from the mines of Guanajuato; In addition, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization decided to also name us the Cervantes Capital of America.
The chronicler explained that this city It has experienced great joys, extraordinary booms with mining, times of great splendor, but also many tragedies, such as floods, epidemics, wars, situations that have evidently made it a very resilient city.
▲ Vidaurri reiterated that Cervantes is present in practically all areas of the city
like the effigy of the fictional character Alonso Quijano, outside the Iconographic Museum of Don Quixote (image above). Above these lines, the Juárez Theater, one of the stages of the 52 FIC.Photo Fabiola Palapa Quijas
Vidaurri mentioned that in 1765 many temples were set up in different parts of the city of Guanajuato, where concerts were held, poetry was read, and dramatic scenes were performed; For many, this marked the beginning of a cultural vocation for this mining population.
Obviously, we had abrupt interruptions with the War of Independence, economic activity and cultural activity were somehow paralyzed; then we take it back.
He related that in 1938 the cultural life of the city was revitalized when the inhabitants took over spaces such as the Juárez Theater, and began to carry out productions in which Enrique Ruelas participated; In addition, they created a pro-tourism committee; That was a great time, and the University of Guanajuato played a fundamental role in revitalizing cultural life.
Nowadays, people sit in the squares to see what the Cervantino has to offer, as well as the parades that are organized with the invited states, and also attend the shows in the theaters. When the programming is announced I see the lines of Guanajuato residents at the box office to purchase their tickets
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The chronicler concluded that the FIC It is a fundamental instrument to project the city of Guanajuato and Mexico worldwide.
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