“They have forgotten to say that we have taken 100% from L'Espai Fuster, they will be left with a public subsidy of zero euros [...] The Carles Salvador Foundation, to which you gave 100,000 euros, too. .. we have also taken away the subsidy and yes, I brag about it and I am not hiding, from the Vicent Andrés Estellés Chair that you irrigated with 50,000 euros and that we have not irrigated with any euro." Last Monday's words from the second vice president and councilor of the Valencian Government, Vicente Barrera, made clear the Consell's new line of aid in matters of culture.
After the veto of figures and writers of the stature of Fuster, Salvador and Estellés, more than a dozen associations and entities have come together to commemorate the centenary of the birth of the poet from Burjassot in 2024 with the Hundred of Estellés campaign. The objective, explains Pau Alabajos, singer and one of the promoters of the initiative, is to channel a whole series of actions and performances to highlight the work of Estellés after "the declaration of war by Councilor Barrera".
The Pro-Fundació Estellés Coordinator has launched a letter this week to demand that, “given the political situation” that the Valencian Community is experiencing with a government “not at all favorable to vindicating and honoring our cultural references, civil society does not stand still.” . Along these lines, it encourages groups and associations of all kinds "to join the 'Cent d'Estellés' campaign and organize activities in each neighborhood and in each town to make the year 2024, the Estellés year." An initiative similar to that of the 'Cent de Fuster', which in 2022 did have the support of the Generalitat Valenciana.
Alabajos explains to La Vanguardia that different activities are already being organized from the most diverse areas such as the musical, the theatrical - with a work in which the singer-songwriter from Torrent participates -, the academic - through the universities that will organize conferences and symposia -; or the literary -with the planned publication of several books-.
The idea of the Coordinator is to organize and schedule all these types of events around “the figure of the most important Valencian poet since Ausiàs March.” There are more doubts about the future, without public support, that other initiatives that were advanced with the previous Government may have, such as the creation of a study center in Burjassot in the La Trabucà oven - where Estellés's grandfather was killed - or the creation of the Chair at the University of Valencia whose subsidy Minister Barrera announced that he was eliminating last Monday.
With the Generalitat's help banned for these projects, Alabajos does trust the participation of city councils and other entities that he understands "will want to be at the side of the people's poet." However, he points out that “organized civil society already knew how, during the PP's long mandate, to keep alive the flame of its own culture and set up an alternative Department of Culture. We know how the trenches work and we will do it again,” Alabajos concludes.
