Friday, April 12th 2024, The Institute for the External Promotion of the Catalan Culture (IPECC) awarded the prize „Josep Maria Batista i Roca – Memorial Enric Garriga Trullols 2023” to the Catalan Lectorate within the Department of Romanic, Classic and Neo Greek Languages and Literatures of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures of the University of Bucharest.
For 35 years, the prestigious institution offers this distinction to Catalans, Catalanophiles and institutions in Europe, America, Asia, Africa and Oceania who support, through their efforts, the Catalan language and culture.
At the 35th edition celebrated in 2024, the Catalan Lectorate from UB received one of the 10 prizes offered as an acknowledgement of the activity of promoting Catalan Language from the moment the Lectorate was first established (1992-1993) up to present.
Other than university courses, the Lectorate organized colloquies (Languages and cultures in contact: Catalan and Europe nowadays. Cultural dialogues through literary translations in 2015, the AILLC International Colloquy of Catalan Language and Literature in 2018), seminaries (Ramon Llull International Seminary in 2016), music concerts, translations, presentations, Catalan film projections accompanied by debates, publication of colloquies papers, all destined to Romanian students and the broad public interest in Catalan culture.
As a follow-up of the agreements established with Generalitat and the Ramon Llull Institute, the Department of Romanic, Classic and Neo Greek Languages and Literatures has welcomed, along the years, from the entire Catalan linguistic territory, seven lectors who contributed to the consolidation of the Lectorate next to Romanian professors Mioara Adelina Angheluță, Oana-Dana Balaș (awarded with the IPECC prize in 2020), Jordi Joan Cassany Bates, Mianda Cioba, Elena Ciutescu, Neus Langa Chordá, Joan Llinàs Suau, Coman Lupu, Xavier Montoliu Pauli, Víctor Peña Irles, Sanda Reinheimer Rîpeanu, Glòria Roig, Jordi Santiago Puchades. The Lectorate also received enthusiastic support in numerous activities from Maria Sabina Draga Alexandru (English Department) and Jana Balacciu Matei (distinguished with the IPECC prize in 2008, Meronia Publishing).
At the ceremony in Barcelona, linguistics doctor Elena Ciutescu (title obtained at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) participated on behalf of the UB collective. She is a graduate of Philology English A – Catalan B at the UB Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures and current collaborator of the Department of Romanic, Classic and Neo Greek Languages and Literatures. In the speech addressed to the IPECC Institute (fully available on the Lectorate’s Facebook page), Elena Ciutescu mentioned that the interest for the study of Catalan manifested in Romania starting with the second half of the 20th century at the University of Bucharest and „Iorgu Iordan – Alexandru Rosetti” Linguistics Institute of the Romanian Academy, the Lectorate being today the only one of its kind in the entire Romanian academic space. At the same time, she underlined that the Lectorate, through its educational offer, conferences, publications and cultural activities, has a promising perspective of the future in what concerns promoting the Catalan language on Romanian territory, thus reaffirming the continuity of studying Catalan at the University of Bucharest. The representative of the Lectorate was accompanied at the event by Xavier Montoliu Pauli, the first Catalan lector from the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, currently literary translator from Romanian to Catalan.
The UB collective dedicated the „Josep Maria Batista i Roca – Memorial Enric Garriga Trullols 2023” prize to all those involved in teaching and promoting Catalan Language in Romania, and especially to all students dedicated to learning this Romanic Language.
More details on studying Catalan in Romania are available here.
The Romanian translation of the biography of the Catalan Lectorate has been published in Prăvălia Culturală.