Saint George and the books, a centuries-old story

BarcelonaDuring the presentation of the book La intriga del funeral inconveniente, Eduardo Mendoza caused quite a stir by asking for Saint George to disappear from the festival: "I am campaigning to stop associating April 23rd with Saint George – he assured –. For me, it is Book Day, period. Saint George was an animal abuser who surely couldn't read. He is not the patron saint of writers or anything like that. He is a guy who has appropriated the festival," he asserted. This Wednesday, Mariscal agreed with him. The truth is that Saint George is many centuries older than Book Day.

There is some debate about the origin of the knight's legend. "It has its origins within the Byzantine Empire and became popular with the Crusades. Its diffusion was very rapid in the West, and Catalonia adopted him as its patron, but so did Aragon and England," explains historian Àngel Casals. "In the 15th century, the Diputació del General (the Generalitat) already commemorated the festival with a mass. It was a very important festivity, and if the king happened to be in the city, he was invited. At that time all festivals were religious, but this was the most secular of all; it was a festive day and was used to hold a flower market," adds Casals. Red roses gained popularity because the episode of the dragon's blood transformed into a rose bush was mixed with the Christian metaphor of Christ's blood turned into a rose. The flower fair was held in the Pati dels Tarongers of the Generalitat, and was known as the Lovers' Fair.

The proposal to turn this day into a preceptual holiday was made by the Generalitat in 1436 in the Cortes, but it did not become effective until 1456. After the defeat of 1714, the festivity disappeared and was not reinstituted until 1810. "It was recovered in the 19th century and was associated with Valentine's Day," says the historian. With the Renaixença, the recovery of the Catalan language and culture became a priority, and Sant Jordi was given a great boost. The definitive popularization of the custom of giving roses arrived with the Mancomunitat, in 1914, when the fair was re-established in the Palau de la Generalitat. "With the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, the Sant Jordi festivity disappeared," says Casals.

Initiative of a Valencian devoted to Cervantes

But it was during that dictatorship (1923-1930) that books began to be taken to the streets. "It was the initiative of a Valencian, Vicent Clavel Andrés, who was a publisher and owned the Cervantes publishing house, which he moved to Barcelona. He was a devotee of Cervantes and proposed promoting books with a special day, October 7, which was approximately Cervantes' birthday, because it was not known with certainty," assures philologist Manuel Llanas. The initiative was very successful and was approved by the Book Chamber in 1926. "In Catalonia, it had great commercial success, and publishers enthusiastically joined in by setting up stalls on the street. In the rest of Spain, it did not have as much impact. In Madrid, for example, there was more of a focus on conferences and commemorations, but it did not have as much commercial success," explains Llanas.

"The problem was that October 7 coincided with the start of the school year, when textbooks were also sold, and it was decided to move the festival to the date of Cervantes' burial, April 23. It was made official in 1930, but the first time Sant Jordi and Book Day coincided was when the Second Republic had already been proclaimed, on April 23, 1931," adds Llanas. The Book Festival continued throughout Franco's dictatorship, but without much mention of Sant Jordi. With the democratic transition, especially from 1976-1977 onwards, the festivity was progressively recovered in the public space. The restoration of political and cultural freedoms allowed Sant Jordi to once again be a massive celebration in the streets, with stalls of books and roses, and with a strong civic and Catalan identity dimension. All this makes it a unique celebration, different from a conventional book fair.