“I had to represent the work of Estellés in a single image, in a gesture, in a moment, and I couldn’t think of anything other than a hug, a hug to our language, to our culture, to the city…, a I embrace the life that I love so much”. This is how the architect and illustrator Virginia Lorente and the Fallero artist Ricardo Alcaide explain, in the descriptive memory of the fault that bears the motto L’Abraç, the monument that the Plaça de la Reina Commission of Valencia has planted to celebrate the centenary of the birth of poet Vicent Andrés Estellés.
In the heart of the city – between the majestic Plaza de la Reina, facing the elegant Cathedral, at the bustling intersection between Santa Catalina, Calle de la Paz and San Vicente -, stands this work that consists of three large sculptures that They intertwine like a hug. The authors indicate that recycled wood has been used, thus reusing the materials and “giving them a second life.” Some materials – fabric and wood, avoiding polyester or synthetic fiber and in accordance with the European Green Capital of the city – that recall the origin of the Fallas. Simple and natural materials are defended by the creators, like Estellés’ language in his poems, without artifice.
The Falla of the Plaza de la Reina, Paz y San Vicente, popularly known as that of “Uncle Pep”, already honored Joaquín Sorolla last year with a bust of the painter based on one of his self-portraits, created by the urban artist Escif . “It looked like a classic Falla, but it had no eyes and you could enter inside,” explains Luis Fernández, member of the commission and president of the Associació d’Estudis Fallers (ADEF).
This year the proposal looks towards Estellés from the Fallas slope. “He is a figure who has provoked many contradictions, he has been praised and vindicated by the left and the right has vilified him, accusing him of being a Catalanist.” However, the poet’s connection with the Fallas is undeniable. “Estellés was very fond of popular festivals, also of the Fallas,” admits Fernández.
Josep Lluís Marín (also a member of ADEF) explains in the Falla booklet “Tio Pep” – whose texts have become a complete research work on the Falla production of the poet from Burjassot – that Estellés has “within his literary work four llibrets de falla written at very different times in his personal, professional, literary and public career.”
He also says that, in an interview with journalist Miquel Alberola published in the weekly El Temps (July 3, 1989), the writer confesses that the first poetic attempts in Valencian were with some verses he wrote for the Falla on Salvador Street. the city of Valencia when he was 15 or 16 years old: “In my house they were not very supportive: writing verses in Valencian was an indecorous and minor thing,” he answers the journalist.
However, the lack of support did not break the poet’s will. Luis Fernández explains to La Vanguardia that, apart from the llibrets, Estellés, for many years editor of the newspaper Las Provincias, took advantage of a daily section “Bon Dia!” to sing experiences and sensations of the party:
Also from Las Provincias, the poet becomes a chronicler of pyrotechnic festivals, where he writes about the Valencian Brunchú pyrotechnics, then directed by the brothers Juan José and Luis Brunchú, personal friends of the poet, with whom he visits festivals in different European cities:
Thus, Josep Lluís Marín explains in his vast contribution to the Falla Tio Pep book that “where the connection with his Falla poetry is manifested most clearly is in the composition of the book titled «Pròleg de pòlvora en festes», which represents “an exercise in synthesis of themes, resources and treatments with which Estellés approaches his approach to the Fallas festival, with his characteristic direct style, with an almost colloquial register, of a poem-conversation, seeking a more direct communication.” Some verses that the commission has been spreading on its social networks these days:
And it is that the embrace of the Falla “Uncle Pep” is an attempt to rescue that fallen Vicent Andrés Estellés at a time when his figure as the most important Valencian poet since Ausiàs March is being questioned by some political sectors.
The most obvious example has occurred these months when the celebration of the centenary of his birth has coincided with the entry of the new Valencian Government. The first vice president and Minister of Culture, Vicente Barrera (from Vox), already made it clear that he would not dedicate a euro of his department’s budget to highlighting the work of the writer from Burjassot. In fact, his parliamentary group, with the support of the PP, shot down a proposal to declare 2024 Any Estellés.
A proposal that the PP and Vox government in the Valencia City Council also rejected in the municipal Culture Commission. The refusal contrasts with the positioning of other institutions such as the Provincial Council of Valencia or Alicante, where these types of initiatives did go ahead with the approval of the popular ones. And the PP does not hide the importance of the poet in its arguments, therefore, in those places where Vox votes are necessary for the popular ones to govern, it has no qualms about approving these tributes.
In this context, the Falla de la Plaza de la Reina, explains Luis Fernández, tries to reconcile the poet with a part of Valencian society that Estellés also loved and that, at a certain moment, in the Battle of Valencia, turned its back on him. . It is no coincidence that the monument is a kind of reconciliation, an embrace by the author to the city of Valencia through his poetry.
