Volker Reiter, director of the Sighisoara-based Interethnic Educational Center for Youth, announced on Friday that preparations for the 19th edition of the ProEtnica Intercultural Festival scheduled for August 24 – 27 in Sighisoara and which will bring together representatives of the 20 national minorities in Romania are drawing to an end.

“This year again, Sighisoara is the capital of intercultural dialogue and a model of peaceful interethnic coexistence. Sighisoara’s preparations for the 19th edition of the ProEtnica Intercultural Festival are coming to an end. The event will take place between August 24 – 27 and will bring together representatives of the 20 national minorities that live in Romania. Most of the events in the program will happen on the stage of the Sighisoara Medieval Citadel and will include music and dance performances by amateur and professional artists from the organizations of national minorities. Thus, Sighisoara, which has been documented as early as in 1280, which is currently the only inhabited medieval fortress in South-Eastern Europe and is listed as a UNESCO Heritage Site, becomes the meeting point of Romanian national minorities, equal in rights and free to express their specific culture and values,” Volker Reiter said in a release.

According to the ProEtnica organizer, the Citadel of Sighisoara, built for defense and historically intended for a single ethnic group, “generously opens for national minorities, under the sign of inter-ethnic dialogue and peace”.

“At the same time, there will be lectures, conferences, debates about ethnic groups and intercultural coexistence (under the banner ‘Agora of intercultural dialogue’), round table debates about the literature and culture of ethnic groups (at the ‘Literary Salon’), exhibitions, book stands,” Volker Reiter pointed out.

The organizer of the event is the Sighisoara Interethnic Educational Center for Youth, and co-organizer is the Mures County Council.

ProEtnica 2023 is financed by the Ministry of Culture, the government’s Department for Inter-Ethnic Relations and the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, with the support of the National Agency for Roma and the National Center for Roma Culture, Romano Kher.

The partners of this year’s ProEtnica edition are SEFAR, Monosuisse and Hochland, and media partners – the Romanian Television Broadcaster, Radio Romania Actualitati, Radio Romania Antena Satelor, Radio Romania Targu Mures, Radio Romania International, AGERPRES, Radio Son, news outlets Punctul, Zi de Zi, Deutsche Zeitung, Hermannstädtler Zeitung, Realitatea Evreiasca and Cadran.