International Mother Language Day: Shakespeare in 32 languages in Bulgaria’s Plovdiv
Readings of Shakespeare in 32 languages are to be part of an event in Bulgaria’s second city Plovdiv to celebrate International Mother Language Day on February 21, the municipality said.
The event, starting at 6pm, is being held by the Bulgarian – Turkish literature club at the Small Basilica in Plovdiv.
The municipality said that representatives of all the ethnic groups living in Plovdiv – including Armenians, Jews, Turks and Roma people – as well as foreign students from all over the world who are studying at universities in Plovdiv will participate, as will associations of Russian, Ukrainian and Italian expatriates.
Participants from South Africa, Mongolia and Japan will present their cultural traditions.
The Shakespeare reading will be of the soliloquy from Hamlet, Act III, Scene 1, “To be or not to be, that is the question”.
It will first be read in English, then in Bulgarian, and then in Turkish, Armenian, Hebrew, Roma, Russian, Ukrainian, French, Chinese, German, Italian, Spanish, Greek, Czech, Polish, Serbian, Swedish, Arabic, Kurdish, Moldovan, Persian, Japanese, Hindi, Punjabi, Pashto, Mongolian, Thai, Tagalog, Azarbaijani, Cossack, and Albanian.
The project is being carried out with the financial support of Plovdiv municipality as part of the 2019 European Capital of Culture programme, the municipality said.
