00:00It is the first time that we do this conference of the International Award for Greece in Italy,
00:09which we normally do in the countries we have done in the United States, Canada, Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil,
00:16in all places where Italians of origin, we are talking about those who often do not even speak Italian,
00:25with their language, have this need to find and recognize their roots.
00:30We have given this award, for example, to the governor of New York State, George Bataglia,
00:35to the President of the Argentine Republic, and many other personalities who are in these countries,
00:41who have contributed significantly to the development of those civilizations,
00:46both Western and Central and South America.
00:51We have given this award to those who, with their life, not with a simple action or work,
00:58have made the recognition and the finding of their roots an important phase of their life.
01:08It is fundamental because finding and returning to the places where their ancestors have left their mark,
01:17which is still possible today, is important, and keep in mind that it is also for those who,
01:22because culture, and therefore also the way of life, is not a geographical concept, it is a cultural concept.
01:28So, to think that in the 1700s all these illustrious writers,
01:34who later became the basis of world culture, like Goethe, Berkeley, and many others,
01:41came to South Italy with their carriages to discover the environment, the monuments, the historical places,
01:49the archaeological places, imagine the studies of Eleanor Mann,
01:53who is the only historian of the 1800s on the Magna Graecia,
01:57who, digging in the areas, which today is a park of Crotone e Sibare,
02:02the place where, for example, Eric was buried, where Otto was buried,
02:07to return to these places and update the message for the present, but above all for the future,
02:13in a moment in which we live not only the crises that we live in the whole West, but a little all over the planet.
02:20Finding the strength of the past for the present and for the future could be fundamental for our people.
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