The Municipality of Vasvár, member of ENPP,  organizes every year on August the „Day of Peace” in memory of the peace treaty signed on 10th August 1664, after the victory over the Ottoman-turkish army forces, and this year’s Day of Peace was held on 15th August, 2020.

The aim of this event was to present the peace treaty and its historical implications to the general public with cultural and enertaining programs for everyone.

Those who attended the Square were greated by Mr. Tóth Balázs, Mayor of Vasvár, and the announcement of the results of this year’s wine competition and award ceremonies took place.  On this great day wine flowed from the well of the town.

After a toast in the main square the participants walked over to the nearby House of Peace, where, in its courtyard various programs took place: concert, puppet theatre for children, guided tour of fine arts in the House of Peace. The Day of Peace ended up with a stunning firework show,  with great success and good experiences.

The peace treaty signed in Vasvár is of a great significance in the life of city and its people  is very proud to be able  to inherit the site of such an important peace treaty and to commemorate this significant event year after year.

Today, 541 years have passed since the signing on September 4, 1479, at Paço dos Henriques, in Alcáçovas (Portugal), of the Peace Treaty between the crowns of Castile and Portugal which  ended the War of the Succession of the Kingdom of Castile. This important treaty was also responsible for defining for the first time the areas of influence of territorial, economic and cultural expansion of the two Iberian crowns, fifteen years later consolidated with the signing of the well-known Treaty of Tordesillas.

By the Treaty of Alcáçovas an imaginary line was drawn at the level of the 27th parallel, which defined the division of the domain of the seas between the two Iberian Crowns: to the north for the Spanish crown and to the south for the Portuguese crown. Spain received the Canary Islands while Portugal gained recognition of its dominion over the island of Madeira, the archipelago of Azores, Cape Verde and the coast of Guinea.

To commemorate the anniversary of the signing of this historic treaty, the Municipality of Viana do Alentejo, Portugal (Member of ENPP and headquarters of the municipality to which the village of Alcáçovas belongs today) organizes during this month of September a cycle of four conferences that will take place in Paço dos Henriques, the place where the Treaty was negotiated and signed and which underwent important recovery and improvement works from 2016 to today.

This cycle begins precisely today, at 5 pm, with a conference on the theme “Revisiting Alcáçovas – Toledo. New perspectives of approach to the diplomatic documentation of the treaty ”, given by Dr. Maria Barreto Dávila, from the Humanities Center of Universidade Nova de Lisboa (CHAM).

The cycle of conferences will end on September 26 and can be followed online through live streams on the page of Facebook of the Municipality of Viana do Alentejo.

Following a tradition of several years, the Association for the Promotion of Altranstädt Castle (Saxony, Germany), founding member of ENPP, celebrated the 11 November  known as “Poppy Day” which marks the end of the First World War in 1918.

Members of the Association placed a wreath of white carnations and red poppies in the Memorial of the Dead Soldiers during that World War and paid tribute to the soldiers killed or missing during the two great wars that ravaged the world over the past century.

It is recalled that it was precisely at 11 am on the 11th day of the 11th month of the year 1918 that weapons were shut down and the First World War ends and this day is celebrated especially in the United Kingdom and the countries of northern and central Europe where  the biggest and most important battles of this war took place.

The Municipality of Viana do Alentejo,  member of ENPP, is the Portuguese municipality which most invests in culture, according to a study commissioned by the “Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos”, a Portuguese Foundation.

According to this study based on data from 2017, the Municipality of Viana do Alentejo invests in culture 34% of its annual crop budget (the central administration invests only 0.2%) which corresponds to an amount of € 391 per inhabitant, the which places it in the front of the ranking of all Portuguese municipalities.

The Municipality of Viana do Alentejo has had, over the last years, a cultural policy based on the safeguarding of its material and intangible heritage, including the inscription of Rattle Manufacturing on the UNESCO Safeguard List in 2015 and the recovery and public use of Paço dos Henriques in 2016, where the important Treaty of Alcáçovas (1479) was signed, which ended the War of Succession of Castile and opened the doors to the maritime expansion of the two Iberian countries.

It was in this place that, in 2017, the 10th ENPP European Meeting took place.

For the seventh consecutive year, the city of Zadar, Croatia, celebrated on February 18 the anniversary of the signing of its Treaty of Peace in the same place where it was signed 661 years ago – the St. Francis Monastery.
The celebrations, organized by the Municipality of Zadar, a member of the ENPP since 2011, by the Museum of the Primary School “Islands of Zadar” and by the Monastery of St. Francis, took place in an environment of great joy and appeal for peace and enjoyed the jovial participation of various groups of students of this primary school and other groups representing traditional Croatian music and folklore.
After a welcome greeting from the Monastery officials, Ms. Jagoda Surac, Deputy Mayor of Zadar Municipality and Eduardo Basso, President of ENPP, communicated to the public the reasons for the importance of this Commemoration as well as the involvement of the city of Zadar in the activities of ENPP and Places of Peace Route. Prof. Dr. Ante Bralic, head of the History Department of the University of Zadar and a member of the Scientific Council of Places of Peace Route referred in his speech to the conditions under which the Treaty of Zadar was signed and its positive consequences for the city of Zadar and for the Croatian people.

The President of ENPP, Eduardo Basso, who accompanied these Commemorations for the first time, also had the opportunity to visit the Primary School “Islands of Zadar” and its Museum dedicated to the theme “Heritage and Culture of Peace” as well as to hold a working lunch with the Deputy Mayor, Ms. Jagoda Surac, during which topics such as the local development of the Network in Zadar and the ongoing certification process of  Places of Peace Route as Cultural Route of the Council of Europe were discussed.