Javier Milei will inaugurate an exhibition about Manuel Belgrano as part of Museum Night

President Javier Milei will be accompanied by his sister Karina Milei. Photo: Reuters Javier Milei will inaugurate today an exhibition about Manuel Belgrano, as part of Museum Night. The event will take place at 6 pm at the Casa Rosada Museum, in the President's first active participation in that event since taking office. The exhibition, titled "Belgrano, the revolution of ideas," brings together unpublished images and documents selected by Diego Valenzuela, historian, Buenos Aires provincial senator and mayor of Tres de Febrero on leave. The tour addresses the intellectual side of the creator of the National Flag, his ideas prior to the May Revolution and his later entry into the military career, including his time with the Army of the North. "Today kicks off 'Belgrano, the revolution of ideas'! A historic exhibition to discover the lesser-known Belgrano: the intellectual, the economist and the driver of great transformations, even before the May Revolution and the wars of independence. I invite you to get to know him at the Casa Rosada Museum!" Valenzuela posted on his X account. (Infobae en Vivo) The exhibition will have free admission after the opening and can be visited Monday through Friday, from 11 am to 6 pm. Milei will attend along with his sister, Karina Milei, at the space formerly known as the Bicentennial Museum. The event will include the participation of actor Mario Moscoso, who will play Domingo Faustino Sarmiento during a reenactment of the inauguration of the Belgrano statue in Plaza de Mayo in 1873. At Casa Rosada they confirmed there will be an official broadcast of the event, in which Milei will say a few words about the national hero. It will be the third time he has honored him in one of his speeches. The other two occasions were at the National Flag Monument, where he chose to construct his own reading of Manuel Belgrano, in 2024 and 2026. On the most recent occasion, he defined Belgrano as "the first Argentine economic liberal intellectual" and described him as a "great promoter of political and economic freedom." According to his account, the creator of the flag questioned mercantilism and defended competition, private property and the ideas of Adam Smith and the physiocrats. Milei also linked that thinking to current economic debates, such as monetary circulation and inflation. It was the only current-affairs topic that slipped into his message. (Presidency) The president also presented Belgrano as a man who confronted the elite of his time, an idea that openly dialogues with his own political discourse. He quoted a phrase attributed to the hero: "It seems we have not yet broken the chains of slavery." In the closing, he maintained that the flag still represents political freedom and economic freedom to work, produce and trade. He warned that, if merit, property and production are defended, "the dream of Manuel Belgrano will remain alive." On June 20, 2024, also in Rosario, he opened his speech by remembering Belgrano as "hero of May 25 and father of the Argentine flag." On that occasion, he devoted a good part of his remarks to questioning the leaders of the Triunvirato who, from Buenos Aires, refused to recognize the new emblem. He used that historical parallelism to target the opposition of the time and call for the signing of the Pact of May in Tucumán. Those readings were responded to, on different occasions, by figures from the opposition and allies. In 2024, deputy Máximo Kirchner quipped that the President had offered "a Belgrano version straight out of Billiken magazine." In 2026, minutes before Milei spoke, Santa Fe governor Maximiliano Pullaro presented his own vision of Belgrano in front of the President: he recalled that the hero believed that freedom without education was a trap. From various critical quarters, columnists and historians objected to applying the label of "liberal" in the current sense to Belgrano.