Students of Weimar and Jena on excursion to European identity

By: Christoph Roesler, Radio Lotte Weimar

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From 24th till 29th of may 2005 a group of students from Weimar and Jena (Germany) visited three cities of countries that latest became EU-members. The purpose of their excursion was to get an idea of differences as of historical questions as of identification aspects and managing of the cities. Therefore the leading professors Steffen Höhne, Ralph Phillip Ziegler, Peter Hegwein (all HfM “Franz Liszt”, Weimar) and Justus Ulbricht (Stiftung Weimarer Klassik, Heritage Radio) had chosen cities of different countries and different characters:

• Brno (Czech Republic): A rather little, but cultural important town, the capital of the region of Moravia.

• Bratislava (Slovakia): A former multicultural city that became capital of the young Slovakian republic some years ago .

• Budapest (Hungary): The biggest and most important city of Hungary that is used to be capital for long time.

During their trip through those cities the students got impressions of partly very different points of view to history and cultural identity – consequently aswell to Europe. They saw sources of missunderstandings between the single regions and political problems like the regional dependency on Hungary or on Slovakia. They were talking about history, the problems of national myths and more - trying to get an objective view to different historical versions.

Moreover the students met important people of culture and management, who told them about their work.

In Brno the director of the Janácek-Akademia (partner-university of the HfM “Franz Liszt” in Weimar) Václav Cejpet told about theater in Brno. Further on there was a paper about Czech cinema and the music-managing-agency ARS-Koncert (by Dr. Blasiovsky and agency- directress Svobodova).

In Bratislava there was a report about Slovakian identity by the cultural project manager of the university of arts, Mrs. Barbora Kavrlová, who introduces a project that collects women experiences of the latest history, hold by Mrs. Zuzana Kiczkova.

Under the topic German-Hungarian relations the students learned something about German language in Hungary during history by Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Knipf-Komlósi and about the change of Hungarian culture by the German Dr. Wilhelm Droste, who has been working at the Hungarian university ELTE for long time.

Certainly the group visited aswell cultural institutions like the Philharmonia and the modern-art-museum of Brno and the new concert hall in Budapest.

The many impressions and discussions of the excursion and the following meetings gave a larger insight to the students - what happens in Europe and why there are a lot of problems with European integration. The comparison of the things seen and heard at the excursion with German points of view helped to overcome prejudices that often hinder to understand each other (for instance the division of Czechoslovakia 1993 - an action of getting rid of boarders in western Europe).

Summing up the meetings were always affected by mutual interest and understanding. The whole atmosphere of the excursion and the positive reactions of the people met in the three cities showed that we have a chance to surmount the sad history of the last centuries and build an Europe where different cultures can live together with mutual acceptance.

 

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