A new project for Central and Eastern Europe - a debate 

Friday, the 14th of October, 6.00 − 7.45 p.m.
The Big Stage of Teatr Powszechny in Warsaw
[with a planned translation from English to Polish]

➤ moderators: Iwona Kurz, Edwin Bendyk

➤ participants: 
– Natalia Sielewicz 
– Michal Hvorecký 
– Przemysław Czapliński 
– Bálint Magyar 
– Bozhena Pelenska 

The Russian attack on Ukraine seems to confirm the understanding of Central Europe proposed by Milan Kundera (1984) – as a territory of "small nations" between Russia and Germany. "Small", because regardless of their size, their existence can always be questioned (which is also expressed by the twin words of the hymns of Poland and Ukraine, that these two countries are not dead yet). After the "autumn of peoples" of 1989, "Central Europe" returned to the myth of "little homelands" based on the idealization of the Habsburg Empire and brutally confronted with the war in the Balkans. Today, in the "Visegrad format", this concept is sometimes a platform that unites conservative politicians referring to sovereign traditionalism in their resistance to "Europe".

The military war in the East and the accompanying cultural war - related both to the boycott of Russian culture and the fight for the so-called European values ​​- provoke questions about a new project of Central European cultural policy. Is it possible? Is it needed? If so, how shall we create new reference systems and cooperation networks in the region? How should we think about the common assumptions of cultural policies in the face of the world's challenges in the climate and political crisis and the past experiences in the "bloody lands"?