Belarus, Estonia, Russia and Ukraine: four countries whose destinies are tightly interwoven. Now the S. Fischer Foundation, the German Academy of Language and Literature, and Allianz Cultural Foundation have created a transnational platform for discussing the most pressing country-specific topics in a common European context.
The next conference takes place from 7 to 10 December in Minsk, Belarus, under the title Diverse identity experiences – one nation? The focus here is on internal and external perceptions of national borders, as well as how such borders are transcended by various constellations of community, identity and everyday life. The event is organized jointly with Olga Shparaga and Alexey Bratochkin from the European College of Liberal Arts in Belarus, in close cooperation with the “Ў” gallery of contemporary art in Minsk.
The Narva River flows between Hermann Castle in Narva, Estonia (right) and the Ivangorod Fortress in Russia (left). Photo: Aleksander Kaasik. Source: Wikimedia
The same day proceedings wrap up in Minsk, the third conference in the series opens in Kharkiv, Ukraine, where discussion revolves around perspectives on living together in regions of conflict. The Kharkiv event runs until 12 December; partners include the Ukrainian author Serhii Zhadan and the philosopher Yaroslava Bondarchuk, as well as the Vasilkovsky Gallery. Further conferences are scheduled to take place in 2016 in St. Petersburg and in Vyborg in Russia, with the focus of the latter being the Finnish-Russian neighbourhood in Karelia.
Eurozine is the platform’s media partner; the initiators are the S. Fischer Foundation, the German Academy of Language and Literature, and Allianz Cultural Foundation.
Published 2 November 2015
Original in English
First published by Eurozine
© Eurozine
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