The Balkans: the bulwark of Europe, a fortress that protects it against the hostile incursion of Asia. How did the Balkan people come to believe that their history is one of suffering and endless sacrifice to Europe? Can the problems of the Balkan intelligentsia be better understood when considered in the wider Eastern European context? Is the region just like Poland as described by Andrzej Stasiuk: “Who would we be without Siberia, Hitler or Communism? Nobody. Just one of the hundreds of irrelevant nations with a history bored to distraction.”
The meeting is accompanied by a performative reading of excerpts from Wojciech Tochman’s nonfiction book Jakbyś kamień jadła (Like Eating a Stone), directed by Jakub Skrzywanek, 3rd year student at the Ludwik Solski Academy for the Dramatic Arts, Kraków / production: Teatr Dramatyczny w Wałbrzychu.
THE BALKANS PLATFORM Meetings at Liberty Square
As always, the Malta artistic programme is accompanied by the Forum, a series of discussions on the festival theme. This year the meetings are focused on the correlation between Balkan and Polish history, and on the Balkan experience compared to the current situations in Poland, Europe and worldwide. The Balkans are seen as a platform for knowledge and reflection on ourselves and on the reality we live in. The guests are political scientists, psychiatrists and anthropologists, as well as Slavicists, philosophers, writers and documentary filmmakers.16.06, 17:00 “THE VICAR BLAMES THE LORD, AND THE LORD BLAMES THE VICAR, WHILE WE SIMPLES SUFFER HARDSHIP ON EVERY SIDE.” THE DISCUSSION BETWEEN A LORD, A VILLAGE MAYOR AND A VICAR, CONTINUED: Adam Michnik
17.06, 13:00 MEETING WITH THE 2017 IDIOM CURATORS: Oliver Frljić, Goran Injac
18.06, 17:00 THE SHAME AND PRIDE OF EASTERN EUROPE: Konstanty Gebert, Magdalena Koch, Joanna Tokarska-Bakir
19.06, 17:00 MIGRANT OR REFUGEE?: Draginja Nadażdin, Kalina Czwarnóg, Roman Wieruszewski
20.06, 17:00 COMMON LITERATURE. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?: Krzysztof Varga, Stanisław Bereś, Dorota Cirlić-Mentzel
21.06, 17:00 WHAT IS AGGRESSION?: Bogdan de Barbaro
22.06, 17:00 STATE / NATION / CITIZEN: Sławomir Sierakowski, Rafał Matyja, Krzysztof Podemski
23.06, 17:00 JHOW TO BE A WITNESS. ABOUT THE WORK OF A DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER: Agnieszka Arnold
24.06, 17:00 Neo-fascism and its limits: Boris Buden, Dragan Markovina, Przemysław Wielgosz