Yesterday, this horizon became a common reflection on the idea of Central Europe, in all its complexity, ephemerality, all its tension. All this took place in the Transcarpathian region, near Uzhhorod, at a conference organized by the Institute for Central European, where the Dilemma participants were also present.
The meeting was opened by Dmytro Tuzhansky, director of the institute, and was followed moments later by a speech by Jennes de Mol, ambassador of the Netherlands to Ukraine. Both spoke about building a future based on peace and present resistance, but which can only be further drawn through the path of solidarity, the European Union and building bridges. Ukraine is becoming a place that allows us to see anew Europe, which piles up Central European questions, from those that are basic and pragmatic to those immersed in the past or leaning toward utopia.
The first panel of the conference touched on the real problems of how to rebuild Ukraine after the war and already today, and it was about the dimensions of material damage, buildings, but also the structure of the state and, ultimately, society itself, the people. Concrete examples and experiences, for example, from Ivano-Frankivsk make us think about far-reaching strategies for managing money, budget, cooperation between local governments and the state.
Pavlo Klimkin in his speech was already thinking about the very idea of Central Europe, which for him was becoming more of a task, a concept that is unreal today and requires work, building from the scraps of the past and history. In his view, all this cannot happen without Ukraine, and mere anti-Russianism, fear of Russian influence, is a foundation too fragile to think about the future. We can only think about today's Central Europe geographically, while there is potential for it to become a very real center of innovation or change, Klimkin said. The question is still what we are fighting for as a community, not what we are afraid of.
The next panel focused on the tension between the old Central Europe and the vision of this new one, which would emerge in harmony or conflict with the ideas of the past. The discussion between Rufin Zamfir of Romania, Ábel Ravasz of Slovakia, Réki Szemerkény of Hungary and Pavel Klimkin, quickly turned into a classic reflection on the boundaries of Central Europe, its time frame and the question of what would bond it together at all. Geography, a system of shared values, a conscious choice, a certain aspiration?
The last discussion of the day descended most deeply into the realms of philosophy of culture and history. This panel featured Marci Shore and Yaroslav Hrytsak and was moderated by Krzysztof Czyzewski, who introduced with words about the need to create a positive vision, a horizon for tomorrow, while maintaining faith in the great power of what is small. Shore spoke of her position as a historian who looks a bit from outside, from outside Europe, which entails that questions about Central European identity are particularly difficult for her. She invoked the poem "nothing bad even happens here" by Wiktoria Amelina, while beginning a story about trauma, ghosts chased away and being erased, which returns and haunts memory again and again. Through the story of Russian historical narratives, psychological repression and denial categories, the historian reached the essence of a very concrete ethic, which is based on the responsibility to speak the truth, always, at all times. For Shore, that which is positive and alive, is related to the great gift of people to create something new, to create from nothing. This is also how Maydan can be understood, as a kind of flash that allows one to see that something else is possible, because, after all, it has already happened, it has come into existence, even if only in the blink of an eye. In a similar vein, Yaroslav Hrytsak spoke, thinking about the thin, fragile limits of historical memory, which has the power to act both as a medicine, a remedy, and as a poison that infects the present and the future. Ukrainian history, filled with extreme, radical violence, virtually devoid of a mythical time, a golden age that would lie somewhere in the past, leans even more towards utopia, towards the imagination of a new, different world. In Hrytsak's story, Ukraine, is also a very diverse country, unable to be locked into one dominant narrative, rather a place of different stories and histories, and this is, after all, an important affliction of Central Europe.
The Transcarpathian region, Uzhhorod, is today the heart of Europe, a place where the thought and idea of the center of this world has special strength. Remote on the map of the country, it remains safe, lying at the very central European borders, and is free from the direct aggression consuming Ukraine. But all of this is also a story about the fluidity of those borders, a war that easily shatters them, a Central Europe whose real energy can be to bridge "beyond," to create a world and change beyond what seems possible. It is in Uzhhorod that Ukraine's path toward the new is seen more clearly and distinctly, where pragmatism meets the vision of change, a new horizon that surpasses today's tragedy of war and a past filled with violence. Thoughts, ideas resounding at the meeting, a celebration of Europe Day, circulated in this space of tomorrow, participants speaking in Ukrainian, Polish, English led reflection on Central Europe, which has its history of ideas, but, faced with the dilemmas of modernity, today's violence, resistance, needs a completely new language. The day ended with Café Europa event, in a small użhorodz cafe we listened to Ukrainian, Armenian, Polish, English, Georgian, Belarusian poetry, each carried in its own native word. Raphael Roginski's music seems to bring these worlds together in a single story, the guitar tracks sculpting a space full of tension, vague energy, movement and memory in the powerful silence that fell after the sounds of poetry. I guess it is the listening that has the most of utopia in it, always open remains sensitive to new emotions, thoughts, ideas that are born in this fluid relationship between the world and the one who listens to it.
