HERMES Summer Course 2005: Cultural heritage and the media

Introduction

Shiny happy people after the end of the HERMES Summer Course 2005. Photo: N. Nedved

The HERMES project deals with cultural heritage as a factor for local and regional development, hence its full title: Heritage and New Media for Sustainable Regional Development. The aspect of development is not only understood as economic growth, but is explicitly conceptualised also in terms of cultural activities of communities, and as an activation of the social sphere in general. Media, and new media such as the internet in particular, are regarded as an important means of conveying knowledge about heritage, to make people aware of the world they inhabit and of the narratives that are woven into the places we live in. Heritage is of course not to be understood as an ‘objective’ representation of the past, but rather as a way of looking back in time from the standpoint of the present.

One of the aims of HERMES is to gather young professionals from all the countries involved in the project, and to let them work on selected topics related to heritage. One such event was the 2nd HERMES Summer School dedicated to the topic of “Cultural heritage and the media” which was held on 13th-27th August 2005 in Weimar (Germany). The seminar focused on the role of media in the construction, promotion and use of cultural heritage, with particular reference to countries in transition in Central and Eastern Europe.

One of the main components of the seminar was a practical journalistic workshop in which the participants – several of whom work as professionals for the radio stations engaged in the HERMES project – produced their own programmes on specific themes in small work groups. The final products can be viewed and heard here.

Overview:

• Chapter 01:
  ‘Let’s talk about culture, babe!’ – Impressions from the 6th Weimar Summer Courses

  • Editor: Nives Nedved
  • Keywords: language, culture, transculturality, diversity, music, food & drink, bureaucracy, prejudice

• Chapter 02:
  Buchenwald as heritage

  • Editors: Otilia Colac, Anna Dobranowska, Marianna Knap, Biliana Nikolova
  • Keywords: Buchenwald, Weimar, Germany, concentration camp, memory, memorial site, monument, exhibition, national socialism, communism, totalitarianism, Soviet special camp, GDR, suffering, emotion, humanity

• Chapter 03:
  ‘Resurrected from ruins’ – Investigating the heritage of socialism

  • Editors: Dóra Gyarmathy, Paweł Kamiński, Lachezar Tzvetkov
  • Keywords: Germany, GDR, Apolda, Moldova, Chisinau, Hungary, Budapest, Slovakia, Bratislava, Russia, Yasnaya Polyana, Bulgaria, Sofia, heritage, museum, exhibition, memorial, ‘Ostalgie’, secret police (‘Stasi’), monument, street name, church, interpretation, representation, propaganda / anti-propaganda, dignity, dictatorship, totalitarianism, democracy, socialist realism, ideology, tourism, Georgi Dimitroff, mausoleum

• Chapter 04:
  Additional features:
  Socialist heritage in Croatia // Socialist heritage in Belarus // Socialist music // Visual impressions of Weimar

  • Editors: Ira Karlović; Lachezar Tzvetkov
  • Keywords: Croatia, history, Josip Broz Tito, anti-fascism, Yugoslavia, museum, Kumrovec, Brijuni Islands, Zagorje, war & independence;
    Byelorussia, Minsk, museum, monument, bar, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin; music;
    pictures, photographs

Chapter 01: ‘Let’s talk about culture, babe!’ – Impressions from the 6th Weimar Summer Courses

Participants and lecturers of the 6th Weimar Summer Courses. Photo: M. Orosz


Culture can be so melodious... Photo: M. Orosz

This feature by N. Nedved, more than 26 minutes long, provides a portrait of the sixth edition of the regular Weimar summer courses which took place in August 2005. Featuring interviews with many participants from all parts of the world, it conveys the atmosphere of multi-culturalism, curiosity and openness which dominated throughout the two weeks of the summer school. In a rather implicit and subtle way, the programme also addresses some of the problems which one encounters when transgressing the boundaries of one’s own cultural microcosm – inevitable when 80 individuals from 29 different countries come together in one place! But the many cases documented in which people do not lose their interest and tolerant attitude towards what is new and alien suggests that antagonisms and antipathies are not inadvertent and inescapable.

From the very moment that we accept the existence of separate cultures, with a very complex and dynamic set of boundaries running in between, everything depends on our willingness to cross these borders and not to distance ourselves from ‘the Other’.

(Audio: ‘Let’s talk about culture, babe!’ – Impressions from the 6th Weimar Summer Courses) Click here to download the audiofile (12MB)

• Author: Nives Nedved
• Technical Support (at Croatian Radio HRT, Zagreb): Tomica Šćavina (sound engineer), Željko Barba (music editor)
• Speakers: Nives Nedved, Sebastian Schröder-Esch
• Keywords: language, culture, transculturality, diversity, music, food & drink, bureaucracy, prejudice
• Interviewees: Abdelkrim Medghar, Eloah Correa, Moustapha Mouhamadou, Herbert Vieyra, Katarina Nemcova, Otilia Colac, Hyang Cho & Seong-Hee Cho, Rico Schuberth, Martina Baljak (all course participants), Justus H. Ulbricht (course tutor), Burkhardt Kolbmüller (main coordinator of the summer school)

Chapter 02: Buchenwald as heritage

Fields of gravel and stones indicate the places where the barracks of the concentration camp once stood.
Photo: B. Nikolova

It is now common consensus that Buchenwald constitutes an integral part of Weimar. Located on the Ettersberg which rises above the town, Buchenwald was and is of enormous significance because it was the site of a German concentration camp (1937-1945), a Soviet detention camp (1945-1950), as well as the most important national memorial site of the former GDR. Today it is organised as a complex memorial landscape comprising all three sites.

This feature, with a playing time of more than 30 minutes, takes the unambiguous statement that Buchenwald has to be regarded as heritage as its starting point, even if it is an inconvenient and unpleasant one. This attitude explicitly includes the normative notion that the memory of the horrible events which took place near Weimar should always be kept alive.

Yet as soon as one accepts this view, a number of serious questions arise: How should such heritage be appropriately (re)presented, especially with regard to the very complex history of the place? How can a totalising narrative be avoided, thus permitting every individual visitor to develop his or her own reading and understanding of Buchenwald? Can we consider Buchenwald as the universal heritage of humanity?

Based mainly on interviews with other participants of the Weimar Summer School representing a diverse number of cultural backgrounds, as well as with professionals working at today’s Buchenwald memorial site, this feature poses crucial questions and brings the complexities and ambiguities to the surface which necessarily occur when dealing with the heritage of atrocity.

(Audio: Buchenwald as heritage) Click here to download the audiofile (14MB)

• Authors: Otilia Colac, Anna Dobranowska, Marianna Knap, Biliana Nikolova
• Speakers: Otilia Colac, Anna Dobranowska, Marianna Knap, Biliana Nikolova, Sebastian Schröder-Esch
• Keywords: Buchenwald, Weimar, Germany, concentration camp, memory, memorial site, monument, exhibition, national socialism, communism, totalitarianism, Soviet special camp, GDR, suffering, emotion, humanity
• Interviewees: Elena Gorbyleva (course participant from Russia), Nives Nedved (course participant from Croatia), Lachezar Tzvetkov (course participant from Bulgaria), Daniel Gaede (director, educational department at Buchenwald memorial site), Dieter Kunkel (professional tour guide in Weimar and Buchenwald), Philipp Neumann (historian, educational department at Buchenwald memorial site), Eloah Correa (course participant from Brazil), Oxana Beselea (course participant from Moldova), Vasilios Ziogas (course participant from Greece), Maren Zimmermann (course participant from Germany)

Chapter 03: ‘Resurrected from ruins’ – Investigating the heritage of socialism

The entrance to Statue Park on the outskirts of Budapest, seen from the inside.
Photo: S. Schröder-Esch

Most of the countries of the former socialist “Eastern Bloc” have undergone fundamental transformations in the past decade and a half. Apart from political and economic reform, these changes have also strongly affected the spheres of identity, culture, history and tradition, for individuals as well as for societies and nations. The transition from socialism to “post”-socialism has made it necessary to reorder entire “worlds of meaning”, including the symbols of the old system. With regard to these recent (and still on-going) developments, the ways in which the past is commemorated, be it on an individual, local, or national level, is of crucial significance.
Based on these general observations, the programme ‘Resurrected from ruins’ looks at the heritage of socialism and they way it is conceptualised and represented in various countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Should the recent past be forgotten as quickly as possible and all physical traces removed? Should memory be kept alive, and if so: why, and how? This feature offers insights into the thinking of heritage professionals, politicians, and ‘normal’ citizens, and it sheds light on the complexity and difficulty of finding an appropriate representation of the socialist past.

The overall duration of this programme is 40 minutes.

(Audio: ‘Resurrected from ruins’ – Investigating the heritage of socialism) Click here to download the audiofile (18MB)

• Authors: Dóra Gyarmathy, Paweł Kamiński, Lachezar Tzvetkov
• Speakers: Dóra Gyarmathy, Biliana Nikolova, Sebastian Schröder-Esch, Szabolcs Varró, Ákos Gózonli
• Keywords: Germany, GDR, Apolda, Moldova, Chisinau, Hungary, Budapest, Slovakia, Bratislava, Russia, Yasnaya Polyana, Bulgaria, Sofia, heritage, museum, exhibition, memorial, ‘Ostalgie’, secret police (‘Stasi’), monument, street name, church, interpretation, representation, propaganda / anti-propaganda, dignity, dictatorship, totalitarianism, democracy, socialist realism, ideology, tourism, Georgi Dimitroff, mausoleum
• Interviewees: Elke Fischer (museum worker at “Olle DDR”, Apolda), a visitor to the exhibition “Olle DDR”, Otilia Colac (course participant from Moldova), Ákos Előd (architect of Statue Park, Budapest), Katarina Nemcova (course participant from Slovakia), Luiza Bialasiewicz (Geography Department, University of Durham, UK), Elena Gorbyleva (course participant from Russia), Božidar Dimitroff (director of the National Historical Museum of Bulgaria)

Chapter 04: Additional features

Additional feature #01: Socialist heritage in Croatia

The feature discusses the situation of historical museums and memorial sites in present-day Croatia. There is no central museum presenting the history of the Croatian people from the socialist era as such, but a number of smaller sites where selected aspects of Yugoslav history are represented. Since the independence of Croatia, the focus on anti-fascist resistance which was previously predominant in museums has gradually shifted towards a more general approach to history. At present, only two sites are dealing with the life of Josip Broz Tito, one on the Brioni Islands, and the other in Kumrovec.

(Audio: Socialist heritage in Croatia) Click here to download the audiofile (4MB)

• Author: Ira Karlović
• Speakers: Nives Nedved, Biliana Nikolova, Sebastian Schröder-Esch
• Keywords: Croatia, history, Josip Broz Tito, anti-fascism, Yugoslavia, museum, Kumrovec, Brijuni Islands, Zagorje, war & independence
• Interviewees: Vladka Filipčić Maligec (director, Museum Staro Selo Kumrovec), Mira Pavletić (senior curator, National Park Brijuni, Department of Cultural Heritage Protection)

Additional feature #02: Socialist heritage in Belarus (in Russian)

A young participant of the Weimar Summer Courses from Minsk in Byelorussia talks about the way how the heritage of the Soviet era is dealt with at present. Most of the statues of Lenin are still to be seen in the places where they were erected, and the names of streets and squares have also remained unchanged since the end of the Soviet Union. The interviewee argues that those remnants of the past should indeed be kept alive and not forgotten, but at the same time it should not lead to an uncritical glorification of the past.

(Audio: ‘Socialist heritage in Belarus (in Russian)) Click here to download the audiofile (2MB)

• Author: Lachezar Tzvetkov
• Interviewee: A. Rudy
• Keywords: Byelorussia, Minsk, museum, monument, bar, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Additional feature #03: Socialist music

a compilation of symphonic music typical of the socialist era

(Audio: Socialist music) Click here to download the audiofile (3MB)

Additional feature #04: Visual impressions from Weimar

some pictures from Weimar – the HERMES group in action

In the recording studio at Radio Lotte. Photo: B. Nikolova

Doing research and writing scripts in the headquarters of HRN. Photo: B. Nikolova

In class: Paweł, Ira, Otilia, Nives, Dóra. Photo: M. Orosz

Vasilios and Nives interviewing Justus Ulbricht. Photo: M. Orosz

In class: Ira, Otilia, Nives. Photo: M. Orosz

Participatory research in cultural studies – Nives waiting in line at the EJBW canteen. Photo: M. Orosz

In class: Biliana, Lachezar, Sebastian. Photo: M. Orosz

In class: Dóra, Ania, Biliana. Photo: M. Orosz

In class: Sebastian. Photo: M. Orosz

In class: Marianna, Ira. Photo: M. Orosz

In the studio: Vasilios, Lachezar. Photo: B. Nikolova

In class: Nives, Dóra. Photo: M. Orosz

Workshop with Antje Schlottmann and Tilo Felgenhauer. Photo: S. Schröder-Esch

Celebrating the end of it all: Biliana, Vasilios, Nives, Ania, Sebastian, Lachezar, Paweł, Ira, Dóra, Marianna, Otilia, Jörg. Photo: B. Nikolova