Why Academia Balkanica Europeana? |
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“The Balkans is the heart of Europe” is one of the most beautiful definitions in the world history about the Balkans. It is given in the prophetic book “The Way of the World” (1961) by Swiss writer Nicolas Bouvier (1929-1998) and became an international reference between Paris and Berlin, between Brussels and Geneva, between Tokyo and New York, between Moscow and Beijing, between Canada and Latin America, between New Delhi and Afghanistan, and there this exceptional connoisseur of world history and geography has spent his life as a writer, traveller and discoverer of world historical mysteries.
The first Odyssey of discovery of the secrets of the Earth began to Nicolas Bouvier on the Balkans, in his youth at the time of the Iron Curtain and the Cold War. Saying the words “The Balkans is the heart of Europe”, Bouvier as if he wanted to summarize the experience of the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913, as a prelude to the First World War in which the Balkans turned into a tomb of the European Youth. As if he wanted to summarize not only atrocious horrors of the Second World War, but also to open a marathon long chronology from the time of birth of ancient philosophy and ancient tragedy on the Balkans, the period of the Roman historian Titus Livius called Balkans “ropa Prima”, the period in which the Apostle Paul transferred the message from Jerusalem, just across the Balkans in Europe, through the words “If you do not have love, you have nothing”, the time of Eastern and Western Empire, the Byzantine times and the birth of the European Renaissance through the frescoes and monasteries of Europe becoming its priceless treasure, time of the Ottoman Empire and the spring of the peoples of Europe when Europe as the cradle of world civilization believed that over the time of Belle Epoque would win the temptations of the tragedy of world history.
Precisely through that prism we detect the view of Bouvier about the Balkans as the “Heart of Europe” and during the fall of the Berlin Wall when, despite the expected rise of European democracy, the Balkans is again a field of one of the most tragic periods in the modern history of Europe, the bloody disintegration of the former Yugoslavia and the creation of new states in the European continent. After the Dayton Agreement in 1995 and the publication of the report of the United Nations Commission chaired by Tadeusz Mazowiecki, that the last decade of the XX century at the Balkans were discovered 426 mass graves, the Balkans again turned into a field of modern tragedy of modern mankind. The counterweight to the idea of Jean Monnet and Maurice Schumann that “Europe is our common home” is accomplished with the entry of countries in Central Europe into the European Union, later Slovenia, Romania and Bulgaria, and Croatia too, but the tensions that rule in the countries of south-eastern Europe remained to support the industry of hatred as a form of exclusion of the Other and barriers in which the former historical patterns of negation are still present in this region of the Old Continent.
The states of the Western Balkans: Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Montenegro, Macedonia and Kosovo remain at the gates of Europe and their spiritual integration of Europeanization of the Balkans will be the next historical stage in which should happen that great act of fulfilling the historic ideal and re-finding of the European continent as a whole, the vision of the author of the book “28 centuries of Europe” Denis de Rougemont, who stressed that “2800 years later Europe requires, and still cannot find itself."
The problems faced by the countries of south-eastern Europe, i.e. the Balkans, whether they are a part of the European Union or waiting outside its doors, the last two decades are associated with the phenomenon that becomes, in some way, a planetary barrier to the development of spiritual values.
The threat of national criteria as the only strategy of protecting national interests, without expanding the spiritual field of integration, proved to be a tragic outcome at a time when began to govern various forms of political autocracy and demokratura through a number of Balkan regimes in which political crime and corruption daily destroyed roads of hope and human dignity.
The various initiatives on spiritually connecting of Balkan countries have enjoyed a real triumph and became symbols of the Europeanization of the Balkans. Above all we would mention:
These few examples, to which are joined by a growing number of initiatives of the NGO sector are deep historical reason for establishing an institution under the name Academia Balkanica Europeana based in Bucharest, a city where in the 19th century all identities of academic movements of the Balkan countries are affirmed. It this period of world history this institution can deepen existing relations with the transnational criterion in favour of European spiritual standards, freeing the creative energies that are included to the magnify family of European civilization and cultural memory. Its formation with the first Founding Committee, which will be offered during the period from 21 to 27 October 2016, in Bucharest in order to be formalized in the spring 2017 when it will have taken exactly 60 years since the Treaty of Rome, which was signed on March 25, 1957, it will inaugurate its formation with a choice of 20-30 academics from all Balkan countries that will mean opening a new era in Balkan history and Europeanization of the Balkans.
The first Odyssey of discovery of the secrets of the Earth began to Nicolas Bouvier on the Balkans, in his youth at the time of the Iron Curtain and the Cold War. Saying the words “The Balkans is the heart of Europe”, Bouvier as if he wanted to summarize the experience of the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913, as a prelude to the First World War in which the Balkans turned into a tomb of the European Youth. As if he wanted to summarize not only atrocious horrors of the Second World War, but also to open a marathon long chronology from the time of birth of ancient philosophy and ancient tragedy on the Balkans, the period of the Roman historian Titus Livius called Balkans “ropa Prima”, the period in which the Apostle Paul transferred the message from Jerusalem, just across the Balkans in Europe, through the words “If you do not have love, you have nothing”, the time of Eastern and Western Empire, the Byzantine times and the birth of the European Renaissance through the frescoes and monasteries of Europe becoming its priceless treasure, time of the Ottoman Empire and the spring of the peoples of Europe when Europe as the cradle of world civilization believed that over the time of Belle Epoque would win the temptations of the tragedy of world history.
Precisely through that prism we detect the view of Bouvier about the Balkans as the “Heart of Europe” and during the fall of the Berlin Wall when, despite the expected rise of European democracy, the Balkans is again a field of one of the most tragic periods in the modern history of Europe, the bloody disintegration of the former Yugoslavia and the creation of new states in the European continent. After the Dayton Agreement in 1995 and the publication of the report of the United Nations Commission chaired by Tadeusz Mazowiecki, that the last decade of the XX century at the Balkans were discovered 426 mass graves, the Balkans again turned into a field of modern tragedy of modern mankind. The counterweight to the idea of Jean Monnet and Maurice Schumann that “Europe is our common home” is accomplished with the entry of countries in Central Europe into the European Union, later Slovenia, Romania and Bulgaria, and Croatia too, but the tensions that rule in the countries of south-eastern Europe remained to support the industry of hatred as a form of exclusion of the Other and barriers in which the former historical patterns of negation are still present in this region of the Old Continent.
The states of the Western Balkans: Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Montenegro, Macedonia and Kosovo remain at the gates of Europe and their spiritual integration of Europeanization of the Balkans will be the next historical stage in which should happen that great act of fulfilling the historic ideal and re-finding of the European continent as a whole, the vision of the author of the book “28 centuries of Europe” Denis de Rougemont, who stressed that “2800 years later Europe requires, and still cannot find itself."
The problems faced by the countries of south-eastern Europe, i.e. the Balkans, whether they are a part of the European Union or waiting outside its doors, the last two decades are associated with the phenomenon that becomes, in some way, a planetary barrier to the development of spiritual values.
The threat of national criteria as the only strategy of protecting national interests, without expanding the spiritual field of integration, proved to be a tragic outcome at a time when began to govern various forms of political autocracy and demokratura through a number of Balkan regimes in which political crime and corruption daily destroyed roads of hope and human dignity.
The various initiatives on spiritually connecting of Balkan countries have enjoyed a real triumph and became symbols of the Europeanization of the Balkans. Above all we would mention:
- The Literary Award of the Foundation ‘Balkanika” which last year celebrated the 20th anniversary and to hold an exclusive rich valuation of literary valorisation of novel production in Balkan countries. The novels that won the literary award “Balkanika” with their distribution and translation in Balkan languages created a spiritual horizon that for years was a dream for a mutual acquaintance of Balkan languages and cultures.
- The creation of the Agency NETA - New European Theatre Action which also two decades integrated into European memory the theatre production of South-Eastern Europe and the Balkan countries through a number of festivals that united hundred theatres from all Balkan countries and created one over national criteria, whose function releasing the theatre artists from the bondage of narrow national schemes that failed to express the spiritual and creative freedom.
- The initiation of Festivals See a Paris and See in Berlin that through presenting the cinematography of all 12 countries in this European region, together with the presentation of translations from Balkan literatures in France and Germany, as well as the annual workshops held at the University INALCO in Paris and Humboldt University in Berlin, are an immanent historical evidence that the Europeanization of the Balkans will run right through a cooperation, co-productions and scientific researches about that how can be overcome blood feuds among the Balkan nations and to turn in their field of spiritual symbiosis.
- The existence of the Festival Actor of Europe that was initiated by a group of European and Balkan intellectuals in 2003 when the European Parliament declared the Prespa Lake, which is divided between Albania, Greece and Macedonia, in a cross-border European park, penned an amazing rich theatrical chronology and turn this festival in a reference for recognition of the Balkans as a field of spiritual beauty. Just the motto which was spoken by one of the founders of the festival, the French writer Jacques Lacarrier (1925-2005) Thousands of yesterday and only one tomorrow, published in the Paris newspaper Le Figaro, became a signpost of many dreamers and Balkan Don Quixotists that the European idea will become the only bridge of understanding and future EU integration of Balkan civilizations and cultures.
These few examples, to which are joined by a growing number of initiatives of the NGO sector are deep historical reason for establishing an institution under the name Academia Balkanica Europeana based in Bucharest, a city where in the 19th century all identities of academic movements of the Balkan countries are affirmed. It this period of world history this institution can deepen existing relations with the transnational criterion in favour of European spiritual standards, freeing the creative energies that are included to the magnify family of European civilization and cultural memory. Its formation with the first Founding Committee, which will be offered during the period from 21 to 27 October 2016, in Bucharest in order to be formalized in the spring 2017 when it will have taken exactly 60 years since the Treaty of Rome, which was signed on March 25, 1957, it will inaugurate its formation with a choice of 20-30 academics from all Balkan countries that will mean opening a new era in Balkan history and Europeanization of the Balkans.
