Cultural heritage is not simply the collective stock of a given culture’s material assets. It also includes our memory and identity, making it vitally important for society. Heritage is people: its creators, interpreters, and users. Herein lies the key to discussing the dynamic process of creating and reinterpreting heritage, as well as of protecting and valorising it.
People are the owners of cultural heritage and it is up to us, and not to a narrowly defined group of experts, to define its meaning and value. In this sense, as well for other good reasons, cultural heritage has been recognised as one of the basic human rights. Heritage emerges as a generator of different kinds of social activity and has potentially unlimited users.
The specific nature of Central Europe follows from a unique historical experience of this part of the continent. This became obvious in the 20th century. The long-lasting feudalism, delayed nation-building processes and formation of new nation-states only after the First World War, the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, the Holocaust, the scale of damage and looting of cultural property during World War II, post-war border changes and ethnic cleansing on a large scale. It has to be noted that in the 20th century political borders in Central and Eastern Europe have changed faster than cultural borders. Finally the almost half-a-century long “lesson of communism” cannot be ignored in analysing the complex and unique situation of the Central and Eastern European nations, as well as the violent change after 1989, the dynamics and complexity of which is usually subsumed under the fashionable term “transition”.
The question of belonging to the East or the West is not a question of geography and borders, but primarily of an aesthetic sensitivity: belonging to a particular cultural circle, economic zone and political system is a matter of philosophical outlook! Central Europe has never found itself outside the European civilisation. But it retained its distinctiveness – which today is a value.
Panelists:
Dr Piotr Gerber, President of the Foundation for the Protection of Industrial Heritage of Silesia
Dr Natalia Moussienko, Vice-President of Europa Nostra, Ukraine
Prof. Dr Gábor Sonkoly, Chairman of the European Commission Expert Panel on the European Heritage Label, Hungary
Dr Stsiapan Stureika, European Humanities University, Belarus/Lithuania
Moderated by Prof. Dr Jacek Purchla, Vice-President of Europa Nostra
‘Heritage Conversations’ is a series of discussions led by the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub team in Kraków. Their goal is to promote good practices in the field of cultural and natural heritage in Central and Eastern Europe and to highlight the role of non-governmental organisations in the field of management, protection, promotion and education for heritage. The Conversations build awareness of good practices in heritage and bring critical thinking in the main areas of interest. Its additional role is to build community in the region of Central and Eastern Europe around Hub.
The Conversations are realised interchangeably on-site in Kraków (recorded and available on-line) and on-line.
