Foto: Igor Pastierovic
Martin Fischer-Dieskau, Dariusz Mikulski, Virtuosi di Praga - opening concert - Cheb 2002
“Festival Mitte Europa· New Neighbors· Dialogue of Cultures”
Origins and Background Information
The idea of organizing the German-Czech FESTIVAL MITTE EUROPA − Bavaria · Bohemia · Saxony dates back to the year 1990. It owes its existence to the fall of the Berlin Wall as well as to the personal biographies of the festival’s initiators. Having both emigrated from the GDR in 1976, the Thomaschkes, German concert and opera singer Thomas Thomaschke and Prague art historian Dr. Ivana Thomaschke-Vondráková, conceived a plan, together with their friends, to actively promote the meeting and cooperation of individuals from the border areas of a divided Germany and what was then still Czechoslovakia. Friends of theirs supporting the idea included East German physician Dr. Maria Schubert and her husband, the Protestant pastor Friedemann Schubert, as well as several Czech art historians, among them, Dr. Jiří Vykoukal, director of the Gallery of Fine Arts in Cheb, and Jana Orlíková, at that time director of the Prague National Gallery’s graphic collection.
The first event took place in the summer of 1990, under the direction of Kammersänger and Professor Thomas Thomaschke: an international vocal master class entitled “Grenzbegegnungen” (Border Encounters) conducted in Misslareuth, a village in the Vogtland region of southern Saxony located near what was at that time the sealed-off border to Bavaria. Back in those days, the “world“ still ended at the outskirts of the village, at the Misslareuth “Scheune” or barn, nowadays a popular venue for concerts (classic and jazz) attended by visitors from Saxony, Bavaria and the Czech Republic alike. Misslareuth is located only a short distance from the Thuringian-Bavarian village of Mödlareuth, which was once divided by a wall and barbed wire and was therefore dubbed “Little Berlin” by former President Bush senior.
The first “Border Encounters“ in Misslareuth brought together young singers from East and West Germany, Czechoslovakia, Austria and Holland. The participants stayed with families in the surrounding villages of the former no-go zone, conversed with their host parents, and experienced first-hand the border fortifications, which had since been opened but were still standing. They climbed up watch towers and discovered metal “target-practice dummies” in the form of human beings, with bullet holes in their heads and hearts. The impressions and discussions with young people − which usually took place at the evening campfire, at the end of a day’s musical work − led to the conviction that precisely here, in the area around the former “Iron Curtain” between East and West Germany, between Saxony and Bavaria and their Czech neighbors, the opportunities for finding new common ground must be actively supported.
Art transcending borders as a means of communication, a mediator for overcoming inner borders and eliminating mutual distrust, for building bridges of reconciliation.
Cultural events to bring back to mind the forgotten places, churches, monuments and landscapes on both sides of the German-Czech frontier, in border areas cut-off from each other for decades, reviving the traditional cultural region of Mitteleuropa − Central Europe.
Thus, the launching of a citizens’ initiative and the organization of the first Misslareuth “Border Encounters” − the heart of the FESTIVAL MITTE EUROPA − marked the start of a model inner-German and German-Czech cultural undertaking which is unique even today. The Thomaschkes came up with an artistic and organizational concept for the cross-border FESTIVAL MITTEL EUROPA − Bavaria · Bohemia · Saxony, which, geographically, would later encompass the border region of a newly established Saxon-Czech-Bavarian euroregion, “Euregio Egrensis.”
The summer of 1991, with its second vocal master class “Encounters” and a few privately financed events, became “year zero” for the FESTIVAL MITTE EUROPA − Bavaria · Bohemia · Saxony. In Cheb/Eger, a conference was held between local mayors and cultural representatives from Western Bohemia and the neighboring areas of Bavaria and Saxony, organized by the festival’s initiators. The conference resulted in the signing of an initial declaration on cross-border cultural cooperation between “Misslareuth 1990. Mitte Europa e.V.,” the festival’s board of trustees on the Saxon side, and the emerging Czech Euregio Parliament, a forerunner of the later Euregio Egrensis association. The concept of a joint Saxon-Czech-Bavarian cultural festival was greeted with enthusiasm. The response was so overwhelming that by the following year, 1992, as many as 30 Western Bohemian, Saxon and Bavarian localities had already banded together in a FESTIVAL MITTE EUROPA – Bavaria · Bohemia · Saxony. The number of festival participants was to increase with each successive year.
The managing committee of the non-profit association “Misslareuth 1990. Mitte Europa e.V.“ entrusted Ivana and Thomas Thomaschke with the task of organizing and supervising the festival. With the support of a small German-Czech staff, the cross-border cultural summer developed into a remarkable event in the ensuing years, while at the same time serving as an outstanding example of German-Czech and of international cultural exchange.
From the very beginning, the annual seven-week program included a wide range of art forms, from music, fine arts and literature to dance and theater. It was complemented by workshops, symposia and forums.
The first joint Saxon-Czech-Bavarian festival year was inaugurated with an opening concert on July 14, 1992. The concert itself was a symbolic act of reconciliation: the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra from Bavaria, an ensemble founded by former members of Prague’s German Philharmonic Orchestra after their expulsion following the Second World War, performing under Prague director Jiří Bělohlávek at the venerable St. John’s Church in Plauen, in the heart of Saxony’s Vogtland region.
Since the year 2004, the German-Czech cultural event “Festival Mitte Europa − New Neighbors · Dialogue of Cultures“ has been connecting 65 Saxon, Czech and Bavarian communities and rural communes, ca. 400 kilometers along the German-Czech border, from Upper Palatinate, Upper Franconia and Western Bohemia to the Vogtland and Ore Mountains, into the Dresden area and Northern Bohemia. It joins together for the first time, in exemplary fashion, three euroregions: Euregio Egrensis, Eurego Erzgebirge / Krušnohoří (Ore Mountains) as well as the Elbe/ Labe euroregion.
Under the umbrella of the Festival Mitte Europa, long-term cultural projects are being continuously developed and put into action, for instance, with the theme of European cultural diversity “Variatio delectat · Diversity delights,“ or the thematic program series of recent years such as “Genius loci“ and “Young Art Forum.“
For fifteen years now, the festival’s attractive and colorful programs have not only been drawing local audiences from their respective regions, but have encouraged people to take advantage of the wide range of events on offer and pay a visit to neighboring regions, on both sides of the German-Czech border. Apart from being exceptional cultural events in their own right, the cultural projects contribute to the networking of institutions, associations and cultural organizations. They are an expression of cross-border partnership and cooperation, and help promote neighborly dialogue. The shared cultural summer with its international character plays a key role in strengthening and further opening the border region. With its geographical location in a still historically burdened border area, it is doing its part to help the European Union grow closer together. The festival is marked not least of all by strong cross-border project cooperation between citizens’ initiatives, communities and districts.
Lord Yehudi Menuhin, who until his death was intimately bound up with the Festival Mitte Europa both in his capacity as a director and on a very personal, human level, put it this way: “The Festival Mitte Europa makes borders melt away.”
Since 1992, the Festival Mitte Europa has welcomed many artists from all over the world. Please have a look on our overview of artists.