The Fortunes of Literature in a Unifying Europe

Speech at the Czech Pen Club Conference by Monika MacDonagh-Pajerová

Ladies and gentlemen,

First of all, let me thank you for the opportunity to address such an interesting gathering of writers and journalists and teachers and students - and, in general, women and men, who simply like literature. And I am one of them... my name is Monika Pajerová and I am co-ordinator of a civic group called ANO pro Evropu which means YES for Europe in Czech.

My colleagues and myself, we created this platform more than a year ago in order to promote a high turnout and a high YES in last year's referendum. It was the first referendum in the history of this country and it was a very important one – the challenge was whether we become – finally – members of the European Union - or not.

During a period of 6 months we assembled more than 150 active supporters with Václav Havel as the first and principal supporter and many prominent actors, playwrights, musicians, painters, plastic artist, architects and others.

Our campaign involved 85.000 posters distributed all over the country. We organised a series of national press conferences dealing with the main reasons for voting YES - including Health, Education, Environment, Regional Development, Economy and last but not least - Culture. Over 40 local and regional events were organised as well as a major public concert in Prague – a few days before polling. We succeeded to bring together a network of pro-European groups and activities and we are still co-operating.

You may say that we can be content because the turn out was relatively high – over 56% and the Yes was overwhelming – 77%. But we think that more work is required and the reason why is that many issues still remain to be decided. Especially, what sort of member of European Union the Czech Republic will be and how much it will benefit from the opportunities that come with membership.

Will we be a positive and engaged member or a defensive and distant member??

And this is not only a political and civic question, but a cultural one as well.

You know that in recent years all those who are opposed to the process of European integration have tended more and more to fall into describing it as a threat to different nation states. Taking their lead from the anti-Europeans in the British Conservative Party, there is just about nothing that they will not accuse the European Union of plotting to destroy.

The language of the conspiracy theorists have changed little over the time - and today they tell us that Brussels is trying to take away our identity, our culture and our sovereignty. In their world, Europe is the great evil which can be blamed for everything that we don’t like in the modern age.

We could spend a lot of time trying to explain the  reason why of these attacks, but life is really too short and there are far more constructive ways to spend your time.

Let me just say that I do not for one moment believe that the process of European integration involves any attempt to subsume national cultures into one European culture wrapped in a Blue and Gold flag. I really think the time has come to comprehensively put aside the issue of institutions and constitutions and look instead at cultural developments which are happening anyway.

It is a far more serious question to ask - whether or not European integration - and the economic and social cohesion, which is a core objective of it, can somehow take away catalysts which are central to the creation of national cultures, part of which is always distinct? If we put aside the issue of language, are we losing diversity and therefore the opportunity for literature in particular to seek to speak to different truths - or not?

It is indeed very clear that many of the recurring themes in European national literatures can become more rapidly irrelevant in a time of greater unification. But if all we get from literature is the endless reworking of the same themes and forms - it loses its contemporary relevance and becomes a historical artefact anyway.

The best way to look at the fortunes of literature in an era of greater European integration is that they will be as bright as the originality and skill shown by individual European writers.

There may be a struggle to achieve relevance – but this is what you find in every period of transition. If our writers chose to take up the challenge of addressing the themes which emerge in the lives of people in a changing and integrating Europe - then they will be relevant and they will enjoy great success. Rather than seeing integration as a damaging move which makes it more difficult, we should see it as a great opportunity for literature and for art in general to prove its relevance to people in this country – and all over Europe.

Thank you.