An initiative of the
68/89 - Art.Contemporary.History.
1968 / 1989 – didn’t something important happen in both these years? Whoever considers one of these historical caesuras from the perspective of the other is confronted with two of the most fundamental social upheavals Europe experienced in the 20th century. This holds true for the then Czechoslovakia and today’s Czech Republic in particular.
Playing a numbers game, by simply tipping them over, 68 and 89 may be turned into one another – but not in history of course. The utopia of the Prague Spring diverges too greatly from the results of the Velvet Revolution. Has the call for freedom been answered by the laws of the free market in the end?
The years between 1968 and 1989 reveal just how much the Prague Spring spawned a strong underground movement which was not least shaped by influences from American pop culture – with crucial repercussions for the later fall of the Iron Curtain.
In this sense, the thematic focus illuminates two key historical caesuras from varying perspectives and shows how a historical context can be interconnected with artistic practice in the present: 1968/1989 – these dates are not to be thought of as isolated events; rather, the mirroring game between the dates first becomes interesting when the interplay between two is followed by a third element and 2008 is also considered. The years 2008 and 2009 are centenaries and thus generate enormous attention for ‘68 and ‘89. Moreover, the comparison between East and West is thoroughly irritating. As Rudi Dutschke was to find out in Prague: although the revolts took place simultaneously, they were based on fundamentally different ideological assumptions. What has become of them after the fall of the Iron Curtain, which dreams were realized and which betrayed, is perhaps discernible only today.
The project “68/89 - Art.Contemporary.History” launched a series of working relations between historians, theatre-makers and artists from Germany, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The starting point was the reform process, known as the Prague Spring, in the then Czechoslovakia. This was then extended and contextualized in two respects as the project unfolded. Firstly, the reform process was placed in the broader historical context of the European and global movements of social protest and cultural experimentation, infused with a sense of a new beginning, of the late 1960s. The focus here was on identifying the similarities and interdependencies between the movements, transferences of culture, as well as ideological and personal misunderstandings between the “1968ers” in the East and the West. But the project went a step further: it also targeted post-reform developments in Czechoslovakia, the fate of East-West contacts during “normalization” and the role played by the “1968ers” in the definitive collapse of communism in Europe in 1989. Ultimately, the project was concerned with how these two monumental events are to be approached and interpreted today, which myths and symbols mould and influence historical memory, and to what extent the demise of communism casts a new light on the pivotal year of “1968”.
The jointly developed results were presented to the public in the framework of various events. Six theme nights and several publications over the course of 2008 linked the cities of Berlin, Prague, Brno and Hamburg. Six theatre productions explored the language of political revolt in East and West; following their respective premieres, the plays were then performed at the other participating theatres as guest productions. Finally, an international, scholarly-oriented conference in Prague discussed the cultural and civil society dimensions of the Prague Spring.
www.68-89.net
A project by Zipp – German-Czech Cultural Projects, an initiative of the Federal Cultural Foundation of Germany; Centrum experimentálního divadla/Divadlo Husa na provázku (Centre for Experimental Theatre/The Goose on the Line Theatre, Brno); Divadlo Archa (Archa Theatre, Prague); Kampnagel, Hamburg; Sophiensaele, Berlin; Centre for Research on Contemporary History, Potsdam.
The project was implemented with funds provided by the “Culture” Programme of the European Commission. With the friendly assistance of the German-Czech Future Funds.
Background texts
Transit 68|89
German-Czech-Slovakian Cultural Histories
By Jürgen Danyel
The years 1968 and 1989 are two of the most important landmarks in the history of post-war Europe. As times of revolt they were shaped by profound social conflicts. Political, social and cultural movements stamped them with their specific character. Old orders and value systems began to totter. The once watertight borders dividing East and West became increasingly porous and were overcome completely in the end. No longer willing to meekly accept conditions and value systems they felt to be oppressive, a growing number of people dared to protest in public and summoned the courage to initiate change.
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