The Latest at Goethe

Cyprus has a Goethe-Institut again. In Nicosia the Institute was opened this week for the second time – at a hot spot, on the demarcation line between the two parts of the island. By Werner Bloch

White blossoming oleander, acacias, palm trees – the purest Mediterranean idyll prevails in the centre of Nicosia, at least at first glance. Yet beyond the sandstone churches and mosques, the hotels and casinos, quite another reality is also to be found. Anyone wishing to visit the Goethe-Institut with its beautiful period villa first has to pass barriers and ruined houses, barbed wire, walls made of sand sacks and old oil drums. Suddenly one is confronted here by the entire panopticon of the Cold War, a scenario generally assumed to exist no longer – except in the film world of James Bond.

The Goethe-Institut is situated on a hot spot: in the middle of the buffer zone between the Republic of Cyprus and the territory in the north, the “Turkish Republic of Cyprus”, which is recognised only by Ankara. In 1974 there was a war here, a war which has divided the island up to the present day.

“The geographical location of the Institute is a challenge, but also a chance”, says Ms Ute Wörmann-Stylianou, who was director of the former Goethe-Centre in Nicosia for many years. The position of the house reflects the problems of Cyprus, but its programme also opens up possibilities for a healing of the wound on the border.

On Tuesday jazz music resounded here, among the ruins and the headquarters of the UN Peacekeeping Force. Hundreds of guests from Northern and Southern Cyprus, including the President of the Republic of Cyprus, Dimitris Christofias, flocked into the garden to celebrate and to enjoy the culinary treats prepared by Manfred Peters, a champion grill-master from the region around Bielefeld.

Meeting Place Goethe

The event was to celebrate the re-opening of the Goethe-Institut. Of course, there had once been an Institute here after Independence in 1960. Yet despite its politically significant location at the cultural and political dividing line of Cyprus, the Goethe-Institut was closed in1999 as part of Joschka Fischer’s austerity programme. It was then downgraded to a “Goethe-Centre”– and since this week it has regained its status as a fully-fledged Goethe-Institut, after Chancellor Angela Merkel had already paid it a visit in January.

“Up to now the Goethe-Centre was no more than a local attraction”, says Goethe President Klaus-Dieter Lehmann. “Now it will be connected to the European Goethe network and will be able to achieve much more than before.” He went on to say that the Goethe-Institut in Nicosia had cast off its foot shackles and could now finally become active on the international scene. With the appointment of Björn Luley, hitherto in Damascus, the Institute gains a director experienced in crisis management, and this may be seen as a clear indication that a great deal will be happening here.

Goethe-Institut’s work in the UN buffer zone was, however, also of seminal significance for the inner-Cypriot relationship. Until 2003, when the wall on the Green Line through the island completely divided it, there was practically only one place where Turkish and Greek Cypriots were able to meet: in the Goethe-Institut. Just imagine - if, during the era of the Berlin Wall, there had been a foreign cultural institute in the vicinity of the Brandenburg Gate that could have been visited by both East and West Germans. A fantastic thought.

In Cyprus this was reality. For in the Goethe-Centre in the UN buffer zone Turkish and Greek Cypriots sat together in German-language courses and seminars. “If only one member of the respective other ethnic group was present in a course, then a ferment ensued, then questions were asked and a certain understanding was gained, in spite of decades of alienation,” recalls Ute Wörmann-Stylianou, who maintained the Centre as a viable force with only a few local employees in the most difficult circumstances.

“German is our language of communication”

Even beyond the inner-Cypriot border, however, joint art projects were implemented. The German artist Silvia Henze, for example, presented a joint exhibition with a Greek-Cypriot artist and a Turkish-Cypriot artist. Ms Henze had observed an old, dilapidated house in the buffer zone for several days and realised that the windows there were only permitted to be opened twice a day to air the building. She incorporated these minimal gestures by means of photography into an installation, with a special permit from the UN Peacekeepers as filming and taking photos is normally strictly forbidden there.

During her visit in January Angela Merkel had a quite amazing encounter. The Chancellor spoke with students from both the Turkish and Greek parts of the island about their everyday life – both ethnic groups no longer speak the language of the other group. As one of the students explained, “German is our language of communication.” A pretty strong statement on an island that since 1974 has been mainly concerned with separations – and more than ever before is waiting for Europe. br>
“A new era is now beginning”, says Monika Grütters, chairperson of the German Parliamentary Committee for Culture and Media, who has long been interested in Cyprus. “If anything can move Cyprus forward, then it is not really the stagnating political talks, it is culture.”