Germany’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union 2020
Tell Me About Europe

Tell Me About Europe - Vyprávěj Mi O Evropě
Discussion Evening in Prague, Czech Republic

Tell Me About Europe - Kerro Minulle Euroopasta
Discussion Event in Helsinki, Finland

On 15 September, different generations will meet in Helsinki in the Oodi City Library to discuss questions  of how we can learn from history and what the future of young people in Europe could look like. The discussion will be moderated by Johanna Vuorelma. 

Tell Me About Europe - Pričaj Mi O Europi
Panel Discussion in Zagreb, Croatia

At the Urania Cultural Centre in Zagreb on 1 October, Croatian-born translator Truda Stamać (born in 1942), the linguist Aida Alagić and the journalist Nora Sefa and history professor Tvrtko Jakovina will offer insights into their stories about Europe. The talk will be moderated by Ivana Dragičević.

Tell Me About Europe - Pričaj Mi O Evropi
World Café in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

In the format of the "World-Café" method, people of different generations and socio-cultural backgrounds will come together on 10 October in Sarajevo. Together with political scientists, theologists and professionals from the cultural sector they will discuss topics ranging from home and origin, religion and feminism, the EU system, freedom of expression to (trans-)identity.

Tell Me About Europe - Fortell Meg Om Europa
Concert and Literature Evening in Oslo, Norway

In Oslo on the 12 October, moderator Erle Marie Sørheim, author Joanna Rzadkowska, singer Karin Krog and musician John Surman will talk about the question of Norwegian relation to the European continent. They will discuss the meaning of and ambivalent feelings towards Europe as well as the Norwegian attitude in comparison to other countries.

Tell Me About Europe - Ziel Mir Iwwer Europa
Panel Discussion in Luxembourg

On 19 October Sandra Gugić, a German speaking author of Serbian origin, and Meris Sehovic, the co-president of Déi Greng, will be discussion Europe as a “dream word”, as a precarious creation and a historical construct in Luxemburg. Biographical, political and cultural perspectives are interwoven with different views from the East and West.

Tell Me About Europe - Berätta För Mig Om Europa
Panel Discussions in Stockholm, Sweden

Two panel discussions on the topics “generations” and “identity” will be held on the 17 November in Stockholm. Guests of the evening will be: Rosaline Marbinah, Hanna Rajs Lara, Jörg Nies as well as Inger Enkvist. The talks will be moderated by the journalists Mats Almegård and Harald Hultqvist.
 

Tell Me About Europe - Raccontami dell'Europa
Online Discussion in Rome, Italy

In Rome on 18 November, women of different generations trace the development of feminism, from the achievements of the 1968 movement to the current role of women in sustainability politics. With the moderator Milvia Spadi, the guests will discuss the concept of Europe and the feeling of European togetherness from a feminist perspective.

Tell Me About Europe - Расскажи Мне О Европе
Radio Discussion in Moscow, Russia

Sergej Buntman, editor at the radio station Echo Moskvy, moderates a discussion with the topic "Dialogue between East and West" with author Ludmila Ulitzkaja on 19 November in Moscow. The audience can pose questions and participate in the discussion.

Tell Me About Europe - Raconte-Moi l’Europe
Online Discussion in Strasbourg, France

The multivocality of Europe will play a prominent role in the event on 24 November in Strasbourg. Here, the sound collage of Marc Matter will lead through the discussion about Europe and its borders. The choir, consisting of a representative oft he European Parliament, the authors Kristof Magnusson and Nora Bossong as well as political science students of the University of Strasbourg will be conducted by the journalist Annette Gerlach.

Tell Me About Europe
Online Discussion in London, United Kingdom

The closing event of the Tell Me About Europe series will be celebrated in London with an online discussion. The panel will be moderated by the journalist Rosie Goldsmith and will invite British and UK-based artists, cultural practitioners, politicians, journalists and authors from different generations to share their very personal stories about Europe and their hopes for its future. The event will be accompanied by a newly commissioned dance performance based on the sound installation I Don’t Want to Be an Island.

Germany’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union 2020
Beyond Brexit: British Visions for a European Future

Quite appropriately considering the time and the place, when the Goethe-Institut London organised the conclusive event in its “Tell Me about Europe” series, the focus was on the future. 29 days before Britain’s final departure from the European Union, writer AL Kennedy, artist and author Edmund de Waal, Labour member of the House of Lords Baroness Mary Goudie, publisher Sharmaine Lovegrove, and curator Niloo Sharifi were asked to imagine the next iteration of Europe – and post-Brexit Britain’s role within it.

Interview about the project "Tell Me About Europe"
“We’re connected by our curiosity about each other”

What does Europe mean to us, and what should it mean? In the project “Tell Me about Europe” people from different generations discuss these questions. Project manager Katrin Sohns from the Goethe-Institut London talks about the search for common ground and music's unifying power.

Lyudmila Ulitzkaya
“Freedom is very personal. It means different things to different people”

Lyudmila Ulitzkaya (born 1943 in Davlekanovo) is a writer, screenwriter and translator. For her work she got several international awards and nominations, e.g. the Russian Booker Price. She was interviewed by the journalist and translator Nikita Verlichko (born 1990 in Novosibirsk) who studied economy and Political Journalism at the HSE faculty of Political Science.

Oleh Panchuk
“Everything was hanging by a thread for a while”

Oleh Panchuk was born in 1932 in Chernivtsi as grandson of the Ukrainian writer Olha Kobyljanska. In this interview he tells us why the Soviet government lionised his grandmother, why he studied chemistry – and about the protests on the Maiden, which in his eyes could have ended differently.

Irena Vrkljan
“Language is also a kind of homeland”

Irena Vrkljan was born in Belgrade in 1930, her mother came from Vienna, her father read her poems by Morgenstern. “I actually lived in a European world,” says the writer. In 1941 her family fled to Zagreb. But it was not until after the war that she learnt about the war.

Jean-Claude Carrière
“For me, Europe isn’t a peaceful and unified place”

France meant something to him during his childhood, but Europe didn’t, recounts French screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière. In conversation with opera director Jeanne Pansard-Besson he talks about how he regarded his work in Germany shortly after the war and why he still feels ambivalent about European unity to this day.

Karin Krog
“I think it’s important there’s European cooperation”

Jazz singer Karin Krog was just a little girl when Germany marched into her native Norway. “When a bomb struck nearby,” she recalls, “I simply slept right through it." She later recorded an album in Berlin. She talks about her love of jazz and Europe with Norwegian journalist and literary critic Erle Marie Sørheim.

Vigdís Finnbogadóttir
“It was very rare then for girls to study abroad”

Iceland’s Vigdís Finnbogadóttir was the first woman in the world to be elected head of state. Although she grew up in a cosmopolitan environment and went on to study in France, “We are on an island, bordered by the sea,” she says of her native country. In an interview with the writer Kristof Magnusson, she looks back on her life in Europe.

Bartolomeo Sorge
“When politics loses its values, it loses its soul”

In the 1980s, Bartolomeo Sorge, an Italian Jesuit, became politically active in Palermo: “We wanted to change the world and we started with the people in the street.” His solution, then as now in Europe’s current crisis, is education. He explains why to philosopher and theologian Jörg Nies.

Egon Gál
“I didn’t feel that we lived in times of untruth”

After the fall of the Iron Curtain, “We thought we’d finally become part of the West,” says Slovakian philosopher Egon Gál. He tells author Tereza Reichelova, who studied philosophy and political science in Prague, why the reality was a whole different story and why he experienced the 1960s as a decade of reflection.

das goethe

“das goethe“ is the Goethe-Institut’s cultural magazine. It appears twice a year as an insert in the weekly German newspaper “Die Zeit“.