Mit - Index

Mit - SINFO March 2008 No.6 - Index

s o C i e t y
in Italy. The choirs competed against the national youth choir
from Lyon, who won the festival in Arezzo (Italy), the Norwegian
National Choir from Oslo, who won in Gorizia, and the Jazeps
Vitolis Choir of the Latvian Musical Academy, which won
the festival in Tolosa. Unfortunately, the winner of Tours, the
Simon Phillips Vokal Ensemble from Göteborg, cancelled their
participation. The Tone TomšiË ensemble won the choral throne
for the second time. In 2002 it won for the first time, conducted
by Stojan Kuret, while this year they were conducted by Urška
Lah, in the recent years definitely the most talented Slovenian
young conductor.
THE NATIONAL AND UNIvERSITY LIBRARY
ENRICHED wITH ORIGINAL TRUBAR'S
TESTAMENT
The management of the NUL − the director Lenart ©etinc and the
head of the manuscript department Miha Glavan − had a good
reason for enthusiasm, as the library funds obtained a copy of a
book, an original of the last part of the New Testament, published
in Tuebingen in 1577, which represents a key element of the
most important book publications of early Slovenian literature.
So far, only four copies of the book were known, in Kempten,
London, Prague and Stuttgart. By pure coincidence the Slovenian
ambassador in Zagreb learned of another copy, which was owned
by a collector in Jerusalem who decided to sell it. An action was
initiated that brought the book to Slovenia, whereby the copy
became probably the most valuable book sample in our national
library. The book is not preserved in its entirety − as well as the
other four remaining copies − around 416 of approximately 600
pages are preserved. The book will be presented to the public
at a special exhibition in mid-May. Trubar Year − celebrating the
500-year anniversary of Trubar’s birth − is going even better than
planned. The purchase of the Testament is a bonus that was not
planned. In Trubar’s birth place, Rašica, an honorary committee
presided over by the President of the Republic of Slovenia, Danilo
Türk, met and established that some new activities which were
initially not included in the programme are spontaneously being
prepared. All this is a sign that Trubar’s anniversary is a strong
motivation and a lever for national awareness.
wRITERS (AGAIN) IN BLED
March or April are always months when writers, members of
PEN clubs, meet in Bled. At this year’s already 40th meeting,
representatives of 30 PEN centres were attending. As usual, the
programme anticipated a range of activities and meetings, while in
sinfo february 08 24
the forefront were − also due to the current political situation −topics
included in the programme by the PEN peace committee, as well
as topics on some national and identity questions of Europe, which
intensely and almost daily define anew the current writers’ moment.
The President of the peace committee, Edvard KovaË, reminded of
the extraordinary peaceful tradition of the Bled meeting, as it was
there that for the first time, for example, representatives of Turks
and Kurds, Israelis and Palestinians, Basques and Spaniards have
met. In his opinion, the ”times in Kosovo and Serbia are still too hot
and too hard“ for writers from those countries to visit Bled, ”but we
hope they will come next year“. But the question of Kosovo-Serbia
relations had a place within the discussion on the possibilities for
history to become a source for peace, instead of war. The writers
analysed different views on certain historical events which occur in
human environments, and regretted that much more often they
became a source of new disagreements and conflicts rather than
pacification, which leads to the conclusion that we rarely learn
from history. Very controversial was the discussion at the round
table entitled ‘What is European Awareness?’, to which, of course
they did not find a uniform answer. Some were of the opinion that
even asking such questions is worrying, while others searched for
the answer in a synthesis of diversity of literature and languages.
France BuËar pointed out the gap between the European idea
and European awareness, where large nations often equal the
European awareness with their own interests, and forget about
the smaller nations. Aleš Debeljak warned about the dispersion
of European awareness − the basis of the EU is a nation state, but
even relatively large national communities, such as for example the
Catalonians, cannot sit at the same table with the nation states.
Not much needs to be done for nationalism. But much effort
is needed for cosmopolitanism, he said. Also, ideas for a more
compact Europe with a more unified leadership were presented,
which would be a more binding incarnation of the European
awareness, but the writers were mainly unanimous in the idea
that the foundations should be tolerance, mutual respect and,
above all, support and understanding of diversity. In the sense of
the necessity for deepening the social dialogue and a democratic
discussion about all problems, the President of the Republic Danilo
Türk, participated in the round table.
LJUBLJANA fESTIvAL PROMISES
≈fRUITfUL SUMMER«
The 56th Ljubljana Summer Festival, one of the biggest Slovenian
festivals, will offer more than 70 events this year, featuring 3,000
artists from 20 countries. ≈We are looking to a fruitful summer,«
festival director Darko Brlek told the press. The festival will begin
on 19 June with London's Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under
the baton of Andrew Davis, and close with a concert of Italy's
Maggio Musicale Fiorentino on 28 August. Among the numerous
world-class highlights are also a concert of La Scala Philharmonic,
the resident orchestra of Milan's famed opera house Teatro
alla Scala, and the Moscow Soloists, one of the world's most
highly acclaimed chamber ensembles. The programme has been
designed keeping in mind the Year of Intercultural Dialogue,
explained Brlek, pointing to several round-table discussions
which have been introduced to the festival especially for the
occasion. Brlek also promised that favourites such as Kino pod
zvezdami, the open-air cinema at Ljubljana Castle, would stay on
the festival's programme. This year's festival will cost around EUR
2m, while Brlek said he would like to double the budget in the
future, so the summer festival could become one of the biggest
in Europe. Tickets are on sale until 1 July at a 10% discount, and
also available at www.ljubljanafestival.si.