Open Letter to Europe 2020 – Be Quiet, Let’s Listen!

Moderator: Aljaž Koprivnikar

Discussion with the author of the Open Letter to Europe 2020.

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About the Open Letter to Europe

The Open letter to Europe is the unheard-of desire of artists, the outcry of cultural activists and intellectuals who becomes - one text red on the Opening of most prominent Poetry festival in Ptuj,

published in four languages ​​in one booklet.
Each year the art director of the festival of the Days of Poetry and Wine Festival, with their team, selects a top poet and gives him/her the opportunity to address Europe with his/her Open Letter to Europe. Every year, like the fire of Athens, the pen of a top poet burns, and this is a unique opportunity to address Europe and its problems and return it to the embrace of its children. To awaken an exhausted old-fashioned Europe with a bold appeal to a better Europe that will accept the weight of its past, bury itself in the dung of its crimes, the most hidden past injustices, shed the burden of schisms, mistakes and false promises that happen every day. To be as new, more beautiful, less frightened, relaxed and more feminine, to stand proudly as a lady on the pedestal of the diversity of colours, smells and tastes of the cultural well-being of the twenty-seven members. One booklet that can change Europe was first published at the Festival Days of Poetry and Wine Days in 2017, one of the most prominent Central European poetry festivals, in collaboration with the Allianz Kulturstiftung in Berlin. It was then that the letter was accompanied on its journey by the dream that the language of art would become the lingua franca of our common future. It is not true that artists do not know how to profile their thoughts - their voice is an ambitious project Open Letter to Europe.

The first Open Letter to Europe was written in 2017 by Flemish author Stefan Hertmans, the second in 2018 by Swedish poet of Iranian descent Athena Farrokhzad, and in 2019 by German cosmopolitan, writer, poet, translator and performer of Bulgarian descent Ilija Trojanow. All the letters met with an exceptional response - first in front of the festival audience, then among artists, poets, readers and then in the media, who take the word about the project to the widest European public on a long journey across Europe and the world. It is read every time by political decision-makers, all Members of the European Parliament and members of the Council of Europe and the European Commission. The open letter to Europe is not the voice of one crying in the wilderness of Europe, it is the hope that one day everything will be good for everyone. It is a pan-European event with weight. This year it is written by one of the most read and popular Hungarian authors, Krisztina Tóth.

All Open Letters to Europe are published on the website www.stihoteka.com and in a special booklet.