An Open Letter to Europe is an initiative launched in 2017 in collaboration between the Days of Poetry and Wine Festival and the Allianz Foundation in Berlin. The letter addresses Europe and the world with the aim of bringing the language of art back into the public sphere – a language that is thoughtful, nuanced and precise. Each year, the festival’s artistic directors select a distinguished poet and offer them a unique opportunity to address Europe and highlight the issues they consider most pressing.
With the An Open Letter to Europe project, the Festival of Poetry continues its commitment to socially engaged discourse. In a public sphere marked by political polarisation, the absence of constructive dialogue and the growing influence of disinformation, we seek to continue creating a space for critical, polemical and, at the same time, constructive social dialogue.
The first An Open Letter to Europe was written in 2017 by Flemish author Stefan Hertmans, followed in 2018 by Swedish poet of Iranian origin Athena Farrokhzad, in 2019 by German cosmopolitan, writer and poet Ilija Trojanow, in 2020 by one of Hungary’s most acclaimed authors, Krisztina Tóth, and in 2021 by one of the leading figures in German poetry, Durs Grünbein. In 2022, the letter was written by Galician poet and activist Chus Pato, in 2023 by English poet David Harsent, in 2024 by Polish poet, writer and translator Jacek Dehnel, and in 2025 by Serbian poet Gojko Božović. This year’s An Open Letter to Europe will be written by poet, essayist and editor Oliver Barbarant.
All Open Letters to Europe are published on the www.stihoteka.com website. They are also sent personally to all Members of the European Parliament, as well as to members of the Council of the European Union and the European Commission. The letters are published by numerous respected European media outlets, including Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Germany), Oslobođenje (Bosnia and Herzegovina), W Magazine (Spain), London Review of Books (United Kingdom), Knack (Belgium), Biblioteka Analiz (Poland), Hungarian Literature Online (Hungary), Express (Croatia), Delo and Večer (Slovenia), as well as the Slovenian Press Agency (STA).
In this way, An Open Letter to Europe transcends national borders and has grown into a pan-European event of significant social and cultural importance.
