SESSION 4 - National histories and differing interpretations of history in the cultural exchanges of young Europeans

During the first European Seminar in 2004 and its preparatory meeting the year before, we had already lengthily discussed the relation between History, Memory and the construction of Europe that occurs in the Young European Theatre Rencontres. We have analyzed these 2 different forms and their relation with past that are Memory (individual, community, emotional approach) and History (scientific, methodic, distanced approach that aims at the universal). We have defined their complementary importance and underlined to what extent they have been present in the shows and the debates of the Rencontres. During the years that have been passing since these debates, our practice has been enriched and I suggest to draw down a conclusions putting forward some unavoidable observations, questions we are confronted to and to highlight some bearings for what we could call an ethics of the memory.

1. First observation: the dialogue of memories is permanent during the Rencontres, and the shedding of a historical light is often requested during the debates. What are the conclusions and how our reflection has been developed?

The diversity of the countries represented in the Rencontres, the growing importance of the Young European Theatre Network, the multiplication of exchanges, co-productions and artists’ residency have their effects as a growing diversity of memories and historical themes highlighted in the shows of the groups. Every group brings with itself a part of history of its country, and the memorial interpretation that is done. All this represent a background in which the young actors are immersed in, and reveal, by little peaces, a history of Europe, until the very little known and even the unknown.

So the Rencontres are a place where, as in a puzzle, the elements of this history are put together and draw a common space that we discover together, and that is Europe.

In the background, the question of the transmission of the collective (family, national) memory to the young generations, and sometimes the excessive weight that this heritage passes on to the young people, has entered the domain of our reflections (example of the show “Warzone” which was performed by Pegasus Theatre of Oxford in 2015, that shows how a young Englishman identifies himself so much to the soldier of a World War that he plays at his high school’s theatre workshop that he loses the ability to distinguish the reality from the fiction and loses the control of his own life). Others, on the contrary, consider that they cannot be held as responsible of the choices made by their ancestors. But is that the question here? What does that mean to accept the heritage in a “right” way? Yet the question is not clearly defined in our debates.

Other subject of reflection: how can we deal with the weight of the past in the actual society, among/between people who experienced it differently? The coexistence in the social life, of people of/from different generations with different memories, sometimes even contradictory, is not simple. The coexistences of people who have made contrary choices in the past is even less simple, as was shown the Theater Im Schuppen of Frankfurt/Oder in its creation “La Fleur de Lotus” during the 15th Rencontres (2003).

2. Second observation: the friendship between the young people created by the work and daily sharing, the almost euphoric joy and the general conviction during the Rencontres “the language barrier and the borders do not exist anymore”, do not protect us from the risk of a unexpectedly showing up of a violent memorial chock.

Two of the most burning examples:

• In 2009, the last day of the 21st Rencontres, the debate on the Russian show “Ballade dans les Alpes” divides the audience in two. At first we hear the eulogies of the heavens, there are many who found it beautiful. But Aneta, the Polish artistic director, denounces the staging as “old-fashioned, manipulative” of this play; “I had the impression to watch a Russian movie of my childhood”, she said, that is to say from at time where communist regime imposed to the artists its esthetic, described as “socialism realism”, identified to the ideological, economic and political domination of the soviet system over the countries of Central Europe. A big debate was necessary in order highlight the importance of the references, conscious or unconscious that structure the emotions and the reasoning of the ones and the others, and that are totally different from one country to another.

• In 2015, two days before the end of the 27th Rencontres, the young Germans of the Heidelberg group declared that they are refusing to play a role of Nazis wearing a swastika in the Parade-Spectacle built on the play of Bertolt Brecht, “Grand-Peur et Misère du IIIème Reich”. They expressed their deep uneasiness to perceived as “the bad Germans” when in the European reality is marked, at that moment, (July 2015) by a crisis that opposes Greece which is plunged in poverty and which refuses to bend down under the creditors principally Germans, and Germany of Angela Merkel. The trust has only been established, within the Rencontres, thanks to several hours of informal discussions, little groups, the evenings out of the program of the Rencontres.

These two moments of tension during the Rencontres illustrate the importance and the diversity of the memorial conflicts which are today held on the edge by the progress of the reconciliation in Europe, but that remains underneath and ready to come out on any occasion. First of all, these conflicts those who divide a same nation (for example between Resistants and Collaborators, under the Nazi Occupation), whose memory is carried on. Secondly, there are conflicts which oppose two nations, that the origins can be ancient, as the bloody chaos has shown (wars, slaughters) that has installed itself in the countries born from the splitting of Yugoslavia, between 1991 and 1995. Finally, to this is added the misunderstanding between the east and west of the Europe since the “Cold War”.

Only the critical and scientific distance of the historical analysis allows to “cool down” all those burning questions between divergent memories.

So it is necessary to work in order to make the global history of the Europe to be a better known and to fight against all the manipulations of the history (always possible). But even this critical and global approach do not resolve all the problems of understanding between Europeans, because every population, every country, played a specific role in the history of Europe. And that role can be felt as an essential element of its identity§. In the complex history and very conflictual of Europe, every collectivity had its own interests and its own values to be defended. The relations of domination have always developed at a same country can find itself successively in the role of the dominant (and so the oppressor) or the dominated (or the victim). These different roles in the history of the Europe are the source of misunderstandings that can degenerate in memorial conflicts strongly charged with emotions.

3. Some points of reference for an ethic of the Memory

As the objective of the Rencontres to allow in all the circumstances, the dialogue between young Europeans, we have elaborated a few rules of behavior that are of an esthetic type and that the validity certainly goes beyond of the frame of the theatre encounters. I highlighted those to fuel our reflection:

3.1.To remember that the memories are naturally plural. We are not looking for an agreement about a kind of illusionary common European memory. The memory divides and it is history that can gather us.

3.2.As much as possible, enlighten the memorial story in relation to the historical one that puts it back in its context.

3.3.So the first rule for me is to listen to the other’s memorial account, by accepting that his memory is as legitimate as mine. Everyone can make a mistake, everyone constantly changes its memorial account, but everyone must be heard and taken into account if it is sincere.

3.4.To accept, during this moment of sharing, to let ourselves to a need to question again, because the story of the other makes wondering. The memories different from mine, and the history of others can enlighten and enrich the knowledge of my own history, and put in perspective the memorial heritage that has been transmitted.

3.5.Try to adapt that history of the other as an element of the European history that is a common history, a common good (and sometimes a burden!).

3.6.Decode together the defended values by men and women of the past, and their battles for freedom, solidarity and democracy.

3.7.Avoid to keep bringing up our wounds and “victimize” ourselves (it is a quirk of our era) and to turn to the future. Accept that there is “the irreparable in our possession, the irreconcilable in our conflicts, the indecipherable in our future (Paul Ricoeur, “The memory, the history, oversight”).

In conclusion, I’d like to say that you have made me discover, being a history teacher that have never performed in a theatre group, that the theatrical practice is an advantage to this ethic that I’ve just described: by “entering in the skin of a character” the actor learns how to put himself in the place to someone else, by playing the role on the stage he also has to take into account the other actors and learn a kind of solidarity. Thank you for showing me friendship and honor to include me into your reflections and by that enlarge and enrich mine.

Documents

Intervention in french : Click on this link to open this document.

Intervention in english : Click on this link to open this document.