Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe. From West to East

 

The Council of Europe’s “Europe, a common heritage” campaign raises the question of how European can discover, or rediscover, the foundations of their community. The Cultural Routes programme has, to a certain extent, sought to address this question since 1987, by encouraging partners to share experiences and undertake activities on a multicultural basis, and making Europe’s “visitors” more aware of their shared roots.

 

A / Methodology and Utopia

 

            What is A Cultural Route?

           

            Before presenting the importance held by the dimension of West and East co-operation  within the framework of the Cultural Routes, I deem it important to review a few of the characteristic features of the very programme of Cultural Routes.

 

            It is always useful to repeat that a “cultural route”, in the sense attributed to this concept by the Council of Europe, is not only a physical itinerary, even when it is practiced on specific sites, and even if there are quite a few cases when such an itinerary follows, fairly closely, the paths traced by Europeans for their pilgrimages, their commercial exchanges, or their discoveries.  First of all, a cultural route is characterised by a great European topic, in a position to emphasise various fundamental problems, i.e. identity, inter-cultural features, memory, viz. such topics on the basis of which a set of actions are being defined and motivated by one or several networks of partners, which are responsible for putting them into practice.

 

            The Council of Europe sponsors the choice and the election of the new topics, while the European Institute for Cultural Routes (EICR) is in charge of the supervision of the activities and networks, which put them into practice. The Institute is equally responsible for the reception of the new thematic proposals, which might enrich the general framework. Eventually, the Institute must also ensure all the documentation, information, and communication means.

 

            Thus, to take such steps that a cultural route becomes an actual, developing phenomenon, is not a mere management activity, although regular evaluations are a must. First of all, a close support is necessary, which has to be ensured from the origins of a proposal to the turning to account of actual results. Often enough, an engineering work is also required, so that, within a convention of aims, the Institute is responsible, to its partners or co-producers, for the achievement of a cultural production or product, viz. an exhibition, a book,…

           

            But, first and foremost, the Institute is responsible for guiding its partners, for providing the landmarks of their work, for identifying new cooperation coordinates for them, and for expanding a given topic to a maximum of European countries, starting from a maximum number of ways of approach considered appropriate for that topic. As regards the Parks and Gardens project, the Institute has received an even more essential mission, viz. to transform this programme into a demonstrative methodological instrument.          

 

Garden of three cultures. Madrid, Spain. Photo : Jacques de Givry.

A Realistic Utopia

 

            Yet another important detail should not be forgotten either, i.e. the Cultural Routes programme of the Council of Europe was designed, by the latter institution, as a “realistic utopia”. And so it has proved to be, since, as far as this programme is concerned, the political demand has stood, from the very beginning, at the crossroads of three, apparently contradictory, approaches.

 

-        First, there was an ethical and political approach concerning culture, and cultural heritage. This type of approach was rooted in the defense and diffusion of fundamental European values, viz. of strong universal values. Such an approach equally involves for charts and recommendations, which have the force of law in those countries, which have ratified them. It is this very approach that should be made visible, and even “touchable”, closest to the Europeans’ living sites, for the inhabitants of the countries concerned, as well as for visitors. Moreover, one of the basic questions was to take into account the fact that two parts of Europe had to find in this programme not only the means of learning how to work together again, even better still, to confront and comprehend their differences, viz. to analyse why, and on what basis, these two blocks had been opposed for so many years.

 

-        But it is fairly obvious that this approach is a really scientific one, based on the search for authenticity, and on the widest confrontation of multifarious cultural points of view and of complementary identities.

 

-        Eventually, this is also a development approach, which should take into account local realities, economic needs, and fairly specific cultural and human circumstances, so that cultural and heritage projects should not only become a fact, but should also steer a long-lasting development.

 

Therefore, if we were to summarise the characteristics of this utopia, its basic aim is to yield cultural and “tourist” products, implemented on specific territories, accessible to most people; the appropriate interpretation and mediation discourse, for these products should contribute to a better dialogue and to a better mutual understanding among Europeans, while bringing together their disparate memories.

 

B / The West-East dimension

 

Sofia, Bulgaria. Faculty of architecture. Todor Krestev. 

            

Political dimension

 

Paradoxically enough, the consciousness of a dimension as political tool within the networks of cultural routes has not been really taken into account until quite recently. Nevertheless, ever since the election of the Santiago de Compostela routes, in 1987, by the Council of Europe, the question of going across landscape from West to East or reverse has been a central dimension of cultural routes. 

This dimension has not been always explicitly emphasised, but it has been always essential to the “physical” experience of all itineraries. It is fairly obvious that the cultural and heritage approach, which has governed – or led to – the search of the scientific content of the topics, has been, more often than not, a historical approach, meant to point out traces and to turn to best value the meaning held by these traces in a contrasting and rich account of European history. 

In the same way, the ancient human constituent (archaeological traces, writings, songs, narratives …), or the recent constituent (artifacts, working places, living places, the experience of performance, journey narratives …) have allowed researchers to give both meaning and depth to the new accommodation requirements. In other words, if the temporal and human dimension have been always taken into consideration, the political dimension, as well as the dimension of territory and town planning, protection of landscape, social integration and  must of all “reconciliation goals” and “reconstruction” of Europe have been  in most cases considered only as a side effect. 

This feature is mostly accounted for by the fact that, as a rule, most institutions and administrations involved in the programme of “Cultural Routes” lay stress only on the term “cultural” and only think about historical and human itineraries. But this explanation can be also phrased in a different way: only seldom do cultural services collaborate closely with foreign affairs services or with land planning services. The recent aim to sustain the south-eastern Europe Stability Pact through cultural co-operation development : enhancement of a common heritage, protection of minorities expressions throughout borders, re-establishment of structural axes (through routes, itineraries, rivers…)…finds a perfect tool in the cultural routes programme.

 

            Networks of European West-East dimension

 

            It is quite obvious that regarding the themes chosen to explore the Southeast of Europe by ICOMOS sections, some efforts have been done since 1987 to link West and East Europe. It dares to say that Eastern and Central European countries adopted the idea of European Routes as rapidly as possible when their governments decided to enter a process of European integration.

 

I should mention a few:

 

-        Rural habitat and rural dwellings. Since 1998, two sessions of a competition devoted to recent architectural interventions in rural areas of Central and Eastern European countries took place. Very good projects and practices were coming for example from Romania or Bulgaria.

 

-        Religious heritage of Europe. Monastic influence was the key issue of the first “College of European citizenship” linking five European countries, five European Universities and five spiritual places among them the Orthodox Academy of Crete and Romanian  monasteries of Oltenia and Bucovina. We have also to mention important seminars in Slovenia and Greece  regarding monastic influence and the recent but close co-operation between Bulgaria and Greece that was achieved through the publication of extensive guidebooks published in four European languages. It should not be forgotten also that an extensive work was engaged on Baroque heritage in Central and Eastern Europe and that pilgrim’s routes are also concerning Croatia and Slovenia.

 

-        The Textile Heritage has also been subject to numerous meetings and seminar under the aegis of the European Textile Network.

 

-        Fortifications. Not only the Institute is developing a network throughout Europe regarding military fortified architecture, but with the help of National Monuments and Sites National Service of Luxembourg we are contributing to launch cities itineraries based on the interpretation of fortifications through the influence of architects: Middle-Age in Luxembourg and Sibiu (Romania), XVIIth century with Vauban’s innovations from North Europe to the limits of Austrian-Hungarian Empire. 

 

 

Sofia, Bulgaria. Photo MTP.

C / Practical suggestions

 

            Achieving such a fruitful initiative as Southeast European cultural routes needs to be very clear on necessary steps.

 

In the short-run.

 

One of the first choice we have, in order to link the initiative of ICOMOS and the initiative of the Council of Europe is certainly to contribute adding experiences and skills of specific experts in the fields and themes we have in common: i.e. archaeology, rural houses, religious heritage, fortifications…The methodology developed within the Cultural Routes programme of the Council of Europe could be a very good guide as it developed a lot of study cases implementing five linked fields and issues: research on European cultural values, European interpretation of heritage, involvement of young Europeans, practice of arts and crafts, sustainable development and sustainable tourism.

            After this first step devoted to identification, it seems that there is a lot to do in the long-run in order to make these routes a reality for visitors.  Among these issues, one of the firsts is certainly training. Along with specialists (archaeologists, architects, specialists of monument’s restoration, protection and interpretation…) there is a great need of “generalists” able to deal with the complexity of project engineering. To be implemented with European, public and private finances and funds, a cultural route project requests the establishment of a network of various competence and skills and, of course, a very careful management of all these capacities and sensibilities.

            This could certainly be a contribution of the European Institute of Cultural Routes to train in Luxembourg and in specific cultural routes sectors young professionals and  students coming from the various fields needed. The bi-lateral cooperation agreements between Luxembourg and the countries of Southeast areas could certainly contribute as a source of funding for commissioning such a short-term project.

            Some pilot Trans-border projects should be chosen and implemented as true European co-operations. This is certainly the only way to demonstrate at the same time the economic efficiency of these initiatives but also their contribution to something which for these countries is as important as money: the democratic stability.

            A new phase of European cultural routes is certainly opening for the years to come. The Institute will be very proud to be part of this achievement in a larger Europe.

 

Sofia, Bulgaria. Photo MTP.

Speech held at the International workshop “Cultural itineraries of South-Eastern Europe”   September 16 – 17 2000 – Sofia (Bulgaria).

 

Mr. Thomas-Penette is Director of the European Institute of Cultural Routes