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On the occasion of the 5th anniversary of the inauguration of the Cultural Centre an anthology in Lithuanian is published
Summary by Leonore Martin and Heiko Stern
This anthology has been published on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the Thomas Mann Cultural Centre (TMCC) in Nida, founded in 1995 by the Lithuanian Ministry of Cultural Affairs, Klaipėda University and the municipality of Neringa. It is located in the former summer-house of Thomas Mann, where the Nobel Prize winner spent the summers with his family from 1930-1932. The centre is led by an international board of trustees which is also responsible for the program. Three assistants operate locally on its realization. Furthermore the TMCC is co-operating among others with the following institutions: Robert Bosch Foundation (Stuttgart), Goethe Institute (Vilnius), Academia Baltica (Lübeck) and Case Mann (Paraty/ Brazil). In these anthology a collection of articles by several members of the board of trustees can be found as well as by friends and companions of the centre.
Stasys Vaitekunas, rector of Klaipėda University, outlines in his preface the significance Thomas Mann has for Europe and independent Lithuania as well as the intention for founding the TMCC.
Historian Alvydas Nikžentaitis, chairman of the board of trustees from 1995 until 2000, draws a conclusion from five years work in his article To the Fifth Anniversary of the Thomas Mann Cultural Centre. He elaborates in detail the co-operation with other institutions without which the success of the TMCC would have been impossible. A listing of all events from 1996 until 2000 can be found in the appendix.
Ruth Kibelka, while working as a scientific assistant at the TMCC from 1996-1999, was responsible for the conception and organisation of numerous conferences and seminars. Under the title Under the Auspices of an Absent Leader she looks back at the academic work in the center: "How many people may have gathered around the dinner-table of the Mann family? Rarely more then ten. Nowadays sometimes 20-30 young people are sitting in the living room or on the terrace, listening intently or debating animatedly. Sometimes topics of German studies are involved, and students from different Baltic universities discuss the significance of a correspondence between authors. At the other time aspects of regional history are discussed or the students listen to a lecture on the history of Jews in Lithuania. Especially during meetings on non-German topics a Babylonian language tangle often rises with Lithuanian, English, German, Polish and Russian being spoken in a riddle."
Musicologist Ona Narbutienė is annually responsible for the musical program of the Thomas Mann Festival. The festival takes place regularly in July and is one of the highlights every summer in Nida. Specific topics such as Thomas Mann and Richard Wagner (1998), Thomas Mann and the myth (2000) and Thomas Mann and the North (2001) make a synthesis of concerts, readings, exhibitions, theatre performances and movie shows. She describes the development of the festival as one whose concept is based on the connection of Thomas Mann to music.
Dietmar Albrecht, director of Ostsee Academie (now Academia Baltica) points out in his contribution named "New neighbours" the special responsibility the Thomas Mann Cultural Center has for the new Europe of regions. He appreciates the deserving co-operation between the Cultural Center and the Ostsee Academie. According to the story about Joseph he understands the leaving of Heimat as a positive process that results in a more of freedom, the freedom to accept all what's different. In his article he demands everybody to follow Joseph and to increase due to this freedom the co-operation among the Baltics and especially with Germany and Russia. These in particular is the task of the Cultural Center in order to become a meeting place for all who put themselves out for a unifying Europe.
Hans Wißkirchen, director of the Buddenbrook-House in Lübeck, describes the Nobel Prize winner's political development: "[...] during his exile, from a conservative follower of the German Empire to a cosmopolitan." At the end of the article he wonders about the relevance of political opinion and draws the conclusion: "He [Thomas Mann] postulates a double unity, the German and the European, although during the fifties neither were on history's agenda. He proposed it because of his own personal history and the experiences he had resulting from his sceptical humanism and the numerous historical crises and conflicts between 1914 and 1955: such an utopia seems to be the only deliverance from a third, all-destructive world war. What was an utopia for Thomas Mann has now become reality."
For writer Frido Mann the Thomas Mann House is at the same time a piece of the family story. He already knew of its existence from his childhood: "Even during our exile in California I heard my father Michael, then still a young man, talking several times about this house. After the end of the war, with his memories still fresh in his mind and full of a kind of homesickness for Europe, he told me many stories about the wonderful holidays they spent during the summers between 1930 and 1932, about playing native Indians in the forests, the elks, the high dunes and the sea." Frido Mann - now a member of the board of trustees of the TMCC - outlines in his article the relations between the institution in Nida and the Julia Mann Cultural Centre in Paraty (Brazil), founded on his initiative.
Lithuanian journalist Raimonda Norkienė took the opportunity to talk to the editor of Thomas Mann's diaries, Inge Jens, during her stay in Nida. They were talking about Thomas Mann, the significance of his work and his relationship to his children. This interview has already been published in the Klaipeda daily and has been provided once again for this anthology.
Polish historian Robert Traba, also a member of the board of trustees, refers to the summer-house of Thomas Mann in his text "A Bus to Nida", not by referring to the Nobel Prize winner but in a geographical way. He describes the different possibilities to reach Lithuania from Poland. With the help of these fictional tours, in which some difficulties are experienced, he presents the current state and perspectives for development of a common German- Polish- Russian- Lithuanian cultural co-operation.
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