Dramaturgie im zeitgenössischen Tanz ist ? positiv gemeint ? ein heißes Eisen. Idealerweise sind Dramaturginnen und Dramaturgen während der Erarbeitung eines Stücks die besten Freunde der Choreografen.
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Elet es Irodalom | HVG | The American Interest | Itogie | Plus - Minus | The Economist | Il Foglio | Przekroj | The New Statesman
Elet es Irodalom 14.12.2007 (Hungary)
A few days ago some three hundred fascists of the "Hungarian Guard" marched in formation through the small village of Tatarszentgyörgy (more), protesting against "gypsy crime." Chief editor Zoltan Kovacs reprehends the country's president Laszlo Solyom, who limited his criticism to a letter read out by his spokesperson. Kovacs would have liked to see the president take a stronger stand, because as he writes, false interpretations of civil liberties have a long tradition in Hungary: "In the 1990s, when anti-Semitic, racist slogans were chanted in football stadiums and the hooligans were allowed back even after mass fighting, it became clear that anything goes in this country. This 'culture' has precipitated into the mass demonstrations and is creating a confusion concerning civil liberties hitherto unknown in people's heads. This could be stemmed, however, if those in high offices spoke out clearly from time to time about what such rights as the freedom of opinion truly mean, and what it can lead to when they are abused."
HVG 15.12.2007 (Hungary)
Journalist Pal Reti, by contrast, would prefer to see more engagement among the Hungarian populace. If he were a Roma he would not be reassured by draft laws of statements by the president. "What might calm my fears, however, would be if the 200 uniformed demonstrators were met and sent packing by 2,000 non-uniformed citizens in my village. Because then my people may not have been promised two aid programmes – but I would think, it's better to have two programmes that never get off the ground than a pogrom in full swing."
The American Interest 17.12.2007 (USA)
The Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa celebrates the mestizaje – the advance of racial mixing in Latin America. And then he says something that many a European, Asian, African or Arabs would do well to take to heart. "Despite Latin America's universality, one of its recurring obsessions has been defining its identity. In my opinion, this is a useless enterprise, dangerous and impossible, because identity is something possessed by individuals and not collectivities, at least once they've transcended tribal conditions. Only in the most primitive communities, where the individual exists only as part of the tribe, does the idea of a collective identity have any raison d'etre." Artists have long overcome this way of thinking, Vargas Llosa says, if only the politicians would follow suit...
Itogie 15.12.2007 (Russia)
Russian crime writer Boris Akunin explains in an interview that he likes to travel to France, where it's always so calm and peaceful! "It's interesting to live in Russia, but you can't work here. You're continually confronted with intelligent people full of enthralling conversation, amusing company in which you can rest and recuperate, or crazed characters who are fascinating to observe. But in my job there are always periods when you long for peace, to talk to no one and be disturbed by nothing. That's why I keep going back to France."
Plus - Minus 15.12.2007 (Poland)
After Chrsitian Estrosi, one of Nicolas Sarkozy's closest aides, visited the tomb of the last French Emperor Napoleon III in an abbey in England, rumours are spreading of plans to return the emperor's remains. The abbey has refuted the claims, however. "Napoleon III is not the sole French monarch buried abroad. Charles X lies in a Franciscan monastery in Slovenia – will his remains be repatriated as well? If things go on like this, soon planes carrying dead French kings will be crisscrossing Europe." This new discussion does go to show, however, that Sarkozy's France doesn't cling so tightly to the idea of republicanism, Piotr Zychowicz comments.
The Economist 15.12.2007 (UK)
A linguistic analysis carried out by the University of Nice shows that Nicolas Sarkozy also uses language differently from his predecessors. He is a verbaholic and indeed the word used most commonly in his speeches is "I" followed by "want". Moreover, "of all the novelties of France under President Nicolas Sarkozy, one of the more arresting is the decline of the abstract noun. In the past, no French leader would make a speech without liberal doses of destiny and history. In one speech Mr Sarkozy's predecessor, Jacques Chirac, squeezed 13 abstract nouns - unity, liberty, humanity and more - into a single sentence. (...) The contrast with the wordcraft of Mr Sarkozy is instructive. In his first big foreign-policy speech, he managed in 18 pages to utter neither the word glory nor the word grandeur." Could it be, the Economist asks, that Sarkozy is changing the French tradition of conceptualism?
And there is a wonderful obituary of Karlheinz Stockhausen, the man "who kept on looking and finding tones that had never been heard before." "His most famous piece, and possibly his most popular - though he was never popular - was 'Stimmung', or 'Tuning' (1968), a sextet for unaccompanied voices on a six-note chord of B-flat that sounded sometimes like a digeridoo and sometimes like blowing across the top of the bottle, and in which the most beautiful harmonics would be interrupted by this:
'Pee peri pee pee: right over my tree
Let it gently run down
God is that warm.'
Small wonder that Sir Thomas Beecham, asked if he had conducted any Stockhausen, said no, but he thought he might once have trodden in some." A concert of Stockhausen's works in available online at BBC until 22 December.
There are also reviews of Karen Armstrong's biography of the Bible, Benjamin J. Kaplan's history of religious tolerance in Early Modern Europe, of Denise Affonco's book about her survival under the Khmer Rouge and of a collection of Noel Coward's letters.
Il Foglio 15.12.2007 (Italy)
"People are speculating in Frankfurt, shuddering in Essen, home of the Krupp enterprise, and dying in Turin." Shortly before Christmas, the otherwise rather conservative Foglio demonstrates solidarity for employees of the Krupp steel mill in Turin, where four workers died in a fire a week ago. Investigations into possible security violations are currently underway. Stefano Cingolani uses the occasion to relate a few stories about Krupp's involvement with the Nazis during World War II, before delving into the fanatical society of sworn-in Kruppianers, or Krupp employees: "True Kruppianers accept their fate, to the bitter end. Not like the Italian workers, who aren't real Kruppianers and never will be. Dying in the steelwork in Turin is not the same as dying in Essen, where for more than a century, no matter under which government, the group's employees were cared for from cradle to grave."
Przekroj 13.12.2007 (Poland)
Just days before Poland implements the Schengen Agreement, Katarzyna Jaroszynska reports from the new eastern border of the EU. With EU aid, Polish border police now have state of the art equipment, and receive lessons in following people's trails from Native Americans. "It's an endless game of cat and mouse: the border guards dress up as fishermen, the smugglers play confused tourists. Both sides are particularly active at night. And both sides are excellently prepared. Ultramodern equipment, GPS receivers and fast cars are standard. Success requires enormous concentration, huge amounts of time and patience, as well as untold hours spent in the woods at night."
The New Statesman 13.12.2007 (UK)
"I must say I'd rather wish you 'Happy Christmas' than 'Happy Holiday Season' writes of all people arch-atheist Richard Dawkins, clearly no fan of full blown secularism: "Americans coyly wish each other 'Happy Holiday Season' and spend vast amounts on 'Holiday' presents. For all I know, they hang up a 'Holiday stocking' and sing 'Holiday carols' around the decorated 'Holiday tree'. A red-coated 'Father Holiday' has not so far been sighted, but this is surely only a matter of time.… Fortunately, this is not the only choice: 25 December is the birthday of one of the truly great men ever to walk the earth, Sir Isaac Newton. His achievements might justly be celebrated wherever his truths hold sway. And that means from one end of the universe to the other. Happy Newton Day!"
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The Republicans are waging a war against women, the New York Magazine declares. Perhaps it's because women are so unabashed about reading porn in public - that's according to publisher Beatriz de Moura in El Pais Semanal, at least. Polityka remembers Operation Reinhard. Tensions are growing between Poland and Hungary as Victor Orban spreads his influence, prompting ruminations on East European absurdity from both Elet es Irodalom and salon.eu.sk. Wired is keeping its eyes peeled on the only unassuming sounding Utah Data Center.
In Telerama, Benjamin Stora grabs hold of the Algerian boomerang. In Eurozine, Slavenka Drakulic tells the Venetians that they should be very scared of Chinese money. Bela Tarr tells the Frankfurter Rundschau and the Berliner Zeitung that his "Turin Horse", which ends in total darkness was not intended to depress. In die Welt, historian Dan Diner cannot agree with Timothy Snyder's "Bloodlands": National Socialism was not like Communism - because of Auschwitz.
In Perfil author Martin Kohn explains why Argentina would be less
Argentinian if it won back the Falklands. In Il sole 24 ore, Armando
Massarenti describes the Italians as a pack of illiterates sitting atop a
treasure trove. Polityka introduces the Polish bestseller of the season:
Danuta Walesa's autobiography. L'Express looks into the state of
Japanese literature one year after Fukushima.
In Merkur, Stephan Wackwitz muses on poetry and absurdity in Tiflis. Outlook India happens on the 1980s Indian answer to "The Artist". Bloomberg Businessweek climbs into the cuckoo's nest with the German Samwar brothers. Salon.eu.sk learns how to line the pockets of a Slovenian politician. In the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Navid Kermani reports back impressed from the Karachi Literature Festival. 
In La Vie des idees, historian Anastassios Anastassiadis explains why we should go easy on Greece. Author Aleksandar Hemon describes in Guernica how ethnic identity is indoctrinated in the classroom in Bosnia and Herzogovina. In Eurozine, Klaus-Michael Bogdal examines how Europe invented the Gypsies. Elet es Irodalon praises the hygiene obsession of German journalists. And Polityka pinpoints Polish schizophrenia.
The New Republic sees a war being waged in the USA against women's rights. For Rue89, people who put naked women on the front page of a newspaper should not be surprised if they go to jail. In Elet es Irodalom, historian Mirta Nunez Daaz-Balart explains why the wounds of the Franco regime never healed. In Eurozine, Stephen Holmes and Ivan Krastev see little in common between the protests in Russia and those in the Arab world.
In Letras Libras Enrique Krauze and Javier Sicilia fight over anarchy levels. In Elet es Irodalom Balint Kadar wants Budapest to jump on the Berlin bandwagon. In Le Monde Imre Kertesz has given up practically all hope for a democratic Hungary. Polityka ponders poetic inspiration and Wislawa Szymborska's "I don't know". In Espressso, Umberto Eco gets eschatological.
Poland's youth have taken to the streets to protest against Acta and Donald Tusk has listened, Polityka explains. Himal and the Economist report on the repression of homosexuality in the Muslim world. Outlook India doesn't understand why there will be no "Dragon Tattoo" film in India. And in Eurozine, Slavenka Drakulic looks at how close the Serbs are to eating grass.
In the French Huffington Post, philosopher Catherine Clement explains why the griot Youssou N'Dour had next to no chance of becoming Senegal's president. Peter Sloterdijk (in Le Monde) and Umberto Eco (in Espresso) share their thoughts about forgetting. Al Ahram examines the post-electoral depression of Egypt's young revolutionaries. And in Eurozine, Kenan Malik defends freedom of opinion against those who want the world to go to sleep.
Il Sole Ore weeps at the death of a laughing Vincenzo Consolo. In Babelia, Javier Goma Lanzon cries: Praise me, please! Osteuropa asks: Hungaria, quo vadis? The newborn French Huffington Post heralds the birth of the individual in the wake of the Arab Spring. Outlook India is infuriated by the cowardliness of Indian politicians in the face of religious fanatics.
In Nepszabadsag the dramatist György Spiro recognises 19th century France in Hungary today. Peter Nadas, though, in Lettre International and salon.eu.sk, is holding out hope for his country's modernisation. In Open Democracy, Boris Akunin and Alexei Navalny wish Russia was as influential as America - or China. And in Lettras Libras, Peter Hamill compares Mexico with a mafia film by the Maquis de Sade.
Are books about to become a sort of author-translator wiki, asks Il Sole 24 Ore. Rue 89 reports on the "Tango Wars" in downtown Buenos Aires. Elet es Irodalom posits a future for political poetry. In Merkur, Mikhail Shishkin encounters Russian pain in Switzerland. Die Welt discovers the terror of the new inside the collapse of the old in Andrea Breth's staging of Isaak Babel's "Maria". And Poetry Foundation waits for refugees in Lampedusa. 
Technology Review sees Apple as the next Big Brother. In Eurozine, Per Wirten still fears the demons of the European project. Al Ahram Weekly features Youssef Rakha's sarcastic "The honourable citizen manifesto". Revista Piaui profiles Iraqi-Norwegian geologist Farouk Al-Kasim. Slate.fr comments on the free e-book versions of Celine's work. And Die Welt celebrates the return of Palais Schaumburg.
Andre Glucksman in Tagesspiegel looks at the impact of the Putinist plague on Russia and Europe. In Letras Libras Martin Caparros celebrates the Kindle as book. György Dalos has little hope that Hungary's intellectuals can help get their country out of the doldrums. Le Monde finds Cioran with his head up the skirt of a young German woman. The NYT celebrates the spread of N'Ko, the West African text messaging alphabet.
MicroMega cheers recent landmark Mafia convictions in Milan. Volltext champions Hermann Broch. Elet es Irodalom calls the Orban government’s attack on cultural heritage "Talibanisation". Magyar Narancs is ambiguous about new negotiations with the IMF. Telerama recommends the icon of anti-colonialism Frantz Fanon. Salon.eu.sk quips about the dubious election results in Russia, and voices in the German press mark the passing of Christa Wolf. And in the Anglophone press Wired profiles Jeff Bezos, while the Columbia Journalism Review polemicises the future of internet journalism.