Fragile Realities: Discussions among Writers about Contemporary Europe 257 Fragile Realities: Discussions among Writers about Contemporary Europe Anke S� Biendarra University of California, Irvine Abstract: The essay analyzes recent responses by intellectuals to the discourse of “crisis” concerning Europe’s unity and its future, which has been dominating discussions about the European project� It first surveys the European Writers Conference held in Berlin in 2014 and interprets its Manifesto, then analyzes a series of letter exchanges between European authors that was published in 2016-17� Both of these endeavors, which have involved about sixty writers from inside and outside of the E�U�, give insight into how intellectuals view the current state of Europe and how they configure what might be called a European cultural identity in the twenty-first century� Through a dialogue that promotes the significance of a public sphere in and about Europe, the projects showcase the difference between political and cultural discourse� They are read here as an attempt to reestablish a European Republic of Letters that should play a prominent role in the continuation and reorientation of the European cultural project� Keywords: European public sphere, Europe’s future, European Writers Conference, letter exchange FRAGILE “Europa geht bergab, und am Ende ist immer das Meer” 1 In the summer of 2003, the literary journal Literaturen, which in the aughts was considered Germany’s most influential popular literary publication, published an issue whose topical focus was on Europa. Schöne alte Welt� On the occasion of then U�S� Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s haughty comments about a sclerotic and old-fashioned “Old Europe,” the editorial staff - Sigrid Löffler and Hanna Leitgeb among them - asked a number of writers about their personal views on Europe and its current condition� 2 In this moment, just after the U�S� 258 Anke S� Biendarra invasion of Iraq and ahead of the Eastern expansion of the European Union in 2004, most writers focused on the role of the United States and on Europe’s attempts to find its role in a changing field of power� Yet despite singularly negative comments such as Peter Handke’s “Europa? Es war einmal,” most expressed confidence and hope about a more unified future of common European interests� Historian Hans Mommsen even spoke of an already existing “europäisches Solidaritätsbewusstsein” and predicted that national interests would now take a back seat in favor of European values� Fast forward fifteen years, and Europe seems once again dazed and disoriented, both about its current state and its future� In a time of extraordinary uncertainty about the sustainability of the European project and ongoing turmoil in the political landscape of the E�U� (a rise of nationalist and neofascist discourses across the continent, England’s Brexit, Spain’s separatist movements, France’s gilet jaunes protests of Emmanuel Macron’s policies, to name just a few of the pressing issues du jour in 2019), all European values and ideologies seem to have come under scrutiny� Even achievements that were once considered indisputably positive, such as mobility and open borders within the Schengen zone, are now being questioned or have already been retracted� 3 Quite contrary to Mommsen’s prediction in 2003, national interests dominate European politics as of late, cementing the impression that “crisis” is the predominant mode that drives current discussions about the state of Europe and its future� 4 This essay illuminates some recent responses by intellectuals to this discourse of crisis� Focused on different genres of public speech, it first surveys the European Writers Conference that was held in Berlin in 2014 and interprets its Manifesto� 5 Second, it analyzes a series of online letter exchanges between European authors under the heading “FRAGILE� Europäische Korrespondenzen,” in which fourteen German-language writers entered into a dialogue with a partner� 6 In a time of doubt about European values and ideologies, these cultural projects give insight into how intellectuals view the current state of the European project� Do they still imagine Europe as a model that could reflect back upon contemporary societies and influence or even change them? How do they view their own role and engagement for the European idea? In my reading, these intellectual engagements emerge as a contemporary version on the idea of Habermas’ public sphere, as an imaginary community in which “political participation is enacted through the medium of talk,” in an arena of discursive interaction and democratic practice, as Nancy Fraser put it (110)� Along the same lines, they prove to be an important avenue to counteract the “democratic deficit” that has plagued the E�U� since its inception� The exchanges performed here thus participate not only in the formation of political will (“politische Willensbildung des Volkes,” a phrase used in Article 21 of the Fragile Realities: Discussions among Writers about Contemporary Europe 259 German Basic Law) but also encourage a dialogue that ultimately promotes a more diverse public sphere� Finally, these projects delineate a development: from a discourse of hopeful skepticism in the early aughts to one of outright despair about the state of Europe at the end of the first two decades of the millennium� In contemporary literature written in Europe, similarities in topics and motives are plentiful� Yet this might be not so much a sign of a European, rather than of an international prose literature that often locates the global in the local and vice versa� For example, in recent novels that focus on the experience of refugees in various European countries, one finds an engagement with many of the issues that dominate current debates in Europe and the United States� Topics such as racism, the civil rights of refugees, or religious belonging and tolerance are rendered in novels such as Jenny Erpenbeck’s gehen, ging, gegangen (2015) and Abbhas Khider’s Ohrfeige (2015) in Germany, Shumona Sinha’s Assomons les pauvres! (2011; transl� Erschlagt die Armen! 2015) in France or Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West (2017) in England� So while comparable interests do exist in the literary public spheres of Europe, this fact alone does not delineate a shared cultural present� In order to map European literatures as European, one needs to identify and analyze what Christoph Parry has called transnational structures and horizons within literary production (50—51), and the projects introduced here signify just that, as my analysis will show� Within a taxonomy of European literatures, the documents analyzed in this essay fall within a heuristic category that one could call ‘a discourse on or about Europe�’ It comprises texts in which Europe figures prominently as a space or topic (Ivanovic 36), as well as texts that either seek to categorize Europe or comment critically on it� Naturally, this category is permeable and not limited to European authors or texts written on the continent, as Paul Michael Lützeler and other scholars have shown in their documentations of the literary discourse about Europe� 7 One basic tenet that defines this category and the debates I am pursuing pertains to the ways in which culture and literature produce a form of knowledge that due to its focus on aesthetics is not oriented toward a defined goal, yet still specific and helpful in its potential “normative Formen von Lebenspraxis und Lebensvollzug nicht nur in Szene zu setzen, sondern auch performativ […] zur Disposition zu stellen” (Ette 13)� In this context, it becomes clear that literature has a central function in the development of a European identity and that its creators have been assigned a constructive role in imagining it� The idea of the European Writers Conference harks back to 1988, when a number of eminent writers convened in Berlin to discuss the topic Ein Traum 260 Anke S� Biendarra von Europa and reflected on the question how the division of Europe along an East-West axis could be overcome� A year later of course, the Berlin Wall fell unexpectedly, and the Iron Curtain came down in its wake, leading to the eventual accession of many Central and Eastern European countries to the E�U� Twenty-five years later, in 2014, a group of writers revived the idea of an international writers’ conference - this time entitled Traum und Wirklichkeit - to congregate again in Berlin� On the initiative of authors Tilman Spengler, Nicol Ljubić, Mely Kiyak, Antje Rávic Strubel and then SPD party leader Frank-Walter Steinmeier, thirty authors from twenty-four countries met to discuss the current state of Europe, how populism and nationalism are threatening the European idea, what writers could do for Europe, and what role literature could play in the European cultural consciousness� In this context, it was important to the organizers “unsere Gedanken zu Europa nicht an den Grenzen der Europäischen Union enden zu lassen, sondern unsere Aufmerksamkeit auf die Peripherie zu lenken” (Ljubić, Traum 9) and to include as many authors as possible from outside of the E�U�, in order to showcase their own perception of the “periphery” and to point out that “Europas kulturelle Realitäten sind nicht deckungsgleich mit Europas politischen Realitäten” (28)� The conference was an attempt to establish an ongoing conversation among authors, both about the dreams they might have for a European future and Europe’s political realities� The first day of the gathering, which not coincidentally fell on May 8, 2014 and thus the sixty-ninth anniversary of the end of World War Two, comprised four panels and ended with the “Long Night of European Literature” at the Deutsches Theater where ten of the invited writers read from their works and presented a common “Manifest�” 8 Analyzing a number of recent manifestos on the topic of Europe, John H� Smith notes that “a vision is not worth anything if it is not made manifest” (10)� In his essay, he describes their “imperative mood” and the underlying fundamental questions that attempt to sketch “a Europe that can move radically beyond […] even a mere collection of nation states” (11)� Given this interpretation and the surge of recent manifestos that have been discussed animatedly in the public sphere - for example, Stéphane Hessel’s widely read Indignez-vous! (2010) or the “Manifest für die Begründung einer europäischen Republik” (2013) by Robert Menasse and Ulrike Guérot - it is not surprising that the European Writers Conference also aimed for a tangible outcome of the gathering, beyond the videos archived online and a documentation in book form� Yet this Manifesto is an unusual document� Generally, manifestos present the basic tenets of a group, often in an attempt to demarcate the members’ ideas critically from those of others� Many also contain a public declaration of goals, a shared vision or an appeal to political action (Spörl)� Here, however, Fragile Realities: Discussions among Writers about Contemporary Europe 261 the organizers opted for individual texts of varying lengths and poetic measure instead of one carefully composed appeal� We find a range of literary genres, from statements of one sentence to poems to short stories� Many of the texts use metaphors and images to make the abstract concept of ‘Europe’ more legible for the audience� For example, Croatian poet Ivana Simić Bodrožić writes about the European family and reminds us that Europe extends far beyond the political borders of the E�U�: “Europa ist der reiche Onkel aus Berlin und die hübsche Tante aus Frankreich� Europa ist der exzentrische Cousin aus Amsterdam� Europa bleibt bis zum Beweis des Gegenteils (meist in der privaten Beziehung) ein Stereotyp� Die Mitte Europas liegt in Bosnien-Herzegovina, im Kosovo, auf der Krim und in der Ukraine” (Ljubić, Traum 161)� To really understand what today’s Europe entails, a bird’s-eye perspective is helpful; Europeans tend not to know what Europe is “weil zuviel Deutschland, Slowenien, zuviel Ukraine und Bosnien im Weg stehen,” according to Slowenian author Goran Vojnović (161)� Many of the writers are critical of Europe, such as Romanian Nicoleta Esinencu who writes “Fuck you, Europa / Europa - American Dream / Europa - Freiheit auf Raten” (159)� Others take a more lighthearted approach, like Dane Janne Teller in her poem “Liebe Welt, küsse einen Europäer, die brauchen das� / Liebes Europa, küsse die Welt, du brauchst es” (161)� Overall though, one can group the contributions roughly into four categories - political, literary, polemical, and humorous� There are some openly political statements, but strangely only a few that comment explicitly on the domain of literature and culture� The ‘European quality’ of these varied texts lies precisely in the range of topics and forms, as well as in a constant reflection of the Eurocentrism of the European project� As such, it is possible to read the Manifesto as a literary manifestation of what Christine Ivanovic has called “europäische Schreibweise�” 9 All superordinate concepts addressed in the Manifesto are anchored in the political sphere, even if culture as a reference point remains important in many of the individual texts� In the following graphic, I have extrapolated common thematical strands that link the texts and abstracted superordinate terms from them, in an attempt to analyze further the diverse ideas that make up the Manifest� The concepts are in order of descending frequency of mention� 262 Anke S� Biendarra Given the primary identity of the contributors as writers and artists, the subordination of “culture” and “tradition” is surprising� Yet it also pointedly reveals how discussions of European cultural identities are concurrently rooted in the political� While the political discourse in the public sphere contributes most to this, another reason might be the historical understanding of the E�U� The project of European integration, frequently referenced in the Manifesto, was primarily a political peace project that sought to prevent future European wars� Winston Churchill, in his famous 1946 Zurich speech, declared that the “re-creation of the European family” and “a structure under which it can dwell in peace, safety and freedom” was the remedy that would transform a “tormented, hungry, careworn” continent into something “as free and happy as Switzerland�” (8) It is often overlooked that the focus on European integration with a view to the development of a balanced, supranational economy was not a primary focus until the 1950s, beginning with the Paris Treaty that came into effect in July 1953 (Vergara)� The institutional framing of the European Writers Conference could also have steered the attending writers towards political notions� Even though the organizers stress that Frank-Walter Steinmeier participated in the original planning not in his later role as foreign minister (and now the German President) but as party leader of the SPD (Ljubić, Traum 8 and 15), his involvement, both in the planning phase and later as a keynote speaker lent the events both clout and general interest, which is documented in the large media echo both the 2014 and 2016 conferences generated� 10 At least in 2014, the interdependence of the German paradigm Geist und Macht was also augmented by Geld, when the Alfred-Herrhausen-Gesellschaft, i�e�, the International Forum of Deutsche Bank, Fragile Realities: Discussions among Writers about Contemporary Europe 263 sponsored the event and provided the location in its offices Unter den Linden in Berlin� 11 In the concluding discussion with two of the organizers, Michael Naumann, former state minister of culture and media under then chancellor Gerhard Schröder, criticized the tone of melancholia and the absence of the notion of freedom writ large from the 2014 Manifesto� Naumann questioned whether Europe was “ein abgeschriebenes Projekt” and implied that its potential to generate dreams and excitement seemed limited for the writers who were present� And indeed, many of the contributions are unemotional and seem restrained� I would argue, however, that the fact that ‘freedom’ is not addressed as a central category has to do with generational differences between Naumann (who was born in 1941) and the predominantly younger generation of authors present at the event, many of whom were born in the 1970s and thus do not share the experience of World War Two and the Holocaust that shaped Naumann’s generation� Many of the younger writers did, however, live through both the division of Europe under communism and the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s� For this reason and due to the Crimea crisis that developed concurrently to the 2014 conference, notions of “democracy” and “opportunities” are writ large in the Manifesto, as my graphic rendering illustrates� The conceptual pair that features most prominently in my graphic is that of “center” and “periphery,” which is closely entwined with “borders” and “freedom,” even if “freedom” is only used a couple of times verbatim, as Naumann noted� Faruk Šehić (born in 1970 in Bosnia) comments first on the geographical and cultural realm of Europe and its customs, myths, and narratives, before noting: “Heute ist der Begriff Europa verbunden mit der Europäischen Union, und der gegenüber stehen wir vom Balkan auf der ärmeren Seite der mit Stacheldraht gesicherten Grenze� Für uns stellt die Idee des vereinten Europas eine Art Himmel auf Erden dar� […] Insofern sollten wir uns wohl glücklich schätzen, dass wir von drittklassigen zu zweitklassigen Europäern aufgestiegen sind” (Ljubić, Traum 158, trans� Brigitte Döbert)� The notion of “being less than” that Šehić expresses is, I would argue, centrally linked to the tension between center and periphery that has characterized the European experience throughout the twentieth century 12 and continues to vex the E�U� “Center” and “periphery” also map neatly onto recurring themes in the attempt to define Europe and its social and cultural identities� The conceptual pair echoes Jürgen Habermas’ and Jacques Derrida’s 2003 invocation of an “avant-gardist core Europe,” a vision in which the western European nations act as leading “locomotive” (292) for a lagging, second-class eastern and southern periphery� In the context of the politics of austerity that Germany in particular prescribed for the E�U�’s weaker partners after the economic crisis of 2008, the 264 Anke S� Biendarra always existing North-South divide sharpened� The same can be said of the East-West divide that has become in some ways even more prominent with the E.U.-Osterweiterung in 2004 and 2007, which brought twelve former communist countries into the European community� Today, the question whether the E�U� should give up negotiations with Turkey about its accession in light of ongoing human-rights violations or how to reason with countries such as Hungary and Poland that deliberately ignore E�U� policies (for example on environmental regulations and the equal distribution of refugees) play a central role in mapping this political transnational horizon� Maja Haderlap (born in 1961 in Carinthia) echoes this in her contribution to the Manifesto: “Meine frühe Europa-Erfahrung - langes Warten an den Grenzen� Meine neue Erfahrung - die Grenzen sind offen, aber Europa ist begrenzt” (Ljubić, Traum 154)� Especially writers hailing from Central and Eastern Europe feel the continuing unequal distribution on the map of Europe of the scarce resource ‘attention’ and the extent to which mutual perceptions are still distorted by ignorance, misplaced expectations, and clichés that authors are supposed to fulfill in order to catapult them from the periphery into a globalized literary marketplace: “Ständig auf Reisen, hatte ich nicht bemerkt, dass mir das Etikett Made in Balkan anhaftete� […] [I]ch übersah die festgelegten Codes zwischen kulturellem Zentrum und Peripherie� Man erwartete von mir, dass ich die Stereotype über die Peripherie bestätigte und nicht, dass ich sie zerschlug,” (343) writes Dubravka Ugrešić (born in 1949 in Croatia) in the volume Europa schreibt, which has similar goals as the Writers Conference. Taken as a whole, the Manifesto mirrors both the plurality and the fragmentation that characterize the contemporary state of Europe� The European project, despite recurring prophecies of its impending collapse, is still very much in the process of determining its profile, as the searching texts of thirty diverse writers showcase� The Manifesto illuminates how the European continent is crisscrossed by visible and invisible conflicts about politics, language, and cultures� Especially the many contributions of writers on the so-called periphery highlight that they in fact designate the “center” of Europe, not least for historical reasons� 13 FRAGILE is the second project that interests me, due to its transnational approach to the state of contemporary Europe� It originated with the director of the Literaturhaus Stuttgart, Stefanie Stegman, whose idea then was taken up by the network of the German-language Literaturhäuser, which also encompasses Vienna and Zurich� The project emanated from general observations in Germany and in Europe at large, as formulated in the funding application: “Die aktuellen kriegerischen Auseinandersetzungen zwischen der Ukraine und Russ- Fragile Realities: Discussions among Writers about Contemporary Europe 265 land auf den Spuren der kalten Kriegswege des 20� Jahrhunderts, das Ringen um Zuwanderungspolitik, nationalistische Strömungen und ausgrenzende und islamfeindliche Bewegungen wie Pegida sind nur einige Beispiele des 21� Jahrhunderts, die das Spannungsverhältnis aus Stabilität und Fragilität zum Ausdruck bringen�” Conceptualized to allow for “Entschleunigung, Dialog, das langsame Verfassen der Gedanken beim Sprechen bzw� hier Schreiben in Form einer alten Tradition des Briefeschreibens” (Stegman via e-mail), each of the fourteen centers was able to pick one German-language author of their choice who in turn selected a colleague from another country� In a multi-month exchange of a number of personal letters, the writers entered into a dialogue about topics of social, cultural, and political significance, thereby creating a veritable “Themenkaleidoskop�” 14 The letters first appeared online at www�fragile-europe�net and a sizable selection was subsequently published in 2017 under the title Interessante Zeiten, könnte man sagen. FRAGILE: Europäische Korrespondenzen in the journal Die Horen� 15 Less than half of the writers knew each other beforehand or had met in person, and a difference in tone and intimacy is palpable for those who were actually acquainted or friends� 16 The resulting circle of twenty-eight extends beyond the European Union, entailing Switzerland, Ukraine, Turkey and Israel; the project organizers consciously aimed to also include authors from countries where belonging to Europe is probed critically� Of course, the fact that half of the participating writers are German-language writers and that the accompanying public readings of the letters took place only in Germany adds reservations to the label of truly “European” correspondences� That the publicly funded German network of Literaturhäuser conceived of and developed the project does not strike me as coincidental� Rather, it echoes the eagerness of many intellectuals to look outward and focus on Europeanness rather than Germanness� This is rooted in the psychological desire of many Germans to prove their cosmopolitan openness and global perspective in light of the country’s often monstrous history� Yet cosmopolitan and E�U�-friendly perspectives are nowadays also sometimes interpreted as problematic, especially by the political right� 17 The participating authors were entirely free in their choice of topics; they could look back at the twentieth century or envision the utopian or real futures of a modified “Versuchsanordnung Europas�” Consequently, and as one would expect, the topics of the letters are wide-ranging and difficult to summarize; add to this that the printed collection FRAGILE comprises over 300 pages� In their open and creative occupation with the contemporary, the writers appear as “Seismographen der Stimmungen und Diskussionen, die Europa beschäftigen” (https: / / www�literaturhaus�net/ projekte/ fragile) and thus as public intellectuals in the European tradition who produce meaning from complexity and mediate 266 Anke S� Biendarra it through the public sphere� The result of these exchanges is best described as creating dialogue and community; the selection analyzed here centers on the current crises Europe has been experiencing since 2015 and identifies a discussion of European values as the important red thread� The FRAGILE project was generously supported by the Robert Bosch Stiftung; the remaining funds came from the Network of the German Literaturhäuser and the budget of the individual institutions� Interestingly, there was no funding for this European project from E�U� institutions; when asked about this, Ursula Steffens, director of the Network, indicated that the project had been deemed “not political enough” for the Council of Europe and too small for a funding application to an initiative such as Creative Europe, the €1�46 billion EU program (2014—20) for the cultural and creative sectors of the member countries (via e-mail)� Exchanging personal letters seems curious in times when much of public communication is digital� Since electronic mail and short messaging services are now ubiquitous, letters have lost their status as the primary form of private communication� Consequently, the epistolary mode has become increasingly rare and is often looked at as anachronistic and old-fashioned� Yet the project’s organizers chose the genre specifically as a conscious attempt to counteract the speed and furor with which exchanges often happen in the public sphere: “Konzentrieren sich Essays stärker auf die Entwicklung eines Gedankens, so nehmen Briefe aufeinander Bezug, verwerfen, pointieren und profitieren in Abgrenzung oder Ergänzung im besten Sinne voneinander� Briefe […] setzen zudem einen reibenden Kontrapunkt im vielfach reflexhaften Öffentlichmachen schnell formulierter Gedanken” (FRAGILE funding application, via e-mail)� The project eventually went online on the Network’s website literaturhaus�net where all letters were also available in English, thus providing free accessibility across linguistic and national borders� That selected letters also appeared in print form in Die Horen, one of Germany’s oldest literary journals, not even a year later, is not only a concession to the way literary publishing still works in the twenty-first century, but also a public claim that indicates the project’s cultural relevance� Many of the writers welcomed the rediscovery of an “entschleunigtes Medium” (FRAGILE project website), arguing that it can better allow for reflection, summary, and careful articulation of ideas ( Jan Wagner, 17), even if some find it strange to write to one another “unter öffentlicher Aufsicht” (Ingo Schulze, 93)� Antje Rávic Strubel concedes that “öffentliches Sprechen als privaten Briefwechsel zu inszenieren ist tricky” and attributes her own not entirely conflict-free exchange with Swede Lena Andersson partly to the specific setup of the project, which includes a public performance of political questions (62—63)� Fragile Realities: Discussions among Writers about Contemporary Europe 267 Yet others celebrate the attempt to display changing perceptions and attitudes over a longer period of time because “in diesen Dialogen bilden sich auch Prozesse ab, nicht nur Ergebnisse” (Ruth Schweikert, 211)� Going even further, Karl-Markus Gauß and his Yugoslavian colleague Dževad Karahasan attribute what Joan C� Tronto would call an “ethic of care” to the medium� Composing a letter without a concrete reason or goal that does not have an immediate practical significance makes it possible to truly recognize the other person, “’Ich sehe dich, ich weiß von dir, ich wende mich an dich und verwirkliche mich dadurch als Subjekt, und dabei bezeuge ich, dass du anwesend bist und es dich gibt�’ Gibt es etwas Wichtigeres als das…? ” (Karahasan, 150)� The form of mediation entailed in letter writing is dialogic; an imagined conversation with an Other as well as a soliloquy both foster an ethics of intersubjectivity through which difficult questions can be communicated� 18 Writing letters makes it possible to appreciate the other while drafting one’s own identity and, in reference to Jean Améry, to constitute oneself (“Selbstkonstitution”; Gauß, 149)� Karahan likens letter writing to verbal communication and mourns the lack of “Gesprächskultur” and dialogical process that technology and digital communication have disrupted� From their conversation about the disappeared art of letter writing, both Gauß and Karahasan establish a link to the culture of the classic European Kaffeehaus� They identify it as a locus of cultural practices dependent upon leisurely conversation and intellectual exchange� Karahan writes eloquently about old cafés in Paris and Vienna and local differences in the ways they facilitated interaction, before comparing them to a former preferred meeting point in Sarajevo, fittingly called Hotel Evropa� Destroyed by artillery bombings in July 1992, reopened after the war in Yugoslavia and now characterized by efficiency and “globalisierte anonyme Bequemlichkeit” (Karahan, 158), this café becomes a metaphor for a European culture that is threatened, if it has not already disappeared entirely� What primarily grounds all of the conversations - and was, according to Stefanie Stegmann, one important spark for the FRAGILE project - is the socalled refugee crisis of 2015, during which more than 1�25 million people fled to Europe from war-torn countries� 19 The focus of the letters is then overtaken by the Brexit vote in June 2016, another momentous event that has shaken notions of European cohesion to the core� Another easily identifiable point of discussion is the surge of nationalism and xenophobia, which is concretized in the rise of right-wing political forces worldwide� Even when these phenomena are not directly addressed as topics of discussion, anxiety about them is palpable throughout� Fittingly, the notion of “fragility” provides the metaphorical framework to discuss topics that are precious to the participating writers: “Was in Europa ist 268 Anke S� Biendarra so kostbar, dass es geschützt werden muss? Was droht zu zerbrechen? […] Was ist bereits zerstört? ” summarizes the project’s questions (Fragile 2)� FRAGILE shows the continent as a “Zusammenhang an Ausstiegsphantasien” as Kathrin Röggla calls it in a letter to Scottish writer A�L� Kennedy (Fragile 68) and illustrates that contemporary Europe is indeed fragile, and, once again, in crisis� On the other hand, crisis is also a product of discourses, performance, and narration; a process in which a complex system experiences a disruption that cannot be explained entirely by rational thought� In other words, crisis and literature stand in a reciprocal relationship; crisis needs narration in order to be recognized as crisis: “Europa produziert Krisen und Erzählungen, und es ist Produkt beider” (Kläger and Wagner-Egelhaaf 10)� The above-mentioned crises, i�e�, concrete events and the ensuing political realities in various countries, provide most of the fodder for the writers’ conversations and they were also the first organizing principle in my reading of what amounts to more than one hundred (fairly long) letters� Since it is not possible to do justice to all of the ideas, opinions, and nuances of discussion expressed in them, I have attempted to excavate the overarching ideas of the contributions� These, I argue, center primarily on European values, which provide the conceptual framework and the selection criterion for the following readings� The values I refer to are generally thought of as those summarized in Article Two of the Treaty of Lisbon (2007) - human dignity and human rights, freedom, democracy, equality, and the rule of law - as well as in the E�U� Charter of Fundamental Rights� 20 While acceptance of these values ground the discussions in FRAGILE and are sometimes even explicitly discussed (cf� Lena Andersson on notions of freedom, 61), I would argue that they are furthermore oriented by complex notions of humanism, rationality, tolerance, and secularity that were first developed in the European Enlightenment and have come to be accepted as universal rights� One is reminded of Ernst Robert Curtius’ understanding who argued in 1932 that humanism implies intellectual exchange within European borders in reference to a common tradition (Kraume 20)� These values provide the basis for a modern understanding of different European identities that nevertheless share a common core and allow community building across national borders, as referenced in the official motto of the E�U�, “United in Diversity�” For many of the writers, an exchange with colleagues is an opportunity to discuss these European values as much as it is a therapeutic outlet� The process of writing becomes a means to make sense of what is happening in real time, “Aber jeden Tag brechen neue Nachrichten herein� Immer erschreckender […]” (Carmen-Francesca Banciu, 288)� In light of harrowing news of difficult to process events in 2016, most of the letters are infused with feelings of confusion, worry, helplessness or outright anxiety, “Alarmismus, Katastrophenstimmung, Fragile Realities: Discussions among Writers about Contemporary Europe 269 etc�” (Kathrin Röggla, 77), as well as an opportunity to voice anxieties, shared by many of the writers, that common values are increasingly replaced by hatred and xenophobia: “Werte wie Empathie, Liebe, Großzügigkeit, Barmherzigkeit und Klugheit sind fragil� […] Und in meinem Land gibt es viele Menschen, die so viel Hass in sich tragen, dass der Schritt zum Morden nicht mehr groß ist� Wie schaffen wir es, ihnen den Hass auf sich selbst zu nehmen, die Angst vor dem Fragilen? ” (Björn Bicker, 228)� Similarly, for Annika Reich, who chose to correspond with Israeli colleague Zeruya Shalev, ‘Europe’ has become so fraught that she felt unable to continue her work as a literary writer� She experienced a breakdown in the wake of European reactions to the refugee crisis and her personal work with refugees in Berlin� 21 When writing in her letter “Die Festung Europa ist ein Zusammenbruch” (174), she comments specifically on the E�U�-Turkey agreement of March 2016, i�e�, the political decision to involve Turkey in the control of access for refugees to the E�U� 22 Reich interprets this deal as a betrayal of European values - knowledge, respect for the individual, doubting and questioning (178) - and a move towards seeing refugees as an anonymous mass that no longer warrants individual solutions: “All das, worauf die Europäer so stolz sind: unsere Aufklärung und unsere Demokratiegeschichte, unseren [sic] Humanismus und unsere Weltoffenheit, ertrinkt gerade mit den fliehenden Menschen im Mittelmeer” (186)� 23 Reich unmasks the belief that previously expressed values are an unalienable right as “Europas blinden Fleck�” Her letters illustrate the searching for new European narratives that others, such as Kathrin Röggla (68), Ruth Schweikert (217) and Niko Madzirov (13) also comment on; ever-changing narratives that acknowledge the structural racism prevalent on the continent throughout its history and rewrite it by stripping away an exclusively white, Christian tradition� Zeruya Shalev’s answers, composed from the position of someone who has lived the volatile reality of Israel, prove crucial in providing a different perspective for her despondent German friend� Shalev reminds Reich that individuals do have personal agency and can improve a seemingly desperate situation; she suggests that her own involvement in a project that encourages peaceful cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian women (Women Wage Peace) might serve as an example for a similar exchange between refuges and xenophobic, right-wing women specifically in Germany� In a later letter from February 2017, written after the official end of the project and the inauguration of Donald Trump (which she interprets as an attack on democracy), Reich comes back to these ideas and develops the notion of performative citizenship, by which she understands small, yet concrete personal acts of political engagement in order to enact the rights bestowed by the state upon its citizens� 24 The realization that the 270 Anke S� Biendarra individual is not powerless but can make a difference also serves as an important reinforcement for Reich’s literary work� She realizes that the fragility she experiences with regard to European values that has now settled in her body also provides an opportunity to make the individual the center of her novelistic work again, in order to understand something more general about humankind� The exchange between Reich and Shalev thus updates the notion that the political is personal and vice versa and puts a premium on the contributions that especially women can make in the face of what Reich polemically calls the “Israelisierung der europäischen Lebensrealität” (187), by which she primarily refers to the fear of terrorist attacks in Europe� Some writers specifically address the question of religious tolerance that is a central European ideal yet might be the most volatile in light of increased xenophobia� In their exchange, Swiss writer Ruth Schweikert and French-Jewish writer Cécile Wajsbrot comment on how different European countries have reacted to the threat of Islamic terrorism after numerous attacks that especially France and England have experienced since 2015� Increased and widespread surveillance and the continued renewal of the state of emergency in France have led to a lack of privacy and room to act for the individual (Schweikert, 213); they also bolster the linguistic rearmament that suggests that Western societies are at war once again (Wajsbrot, 205)� The ensuing violence is increasingly directed towards Others, especially Muslims, and plays out in the urban landscape both in personal interactions and in the camps that have sprung up in European capitals around homeless people and refuges, only then to be dismantled again by the authorities� 25 In these discussions, Wajsbrot paints an almost apocalyptic vision of French society lacking solidarity or a sense of community; she sees this as a metaphor for the dangers Europe faces as a whole: “Die Gesellschaft zerfällt, Europa zerfällt, Mauern ersetzen allmählich die Brücken” (209)� Wajsbrot also opens up important historical perspectives when she argues that Europe after World War Two was founded too much on the past and the doctrine “Nie wieder Krieg! ” and did not develop a viable plan for its own future� This, she finds, has hollowed out any shared European vision we might have started with� Similarly, she makes the observation that the end of the Cold War was a missed chance for the European project� Instead of capitalizing on the sense of excitement and departure in Eastern Europe and quickly allowing accession, the E�U� delayed it for economic reasons� When countries finally joined, the belief in ‘Europe’ had waned in many countries, not least because a common perspective on the continent’s history was not developed� This is an interesting thought; the construction of the House of European History (cf� Eigler’s essay in this volume) as a transnational elite project supposed to foster a dialogue on European identity seems to validate, rather than disprove, Fragile Realities: Discussions among Writers about Contemporary Europe 271 Wajsbrot’s misgivings� Many scholars also echo her comment that a missing awareness of a shared history threatens European integration; they add that an asymmetry of memories exists between Western Europe (dominated by the memory of the Holocaust) and Eastern Europe (dominated by the memory of the Gulag), which further impedes a shared European identity (cf� Assmann)� One should also mention here the aspect of the wars in the Balkans, which are an important point of reference in FRAGILE as well� Austrian Karl-Markus Gauß, for example, views the break in civilization that the bloodiest conflicts since World War Two and the massacre of Srebrenica in particular signify as the writing on the wall for the regions, nations, and states of Europe and the E�U� (155)� This is less about concrete possible conflicts, but more about the anger and criticism leveled against the E�U� that is prevalent especially in Central and Eastern Europe� Constructing a shared European identity depends crucially on including and deepening memories and perspectives that focus not just on the center, but also on the periphery, as Claus Leggewie and others have argued and as we have seen in the earlier discussion of the Manifesto of the European Writers Conference� Apart from discussing European values and the continent’s more recent history, the letter exchanges frequently revolve around the role of the writer and the significance of art and more specifically, literature, for European integration� Many of the recorded statements link up with a common understanding of writers as intellectuals who are engaged in public discourse, use their specialized knowledge for the greater good and do not shy away from taking a moral stance� When Wajsbrot writes, “[D]er Schriftsteller ist ein Leuchtturmwärter, der von seinem Turm aus Wache hält […] und als Erster jenes Boot entdeckt, das Schiffbruch erleiden wird� […] [E]r schlägt Alarm, in der Hoffnung gehört zu werden” (209), she references ideas commonly associated with the figure of the classic public intellectual that, starting with Jean-Paul Sartre’s Qu’est-ce que la littérature? (1948), were discussed for the better part of the twentieth century, especially in the context of (French) philosophy and sociology, and more recently in numerous debates among German writers in the aughts� 26 Common tropes about the writer as singular, critical, and independent of the political positions du jour who takes a moral stance when necessary are complemented here by ideas about the role of literature as an updated version of littérature engagée. Dissident, engaged literature needs to have a referent in non-literary matters while insisting upon its own artistic characteristics, which it generally expresses through its formal choices� 27 In her exchange with Kathrin Röggla, A�L� Kennedy implicitly references these ideas� She posits that art is indispensable as a fundamental defense of humanity that insists upon the irreplaceability of the human experience (“Migranten” 4, 5)� In her letters to Röggla, 272 Anke S� Biendarra she references (Christian) notions of love for the Other that must ground all current and future artistic activity: “Anstatt beispielsweise nur für uns selbst zu schreiben, schreiben wir für uns und die Liebe anderer” (Fragile 72)� She also puts a premium on new technologies that have a democratizing potential and expresses her belief that the artist really is at the forefront of a necessary new social movement that resists discourses of xenophobia, racism, and isolationism: “Wir haben Macht� Wir können sie nutzen� Und wir haben Phantasie, […] die Nutzung sozialer Medien zur Förderung von Freiheit und Transparenz […]” (72; cf� also 74)� This reads like a realization of Arjun Appadurai’s analysis in Modernity at Large, who argued that new developments in electronic technologies and mass migration were creating “a new role for the imagination in social life,” namely “a social practice” (31) - and would eventually disrupt known parameters that previously defined both notions of the national and community� The emphasis on community and on similarity over alterity links A�L� Kennedy’s assessment to that of Björn Bicker who insists in an emotional exchange with Turkish writer Ece Temelkuran that in a post-9/ 11 world everything is linked and must be analyzed in larger transnational contexts: “Weil alles so kompliziert ist und ich nun, mit 46 Jahren, das erste Mal wirklich verstanden habe, […] [d]ass es kein kleines und kein großes Leid gibt, sondern nur unser gemeinsames Leid� Dass diese ganze Fragilität unserer Welt unsere gemeinsame Fragilität ist� […] Die Grenzen sind meine Grenzen� Die Toten sind meine Toten” (Fragile 234)� This is also echoed in the exchange between Carmen-Francesca Banciu and Mirela Ivanova who see themselves as individuals and simultaneously and consciously as part of a larger European civilization: “Es trifft uns alle” (289)� These emphatic iterations of a shared personal and European fate might provide the most persuasive reorientation of the discourse of “crisis” that dominates the letter exchange overall; one is tempted to say that they serve as “critical exercises in futurity at a decisive juncture” (Adelson 218)� The letters provide perspectives that seek a way forward for European relations, thus confirming the essential role Ann Rigney and others have attributed to future-oriented collective narratives and memories for Europe� The rare project that is FRAGILE accomplishes a number of things� First, it provides the reader with eclectic and very personal impressions of both larger developments and their distinctive national characteristics� From the fear of terrorism and increased surveillance in Western Europe to the specter of Brexit and further exit movements, to the rise of authoritarian rule in Turkey (cf� Ece Temelkuran), Hungary (cf� László Györi), and Russia (cf� Anna Schor-Tschudnowskaja), the writers’ vivid contributions add to our knowledge about the diverse cultures of contemporary Europe� The conscious decision in FRAGILE to counteract the speed and furor of public discourse in times of the internet Fragile Realities: Discussions among Writers about Contemporary Europe 273 and social media via the epistolary genre allows for individual introspection and nuanced reflection of the current state of European affairs� Furthermore, the linguistic range inherent to the project - all writers could write in their native language and their contributions were professionally translated prior to publication - showcases the resilience that lies in linguistic and, by extension, cultural plurality� This, and the opportunity FRAGILE provided for co-creation and collaboration can be read as a vigorous attempt to dispel the discourse of crisis via new models of aesthetic engagement� Theoretical reflections by intellectuals about the continent have a long tradition that spans from Novalis, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Heinrich Mann into the twenty-first century (cf� Lützeler, Kraume, Wetenkamp)� FRAGILE and the European Writers Conference, respectively, are tied to and belong to this tradition, but they place more weight on current events and less on philosophical discourse than some of their predecessors� The underlying reason for this difference is the belief that recent events have arguably changed not just the face of Europe and the political course it currently charts but are threatening its core beliefs and values� As a result, participants in these projects are generally in agreeance that an intellectual intervention pro Europe is badly needed� While this does not amount to calls for direct political intervention (which would put literature in too close proximity to propaganda), the initiatives show how carefully authors monitor and record the changing language, the altered norms, and the questioned ideals across the continent� Furthermore, the communications analyzed here illustrate starkly the widening gap between intellectual ideas about Europe on the one hand and political realities on the other� What ensues is a discursive weighing of shared European values and an investigation into how historical precedents and developments have shaped them� Always embedded is the related discursive strand that concerns the intellectual’s engagement and the role literature and art can play in the current situation� Both FRAGILE and the European Writers Conferences thus showcase that there is indeed a difference between what one might call a “political” and a “cultural” Europe� While writers are concerned with political events and ideas and comment on them, they actually work towards a vision of Europe that takes its measures from a different realm� It appeals to building a truly open continent that is not determined by economic considerations and the rationalization of exclusion but instead, compassion for the Other and the ethical grounding of political arguments and solutions� In effect, one can read both projects as a reclaiming of Europe, as an attempt to reestablish a long atrophied European Republic of Letters, in which writers and intellectuals interact across national interests and borders on the basis of their belief in common values and 274 Anke S� Biendarra a shared humanity (cf� Jan-Werner Müller); in the process explaining developments within different national cultures to their audiences while emphasizing a common European history and consciousness: “Wir wohnen in derselben Straße” (Bicker, 225)� Notes 1 From the Manifesto of the 2016 Internationale Schriftstellerkonferenz in Berlin� Cf� Magenau� 2 Felicitas Hoppe, A�L� Kennedy, António Lobo Antunes, Javier Marias, Peter Handke, Jonathan Franzen, Per Olov Enquist, Hans Mommsen, Lars Gustafsson, Dragan Velikic, Antonio Negri, Andrzej Stasiuk, Thomas Hettche, and Louis Begley contributed to the issue of Literaturen� 3 Sweden, for example, introduced border checks on car and train traffic at the Oresund Bridge between Denmark and Sweden, as well as ports in Varberg, Gothenburg, Malmo, Helsingborg, and Trelleborg in the fall of 2015� These controls have been increased in 2018 and now include all major airports, as well as ports in southern and central Sweden� This example illustrates how free movement is now de facto limited in the Schengen zone� 4 Of course, “crisis” has always been a mode of European existence and is thus nothing new, but actually constitutive of Europe, as Kläger and Wagner-Egelhaaf have argued� Yet current discussions seem more urgent in their amplification across various media and involve the political, social, and cultural spheres of Europe� 5 A second European Writers Conference, entitled GrenzenNiederSchreiben took place May 9—10, 2016 in Berlin at the Akademie der Künste Pariser Platz� Yet as of 2019, the online conference documentation of this gathering had disappeared� Due to the absence of a reliable documentation, my analysis centers only on the 2014 conference� 6 https: / / www�literaturhaus�net/ projekte/ fragile (last accessed April 28, 2019)� 7 On the categorization of Europe as literary category and European literature, see Ivanovic 22—36 and Wetenkamp 7—20� 8 All texts were initially made available on the conference website http: / / 2014� europaeischeschriftstellerkonferenz�eu and were subsequently published in book form in March 2015 by Nicol Ljubić and Tilman Spengler� References in the text refer to the print edition of materials� 9 “Neben dem Schreiben à la mode Européene könnte der Begriff der europäischen Schreibweise, fasst man ihn als ein bestimmtes Genre, also im genderisierten Sinne auf, in jüngerer Zeit dann auch eine diskurskritische Darstellungsform umfassen, die im Schreiben selbst ‘Europa’ und das mag Fragile Realities: Discussions among Writers about Contemporary Europe 275 auch heißen, den unterdessen so umstrittenen Eurozentrismus des europäischen Denkens zu reflektieren sucht� So gebraucht könnte ‘Europa’ resp� ‘europäisch’ als literaturwissenschaftliche wie literaturhistorische Kategorie dazu beitragen, von der generischen Zuordnung, d� h� der sprachlich-nationalen Herkunft des Autors/ der Autorin als Bestimmungskategorie abzusehen und statt dessen die im Text jeweils zum Ausdruck gebrachte Bezugnahme auf ‘Europa’ stärker zu profilieren” (Ivanonic 36—37)� 10 When I attended the 2016 conference in Berlin, I witnessed firsthand that the attendance of foreign minister Steinmeier brought an enormous press corps to the Akademie der Künste� 11 Other sponsors were the Stiftung Mercator, the Deutsches Theater Berlin, Allianz Kulturstiftung, United Europe e� V�, Schwarzkopf-Stiftung Junges Europa, BMW Stiftung Herbert Quandt, and BMW Berlin� Interestingly, the conferences were not funded with E�U� money, such as funds from the Council of Europe� 12 For a literary rendering of the European experience between center and periphery throughout the twentieth century see Jenny Erpenbeck’s novel Aller Tage Abend (2012) which I have read elsewhere as a European lieu de mémoire (Biendarra 2014)� 13 Maja Haderlap captures this in her poetological essay, “Im Licht der Sprache,” with which she opened the Ingeborg Bachmann Wettbewerb in 2014: “Die Prozesse der Assimilation, des Absterbens oder Gedeihens von Sprachen vollziehen sich oft an entlegenen Peripherien, an willkürlich gezogenen staatlichen Grenzen, die immer auch kulturelle, nationale sein möchten� Sie werden als randständig bezeichnet, zielen jedoch ins Zentrum der europäischen Kultur� Der ganze europäische Kontinent ist durchzogen von sichtbaren und unsichtbaren Sprachkonflikten, von Geschichten der Verdrängung und der Dominanz von Sprachen” (4)� 14 Part of this information comes from the funding application Stefanie Stegmann shared with me� The lineup includes Irena Brežná and Anna Schor-Tschudnowskaja; Katharina Schultens and Cristina Ali Farah; Carmen-Francesca Banciu and Mirela Ivanova; Jan Wagner and Nikola Madzirov; Martin Pollack and Yevgenia Belorusets; Annika Reich and Zeruya Shalev; Ingo Schulze and László Györi; Georg Klein and Viktor Martinowitsch; Carlo Ihde and Dana Grigorcea, Karl-Markus Gauß and Dževad Karahasan; Björn Bicker and Ece Temelkuran; Kathrin Röggla and A�L� Kennedy; Antje Rávic Strubel and Lena Andersson; Ruth Schweikert and Cécile Wajsbrot� 15 References are to the printed text, unless otherwise noted� 276 Anke S� Biendarra 16 Jan Wagner and Nikola Madzirov, Ingo Schulze and László Györi, Karl- Markus Gauß and Dževad Karahasan, Ruth Schweikert and Cécile Wajsbrot, Martin Pollack and Yevgenia Belorusets, Irene Brežná and Anna Schor-Tschudnowskaja knew each other beforehand� 17 For example, think of CDU politician Jens Spahn’s 2017 invective against “elitist hipsters” whose use of English, he argued, relegates the German language to secondary status in the country’s capital� His remarks are indicative of the ongoing debate about the role of language, history, and a German Leitkultur that is being fueled especially by the AfD� 18 By “ethics” I do not refer to normative notions of what is considered “good,” but rather to a connection between subject and object, i�e�, an ethics of alterity� Cf� Newton’s writing about Levinas who “argues that consciousness and even subjectivity follow from, are legitimated by, the ethical summons which proceeds from intersubjective encounter� Subjectivity arrives […] in the form of a responsibility toward an Other which no one else can undertake” (Newton 12)� 19 In recent years, Germany was amongst the countries that accepted the largest number of refugees, leading to months of heated debate about the country’s migration policies and domestic political unrest; the rise and success of the AfD is just one tangible outcome of these developments� See Greussing and Boomgaarden� 20 Cf� http: / / www�europarl�europa�eu/ charter/ pdf/ text_de�pdf and https: / / ec�europa�eu/ info/ aid-development-cooperation-fundamental-rights/ yourrights-eu/ eu-charter-fundamental-rights_en� 21 Reich is a co-founder of the women’s network WIR MACHEN DAS that provides legal help as well as opportunities for collaborative work between German-language and refugee artists and writers (https: / / wirmachendas� jetzt)� 22 Cf� “The Role of Turkey in the Refugee Crisis�” https: / / www�eesc�europa� eu/ en/ our-work/ opinions-information-reports/ opinions/ role-turkey-refugee-crisis (accessed 20 May 2019)� 23 Implicitly she also suggests that Germany is violating its constitution, since political asylum is a basic right guaranteed in Article 16a of the Basic Law� 24 The last two letters exchanged in 2017 are only available online: http: / / fragile-europe�net/ conversations/ annika-reich-und-zeruya-shalev/ � 25 Wajsbrot refers to “Camp Stalingrad,” named after the Paris metro station, that housed up to 4,000 people before it was cleared by French police in November 2016� 26 Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Pierre Bourdieu, François Lyotard, as well as Edward Said have all had their share in this debate� For a detailed Fragile Realities: Discussions among Writers about Contemporary Europe 277 discussion of debates around the millennium, see Chapter Two of my book Germans Going Global and Schaper’s 2017 study� 27 “Das Literarische muß als Kunst alle Freiheit und Autonomie haben, während andererseits die Gesellschaft nicht einfach als nicht zur Kunst gehörig abgewiesen werden kann […]� Engagiert ist eine Literatur, die sich nicht nur die gesellschaftlichen Verhältnisse als kunsteigenes Ausdrucksmedium schafft, sondern zugleich auch in der Wahl ihrer Formen das im Medium selbst vorgefundene Formniveau kritisiert” (Wegmann 355 and 357; 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