The Other Europe
April 27, 2022
Dear Friends, After three years we have completed the international project The Other Europe, during which, in cooperation with partner institutions, we have processed and made public recordings of interviews shot in 1987 and 1988 behind the Iron Curtain, and in exile, with important representatives of the opposition and the arts, as well as random citizens. Over those three years we have prepared video, audio and text of 106 interviews in speakers’ native languages and English translation. Despite public health restrictions in the Covid period, we have jointly prepared 16 international conferences and public presentations in six Central and Eastern European states.
The Václav Havel Library would like to thank:
• the creators of the six-part television documentary The Other Europe, Jacques Rupnik, Tom Roberts and Nick Fraser, for their consent to the processing and making public of the recordings;
• Britain’s Imperial War Museum for providing the footage;
• The National Film Archive Prague for digitising around 1,400 reels of film;
• The National Széchényi Library in Budapest, the European Solidarity Centre in Gdansk, the Nation’s Memory Institute in Bratislava and the Gedenkstätte Bautzner Straße in Dresden for preparing their language sections;
• and also all others who contributed to the transfer of three palettes of film reels from the UK to the Czech Republic, webmasters, transcribers, editors, translators and organisers of public debates, as well as all those who created an organisational and office infrastructure.
We were only able to afford all of this because the European Commission generously furnished us with a grant from the Europe for Citizens project grant and the Visegrad Fund gave us a strategic grant.
All of the above have contributed to the rescue and usage of a unique audio-visual collection that will henceforth help the general public, historians and students to deepen their knowledge of modern Central European history.
➦ For more information visit othereurope.com
