Krisztián NagyStarted the day with the appreciation of the rain. Rain is brilliant! I mean we keep travelling hundreds of miles to a lake, or a sea, or an ocean, every single year, just to get ourselves wet, then go home and try to convince everyone else, sane enough to stay home, that we had a great time. So basically: we suffer through an annoyingly long trip, fling ourselves into the water for a while, annoying trip back, converse with the people who stayed home. Rain gets you all of this in a smart, instant package – you get annoyed, because it’s raining, you get soaked, you get annoyed again (because you are soaking wet now), and than you can have a day long conversation about the bad wheater, with virtually any person on the world.
So, it was raining. I missed breakfast. Hope it missed me too. V4 workshop Introductions have been made, life stories have been shared. In the meantime it kept raining. V4 workshop – The Aftermath We got interviewed by a lovely journalist. Some general questions regarding our main topic, the transitional era between regimes, and our personal experiences. At last, we’ll all be published. Literally.
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Friday was the last day of our participation in the workshop. The first session took place in the morning and tied breakfast and lunch, and the next ended a day after dinner. Everyone would agree, I think, that these were most stirring. The reason was clear: it was on this day that we discussed political issues most exhaustively.
We –the Visegrad group– were joined by Serbian poet Jelena. The morning workshop was based on a debate about politics and its place in literature considered broadly, but personally too. We also spoke about government support of cultural activity, and futilitarian political frameworks of our countries. I was having trouble justifying strong judgments about economy and society not founded on substantive evidence. Maybe that’s my problem. Maybe I should not disregard sophisticated conversations aimed at delineating existence instead of actual transition? May be, although I think that criticism should be backed up by a plan of action intended for change, and in the absence thereof we have to adapt to what we are facing. The final workshop dealt with the influence of transformation on literature. We tried to find the turn of the eighties and nineties reflected in our generation’s output, and to define the character of the latter. Our conclusion was emptiness. But I refuse to believe in this emptiness, I deny it. I want to believe that’s just silence, calm before the storm. Today we have had our first workshop. I might say I was satisfied because the topic was surprisingly pragmatic: How can a young writer start his or her career? I must admit that start of my „career“ has been quite smooth but still, the topic seemed very interesting to me.
It turned out that in all countries of V4 it is quite similar but still, there exist some slight differences. For example young writers from Hungary told us that in their country it is still harder to get publicated for woman than for men. In the 21st century! It really surprised me. Naturally it is always complicated to get established on the literary scene when you are young and unknown. The publication houses naturally always like to publish works of known and established authors. Especially when we speak about poetry, which always has been on lower steps of the selling lists. And so it isn’t very rare case that book of very talented and interesting writer get out when he or she is almost thirty. That is sad and irritating, but unfortunately there is little to do so again it. One of the possibilites are just the sessions like this by Jószef Attila Kör where you can meet other people from literary background or other young authors who are in the same or very similar situation as you are. You can share your experience with them, speak openly about your work and ambitions, which is always very fruitful. Dear Participants!
Welcome to József Attila Literary Circle’s (JAK) 2014 Summer Course. We are very glad you will participate in our international section “Children of the Transition” sponsored by International Visegrad Fund. PROJECT During the five days of the Summer you will have daily moderated workshops and a final open discussion on Friday afternoon. The sub-themes are the following: (1) Recommend and make a presentation about a literary work, film or exhibition from your country which representing the transition? (2) Childhood memories from the late 80s, early 90s appearing in literary works (3) How young writers can start a career in V4 countries (4) Political and social opinions in the works of the youngest V4 literary generation PARTICIPANTS & TEAM Moderators: Réka Mán-Várhegyi writer, editor (HUN); Renátó Fehér poet, translator (HUN); Szabolcs László writer, editor (HUN) Participants: Jan Delong, Štěpán Hobza (CZE); Weronika Bilińska, Jan Pawel Kowalewicz, Bartosz Marcinkovski (POL); Egor Indiani, Krisztián Nagy (SLO); Márton István Szabó, Anna Zilahi, Bence Szenderák (HUN) Project coordinators: Ferenc Czinki writer, editor (HUN); Kinga Tóth poet, experimental artist (HUN); Jelena Anđelovski poet (SER) The first worskhop will start at 10.00 am on 27th August (Wednesday). LOCATION & ACCOMMODATION JAK’s Summer Course will take place at Lake Balaton in Balatonszemes. Adress: 5th Szabadság street, Balatonszemes, Ifjúsági Tábor (Youth Camp) You can find a map on the following link: http://www.iranymagyarorszag.hu/ifjusagi_tabor_esely_budapest_alapitvany_balatonszemes/I310349/ TRAVELLING & COSTS The travelling costs will be returned to the participants. If you travel by public transport we will need an invoice of the costs to our Association: József Attila Kör, 7th Múzeum street, Budapest H-1088. If you travel by car we will write a contract on the travelling costs after your arrival to the camp. Date of arrival: 26th August (Tuesday); date of leaving: 31st August (Sunday). All the travelling costs will be returned, you will also get free accommodation & daily meals and 75 Euros for your days in the camp after signing the contract at the time of your arrival. Since all the participants arrive in different times during the arrival day (26th August) please contact coordinator Ferenc Czinki with the exact time of your arrival. Contact: 0036-70-676-8282 or [email protected]. We have our first meeting with all the participants 5.00 pm on 26th August, and from 10.00 pm that night we organized an open-air “JAK party” with Hungarian gastronomy event to get to know each other with the guests of the 2014 Summer A new generation which never lived a day before Central Eastern European transitions is now showing its more important appearance in today’s cultural publicity. The main aim of our Association is to expand our traditional Summer Literary Course into an international cultural camp by organising workshops for the youngest literary generation of the V4, and also start to run a series of presentations in the V4 countries, which will end with the publication of a multi-language online brochure.
I. Background of project – József Attila Circle (JAK; Applicant) is an Association of young Hungarian literature that shows the actual literary, artistic and social movements of the country’s young generation and also runs several series of translation projects and publishes the JAK World Literature Series of books. The Applicant plans to expand its traditional Summer Course into an international cultural event by inviting author of the youngest V4 literary generation to collect and share ideas together in the 25th anniversary year of the Hungarian transition. II. Schedule of project (1) Pre-organisation by cooperating with the Partners in: – selecting professional texts (poems, short stories, essays) in the above mentioned theme, – connecting the authors, experts and interpreters who will be invited to the Summer Course, – pre-planning the future presentations of the results in Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia (2) JAK Summer Course: – inviting young V4 writers, poets and literary experts and other artists to the ‘Children of the Transition’ sections of the JAK Summer Course, – organising group-works, translation workshops for the V4 guests – organising public readings, round-table discussions, open workshops for the V4 guests where they can share their ideas and works with the audience – planning free-time activities to get experience about the Hungarian culture, gastronomy, popular customs and also about the sub-culture of Lake Balaton area (3) Third element: Series of Presentations – visiting the other V4 countries and organising presentations based on the results and experiences of the Summer Course’s workshops – joining events having similar local significance in the target country as the Course has in Hungary – publishing an online brochure “Visegrad feature” of the project: – József Attila Literary Circle was established in the period of the Hungarian transition. This year’s Summer Course will be partly dedicated to the memory of the Central Eastern European political changes of the 80s and 90s. – Those years are significant part of the current history of all the V4 countries; the events, the political and social changes of the last 25 years proves that these countries are still learning how to deal with the memory of a past regime and with the chances of today’s world order. – During the Summer Course and during the presentation period the youngest literary generation of the V4 countries can share their experiences and thoughts with each other, and also with the older generations, to create an actual picture of how we see the last 25 years of this area. Partners: A2 Magazin (CZ) www.advojka.cz/ New Eastern Europe Journal (PL) www.neweasterneurope.eu/ AOSS Asociácia organizácií spisovateľov Slovenska (SK) www.slovenskispisovatelia.com/ International Visegrad Fund www.visegradfund.org |