The meaning of our actions becomes visible only from a certain distance, when their traces settle into reality. This reflection from Marci Shore, set between historical determinism and personal responsibility, allows us to grasp a form of practice grounded in truth. We begin in 1953, the year of Stalin’s death. Amid the entrenched mechanisms of history, a glimmer of responsibility begins to emerge. The ideas of 20th-century thinkers are either lost in the shadow of totalitarianism or find illumination through action. Eliade and Ionesco, Arendt and Heidegger, Sartre and Camus — in retrospect we clearly see a mirror dividing their stances between two poles. Our experiences differ — the intellectual space of the 1960s in Georgia was not the same as in Lithuania. Yet we all carry traces of a colonial past. Rather than stemming from resentment, our resistance to empire today emerges from a sense of shared entanglement and the ties, connections, formed in the wake of recent ruptures.
Clear borders and sides are increasingly difficult to define — as demonstrated once again by a discussion initiated by Tadeusz Sławek, deeply connected to the counterculture of the 1960s. The key questions were asked by the classic philosophers and musicians of that time: Herbert Marcuse, Jim Morrison, The Beatles. Can anything serve as a counter to all-encompassing capitalism? Is there still something on the other side? What kind of action could pull us out of alienation? Perhaps what we should be seeking now is metamorphosis — a different kind of movement, a search for time and language that understands there is no subjectivity suspended in the vacuum of the isolated self.
These reflections found their conclusion in the story of Andriy Lyubka. His path through the Balkans sketches a subversive cartography. Traveling along the borderlands of Central Europe and the Black Sea, Lyubka crosses the lines between what we include in our civilization and what becomes marked as barbaric. Spaces and times accumulate and overlap. A power built on fear of the external remains a sign of a fragile culture in deadlock. In his story — with a lineage stretching back at least two thousand years — we hear echoes of Cavafy and Ovid, but also a child’s question about the border: arbitrary, illusory.
Earlier, the reflection on the culture of rebellion had taken on another dimension. Yesterday, during the Tischner Debate held on the porch of the manor in Krasnogruda, Pavel Barkouski, Andrzej Gniazdowski, and Olga Shparaga spoke about the revolution and oppression in Belarus, drawing from their research projects. The year 2020 brought to the surface an energy and potential previously unknown — a community began to gain momentum, united in its resistance to violence in its many forms. Totalitarian regimes seek to dominate society and isolate individuals. Revolution thus becomes an existential task — to awaken us from sleep. As the scholars noted, in this context, the idea of a “permanent revolution” — endless, searching — proves useful. The second part of the debate featured voices from Ekaterina Tewes and Palina Sharenda-Panasiuk. The latter, an opposition activist recently freed from a regime prison, shared testimony from the heart of the rebellion — bearing witness to the repression and totalitarian grip of the Belarusian dictatorship. It is not easy to find a strategy that could truly transform the system, bring real change, and allow us — as neighbors — to share in the responsibility. The Belarusian uprising inevitably calls to mind Ukraine — its heroic resistance continues to inspire visions of a different Central Europe, and in doing so, helps shape a broader community - here and now.