At the final seminar, with Marci Shore’s book, and during the meeting on Medea with Krzysztof Czyżewski and Monika Herceg, we searched not for closure, but for a positive, healing conclusion. Much of this was the reflection on the role of historians—or mythographers—who, in the struggle over the narrative, bring to the fore what has been silenced.
Continuing our conversations on truth, we come to the limits of human perception—how can we truly see and truly recognize and grasp the whole with a clear gaze? Of course, we always look under certain conditions, from a particular perspective; to see truly, we need much more than a clear lens. This reflection is filled with the images of recent years and months – Gaza and Ukraine. Today’s circulation of visual media forces us to ask about the truth that could shatter the mute, flat reality of images seen by an eye that is already numbed.The final chapters of Shore’s book bring us near to the present times, leading us towards the reflection on forgiveness and reconciliation. These ideas – practices and foundations for bridge-building—carry the mind back into the history of the 20th century but also guide us into the emotional, personal sphere of the here and now.
The last evening of our gathering was Café Europa, a polyphony of Central European voices and languages. The poetry of resistance is full of leaps in perception and imagination; it allows us to alter the conditions from which we look, giving them an ear for what would otherwise remain mute.