The Danube Conferences on Culture series is the annual platform for the creation a vivid cultural network in the Danube Region, which has been initiated by the State of Baden-Württemberg related to the EU Danube Strategy. The conferences were held in Ulm, Germany (2013), Novi Sad, Serbia (2014), Timişoara, Romania (2015) and Ruse, Bulgaria (2016) in successful cooperation with these municipalities.
The aims of the 4th Danube Conference on Culture “Regional Cooperation in the Danube Region – together along the Danube to Europe”, 24-25 November, 2016 in Ruse (http://danubeculture.eu/ photos/) were as follows:
- to present best practices from the field of the arts and culture, to invite formative players of the cultural scene (the “makers”)
- to bring the players/actors together and to let them interact
- to create more space for concrete collaboration and more direct exchange
- to foster the stronger networking of the cultural and artistic scene in the Danube region.
The organizers of the conference were the Ministry for Science, Research and Arts Baden-Württemberg, Germany, the Municipality of Ruse, Bulgaria, Free Spirit Foundations – Ruse, European Danube Academy – Ulm, Association of Danube River Municipalities Bulgaria – Ruse, Kulturreferentin Südosteuropa – Ulm, Danube Cultural Cluster – Vienna, Council of the Danube Cities and Regions, ARGE Donau, Elias Canetti Society – Rise with partnership of EUSDR PA3, Danube Strategy Point Brussels.
The main speakers of the opening ceremony were the Lord Mayor of Ruse and representatives of the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Tourism of the Republic of Bulgaria, the Ministry for Science, Research and Arts Baden-Württemberg, the ARGE Donauländer, Danube Strategy Point Brussels, Council of the Danube Cities and Regions. The Key Note Speaker was the leader of the Creative Europe Desk Ukraine Mrs. I. Vikyrchak.
On the 1st day of the conference two panel discussions (combined with open workshops) took place:
- Panel 1: From Europe to the Danube: Role Model Region Cooperation Projects and Networks. Successfully completed and running European projects were presented and discussed in this panel, as well as effectively functioning networks. These projects, for example “Ruse Free Spirit City Foundation – A Model for Successful Cooperation of Cultural Organizations at City Level”, could serve as a role model for similar activities and initiatives in the Danube region,
- Panel 2: From the Danube to Europe: Successfully Launched Danube Cultural Projects and Promoting Initiatives. Successfully implemented Danube cooperation projects with high relevance to EUSDR, as well as promising concepts and strategies were presented, offered and discussed in this panel.
Through the innovative format of the Project Market Place on the 2nd day all conference participants presented and discussed best practices, successful initiatives and promising ideas This session was dedicated to a direct exchange of information, experiences, and project ideas, to link potential partners, to identify common interests, and to discuss the practicability of project proposals.
More that 10 representatives of the Centre of Adult Education at the University of Ruse, Bulgaria, and the Union of Pensioners’2004 – Ruse, the International Association “Danube-Networkers for Europe” e.V., presented the new European project “Tastes of Danube: Bread, Wine, Herbs” with coordinator Mrs. Carmen Stadelhofer, President of the Institute for Virtual and Face-to-face Learning in Adult Education at Ulm University (ILEU) e.V., Germany, as well as many other successful common projects.
As a follow-up project of “The Wanted Danube”, a project which has been awarded with two European prizes in September 2015, the “Danube-Networkers” organization in Ulm started with their partners in November 2015 a new project along the Danube. “Tastes of Danube: Bread, Wine, Herbs” is the name of the project in which civil society organizations, schools and Universities from 13 Danube countries are involved. It includes people of all generations, ethnic groups, social and educational backgrounds.
The different activities offer a chance not only to get knowledge about the use and meaning of these foods nowadays, but to do some research about their social and cultural history throughout the countries as well. Memories and experiences from individual and professional life fill the subject with life, along with teamed creative planning and baking, or, for example, discussing possibilities of food sharing. Bread is named by the UNESCO as part of immaterial cultural heritage. For example, what is the meaning of the old ritual of giving bread and salt as presents to welcome a family in their new house? Is this or a similar ritual also common in the other countries? Bread, wine, and herbs are more than food: they are tokens of cultural community or separation, witnesses of both the present way of life and history; they spark festivities, trigger experiences and memories and are important objects in stories. They symbolize love and care but they sometimes are also the tools of power and violence, especially when people are short on bread in times of war, or because of food speculation in global capitalism.
The conference “Tastes of Danube. Let’s Taste It” and the wonderful Danube-Breakfast on the Danube-Bridge, both of which took place in the period 8th to 10th of July within the project “Tastes of Danube: Bread, Wine, Herbs” and in the context of the 10th International Danube Festival Ulm/Neu-Ulm, are documented on the Conference Website http://conference.tastes-of-danube.eu/de/; the videos documenting the Danube-Breakfast on the main Danube Bridge in Ulm on http://conference.tastes-of-danube.eu/danube-breakfast-videos/.
Emiliya Velikova