BALTIC MEETINGS - Baltic Writers Council

through. Here we must mention the differences in the development of literature in the capital
cities and in the provinces. As in the past, the provinces are now just a launch-pad for creativity.
Hoffmann, Kleist, Bobrowski and recently the Kaliningrad writer Bujda left the provinces and
became famous in capital cities. Nevertheless, the development of the mass media is changing
a lot today. e Internet enables us to broaden contacts and make them operative. e new
opportunities to hold meetings and international workshops have offered a basis for personal
contact between writers. e exclave territory advanced into Europe may gain importance as a
centre of attraction of different literatures and change from being part of ‘the provinces’ into a
territory of contacts. In this context, it is very important to make translations of the works of
the authors from our neighbouring countries.
In Soviet times, translation from one language into another was conducted on a stable basis,
though it was ideologically limited. Nowadays, due to market conditions, it is reduced to
a minimum. Separate publication in magazines does not solve the problem. Now certain
steps have been made on the road of further rapprochement between writers from Lithuania
and Kaliningrad. e project “3K - Kultur - Kaliningrad - Klaipeda”, with plans for both
the translation and publication of books by Lithuanian and Kaliningrad authors, is being
implemented. e translation of books seems to be one of the pathways toward mutual
understanding. We always remember that our city is “the abode of the many”, the centre of
interaction and mutual influence of different national cultures. e further progress of literature
is seen in preserving the cultural heritage of the past and in developing the layer of European
and world literature that was separated from us by an ideological fence. e establishing of the
PEN Centre in Kaliningrad is also an important step in the rapprochement between writers
of different countries. To awaken good feelings with the lyre, to defend human rights, to
promote rapprochement between cultures and mutual understanding these are the tasks which
we believe are our top priorities. e implementation of our projects is restricted by a lack
of financial support. We started the preparatory work for publishing the book Kaliningrad/
Königsberg 750, where we planned to include the works of modern authors, and the literary
miscellany “Our Baltic”, also containing the works of modern authors and reflecting their
views on this region. Neither project received any financial support. Although the former one
has not been abandoned, the date of its implementation has been postponed to next year,
the 60th anniversary of the formation of the Kaliningrad Region. Together with Lithuanian
writers and artists we plan to publish a collection of stories and illustrations devoted to the
Curonian Spit, which forms a kind of connecting bridge between Klaipeda and Kaliningrad.
We would also like to resume publication of the journal “West of Russia” or at least to publish
an annual miscellany with the same title; here it is worth noting that the suspension of the
journal had a negative influence on the development of our literary contacts. We lost our ties
with “Borussia”, the magazine issued in Olsztyn by the society of the same name. e new
literary magazine “Baltika”, published in Kaliningrad, has satisfied the hunger for magazines
and journals to a certain extent, but it has not yet made any contacts with publications in the
Baltic Sea countries.
We would like to develop and upgrade the level of our literary relations. It seems to us that
Kaliningrad, given its geographical position, may serve as a place for holding different literary
events. It is also our desire to have a joint literary publication for the Baltic Sea countries that
would be published in different national languages. We should also use the possibilities offered
by the Internet more broadly, which would enable us to exchange information and literary
texts without heavy expense. Let me express my hope that our plans, sometimes Utopian, may
one day come true: we just have to truly, sincerely want it to happen.
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