In 1989 Poland bordered three countries. Just a few years later none of them existed. During this memorable autumn Milan Kundera’s dream was being fulfilled: that the countries from our part of Europe return from the East, where they wrongly found themselves, to where they should be – if not in the West then at least in the Centre. Countries liberated from unwanted (?) relationships appeared on the map. We know how different these separations were, in what circumstances Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, the GDR or the USSR became a history. Common sense suggested that it had to be so, for these countries had been wrongly structured but still…we spent quite a chunk of our lives with them and in them!
“An today? Does the time elapsed help in a sober judgement or does it colour memories with nostalgia?” – asks Professor Jacek Purchla in the preface to this issue of “Herito” magazine.
Stories about countries that no longer exist are shared by: Ivan Čolović, Miljenko Jergović, Detlef Kurth, Monika Rydiger, Simona Škrabec, Magda Vášáryová, Michał Wiśniewski and Stefan Wolle. Main part of the magazine is illustrated with photos of post-Soviet architecture taken by Nicolas Grospierre.
Moreover, in the current issue of “Herito”: Katarzyna Jagodzińska writes about a Berlin bunker which currently holds an unusual collection of contemporary art; Joanna Sanetra-Szeliga presents the second life of cities including: Ruhr, Katowice, Lille and Łódź; Maciej Czerwiński and Łukasz Galusek bring back the artistic work of an outstanding Yugoslavian sculptor Ivan Meštrovic; Wojciech Wilczyk, Szymon Piotr Kubiak and Magdalena Bystrzak share their impressions of Central-European exhibitions and books.