The tables are tightly packed, you have to squeeze through, but the place you find will turn you towards another, and you will be able to listen. The light cuts the atmosphere into half-shadows, creates nooks. You can hide alone, you can reveal yourself to others in close proximity, you can take the shape of a bridge and ask. You can come dressed casually, unprepared, without ready opinions… And start talking. Conversation tames the space, warms the souls of the silent islanders. From curiosity and courage, from intimate notes and barely sensed thoughts, from poems spoken and songs sung, from community and respect for individuality… dialogue is born. Do you know a place where you won’t be thrown out in the middle of a word, hanged by your tie, drowned out by the decibels, stupefied by the television, blinded by the floodlights; where the mind won’t be enslaved either by violence or by consumerism, where man won’t be a wolf to man, where your voice won’t disappear in the crowd or return as an empty echo within four walls, but will be freed in the Meeting? A place where you can read, search, listen, ask questions, and stay until late at night… That one spark, alliance, support, polemic, understanding… You will receive a gift that the next day, when you go out into the street and read the morning newspapers or look at your smartphone, will stop you from running away, madness, hunger for ideology, hatred of others, submissive opportunism, self-loss… There is such a place with tightly packed tables, live music coming from a small stage, paintings on the walls and voices of conversations in different languages. And all of this is harmonised in one tone by the spirit of poetry that dominates everything. There is a place called the flying Literary Café, Café Europa. 

***

As they opened their doors to other cultures, Europeans needed a new art of communion. The Chinese art and philosophy of drinking tea seemed too deeply immersed in spiritual meditation and limited only to the family circle – all this was rather distant from the atmosphere of cities immersed in the polyphony of new townspeople, searching for a common centre of reference. The leaven was the bitter taste of coffee, a drink initially considered pagan by Christians, because it had been assimilated from the world of Islam. However, already in the mid-17th century, Pope Clement VIII “Christianized” it. When a little later a certain Pole from Galicia named Franciszek Kulczycki, taking part in the defense of Vienna against the Turks, inherited captured sacks of coffee, considered useless at the time, no one suspected that it would have any connection with the emergence of a new, thoroughly European “meditation in dialogue”, which would significantly influence the development of our civilization. The café created by Kulczycki in Vienna at Domgasse 6 began to attract people only when the bitter taste of Turkish coffee was seasoned with honey and then cream. More important, however, primarily because of the cultural consequences, was the “seasoning” of our coffee with the custom of meeting, discussion, recitation and creative improvisation, that is, the emerging world of the literary café. It is this, the literary café, that will become the seed of a new worldview, a window onto the world, the cradle of cosmopolitanism, a school of dialogue culture. Cafés are starting to appear everywhere: in London and Paris (they were there before Vienna), in Amsterdam and Krakow, Budapest and Sarajevo, Prague and Bucharest, Chernivtsi and Berlin. The closer to the 20th century, the more of them there are. More and more newspapers in different languages ​​are presented in them, psychoanalysis enters, manifestos of new trends in art, national issues, revolutions, and decadence. Conversations become more nervous, as if in a premonition of approaching weakness and powerlessness in the face of something that is rising somewhere outside, beyond polemics and sober discourse. The new is born in the square and on the street; it has the power of a rally, a deafening shout, the steady clatter of boots, and thus the elements that easily shatter the fragile shell of an intimate and sublime space of encounter. It is too late for conversations; the culture of the literary café turns out to be merely an enclave in the new reality, powerless against the onslaught of young ideologies. Fascism and communism change the arrangement of space: there is a tribune for the leader and a square for the crowd. This requires the destruction of old districts of cities, those with cafés and nooks, with narrow and winding streets, where people lived close to each other. In Europe, conversation ceases, it gets cold, and the wind blows so that it is better to close the doors. Today, the door is ajar again. Not all of us. And not for long, as life teaches us. However, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the inhabitants of Central Europe moved more freely. The opening results in crossing new horizons, intercultural dialogue and a deepening ecology of culture – we are beginning to discover the interdependence of our existence with the whole world, which awakens the need for solidarity and shared responsibility. We are slowly becoming aware of the deep wounds left behind by various political and cultural divisions.

Although we are still busy mainly around our own national backyards, we are starting to be curious about each other again. Europe is becoming too small for us; we want to meet other worlds and on the path of respect and partnership, unlike in the colonial era. There are many indications that things are getting better, but somehow not warmer. This is the case for some. Others find themselves on a raft drifting into the abyss of war and confusion. We are drifting away along new divisions. The barely open borders are transformed into new walls, and barbed wire fences are erected on bridges. Racism and fascism are returning to the mainstream. We live on the outskirts of squares and wide streets, where new stands can be set up at any moment, and a new clatter or shout of the crowd can turn against the coexistence of people across borders. We feel good in cities of dialogue, in their polyphony and the tangle of streets that no bulldozer has yet touched, working to level the space of encounter and surrender it to the cult of new idols of escape from freedom. Before it is too late, we try to rearrange the tables tightly next to each other and squeeze towards the other, into those nooks where the voice of the Other can be heard. Our little “Café Europa” is on the corner of the new world. Let the conversation go on. The light that accompanies it will cut the blinding glow of the spotlights into the atmospheric half-shadows of the interpersonal encounter. 

***

I initiated the creation of Café Europa in besieged Sarajevo during the war in the former Yugoslavia. I thought then that, against the resurgent nationalism, which feeds on division, hatred and the cult of superiority of one’s own over others, everything must be done to defend the space called charshija in Sarajevo, which corresponds in meaning to the Athenian agora, i.e. common and open, where everyone can feel at home. At that time, there were a handful of us poets and artists. We called ourselves the “Bosnian generation”, because – regardless of which country we came from – the war had changed our vision of the world and our understanding of the role that poetry and culture should play in it. With me then were Ferida Duraković from Sarajevo, Aleš Debeljak from Ljubljana, Christopher Merrill from Iowa, Magda Carneci from Bucharest, Chris Keulemans from Amsterdam, Paweł Huelle from Gdańsk, Jurij Andruchowycz from Ivano-Frankivsk, Mileta Prodanović from Belgrade, and Bashkim Shehu from Barcelona. It quickly turned out that the problems that were the subject of our discussions and poetry, related to the crisis of a multicultural society, are common to other places in the world. Café Europa naturally became a “flying literary café” that visited Amsterdam, Krakow, New York, Stockholm, Lviv, Barcelona, ​​Berlin, Chernivtsi, Bucharest, Vilnius, Tbilisi, Yerevan, Brussels and many other cities. Aleš and Paweł are no longer with us; they left this world too soon. However, new creators are still coming and new challenges are still emerging. Such a challenge in the recent period was the war in Ukraine and the new generation that was being created around its drama. During the war, Café Europa was in Lviv and Uzhhorod, invited poets fighting on the front to participate, and gave them a voice at meetings in other countries. An important challenge for Café Europa today is to build a new bridge of encounter leading to Asia. That is why I would like to initiate the program “Café Europa: A Fly To Asia” with this text. The place where the “flying literary café” will be hosted this time is “The Asian Literary Journal”. In its pages, I will regularly present poems by poets from the Café Europa circle, providing them with my commentary. I hope that this will result in a small anthology of the most interesting poetic personalities from Central Europe and beyond. It would be great if translations, book publications, workshops and debates followed. Following the hospitable place in ALJ, there will also be lively meetings – Café Europa will visit various cities in Asia. Poets and artists from Asia will also be invited to its circle. I am very happy about this new space for dialogue. But Tadeusz Kantor, a brilliant theatre artist and visionary, probably didn’t expect this in his wildest imagination… I mean Café Europa flying to Asia. So let’s start! 

By Krzysztof Czyżewski  

About the Author

Krzystof Czyżewski is a Polish author, philosopher, culture animator, theatre director, and editor. He is the Co-founder and president of the Borderland Foundation and director of the Centre “Borderland of Arts, Cultures and Nations” in Sejny. He also initiated an International Centre for Dialogue on the Polish-Lithuanian border. He initiated several intercultural dialogue programs in Europe, the Caucasus, the Middle East, Central Asia, Indonesia, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and the USA. He received several awards, including the Jerzy Giedroyć Prize, the Dan David Prize, the Ambassador of European Year of Intercultural Dialogue and the Tischner Award. He works as a lecturer and visiting professor at Rutgers University and the University of Bologna.

He writes a bi-weekly column for The Asian Review that includes literature, community memory, and philosophy.