In cooperation with the Větrné mlýny publishing house, we have prepared a programme section representing six writers from six countries whose history was affected by communist totalitarianism. Writers‘ public engagement in history has many times heralded the rise of groundbreaking social change. The role of a writer as an intellectual capable of recording the social climate of the time is hardly substitutable: one can capture history, anticipate the future, touch the invisible, entertain and teach, and serve as a litmus paper of social conditions. In addition to meetings with literary guests at their author readings and a common final debate, this festival programme and its permanent trace features the release of a book of essays named The Accession of the East?. Our six authors reflect on what replaced the dispute between liberal democracy and communism after the fall of the Iron Curtain. Together with them, we are looking for answers to questions about how the crisis of Western civilization manifests itself and what caused it, where in the dispute over liberal democracy are the United States today, where the European Union, where Central Europe; and we are even interested whether we may not find ourselves under a under Russian control again. We are looking for answers to questions for which there is no simple answer, yet we have a view that is different from the usual claims of politicians.

All programmes are interpreted into Czech.

We thank the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic for the financial support of this programme section.