[Deutsche Version unten]From 22nd- 25th of June 2017 the members of the Working Group of Slavic Minorities came together for their 20th annual meeting that was in this year organised in cooperation of FUEN with Domowina, the umbrella organisation of the Lusatian Sorbs. 20 participants from 9 minorities in 8 Eastern- and Central European countries have found their way to Lusatia. Among them Croats from Italy, Romania and Serbia, Ruthenes from Ukraine, Macedonians from Albania as well as Czechs and Serbs from Croatia. Further did FUEN’s newest member, the NGO Russian School in Estonia that has joined forces with FUEN at the latest congress in Cluj/Romania, sent a representative to Germany. Domowina has been pleased about the growing interest in participation and engagement of the Slavic Member Organisations. This has clearly become visible in the numbers of registrations to the seminar and the arrival of a hand full of youth representatives to the meeting.
The parallel alignment of the annual meeting of the Working Group together with the XI. International Folklore Festival of the Domowina offered a great chance to the minority representatives, to gain an intensive insight into the life of the Sorbian people in Germany and a better understanding of the circumstances, difficulties and possibilities within the region. This was underlined by visits of all Sorbian areas in Upper-, Middle- and Lower Lusatia. In this region of lignite mining the great dimensions of cultural and landscape transformations, marked by excavations, resettlement and recultivation that have had a deep and long lasting impact on the Sorbian and Wendish existence, became tangible. The Folklore Festival by itself was able to underline the successful balancing act between modernisation and heritage preservation processes that the Sorbian people visibly are mastering with their openness to internationality and sincere hospitality.
The Minority Safepack Initiative in the centre of attention
The two-day seminar was opened on Friday by FUEN Vice-President Bernhard Ziesch, together with Domowina President David Statnik in Bautzen. The Working Group aimed to put their main emphasis on 4 focal points during the seminar that included the elaboration of future work plans, a more intensified cooperation and proactive participation and support of FUEN projects.
After having joint the annual meeting of the AGSM in Berlin, FUEN President Loránt Vincze has also travelled to Bautzen, determined do get a personal impression of the situation within the Slavic Minorities Working Group. Already on Thursday evening, as well as the following day in Drachhausen, Lower Lusatia, he has together with David Statnik and the Federal Government Commissioner for Matters Related to Ethnic German Resettlers, Hartmut Koschyk MP opened the International Folklore Festival and actively promoted the Minority Safepack Initiative. The Initiative is further gaining intense support by Sorbian and regional press and media agencies like Serbske Nowiny or the Sorbian Radio Program of MDR.
On the first day of the seminar the participants dedicated their efforts to the gradual rapprochement and development of implementational measures in accordance with the decisions and contents of the Minority Safepack Initiative that was presented and made more tangible by Mr Vincze. With regards to the political and societal circumstances in the different countries the minorities primarily aim at a mutual alignment and exchange of ideas and best practices in terms of promotion of the MSPI. The varying starting conditions of the Slavic minorities oftentimes do not allow smooth an easy working processes in line with the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML). The initiative is at a point right now at which the collection of signatures has started and support will be necessary from each participating group and from all sides.
Fort that reason the participants addressed the current situation and future work of FUEN in the second part of their meeting on Saturday that was presented by Bernhard Ziesch. The financial reinforcement and new funding opportunities for the Slavic minorities and their organisations, primarily in Eastern Europe were of main attention to the working group. In comparison to those of the minorities in Central- and Western Europe such opportunities are less pronounced in the Eastern regions. It is therefore also a focal point of FUEN to intensify the contacts with regions and governments in this regards in future. In the third part of the seminar, the minority representatives informed about the current situations of their groups and organisations in their home countries. It is a major goal to increase their visibility in the broader public and in long term reinforce the exchange and provision of information among each other as well as towards the outside.
Colloquium on „Minorities in a challenging environment of integration and safeguarding of their cultural identity“
The fourth and last part of the annual meeting of the Slavic minorities working group was framed by a colloquium on Saturday afternoon. It brought together a variety of representatives from different disciplines reaching from cultural scientists to journalists, students and other interested participants, to join a vivid discussion between festival and the seminar participants. In the frame of the colloquium representatives of cultural groups participating in the festival reported on the difficulties and possibilities of implementation of their work in the culture field.
With the help of pictures and short presentations altogether seven cultural ensembles from Poland, Italy, Greece, Colombia, Romania, Croatia and Belarus have come to present themselves. It wasn’t only special elements like traditions, instruments and traditional handicraft devices that were presented to the audience. But it was primarily the projection of their current situation of past historic events and current political developments that completed the pictures. While representatives of the Hungarians in Romania or Czechs in Croatia outlined parallels in structural developments with their Sorbian counterparts, descendants of the formerly expelled Greeks from Turkey put the attention on the present situation of migration streams passing the Greek islands. It is a situation that the community has faced in the past and faces again today, this time from the other side. Despite facing daily cases of discrimination a general reawakening of identity and belonging to their nationalities can be marked among the minorities. In contrary to that the situation in Colombia with its wide amount of different ethnic groups is a rather differing one. It is there the main intention to safeguard and combine all elements of Indigenous, Spanish and African descent as their common heritage.Even though it differs from case to case it is finally recognized that dominating cultures do not only have an impact on minoritized cultures, but also do minorities influence the way a dominating culture evolves and develops. It is finally the balance between the cultures that needs to be achieved and strived after. Events like the International Folklore Festival are perfect places in which this balance of diversity truly comes to light, Domowina President David Statnik remarks with great satisfaction.Deutsche Version

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Bundesbeauftragter Koschyk nimmt am 12. Folklorefestival teil