The program stands and the warm -up has already started: Kaunas is eagerly awaiting his start as a European Capital of Culture in 2022 - to reinvent itself to make a new myth and sharpen its profile.Modern and European wants to present Lithuania's second largest city, with a lot of culture, history and self -confidence.This is intended to help continue to step out of the long shadow of the capital Vilnius.
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Kaunas has an "extraordinary, complex, changeable story", emphasized Lithuanian Minister of Culture Simonas Kairy when presenting the program of the Capital of Culture.It should be on 22.January can be officially opened.The "entire kaleidoscope of the eras and political systems" is visible in the city surrounded by several hills and on the confluence of two rivers..
The core of the program is the trilogy "Myth of Kaunas", a series of events taking place on three weekends.Designed by artists from Lithuania and abroad, a new connecting and identity -creating legend for the 300 should.City counting 000 inhabitants.Under the topics "The Confusion" (19.up to 23.January), "The Confluence" (20.up to 22.May) and "The Contract" (19.up to 23.January) are concerts, exhibitions, fire and light shows and much more planned.Quite a few of them are about the newly invented beast from Kaunas - a kind of mascot.
William Kentridge comes from South Africa
In total, more than 40 festivals, 60 exhibitions and over 250 events of the performing arts and concerts are to take place in the Cultural Capital year..The highlights include the individual shows world -famous artists such as William Kentridge, Yoko Ono and Marina Abramovic and a theater production by Robert Wilson.
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"I am interested in coming to Lithuania to see what it feels like and whether my imagined country and its history correspond to what I find when I am there," sayskentridge says.The first exhibition of the South African artist with Lithuanian roots about selective memory in Kaunas is one of the most important events in the Capital of Culture.
The retrospective of John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono also awakens high expectations, which as a concept artist of the fluxus movement also shaped the art scene.Fluxus is considered one of the most influential art directions worldwide - it goes back to George Maciunas born in Kaunas.He had established new artistic expression in New York in the early 1960s in New York with happings and performances.
Traumas in World War II
The main goal of the trilogy is change: Kaunas is said to become a growing, open city from a city that is indulging in nostalgia, which believes in itself and its future.This is also expressed in the official motto of the Capital of Culture: "From Temporary to Contemporary".The city thus alludes to its perhaps best days: after the First World War from 1919 to 1940, Kaunas served as the provisional capital of the newly founded Republic of Lithuania.
But then the Baltic state was occupied by the Soviet Union and Vilnius was again the capital.The dark history of the Second World War, the Holocaust of Lithuanian Jews and the Soviet occupation still burden the city.These long hidden trauma are to be tackled around 30 years after Lithuania's independence again in the Capital of Culture.
"Kaunas lost his fame, his pride and became a very sad city," says the Capital of Culture Director Virginija Vitkiene.For a long time, the city had never really recovered from the loss of capital status, although it is quite remarkable in many ways.Kaunas was the only city of Lithuania to be directly connected to the Hanseatic League, had the first university in Lithuania and is the ultimate Mecca of Lithuania's second "religion": basketball.
6000 modernist buildings in Kaunas
A special feature is also the modernist architecture of the city, which forms another focus of the program."We believe that this is something that all Europeans can identify with," says programmaker Vitkiene.Kaunas houses around 6,000 modernist buildings from the interwar period when the city experienced a heyday as a diplomatic and cultural center.
As a second Lithuanian city, Kaunas is the cultural capital of Europe - to Vilnius.The formerly and now-long-again capital was entitled in 2009.But there were long faces at the time: the financial crisis broken with full force had the money pots shrinked extremely, the program was strongly put together.In addition, the national airline also went bankrupt - many visitors could not travel.Eating with Denise
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VideoIs Kaunas a similar debacle because of Corona?Vitkiene is relaxed.She hopes that with appropriate pension measures all events can take place as planned.Mayor Visvalda's Matijosaitis also hopes that."Kaunas is ready to open up and become a host for all of Europe," he emphasizes.The title of Europe's Capital of Culture in 2022 is a "big obligation".
In 2022 there are also two other cities in Europe Capital of Culture: Luxembourg's second largest city of Esch and Serbia's second largest city Novi Sad.
