30 April 2020 press release

"Reading EUROPE”
German National Library to start activities marking Germany’s presidency of the Council of the European Union with a series of online readings

Actors will be reading texts about Europe in the deserted reading rooms of the German National Library in Leipzig and Frankfurt am Main. The short readings will be recorded on camera and published consecutively on the DNB website on and around Europe Day on 9 May. By the time Germany takes up the presidency of the Council of the European Union at the beginning of July, a diversified literary perspective of Europe will have been created over the course of 15 clips.

Set against the unusual backdrop of deserted reading rooms, actors will be interpreting texts from the collections of the German National Library, which comprise around 40 million media in all. Like all other cultural institutions, the German National Library has been closed to the public for some weeks due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A large number of events scheduled to take place at the locations of the library had to be called off and cancellations sent to the many cultural operators involved in them – including authors, actors, film producers, musicians and publishers.

In order to support the professional groups particularly affected by this exceptional situation, the German National Library commissioned 15 actors and a small team of film makers to produce the "Reading EUROPE” clips. For the German National Library, this also marks the start of a new way of presenting its collections. The clips draw attention to the diversity of its collections, thus enhancing its digital services. In addition to the virtual exhibitions and digitised works available online, the web clips of the readings provide access to quotable works relating to Europe.

The texts for the readings, each of which lasts around five minutes, were chosen in cooperation with the actors and range from lyrics to prose and non-fiction books to speeches. Some of the texts – like Kurt Tucholsky’s strangely topical and provocative poem “Europe”, written in 1932 – adhere strictly to the subject, while others interpret it more freely, e.g. as a search for a better place, a utopia – as in the text from Gregor von Rezzori's Tales from Maghribinia. Also included are texts by Herta Müller, Louise Weiss, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Yuval Noah Harari, Adriana Altaras, Simon Strauss, Victor Hugo, Stefan Zweig and Ian McEwan. The actors will set the mood and give the texts spatial presence in a wide variety of productions.

With Reading EUROPE, the DNB is building a bridge to the second half of this eventful year. The German National Library is planning a whole series of activities, many of them digital, in connection with Germany's presidency of the Council of the European Union. Along with virtual conferences and an exhibition, these include the release of a lavishly illustrated publication. Titled “House of Europe”, it shows how much “Europe” the DNB contains in its role as the nation's written, musical and visual memory. The DNB’s collections – both as a whole and in the additional focal areas of media and exile history – are ideally positioned to take a look at the continent’s history and present from Europe’s geographical centre and to follow the countless trails that Europe has left on its journey through German culture. In this context, Europe is understood above all as an idea, the vision of a community of values which now more than ever before can be understood in social discourse as a mission of cultural policy – wholly in keeping with the etymological meaning of the word “Europe”, i.e. “the far-sighted one”.

Reading EUROPE
Texts about Europe at the German National Library.
A film series marking Germany’s presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2020

Adriana Altaras, Hansa Czypionka, Paul Frielinghaus, Max Gertsch, Teresa Harder, Maria Hartmann, Aykut Kayacik, Eva Mannschott, Andreina de Martin, Anika Mauer, Jonas Minthe, Maximilian Nowka, Judith Rosmair, Adisat Semenitsch and Christoph Tomanek will be reading texts by Adriana Altaras, Sri Aurobindo, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Yuval Noah Harari, Leonhard Horowski, Victor Hugo, Ian McEwan, Robert Menasse, Herta Müller, Gregor von Rezzori, Saša Stanišić, Simon Strauss, Kurt Tucholsky, Louise Weiss and Stefan Zweig

From 30 April 2020 at www.dnb.de/readingeurope

Background

The German National Library collects, catalogues and archives all printed and digital material published or distributed in Germany since 1913 along with foreign publications about Germany or in the German language. This includes all sheet music and music resources published in Germany. Its collections consist of around 40 million media units; these and other services can be accessed in the reading rooms in Leipzig and Frankfurt am Main and in digital form in the World Wide Web where this is permitted by law. Europe is not a new theme for the German National Library: ten years ago, for example, Europe’s national libraries each digitised around 100 significant works from their respective countries for the virtual exhibition “Reading Europe: European Culture Through the Book” and contributed them to the European virtual library “Europeana”. Germany's contribution consisted of literary works from the DNB’s collection written by German authors in various centuries.

The German National Library also holds a wealth of valuable special collections in the German Exile Archive 1933–1945 and the German Museum of Books and Writing. It regularly organises readings, exhibitions, presentations and concerts to draw attention to its treasures and promotes a culture of books, reading and music – with around 220,000 visitors a year to its premises in Leipzig and Frankfurt am Main and a varied programme of first-class events.

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