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Selection of Pecs
Peter Inkei predicted Pecs would be selected although he was himself working on the team for Budapest. The choice between the capital of Hungary and a city about 200 Kilometers away, but in midst of multiple streams of cultures and exposed directly to the transitions after 1989, seemed an obvious one at that time. There was a trend away from the initial large cities like Athens, Paris, Berlin although with Marseilles in 2013 that trend might be reversed. But since the European Commission has decided to designate two cities as European Capitals of Culture each year and in 2010 as an exception three (in 2000 there were altogether nine cities who received that designation), emphasis is given to reaching out. It seemed the right thing to do to give Pecs the designation together with Istanbul and Essen for the year 2010. Here then is what Dora Gyarmathy contributed to heritageradio about Pecs 2010.
Report about Pécs 2010
Category: Cultural News in www.heritageradio.net
’Pécs is suggested to be the Cultural Capital of Europe in 2010 by the Hungarian government’ – was announced by Mr András Bozóki, Minister of National Cultural Heritage on Wednesday. If the European Union agrees with this decision Pécs will be the cultural capital with a German town, Essen or Görlitz in 2010.
The north-eastern city, Miskolc and Debrecen in East-Hungary won the 2nd and the 3rd place in the competition. The reasons of the decision were the regional development, the built and intellectual cultural heritage of the city and the way how the competition can utilize the knowledge of the town and the region. Pécs as a city in South-Hungary can help to open the borders between Croatia and Hungary, between Croatia and the EU. The neighbouring country is expected to be a member of the European Union in 2010, Pécs as cultural capital can assist in the regional development which can have effect on Croatia as well.
Pécs has a 2000 year-old history. Even in Prehistoric Ages man found shelter and place to settle down here. Protected by the Mecsek Mountains, the Roman town, Sopianae, evolved here 2000 years ago and by the end of the 3rd century it became an administrative centre of Pannonia. In the 4th century, a remarkable series of decorated tombs were constructed in the cemetery of the Roman provincial town of Sopianae. These are important both structurally and architecturally, since they were built as underground burial chambers with memorial chapels above the ground. The tombs are important also in artistic terms, since they are richly decorated with murals of outstanding quality depicting Christian themes. The Early Christian Necropolis of Pécs was included on the World Heritage Site List of UNESCO in 2000. The city also has been an Episcopal seat for nearly 1000 years and the first Hungarian university was founded here.
Pécs decided to submit their application to win the title of ’Cultural Capital of Europe’ in 2002. As Dr László Toller, Mayor of Pécs wrote: ‘Our goal is to make sure that from 2010 not only Hungarians but our European fellow citizens will also recognize the city of Pécs by its symbols and we would very much like to welcome them as our guests in our city. We would also like to make sure that all the scheduled developments are properly implemented so that they can raise the level of the cultural and artistic life of our city to a European standard. 2010 may grant us an opportunity to present our cultural achievements to the European public and bring everything over to our city and the region that can be brought over here within a period of one year.’ After the decision he added it had been a hard competition but the decision had been fair-minded. There weren’t many cities which found the culture as a possibility for break-out. Pécs had been a minor city for 100 years then the leaders of the city had to decide about the way in the future and chose the way of culture.'
Note:
During the time of the selection procedure we worked within the Internet radio of the CADSES III B project HERMES on a further going concept for heritageradio. This included individual reporting with main emphasis on an interplay of text and audio recordings of interviews and online Journals. One of these journals was designated to European Capitals of Culture and that linked directly with the ECCM exhibition, "20 years later', which was shown in Patras 2006 with Spyros Mercouris as curator. Through these activities a lot of materials were produced based on interviews by the various journalists of those who were artistic directors or involved in another capacity in European Capitals of Culture.