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CENTRAL EUROPEAN SPIRITUAL VIRTUES OF PLURALISM
Opening of the exhibition of Joze Plecnik in Prague
Speech by the President of the Republic of Slovenia, Milan Kucan
Prague (Czech Republic), 23 May 1996
"Mr President, my dear friends, I would like to take this opportunity to offer thanks for the hard work and perseverance with which at the beginning of the nineties you helped to nurture the idea of Central European cooperation. In May 1994, through the goodness of your hearts and souls this idea led the presidents of the Central European countries to the beautiful Renaissance palace at Litomyšl for their first, now traditional, meeting. We shared a common awareness that new questions were being raised by the new times. The Czech Republic and Slovenia contributed as much as they were able to reviving the Central European idea and its pluralist as well as integrative spirit", President Kucan pointed out at the Castle of Prague at the exhibition of Joze Plecnik which was opened by President Havel and President Kucan.
At one time it seemed that democracy, with the rights of people and nations, had finally embarked upon its irrevocable course, when following the calvary of the first wartime conflict of European and world dimensions, President Masaryk invited the Slovene architect Joze Plecnik to fulfil his conception of an architecture for the new democracy at Prague Castle. However much this belief might later have proved illusory, it nevertheless bears witness to the faith of two great European people that it had indeed come about.
Today's exhibition conveys this faith to us in our own time. It is a presentation of the great democratic, humanitarian and cultural mind and spirit of the architect Joze Plecnik. It speaks in the language of art, and with the special idiom of architecture, about human, ethical, civilisational and political values to which President Masaryk and architect Plečnik were bound; it speaks of their consensus on the essence and importance of these values, which was vital to them even considering such a joint project.
It is impossible to think of Plecnik at Hradcany without Masaryk. The renovation of such a castle, and its transformation towards service of the people, are an example of the successful creative meeting of two people who were both able to give their ideas a clear external form. In this exhibition and in the space where it has been staged, we may today recognise this quite clearly. In the work which has been offered to us for public view, we may recognise Plecnik as a great Slovene and at the same time as a man of the world, who belongs not simply to your and our country, but to Europe and the world.
Plecnik's work, the memory of Masaryk, today's event and all those that will follow it, convey to all of us who value ineffable beauty and the message of art how rich and permanent is the Central European mind, how fertile and at the same time how open to embracing the immeasurable breadth of vision in European and universal creativity.
Mr President, my dear friends,
I would like to take this opportunity to offer thanks for the hard work and perseverance with which at the beginning of the nineties you helped to nurture the idea of Central European cooperation. In May 1994, through the goodness of your hearts and souls this idea led the presidents of the Central European countries to the beautiful Renaissance palace at Litomysl for their first, now traditional, meeting. We shared a common awareness that new questions were being raised by the new times. The Czech Republic and Slovenia contributed as much as they were able to reviving the Central European idea and its pluralist as well as integrative spirit. After long decades of spiritual and cultural entombment we may at last see again the free and creative expression of all the Central European spiritual virtues of pluralism, respect of diversity, protection of minorities as measures of democratic awareness, the pre-eminence of the spirit over external glory and over the greatness of the material world, and rejection of violence; after long decades these virtues are now stimulating European people of good will to join the sparkling human game of mutual spiritual ennoblement. On these virtues we must consolidate the clear European idea, the idea of its association and integration. Too often in the past, in the name simply of the national good, European people have suffered the most abominable torment and personal degradation. And too often this has ended up harming precisely those nations which by invoking national interests have forgotten about the value of human dignity and human rights, about the equal rights of other people and nations, and about values such as peace, cooperation, creativity, prosperity, social justice and tolerance. The equality of people without difference and their freedom within the borders of individual European countries and nations is the guarantee of European freedom and cooperation.
We may see today's ceremony as a sign and expression of the long, close and growing friendship between the Czechs and Slovenes. In our written traditions, and in the traditions of both countries handed down from generation to generation, lives the firm memory of our friendship. These memories were woven with particular dynamism before the First World War and between the two world wars by many people of culture and spirit. The adherents of Masaryk's policies and ethic, the Tyrš movement, the anti-Nazi resistance during the Second World War in both our countries, the concurrent Czech and Slovene political springs at the end of the sixties and much else is encompassed by the moral values which bind us. Particularly those which we carry within ourselves as our personal world, since it is implanted in us, and since we have matured and belong to this common Central European state of mind.
Our meeting bears encouraging testament to the great possibilities both our countries have to consolidate their position in the common European home. The joy inherent in Central European culture and in all its diversity and wealth can contribute greatly to the European home being filled with the human spirit, which alone can make life within this home agreeable, and can give it some purpose. Plečnik's world and his work are a recognised contribution to such a life and represent a real hope that such a life is possible.
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