Previous reunions in a nutshell |
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The first Lahti Interational Writer's Reunion was held in
1963, right after cold war crises, and it´s particular role
was to serve as a meeting point between writers from the
East and West. Another important theme during the
sixties was the new French novel. The debate was often
fierce, as a socialist realism and modernism did not quite
recognise the same literary values. Vladimir Yermilov, for
example, who was the chairman of the group of Soviet
writers, severely criticised the presence at the reunion of
writers representing the bourgeois ideology. Yermilov
and Claude Simon later continued the debate begun in
Mukkula on the pages of Literaturnaya Gazeta and
Figaro Littéraire. According to Yermilov, it is the artist's duty to declare his or her own aesthetic ideal, his or her idea of how reality ought to be. According to Claude Simon, by contrast, it may be highly flattering to the writer to see him/herself as omniscient and an expert on all fields, but hte fact remains that the writer is only a human being and just as confused with the ways of the world as everyone else. The only thing the writer can do is describe his or her own observations on life and the world. The relationship of the writer with the world has been a recurrent theme even in later reunions. Whether writers ought to take an active role in society and the writer's power were themes discussed in the seventies- as were imperialism and the Third World. As is to be expected, the ivory tower of literature, i.e., whether writer's reunions of this type ougth to be arranged in the first place, has also been questioned. In 1977, Ulf Örnkloo, journalist from Sweden, called the reunion "The Ivory Tower of Babel". In 1973, Sven Delblanc wondered how western writers can have sunk so low that all they can do is moan and lament the lost meaning of their work. In 1995, Finnish poet Gösta Å gren began his opening speech, sayin: "In writers' reunions, writers make curiously pompous impression. Their heads are swollen. The endless talk of literature and it's significance makes them forget how helpless literature really is. " Even opposite views have been heard. In 1975, Herbert Gold, the novelist, ended his report in Los Angeles Times with the word, "Nevertheless, these argumentative, embroiled, cautious, astonished, and laughter-filled encounters before microphones, in saunas and over strong drink managed finally to approach something of what W.H. Auden defined as the essence of poetry: that which comes from the heart and creates order." As far is known, there has been official unanimity in the Lahti reunion on one occasion only: in 1975, Auberon Waugh tricked everyone into satnding up to honour P.G. Wodehouse's memory with a minute's silence. Waugh also made a comment on literary disputes: "A conversation in which the participants are over-concerned with détente is apt to lead into the area of unprincipled and shortsighted platitudes." Yet, all in all, what hte whole thing is actually about is sharing, connecting- in fact, what literature itself is all about. As Hans Magnus Enzenberger said in 1964, "I for one am ready to admit that I come because I enjoy it, it brings me friends and ideas, I listen eagerly to new points of view, I enjoy debate, I make contact with new realms of thought, I am curious, I enjoy coming to Lahti."
Background and history |