Carl Henrik Fredriksson

The writer and feminist Slavenka Drakulić will be remembered for the moral wisdom and humanity running throughout her work, writes her friend and former Eurozine editor Carl Henrik Fredriksson.

Introducing a series on the implications of Russia’s war on Ukraine for the future of the European Union, Eurozine co-founders Carl Henrik Fredriksson and Klaus Nellen contrast Europe’s response today with opposition to the Iraq invasion in 2003.

A century after Sweden introduced suffrage for women, the country that invented ‘feminist foreign policy’ finally got its first female prime minister. Why the delay? Despite equality in parliament, old power structures still prevent women’s political ascent.

The influential Czech-born editor Antonín Liehm was a pioneer of East-West intellectual exchange and an early advocate of the ‘European public sphere’. In 2009 he gave a memorable keynote at the 22nd European Meeting of cultural journals in Vilnius.

Olivier Corpet, the journals editor and director of the Institute for Contemporary Publishing Archives, passed away on 6 October. In the 1980s he was a central figure in the founding of the European Meeting of Cultural Journals, the informal network that developed into Eurozine. Carl Henrik Fredriksson and Klaus Nellen, Eurozine co-founders, pay tribute to Corpet.

Peter Lodenius, the former editor-in-chief of Finland-Swedish Eurozine partner Ny Tid, has passed away. Carl Henrik Fredriksson remembers an outstandingly clearsighted journalist and editor able to make sense of European events for a Scandinavian readership in a way that was unique. Peter Lodenius played an important part in the Eurozine network, where he will be greatly missed.

What started thirty-five years ago as an informal meeting of European editors became the basis for Eurozine, founded in 1998 as an online cultural journal and editorial network. One of Eurozine’s original goals – to offer print journals a gateway to digital publishing – has long been realized. Another goal, however, remains a work in progress: to act as a plural forum for transnational European debate. Two of Eurozine’s founding editors reflect on the evolution of the project.

‘There are always more reasons for closing a cultural publication than for striving to keep it alive.’ A tribute to literary critic and novelist Mihály Dés, founder of the Spanish journal ‘Lateral’ and key figure in the Eurozine network, who passed away on 18 May.

Is the goal of a European public sphere best served by the creation of a supranational public service broadcaster, as has recently been proposed? Roman Léandre Schmidt and Carl Henrik Fredriksson are sceptical: rather than creating an artificial flagship, the EU must provide incentives for existing outlets to Europeanize their operations.

The late Robert Silvers, co-founder and editor of the ‘New York Review of Books’, was aptly characterized as ‘the author who doesn’t write’. A tribute to a one of the most important actors in the global intellectual public sphere from two of Eurozine’s co-founders.

Carl Henrik Fredriksson considers the misguided notion that Russia under Vladimir Putin may have become a threat to security in Europe. In fact, Russia’s contraventions of international treaties during the last decade render the very concept of European security null and void.

Carl Henrik Fredriksson remembers a no-nonsense European bridge-builder.

How much in common must a community have? Quite a lot, says Eurozine’s Carl Henrik Fredriksson. At the very least a common public sphere. Because without it, Europe’s publics will be easy prey for those who know how to play the strings of history.

As the 25th European Meeting of Cultural Journals commences in Oslo, it is timely to remember that cultural journals have long facilitated a level of intellectual exchange indispensable to societies that put stock in democratic and cosmopolitan spirit. And, as ongoing crisis overshadows the upcoming European elections and the European integration project risks being reduced to the task of reaching formal economic goals, the contribution of cultural journals to a European public sphere is more important than ever.

When the financial crisis made clear the extent of western banks’ involvement in eastern Europe, concerns surfaced about the effects on western economies, re-awakening perceptions of the East as unruly and unpredictable. In the East, meanwhile, suspicions were reinforced that the West was interested in the new EU member states only insofar as they provided an opportunity to expand existing markets. What are the ethical and political implications of a globalized economy in general, and of western companies’ expansion in eastern Europe in particular? What does the European integration project really mean, not only economically but also at a social and cultural level? Romanian economist Daniel Daianu met Austrian author Robert Misik in Bucharest to discuss whether the failure of existing political and economic structures has opened up a new-old East-West divide. Moderated by Mircea Vasilescu, editor of Dilema veche and Carl Henrik Fredriksson of Eurozine.