Carl Henrik Fredriksson

Writer and editor living in Vienna. He is a co-founder of Eurozine and the program director of Debates on Europe, a joint project of the S. Fischer Foundation and the German Academy for Language and Literature.

Articles

Cover for: Lessons of war

Lessons of war

The rebirth of Europe revisited

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.

Cover for: Why did it take Sweden so long?

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.

Cover for: A European in word and deed

A European in word and deed

The founder of Lettre internationale dies at 96

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.

Cover for: A journals man

A journals man

Olivier Corpet in memoriam

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.

Cover for: Explaining Europe: Peter Lodenius in memoriam

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.

Cover for: Widening the context

Widening the context

The making of a European journals network

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.

Cover for: Mihály Dés: He was who he was

Mihály Dés: He was who he was

Founder of ‘Lateral’ dies at 67

‘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.

Cover for: Breaking out of the echo chamber

Breaking out of the echo chamber

A broadcasting service for Europe?

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.

Cover for: Robert Silvers: Just an editor?

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.

Sergey Lavrov

In a backyard that doesn't exist

How Russia has changed the European post-Cold War order

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.

Cover for: A master of the daily grind

A master of the daily grind

Osman Deniztekin in memoriam

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

Cover for: Vienna has fallen!

Vienna has fallen!

The challenges of a European public sphere

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.

Cover for: Creating a space for debate

Creating a space for debate

European cultural journals and the making of the public sphere

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.

Economy and ethics in crisis

A new-old East-West divide?

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.

Nationalism in Belgium might be different from nationalism in Ukraine, but if we want to understand the current European crisis and how to overcome it we need to take both into account. The debate series “Europe talks to Europe” is an attempt to turn European intellectual debate into a two-way street.

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