Posted on 06/26/2006 11:04:21 AM PDT by Bokababe
Peter Handke has once again shocked the German public but this time in such a way that not even the most extreme do not dare criticize him for it. He has given up the alternative Heinrich Heine award that the actors and intellectuals of Berlin wished to bestow upon him in favor of the Serbs of Kosovo, who live "surrounded by barbed wire and tanks".
www.novosti.co.yu Vecernje Novosti daily, Belgrade
June 24, 2006 By D. Sekulic, June 23, 2006
Peter Handke has once again shocked the German public but this time in such a way that not even the most extreme do not dare criticize him for it. He has given up the alternative Heinrich Heine award that the actors and intellectuals of Berlin wished to bestow upon him in favor of the Serbs of Kosovo, who live "surrounded by barbed wire and tanks".
The Berlin Ensemble, headed by the also frequently controversial Klaus Peymann, the famous former head of the Vienna Burgtheater, recently organized donations with the help of numerous actors to award Handke an alternative Heinrich Heine award in the amount of 50,000 euros. The highly prestigious German language award was awarded to Peter Handke by an expert jury in Dusseldorf but the city council refused to accept its decision, stating quite literally that the award could not go to a writer who is of pro-Serb orientation!
The case provoked spirited discussion and many concluded that it represented an instance of brutal political censure of literature. Local politicians are judging one of the greatest living writers in the German language, warned eminent intellectuals, among them some, like Nobel laureate Gunther Grass who at one time advocated the bombing of Serbia.
At the same time Handke informed Peymann and his friends that he is renouncing the alternative award as well because, as he had previously stated, he did not wish his work to be the subject of meddling by local politicians. The money that they collect should be sent to the Serb enclaves in Kosovo and Metohija to people who are living under impossible conditions thanks to the supporters of "freedom" imposed upon them by NATO bombs.
Grass dismisses jury
In Dusseldorf it has now been openly admitted that the decision really was of a political nature and that the Heinrich Heine award allegedly has a clearly political character. In response to this, Grass, who is highly influential, has sent a request that in the future the city council be stripped of the right to approve or reject the decision of the expert jury.
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Related article:
Disputed Author Handke Awarded German Literary Prize
DEUTSCE WELLE 25.05.2006
Großansict des Bildes mit der Bildunterscrift: Austrian writer Peter Handke is controversial because of his stance on Serbia
Controversial Austrian playwright and novelist Peter Handke was awarded the city of Düseldorf's Heine Prize for literature.
The Heine Prize, endowed for 50,000 euros ($64,000), is one of the three highest-paying literature prizes in Germany. The jury said Handke -- like Heinric Heine, the German poet after whom the prize is named -- obstinately follows the way to an "open truth." He puts forth his own poetic world view, in contrast to broader public opinion, they said. The prize will be awared on Dec. 13.
Handke wrote the groundbreaking experimental play "Offending the Audience" and the novel "The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick", but may be best know for writing the novel "Wings of Desire", whic was turned into a film by Wim Wenders.
Pro-Serbian stance
He is controversial because of his pro-Serbian stance during the Balkan wars, and his support for the Serbian regime.
Recently, Frenc national theatre Comédie-Française removed the play "Voyage to the Sonorous Land or the Art of Asking" from its 2007 season lineup, after Handke spoke at the burial of former Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic in Marc.
Handke, who lives in France, said in an esay in the Frenc newspaper Libération: "Let's stop laying the masacre . on the backs of the Serbian military and paramilitary. And listen -- at last -- to the survivors of the Muslim masacres in numerous Serbian villages around Srebrenica."
'Glad' aceptance
Last year, Handke's publisher, Suhrkamp Verlag, said the author would categorically refuse any more literature prizes; in Paris, however, Handke said he would "gladly" acept the Heine Prize.
Up to now, winners of the Heine Prize have included Walter Jens, Günter Kunert, Max Frisc, Wolf Biermann, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Elfriede Jelinek und Robert Gernhardt.
FYI, a recent interview with Peter Handke:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/02/magazine/02wwln_q4.html?ex=1309492800&en=a0b71334b5bf11a5&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
Thanks, Dragonfly!
Interesting that Handke describes himself as a classical writer and criticizes those who attempt to make political statements with their work.
No city council has the right to deny a private organization the ability to award money to *whomever it pleases* for *whatever reasons.* The council's decision amounted to a restriction of the freedom of association between Handke and the Berlin Ensemble -- a coercive deprivation of economic opportunities and justly-earned rewards from a person solely on the basis of that person's political views. Such blatant censorship would not occur in today's United States -- and this case serves as a clear illustration of how much freer we are here in the U. S. compared to Germany.
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Utterly false. Tudjman was a great man, a great Roman Catholic, and a hero.
Too much crap, too much propaganda, on this thread.
Are you serious?
Do you think that thanking God that your wife is neither Serb nor Jew is what makes a great Roman Catholic and "a hero?
I would think ministering to the poor, the dejected, and being humiliated for it by the world for it would be a much closer model to "a Roman Catholic hero" -- and that far better describes Handke than Tudjman.
But then again, what do I know? I am only the "heretic" that Tudjman thanked God that his wife wasn't!
He was a politician.
Yes, a shifty one at that.
And now you know the context of his statement.
Yes he was, and a great one at that.
I disagree. He managed to pull off what no others could for almost 900 years, and with the odds so stacked against him.
Yes, he did -- by inviting back all the symbols of genocidal WWII Nazi Croatia... the flag, the money, and the exiled war criminals who were installed into positions of power. And then by restoring the same alliance with Germany that slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies the last time around. And then adding to that list of victims with Operation Storm, killing and driving out thousands of unarmed, innocent Serb civilian victims from the Krajina.
If you call that being "a good Catholic", then I think God would be more pleased with "a tree worshipper"!
I feel sorry for the Croat Catholic with a soul (my cousin was one), who now has to deal with the fact that "the Father of his Country" was a murderous, goose-stepping, Neo-Nazi war criminal. How can anything ever be right when it was founded on something so wrong and evil?
Germany, with Tudjman's help, resurrected Croatia for its own purposes. You can revel in that only because "the bill for German services" has not yet been presented. Wait until it is. And then will Croatia join Germany against the US as it has two World Wars before? Probably!
You mean there are actually those who admire a pro-Nazi fascist Ustashas like Tudjman still around and post here?
He was responsible for the massacreing of thousands of fellow Christian Serbs...he is a beastly monster and God (or Satan) only knows where his soul lies writhing.
Apparently so. Took me by surprise. Most Croats I know today want to crawl into a hole at the mere mention of his name.
You can't expect the mods to be able to catch every Stormfront poster.
Nothing wrong with allying with Germany since it isn't the Nazi state but an American ally and a Western democracy.
As for "Krajina", there is no such place considering that the Vojna Krajina was disbanded in 1881 and that it always had a Croatian majority, and Knin was never part of "Krajina" anyway.
How could Tudjman be a "neo-nazi" when he himself fought the Axis as an antifascist partizan?
Your knowledge of history sucks.
Sorry, but he's a hero who saved his nation from communism directed from Belgrade.
The only Croats who don't like Tudjman are communists and Soros employees.
Speaking about yourself? The FR Serbs can vouch for me. But all you seem to have are ad hominem attacks....
Tito wanted to win the civil war, so when Nazi Germany started falling apart, Tito offered all the ex-Croat Nazi Ustasha the chance to join him and the Partisans. I have no doubt that Tudjman was one of those who took up that offer.
So you admit that Tudjman fought FOR COMMUNISM during WWII? Even Milosevic didn't do that! LOL!
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