AN EUROPEAN CITY OF CULTURE 2000

by Alessandra Knowles

In 1995 the title of European City of Culture for the year 2000 was bestowed on Cracow by the Council of Europe along with Avignon, Bergen, Bologna, Brussels, Prague, Reykjavik and Santiago de Compostela. For Poland the nomination constituted an important contribution to the process of its approach to the European Union begun in 1990. A first important step in this direction had already been made in 1991 when the European Community had entrusted the city of Cracow with the organisation of the first European Month of Culture, a festival that in June 1992 brought together the most significant European artistic expressions, fostering the revival of the Polish city in the European cultural arena. For Cracow it meant a first important experiment that marked the start of a project for making the most of the city as a natural venue for prestigious artistic and academic events of international standing, such as those characterising the Cracow 2000 Festival. The work of preparing the Festival had already begun in 1996 with the establishing of an office, the Cracow 2000 Bureau, in charge of the drawing up and administration of a programme of events that were to take place over the period of four years from 1997 to 2000. Among the more outstanding initiatives are to be recalled the thematic reviews dedicated to the cinema, to the theatre and to poetry as well as the prestigious annual Beethoven Easter Festival. The managing of these first events contributed to the creation of the more appropriate basis for the celebrations of the Cracow 2000 Festival, symbol of both the passing into the new millennium and the new image of itself that Cracow intends to present to the world. This is the sense in which is to be viewed the rich programme of artistic and cultural events that have enlivened the theatres, the squares and the streets of this splendid historical city and which has been also the occasion for creating a network of exchanges with the other eight European Cities of Culture for 2000. In the context of the Festival, space has been given to the year 2000 edition of the prestigious International Print Triennial and to the Final Conference for the drawing up of the new International Charter for Restoration. The emormous potential that Cracow can offer was discussed with Prof. Jacek Purchla, director of the Mi?dzynarodowe Centrum Kultury v Kraków (International Cultural Centre of Cracow), founded in 1991 with the objective of creating a network of international organisations to promote the spread of the universal values of European civilisation, at the same time consolidating the position in Europe of Cracow, a city rich in artistic and cultural tradition.