Balkan play warns against the rise of fascism in Europe

A Balkan theater project is currently being performed in Sarajevo based on an interwar essay by a Croatian author. The project warns of the rise of extreme-right politicians in Europe and of sharp differences between poor and rich people. The play, called “Europe Today” after the 1935 work of the same name by Croatian intellectual Miroslav Krleža, reflects the rise of Nazism through a lucid collage of projected images that force the viewer to think. Reuters reports the collage is accompanied by dance, live music, and a stand-alone acting performance.

“At a time when Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia want to join the European Union, we are perceiving how unstable Europe actually is,” said Haris Pašović, the Bosnian director of the multimedia spectacle featuring Romanian, Serbia and Slovenian actors. “The EU, which in a certain way has been able to carry out the European concept of establishing cultural and political criteria for who is and is not European, is now paying the price of its arrogance,” he said, referring to the increasing influence of right-wing groups in countries such as France, the Netherlands and Sweden.

Many of the hundreds of people who have seen the play in Sarajevo left the theater in a gloomy mood. They had just seen a vision of Europe represented by images of its bloody past and the sound of war drums.

“What is dramatic is that Krleža’s words sound like ideas that could have been written this morning. The essay was written in 1935, when Europe was heading toward the darkest days of its history,” Pašović said. Krleža, who was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature three times, enthusiastically took up the communist ideology of Soviet leader Vladimír Ilyich Lenin, but Lenin’s successor Joseph Stalin destroyed his illusions and he distanced himself from the communist party.

“Fascists and racists are now in the coalition governments in the Netherlands and Sweden, [Marine] Le Pen in France is gaining strength and extreme right-wing ideologies are become more frequent and legal in European culture and politics,” Pašović said. Marine Le Pen, the new boss of the French extreme-right National Front, has enjoyed considerable success in the most recent public opinion polls in France, which predict she may make it into the second round of elections there for President next year.

Onstage, the Slovenian group Laibach, famous for their military costumes, dominated the performance. They performed music from their Volk project, which includes radical remixes of national anthems from around Europe.

Serbian actor Miki Manojlović, who retells Krleža’s words, is the simple voice of humanity. He transmits the intellectual’s desperation and pain to the audience, that of a man who knows what is coming but can’t stop it. Against a background of unfriendly-sounding music and projections of hypnotizing images of European symbols, Romanian dancer Edvard Klug embodies the pain of an individual doing his best to adjust to a horrifying world and find peace.

Artists from various countries, some of which, like Romania and Slovenia, are in the EU and some of which are outside the bloc, like Bosnia and Serbia, want to start a dialogue with Europe, Pašović explains. “Europe is a much more involved concept, culturally, geographically, and historically, than the EU presents through its limited approach,” he said.

“This play calls for… the human dimension and opposes treating human beings like objects to be bought and sold. The actions of individual human beings made Europe a civilized place and are key to its development,” Pašović said. “We must not forget that.”

Pašović was previously best-known for his wartime production of the play “Waiting for Godot” in Sarajevo, which he worked on with director Susan Sontag after returning to his hometown. The production was performed during the siege of Sarajevo from 1992-1995.