Košice used to be the capital of the Hungarian Empire. What does it mean to you?
The birthplace. The sins of youth. Maturation and sobering up. Blunders and their acknowledgment. City and its residents, as well as their history. Who lived in the previous century in Košice, lived in four different states without changing the place of residence. Political regime changed four times. It is not about figures; yet if we work with Umberto Ecco’s sentential that each hieroglyph is also a hieroglyph of something else, we can consider it in numbers as well: 918, 1938, 1945, 1989-1993 bear the same significance is everyone's mind, but the impact they had is individual.
The year of 1918 was the only one of them I had missed in the life history of the city.  The question, whether I know what it means to me, is still open, since the city changes and I change with it. Even though I am a local patriot, I have always perceived that what the native and non-native Košice dweller have been bringing to Košice  from other places affected the development of the city far more than the fact that it has been home to notable personas whom the city have recognized. I returned after a longer period, become I suffer from the "Švanda" complex. (Švanda is the bagpiper portrayed by Tyl who roamed the world but could not return to his hometown of Strakonice.) Even the birds come back but could not answer the question, why.  It is a feeling, as one might say today.

What makes Košice unique?
Every city is unique in its own way. As one finds a whiff of a highlander mystique in sheep cheese, every city breathes its genius loci. In the case of Košice, it revolves around the system of sacral objects. Along the St. Michael's Chapel, one could draw an imaginary boundary with the westernmost projection of the Gothic style. It transcends into European significance. Košice started writing his history jointly with the Abov comitat (1138 -1143). At this enjambment, I would start with one of the oldest Romanesque churches (1250) in Šebastovce. 451 years ago, the first play (Stöckel: Zuzana) was performed behind the walls of the Jesuit school here. 350 years ago, the first Universitats Cassoviensis was established, but even 179 years prior to that (1411), the Buda University of King Matej was transfer here, and remained for 17 years.
The fact that the city's coat of arms is the oldest in Europe is well known, and it is displayed in full view. However, there is no culture incubator present in the city - a public place to present everything of significance, such as, among others, the fact that 221 years ago, Ferenc Kazinczy translated Hamlet during his stay in Košice to Hungarian for the first time, and started publishing the first Hungarian literary journal Magyar Museum (1788), and Orpheus two years later. There are also other facts and phenomena, which are endemic to Košice. One can stumble upon acts of barbarism as well, such as the demolition of the Secession Grandholel Schalkház in 1873. If only that...

What does the cultural infrastructure of Košice lack the most?
I have already pointed it out. An incubator of tradition, where the first steps of the visitors would lead to acquire a sense of place. It also lacks a city journal to present the rich history and the present time of the city, not just the current affairs of the city establishment.

What should the ECC event team work on?
To make what the team does visible. It should present the projects and proposals in the city center, best at the lower gate near the State Library of Science, for city residents to evaluate. It could work to a minimal extent, even if Košice does not win the ECC title. I would use the fact that Košice's significance extended to the entire northern-east part of the Hungarian Empire (Partes Superiores), and that Ferenc Kazinczy called Košice the capital of culture in the Hungarian Empire of the time, as an underlining thesis of the candidacy. Since we share common history with the Hungarian Empire, why should we not tie in on what had been artificially disrupted? Lastly, the city could present the 7 Best of Košice in printed form and on CDs.

What way would like Košice in 2013 to be?
I would rather not like to see Aupark on the city square, but I take it as an irreversible fact that is not worth any pointless debates. It still feeds a big civil discord, which unfortunately surfaced too late. The city should first find out what the opinion of the residents is on such big project, and then proceed with selling the plot, where the monument of the developers will be erected. I have nothing against them, they are doing their job. The problem is that the city establishment does not listen to its voters.
I could envision a memorial to the victims of holocaust in a green park there for example; created even from collections within an international context. Paris has it, New York too, and Berlin erected it to commemorate the 60th anniversary of holocaust four years ago. The square was the place where 13 000 Jews were loaded into cattle wagons, 130 trains passed through the Košice train station, and there is nothing to commemorate such disgracefulness even after 63 years. I have already published something on that note, but it seems to be insufficient still for the city to be really touched by the memento.
By 2013 the city will have changed for sure - there will be hotels, stadiums, multiplex cinemas at the shopping centers, which mark progress, but you can also find them in places where democracy has not has its home very long. Once the rain of stimulation starts falling on culture too, the prominent project plans within the military barracks could materialize. It is necessary to focus on projects worthy of notice even if the ECC candidacy is not successful.

You lived in the times renowned for building boundaries. Would you support the thesis that political borders can copy the cultural borders of Europe?
There have always been borders. But there were no spiritual boundaries even when the Iron Wall was in place. Nowadays, it is also all about possibilities (financial ones too), but also about invention in spiritual communication. Not everything needs to follow institutional channels. It is more important to form bonds (explore) in culture, and to draw impulses on an individual basis.  Geographical borders are still real, but spiritual ones have always been fictitious and open. (The more a person knows, the more he/she sees.)

You live in a city a few kilometers off the Schengen border, which is now under more security than during the previous regime. What feelings does it stir in you?
I feel a sense of solidarity for our Slavic neighbors in Mukachevo and Berehov, whose inhabitants lived in six different states in the course of the 20th century without changing the place of residence. It is our mirror image until recent history. I feel the need to support Ukraine in its effort to move the Schengen wall further east.



If you were to entice a foreigner on account of three themes of our city, what would they be?
1.    A perfectly mapped and visualized historical part of the city 2. Specific ballet and opera performances in the State Theater 3. Botanical garden and the zoo; technical and national history museums; and an excursion into the vicinity of the city in the extent of Abov in the least. I would definitely not present the images of new hotels - those are pervasive almost everywhere.

What should we - as residents of Košice and as the ECC project team - always keep in mind?
Altogether the same thing – that we know how to cultivate tradition, and that we listen to the legacy of the past.  It should be noticeable in the city, too. Some things are visible; others are still waiting to be discovered. 
One prominent Czech historian said that “history is redintegrated by future."


Roman Sorger

Tibor Ferko, theaterologist, dramatic advisor, publicist. Some published authorial works as follows: two parts of the Tatra triptych - Občan O(t)o, Lásky hra osudná; its last part Pokušenie starého kocúra is currently at the publisher. His radio monodrama Útrapy rozumu has been adapted as Niekto klope na dvere by Spiš theater. He has translated plays and written professional articles. His writes theater treatises, reviews, essays, commentaries, etc. for Slovak periodicals.