By European cultural route one understands a trajectory covering one or more countries or regions, organised around topics whose historical, artistic or social interest proves to be European, either because of the geographical layout of the route, or due to its contents and significance.
photo:
The merchants bridge in Erfurt/ Thuringia/ D, finished 1325 as stonebridge, is the only bridge in the north of the Alps that is completely covered with buildings.
The promotion by the Council of Europe of the Program of the Cultural Routes for Member States answers a triple finality:
- to make more visible, to valorise more and to put into everyday practice the common cultural identity of European citizens,
- to safeguard and emphasise European cultural heritage as factor for improving Iiving conditions and as source of social, economic and cultural development,
- to give citizens new possibilities to find plenitude in their spare time by granting special status to cultural tourism and related practices.
The cultural routes of European impact were considered as
- transnational (several countries concerned)
- trans-regional (transborder or not)
- regional (routes located on the ground of one region only, but whose historical, artistic and social interest exceeds the borders oft hat region or of the state concerned).
The European quality of a route should entall a significance and a cultural dimension other than purely local: the routes must be articulated around a certain number of key points, places with a significative historical background, representative of European cultural entity and of its memory.
The effective development of the routes depends much on concrete initiatives that connect national, regional and local authorities, as well as the private operators from each country, with the initiatives of their counterparts from other European countries.
A joint action of these various actors can be established on the ground by developing routes, signposting ways, implementing infrastructures devoted to that purpose, when necessary, arising the awareness of the public at large through publications, advertising and promotion by the media, and last but not least by preparing encounters of young people.
Today the priority of the routes remains exclusively cultural. Its variations: research, education, heritage, creation and cultural tourism, are among the aims, but respect of the Other and exchange remain paramount.
The cultural routes are particularly suitable for reinforcing values such as tolerance and solidarity; they can fight against unemployment, the exclusion and resurgence of xenophobic nationalism.
The transborder and European dimensions of this program can contribute to interdisciplinarity and can make Europeans more conscious of their multiple cultural identities.
Finally, conservation and development of architectural and cultural heritage represent a significant aspect of this programme.
The cultural routes are not restricted only to launching cultural or tourist products, but are founded on a process of cultural co-operation which answers three functions:
1. the function of protection of the cultural values of Europe,
2. the function of dynamic observatory that enables exchange of information and expenence,
3. the experimental function, which makes it possible to emphasise new programmes of cooperation between different and complementary fields of research, new forms of encounters between young Europeans, valorisation of lesser known hentage based on networks which put in synergy competence ranging from the design to the realisation of a project or competence working in a transversal way, through interdisciplinary research.
The cultural routes programme is one of a kind, due to its integrative character and its capacity to gather cultures. But in order for it to continue strengthening cultural co-operation in Europe, lt needs the permanent support of the Member States of the Council of Europe and of all the States party to the European Cultural Convention.
photo: The today again Greek-katholic monastir in Podkamin (Ukraine) has been prison for political prisoners in Sowjet times and later mental institution. Today there is not enough money to renovate the building complex according to his worth.
In 1997 the Program of the cultural routes entered a new phase in benefiting from a political agreement between the Council of Europe and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, which proposed the creation of the European Institute of Cultural Routes, an institution intended to put together all the programme‘s files and docurnents, to guide the promoters of already elected cultural routes, to help the carriers of new projects in the implementation of their actions, and to disseminate complete information about the entire program. By the end of 2002, a web portal entitled “Cultural Routes and Landscapes, a Common Heritage“ will and prepared by the Institute make available information on the programme all over Europe.
Already in 2002 the idea of widening the Bilateral Political Agreement to a Partial Agreement to comprise routes and cultural Iandscape was Iaunched. lt should enable the creation of resource centres to spread the Institute‘s action to the main regions of Europe: Balkans, C‘aucasus, Transylvania and Baltic countries, among others...
photo: Michel Thomas-Penette, director of the European Instituts of Cultural Routes, Luxembourg