Literature and theatre as a bridge for continuing intercultural dialogue.
The Other Frame [Der andere Rahmen, or DAR for short] is a bilingual publication series offering texts in both German and Russian on the Basel Philosophicum website. The initiative’s goal is to engage readers in an intercultural dialogue by offering works of contemporary literature and drama that reach outside the limits of mainstream viewpoints. The texts curated by Svyatoslav Gorodetskiy are reviews of new publications and theater productions, as well as interviews with authors who discuss work they’ve read and seen. Interested readers are given the opportunity to discover new artists and engage with diverse perspectives.
The idea for the project arose against the backdrop of the war between Russia and Ukraine. The project initiators wish to break away from the polarizing, destructive framework of the logic of war and instead collaboratively develop a creative, living logic of peace. This new view of the Ukraine, for example, or of Russia or the other countries involved, makes clear differentiations but also connections, instead of getting lost in hate that merely generalizes and anonymizes individuals. The Other Frame invites us to reflect on the symbiotic, mutually nourishing interconnectedness of all cultures over the world, to engage in a dialogue with one another, and to hold this truth together as creative human beings while keeping a distance from flags and nationalities. In many Slavic languages, the word дар (pronounced “dar”) means “gift,” which is how the project initiators view their offering (thus, the acronym DAR, Der andere Rahmen). What they wish their gift to be is a fostering of intercultural relationships and exchange. The website currently offers essays on Cyrano de Bergerac, Vladimir Nabokov, Gabriel García Márquez, and an essay by Catherine Lovey, as well as many others.
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Translation Joshua Kelberman
Image Project DAR. Source: Der andere Rahmen
