{"id":24543,"date":"2022-03-18T11:06:53","date_gmt":"2022-03-18T10:06:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/archive.iask.hu\/hu\/?p=24543"},"modified":"2022-03-19T12:39:53","modified_gmt":"2022-03-19T11:39:53","slug":"central-european-odyssey-a-tribute-to-george-schopflin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.iask.hu\/en\/central-european-odyssey-a-tribute-to-george-schopflin\/","title":{"rendered":"Central European Odyssey – A Tribute to George Sch\u00f6pflin"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Dear Gyuri,<\/h5>\n
\u201cNor omnis moriar\u201d – I shall not wholly die<\/em> – this was your last message to us with Horace\u2019s words. We are following your promise.<\/h5>\n
You are a great traveler \u2013 who, in search of his true home, keeps on creating his identity.<\/h5>\n

That is how your life started: from school to school, on the path Budapest\u2013Stockholm\u2013London\u2013Glasgow, then, after the university, the famous College of Europe in Bruges.<\/p>\n

This was certainly a well-considered choice of career: you set forth to discover Europe\u2019s labyrinth. Although you rather identified yourself with Scotland\u2019s egalitarian culture, you became first a researcher at Chatham House in London, then a reporter for the BBC. Followed by the London School of Economics and the University College London.<\/p>\n

We met accidently at Hamstead in 1981, when M\u00e1ty\u00e1s S\u00e1rk\u00f6zi introduced us. At that time your name was already known in Hungary, thanks to the \u2018Hungarian Booklets\u2019 <\/em>published in Paris (P\u00e1rizsi Magyar F\u00fczetek) and the East European<\/em> Reporter<\/em>, a journal of democratic dissident movements. We were immediately connected by our fields of interest: Central Europe, Poland\u2019s Solidarity, Czechoslovakia\u2019s Charter 77, nation and democracy, nationalism and identity, the role of culture in great social transformations\u2026<\/p>\n

Later, when you could already visit Budapest regularly, we did not have to agree on a suitable date: you just walked through the door of the Hungarian Academy\u2019s Institute of Sociology, and we could instantly pick up where we left off\u2026<\/p>\n

After 1989 you had officially returned home, and your books and studies had become a part of everyday intellectual life in Hungary. Yet you were driven to go further than Budapest.<\/h5>\n

In the 1990s, working with Elem\u00e9r Hankiss and Jody Jensen we succeeded in opening the Europe House in K\u0151szeg and launched the International Summer University \u2013 efforts which quickly gained your personal support. This had brought forth dozens of lectures, conferences, and seminars: \u2018Exploring Central Europe\u2019, \u2018Hannibal ante portas\u2019, \u2018Possible and Impossible Futures for Europe\u2019, \u2018<\/em>The European Dream and Divided Societies\u2019, \u2018The Global Shift and the Return of<\/em> Central Europe\u2019.<\/em> During last year\u2019s Winter School, you preferred personal presence to the online world created by the pandemic. There we raised essential questions as the titles of symposia: \u2018Whom or what can we trust?<\/em> How to be a<\/em> citizen?<\/em>\u2019 We had an opportunity to discuss these pressing issues at iASK, the novel \u2018institute of advanced studies\u2019 founded in 2015 \u2013 this, again, happened with your strong support. Then you served until recently as president of the Advisory Board.<\/p>\n

From Chatham House to Europe House, from the biggest city to the smallest town \u2013 this was by no means a linear move.<\/h5>\n

Journalism and essay writing were supplemented with political science, and there emerged the politician. For years, both of us had been teaching at the Forli Campus, the University of Bologna (naturally, seminars in Central European Studies). Once you asked me to hold your next-day classes because you had to go back to Brussels by plane. I asked you about your choice to become a Member of the European Parliament, you briefly replied: \u2018It was time to change. I began to fail to fully understand what I was writing about.\u2019<\/p>\n

You failed to give up any of your professions, it was only a shift in emphasis.<\/h5>\n

Over the years at the European Parliament, you did not stop to create excellent books, and your interviews turned into great essays. The subtle irony, mixed with a certain self-irony and elegant but never offending reserve characterized you in every genre. Ceaseless inquiry into minute details helped you avoid the traps of hasty generalizations. Meanwhile, your personal re-discovery of Central Europe did not come to an end either. The focus on K\u0151szeg was extended to the whole of Vas County, you represented both in the European Parliament, providing funds from your own budget for the K\u0151szeg Civic Casino, originally founded at Count Stephen Sz\u00e9chenyi\u2019s initiative.<\/p>\n

Your partner for life, Piret, also assisted you in reaching the next port, Tallinn, where you helped expand the university\u2019s international relations, organized the summer university (and, of course, published in local newspapers about Hungarian and European politics). But first of all, you found a home, a new homeland, which was chosen by yourself and embraced you. And again, as with all places throughout your journey, you began to explore the lands, people, local culture, Estonian literature, thinking, and cuisine\u2026 all in all, you possessed the unique ability to identify with multiple cultures at the same time.<\/p>\n

Of your many important and original ideas, the thought that is the dearest for me is related to culture: our self-identity, all that ties us to nation and community also bind us to specific cultures.<\/h5>\n

They connect us with a distinct, complex compound of values, traditions, and beliefs, which is usually consolidated by independent linguistic expression. However, this identification is to be contested: one can choose or spontaneously adopt certain values but cannot deny those of others. You warned us that it is impossible to win culture wars \u2013 as they cannot be ended either in the absence of reasonable dialogue. Such wars create almost unbridgeable rifts or, in a worse case, bloody wars, if not civil wars. Thus, they generate games ending in a lose-lose situation.<\/p>\n

Apparently, you were rather lonely with this understanding of public life and politics since the loud noises of the unrelenting battle stifled the voices of agreement. The belief that politics can be effective only through inculcating a strong and clear image of the enemy seemed to triumph.<\/p>\n

To gain ground, the culture of cooperation demands, in addition to goodwill, historical and linguistic, that is, cultural knowledge as well as empathy. This includes respect for diversity and the ability to understand and accept contradictions.<\/p>\n

We shall strive to gather and re-interpret whatever you left for us as your legacy. We shall attempt to answer your questions, navigating troubled waters, as you did, acting as our guide.<\/h5>\n

Because the man we know as Gy\u00f6rgy Sch\u00f6pflin was in fact the new Odysseus of Central Europe.<\/p>\n

Dear Gyuri, thank you for letting us accompany you on a part of your voyage. Without you, we would know less about the world and our place therein.<\/p>\n

And the journey does not end here\u2026<\/p>\n

Eulogy by Ferenc Miszlivetz at the funeral of Gy\u00f6rgy Sch\u00f6pflin (Budapest, 18 March 2022)<\/em><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“We will seek to gather and reinterpret what you have left us.” Eulogy by Ferenc Miszlivetz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":23582,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[239,32,23,38],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nCentral European Odyssey - A Tribute to George Sch\u00f6pflin - iASK - Institute of Advanced Studies K\u0151szeg<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/archive.iask.hu\/en\/?p=24543\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Central European Odyssey - A Tribute to George Sch\u00f6pflin - iASK - Institute of Advanced Studies K\u0151szeg\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\""We will seek to gather and reinterpret what you have left us." 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