Intercultural exchange

 

In our VECU Project “literature” were participants of three countries: The Netherlands, Germany and Austria. The common language used was German which the participants from The Netherlands could also speak well. Also the literature used was for the major part in German since almost all the books suggested by the participants from The Netherlands had been already translated into German.

We also agreed with regard to the values we took from the books chosen. All those values are in all the three countries universally valid and common models. We were sorry to state that in all three countries a growing change in values and decline in values is manifest.

 

The German group of was working very thoroughly on three literary works chosen by them while the participants from The Netherlands and from Austria only analyzed one book more thoroughly but they stressed more the values contained therein and the task of literature to assume the education of children and young people towards literature. 

 

We (the Vienna Group) noticed that our partners from Magdeburg– which previously belonged to the German Democratic Republic – have chosen authors as well from Western Germany as from the German Democratic Republic. According to my opinion our partners from Magdeburg wanted to show – deliberately or involuntarily – that Germanyhas a common culture, common traditions and common values in spite of the previous political differences.  

 

 

Herta Spitaler, VECU Wien