ROMANIA: EU Gets a New Country, and a New Culture Capital

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Dec 29 2006 (IPS) - All seems ready in the central Romanian town Sibiu for a spectacular celebration of the country’s membership of the European Union (EU) Jan. 1. From that day this town becomes also the culture capital of Europe jointly with Luxembourg for a year.

The EU has set up a tradition to pick a town every year to host multicultural events to bring member nations closer.

This is the first time a town will share the honour with another, due to specific circumstances that connect it with Luxembourg. Sibiu, known for centuries by its German name Hermannstadt, was founded in 1190 by ethnic Germans from what is today Luxembourg.

Sibiu is situated 290 km north of Romanian capital Bucharest and about the same distance north-east of Serbian capital Belgrade. Luxembourg is 1,400 km north-west.

“This is the most important European programme for Romania,” head of the Sibiu 2007 project Marius Constantin told IPS on phone. “Our aim is to put the name of Sibiu on the world map.” The region is looking for an economic and tourist boom in 2007.

The local government has invested more than 130 million dollars over the past two years to give a face-lift to the town of 180,000. The traditional pastel coloured buildings and houses rotted for decades under communist rule that ended in 1989.

Hundreds of cultural events will be held next year, Constantin said. “All the work in the historical core of the town has been completed, and we view this as a particularly big chance not only for Sibiu but for the whole Romania.”

The slogan for the city is ‘Normal. Sibiu’, and for good reason. The recent history of Sibiu has not been easy.

At the time of the fall of communism in December 1989, Sibiu was the capital of Transylvania, a region in central Romania consisting of 16 counties, where the governor was Nicu Ceausescu, the son of long ruling dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.

More than 1,000 people from Sibiu were killed through several weeks of turmoil that led to Nicolae Ceausescu’s downfall 17 years ago. The town and Transylvania were under Nicu’s rule prior to that for years.

Earlier, after World War II, Sibiu and Transylvania saw a continuous exodus of ethnic Germans for decades. They were accused of collaborating with occupying Germans during the war.

Germans left behind long associations. They had established the first hospital in present day Romania in Sibiu in 1292, and the first pharmacy in 1494. They opened the first theatre in Sibiu in 1788, but after the end of World War II the Germans did not feel welcome any more. Poverty also drove out many Germans and Hungarians.

Now 95 percent of the population of Sibiu is Romanian, two percent ethnic Hungarian and only 1.6 percent ethnic German. But this did not stop people electing Klaus Werner Johannis, an ethnic German, as mayor in 2000.

“For almost 800 years Sibiu has been a regional capital, but the communists did not adhere to the concept of ‘alternative capitals’, so they tried to overshadow Sibiu,” Johannis said in an interview with Rompress, the national news agency. “The former regime had a policy of constructing social housing, and all the valuable lodgings in the city centre were nationalised and repopulated.”

Investment in restoring Sibiu began only in 2000. The rich architectural mixture of Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and some Art Nouveau makes Sibiu once again look the city of bijou treats, with its small theatres, cellar bars and cosy underground venues.

But the privilege of being the European capital of culture can bring controversy too.

Many earlier culture capitals have been accused of catering too much to the middle class, and spending public money on esoteric multimedia, obscure jazz and incomprehensible art shows for the benefit of a few, using cash that could be spent on schools and hospitals.

Sibiu authorities are trying to underline permanent benefits to the city. Johannis told Rompress that the entire infrastructure has been rebuilt, with restoration of streets, utilities, housing, squares and street lighting.

“This is for the benefit of all, for the future,” Constantin told IPS. He said a new airport is being constructed close to the city at a cost of about 80 million dollars.

Thousands of spectators are expected in Sibiu on the evening of Dec. 31 for celebrations that will include concerts, music performances, light shows and pyrotechnics.