Would a Europe without borders be imaginable? The literary review of Cahiers de l'Est : Transfers in a divided Europe (1973-1980)
Abstract
The literary journal Cahiers de l'Est, produced at the height of the Cold War by Central European Exiles in France, attempts to bring together two irreconcilable parts of Europe. Through their undertaking, the editors of the Cahiers question the East/West dichotomy, particularly this political, but above all cultural border that divides the continent.
By recovering literary texts from the people's democracies of Central Europe, they participate in connecting these two Europe on multiple levels. However, the transfers of which they are the actors are sometimes controversial.
The journal is criticized for its very essence, which would contribute to the "ghettoization" of Eastern European literature, but also for its content, which provokes heated debates within the exile communities. These controversies highlight the importance for these communities of dealing publicly with these issues, their cultures, and more broadly their lives, but also the difficulty of addressing them given the wide and sometimes contradictory spectrum of sensitivities in Central Europe.
Despite this, this 'platform' magazine keeps its course for a greater cause: one Europe.