History on television in seven East Europe countries Hungary, Lithuania, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Finland Edited by Luisa Cigognetti, Lorenza Servetti, Pierre Sorlin PROMOTERS ISTITUTO STORICO PARRI EMILIA-ROMAGNA The Istituto Storico Parri Emilia-Romagna was established in 1963. Its mission is to promote retrieval and knowledge of contemporary history’s sources. The main objective of the Institute is the study and research of the history of the 20th century, in particular as concerns: 1. the relationship between history and memory, history and media, rese- arch and fruition of history, teaching and education; 2. the relationship between contemporary history and contemporary age: the present as history. From several years the Institute’s Audiovisual Department has being de- alt with Cinema and Television as sources of history, of which it has being analyzed various aspects. In particular, it has being focused on the re- lationship between television and history in a series of analyses of the different expressive forms of the historical narrative television: from the use of archive material to video interviews and life stories as a means to popularise history made through modern medias. These works are publi- shed in the series “Ricerche” by Marsilio Editore. Istituto Storico Parri Emilia-Romagna via S. Isaia 18 - 40123, Bologna +39 051 3397230 - http://www.istitutoparri.eu/ VIDEOTECA REGIONALE The Regional Video Library was established in 1996 by the Legislati- ve Assembly of the Region Emilia-Romagna in collaboration with Istituto Beni Culturali, Artistici e Naturali. It is part of the Library of the Legislative Assembly of the Region Emilia-Romagna. The archive of the Video Library contains: • documentaries concerning regional art, history and culture; • documentaries produced by authors and producers of the Region; • journalistic reports finalists of the “Ilaria Alpi” Award. The bibliographic catalogue contains about 4,000 videos, all available for lending. 3 Since 2004 it has being put into action the “Videoteca in rete” project, consisting in online viewing of many documentaries aimed at schools, Libraries and video Libraries of the Region. Furthermore, the Video Library promotes cultural projects and initiatives for schools in collaboration with regional Institutions and associations. Videoteca regionale - c/o Biblioteca dell’Assemblea legislativa viale Aldo Moro, 32 - 40127 Bologna +39 051 527. 5581 / 5047 - [email protected] http://assemblealegislativa.regione.emilia-romagna.it/videoteca CENTRE EUROPE DIRECT OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF THE REGION OF EMILIA-ROMAGNA The Europe Direct network is the main instrument used by the European institutions to encourage contacts with regional territories and citizens. This network is sponsored and coordinated by the Directorate-General for Communication of the European Commission and consists of about 50 Centres in Italy and nearly 500 Centres within the European Union. It acts as intermediary between the EU and citizens at local level: • it allows citizens to have information, advice, assistance and answers on EU policies and funding, and an opportunity to communicate with European institutions as well; • it actively promotes public debates and attracts the interest of medias at local and regional level; • it collaborates with schools and civil society; • it enables the European institutions to improve the dissemination of available data and information adapted to local and regional need. Centre Europe Direct of the Legislative Assembly of the Region of Emilia-Romagna viale Aldo Moro 36 - 40127 Bologna +39 051 527 5122 [email protected] http://assemblealegislativa.regione.emilia-romagna.it/antennaed 4 PRESENTATION .......................................... Stefania Fenati Responsabile Centro Europe Direct Emilia Romagna The book series “Il filo d’Europa” is a collection of documents, contributions and research coordinated by the European Di- rect Centre in its mission to offer citizens documents, analysis, reports and anything regarding European issues. This book (the fifth of the series) is dedicated to the 2nd re- search report of the project “Media and community culture. A European history through TV”. While the 1st study focused on how broadcast systems of seven western Europe countries (Belgium, France, United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, Portugal, Italy) represent history, this 2nd one analyses in depth the historical programme of broadcast systems in seven eastern Europe countries (Hun- gary, Lithuania, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Finland). On this project, European Direct Centre, Regional Video-Li- brary and Istituto Storico Parri Emilia-Romagna continue to concentrate their energy on understanding how European broadcast systems can show history in order to imagine a possible common European history through television. 5 INDICE Preface Luigi Benedetti pag. 9 Introduction Luisa Cigognetti, Lorenza Servetti, Pierre Sorlin pag. 11 History on Hungarian Television: an introduction Teréz Vincze “ 13 History on Lithuanian Television Karolis Klimka “ 28 Presenting history on Slovak television Mária Ridzoňová Ferenčuhová “ 42 Marriages (not only) of convenience: history in Czech Television & television in Czech history Tereza Czesany Dvořáková - Translation: Alena Faltýsková “ 65 Televising history in Polish television Urszula Jarecka “ 93 History at TV: a Romanian view on History on recent television Anca Velicu - Monica Mitarca “ 125 Challenges in media policy and education European history on Finnish television channels di Jarmo Valkola “ 162 7 PREFACE .......................................... Luigi Benedetti.. General Manager Assemblea legislativa The project “Media and community culture. A European histo- ry through TV” was born some years ago thanks to a proposal made by Mr. Pierre Sorlin, Emeritus Professor of University of Paris-Sorbonne Nouvelle, to the Legislative Assembly of Emilia-Romagna Region. The premise was to conceive a re- search project in order to assess, through a methodological analysis work, how history programs are represented by Eu- ropean broadcast systems and if they also include European issues. The European Direct Centre and the Video-Library of the Le- gislative Assembly together with Istituto Storico Parri of Emi- lia-Romagna, our main partner in this project, have worked very hard spending a lot of energy and involving researchers from 14 European Universities whose studies have traced a knowledge framework not yet realised at European level. After a three year research, we can affirm we hit the mark: the different vision of history coming out from national broa- dcasting system; the successful effort to outline the most im- portant differences between eastern and western European countries; the in-depth identification of the historical crux, of the facts stressed or obscured by the national broadcasting systems are telling us a lot about a diversified European hi- story which is not yet a common element for European citi- zens. The gap between European institutions and European citi- zens, who are nowadays almost 500 millions, is one of the current topic, whereas the European identity should be con- 9 sidered one of values to join together the Europeans. “United in diversity” is the motto of the European Union. But the education of nowadays politicians and policy makers was based on books still full of “national” prejudices and on historical narrations characterised by national divisions and se- lections and not on common elements. History with the power of the truth, and not its artificial recon- struction, could be the “breeding ground” where a new com- mon identity could arise? Television could be for these generations the ideal instrument to develop adequate instruments for a new vision of the Eu- ropean history? This project was born thanks to an ambitious idea and a strong thirst of knowledge. Now the first step is made and we would like to spread the results of this project and in parti- cular to draw the attention of the European Institutions on it, hoping that it could be an useful tool to strengthen the sense of belonging to the European community. 10 INTRODUCTION ....Luisa Cigognetti, Lorenza Servetti, Pierre Sorlin (Istituto storico Parri Emilia-Romagna) The initial phase of the investigation, which dealt with the televi- sion history programmes of seven Western European countries (Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Portugal, Spain) came to an end in April 2009 with the publication of a first report detailing the main broadcasts and confronting the conception of history developed in the countries taken into account. The second phase, which began in the spring of 2009, is dedica- ted to East European countries. A questionnaire has been sent to researchers selected in seven countries; all have answered the queries and drawn a panorama of television in their country, with special reference to the representation of history. They have received complementary questions, and their final report - that we are presenting in this book - delivered at the end of 2009, was cross-examined in a seminar in Bologna in February 2010. The vision of history spread in Eastern nations is rather different from the one generally accepted in the West, these countries had a difficult, chaotic past; as nations they were birth relatively late, mostly during the 20th century, and they were affected by the World Wars as well as by the cold War so that the medieval and modern