Europe of the Regions or Province Europe (Evropa regij ali provinca Evropa)
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Boris Buden (Berlin), Helene Breitenfellner (Maribor), Josip Rastko Mocnik (Ljubljana), Mate Kapovič (Zagreb), Birgit Mennel (Vienna), Stefan Nowotny (Vienna), Saso Furlan(Ljubljana), Alenka Pirman (Ljubljana), Lidija Radojević (Ljubljana) and others. We are all aware of the phrase “Europe of the regions”. It stands for a Europe which consists not only of several nation-states, but also of the geo-cultural areas into which these states transcend. While such a European region is often perceived as a region with a specific and unique cultural identity, such segmentation of Europe is not compatible with the ever-persistent regime bound to nationalist sovereignty. Maribor – isn’t this also a name of a European region with a hybrid cultural identity that still needs to be defined, especially on the base of language practice and its cultural and political implications? Which is the spoken language of Maribor as a region? The answer can be neither a single homogeneous national language, nor a simple plurality of such languages. The best assumption is the existence of multiple translation processes whose specific cultural and social effects always break the cultural and political framework of Europe apart. A Europe of the regions only makes sense in a Europe that perceives itself as a region of a global ever-changing World.
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