Europa erzählen – über Grenzen hinaus. Öffentliches Gespräch mit den Preisträger*innen der Goethe-Medaille 2026

An evening with Michael Pärt, Anita Raja, and Prodromos Tsinikoris.

Europe is not a fixed place. It is a story that is constantly being rewritten—in languages that translate into one another, in sounds that cross borders, in life stories that unfold between two or more homelands. This story encompasses flight and new beginnings, migration and putting down roots, loss and transformation. It is not always comfortable, but it is alive, and it is told by people who are willing to listen more closely.

The recipients of the 2026 Goethe Medal are among these people. The Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, the Italian translator and cultural mediator Anita Raja, and the Greek-German theater director Prodromos Tsinikoris have each demonstrated in their own way through their work how experiences of living on the margins can give rise to forms of understanding.

What connects a composer who made exile in Berlin his home, a translator who made German-language literature accessible to an Italian audience, and a director who grew up in Wuppertal as the child of Greek migrant workers and now shapes the European theater scene? It is the conviction that culture arises where borders are understood not as barriers but as thresholds.

On August 26, Anita Raja, Prodromos Tsinikoris, and Michael Pärt, director of the Arvo Pärt Foundation, will come together for the first time and exclusively as part of the award ceremony for a public discussion, two days before the presentation of the Goethe Medal in Weimar. In Hall 1 of the Humboldt Forum, they will speak with Shelly Kupferberg about art, language, exile, memory, and the question of how Europe can be portrayed today.

More information about the Goethe Medal and this year’s laureates can be found on the Goethe-Institut’s website.

Afterward, all guests are cordially invited to a reception.

Participants

Michael Pärt

Award recipient Arvo Pärt is unable to attend for health reasons; he will be represented in the discussion by his son Michael Pärt, director of the Arvo Pärt Center.

Anita Raja has dedicated her life to translating the voices that must be heard: Christa Wolf, Georg Büchner, Ingeborg Bachmann—works that deal with resistance and memory.

In his documentary theater projects,Prodromos Tsinikoris provides a stage for those who are all too often invisible in Europe’s official narratives: homeless people, migrant workers, and the victims and survivors of Nazi crimes.

Shelly Kupferberg: Journalist and author Shelly Kupferberg will moderate the discussion with the recipients of the Goethe Medal.

After emigrating from Soviet-occupied Estonia,Arvo Pärt’s music took on new artistic momentum, shaped by his life in Berlin. He moves people around the world in a way that speaks louder than many words.

- Free with registration
- Language: German
- Location: Hall 1, Ground Floor