International Festival, Segobriga, Spain Excerpts from the Arcana Europa magazine (July 2000)

Festival organized and magazine published by Los Cantos de Maldoror – an international cultural assotiation born in August 1997 in Madrid.

The ARCANA EUROPA project, developed by Los Cantos de Maldoror, is based on the idea of reinforcing links between the countries comprising the European Union. Beyond this meeting and the festival (July 14-16th, 2000 in Tarancon, Spain), where eyes turn back to past and where we can find a share unity background between different civilizations, our main intention is the development and organization of a “producing engine” between the different participant associations for the making of the multilingual european magazine, written o n every language and translated into english so it can be understanded in every shore of the continent. We thpught our first issue as a goal of several cooperative meetings as well as a ludic event of this characteristics it can be a good way of collaboration between the present associations. Centered in the beautiful idea of making a magazine and a festival-meeting under banners of required search for a new european identity and the recovering of a newborn spirituality, in times of existencial inactivity, globalized consumism and worldwide capitalism.

It is the first time the European Union aproves a project of this characteristics in our country, a very particular project modality in which must be involved at least 6 associations; in our case, Arcana Europa counts with 9 associations from different european countries: Spain, France, Portugal, Ireland, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden, Germany and Switzerland.

[From the Introduction]:
“The idea that underlies this project is quite simple: Europe. A concept of Europe which is quite far from the monetary union, from the elimination of frontiers, from the common legislation; all those things are an empty matter in our opinion, the true sense of an united Europe is the one given by its history, by its culture. We only could call ourselves European if we recognize ourselves as European people and if we are able to look back to our history to recognize ourselves and so be able to give a sense to our present and so forge our future. We almost do not know why, it was a sort of intuition, it came to our mind the idea of creating a magazine written in many languages, spoken in thousands of languages that show the diverse origins, the different changes that our civilizations have walked.

Language is the mirror of our history, it is a canvas that has been painted from the most ancient times, is our living history. Every language has prints of our past, of our history, not only in the etymology of the words, but also in the set phrases, in the oral expressions, verbs in the metaphors, in the same accent, that even inside a concrete language defines a particular character, an origin…”

[From the texts of the magazine]:

“From man to man”
More than ever , faith, covered in a mistic feeling close to destiny, whisper in our ears that something is changing , or rather , that something must change. In fact , we are going to change it. So we have noticed it from inside Los Cantos de Maldoror , in a practically irrational way, almost blinded by future, ready to rise a tragic balaustrade of legends, rituals and alchemy that may give shape to a new Europe built on new cultural values of our own and identifying of an Ancient Europe. Ancient Europe is already tired of so many wars and rivalries , still with the burden of the Second World War’s ghosts and that needs to be saved from injustice. Similar scents arrive to our smell from other European places, isolated, strong and thoughtful places. It is time to get together. It is time to learn from our history and to built a new present, our present…
By Alberto Monreal, Spain (Maldoror)

“The pagans of Northern Europe and their belief”
Upon hearing the word “Viking” or “heathen” many will immediately think about terrible plunderers and vicious savages that practised dark and bloody rituals…But it must be said that a whole bunch of lies has been created about the heatens. The many positive aspects of the ancient cultures have deliberately been ignored by their Christian enemy , who wrote much of the history as we know it. It is rather obvious that the Christians were not capable or wiling to be objective towards other cultures and their beliefs, since they themselves claim to sit on the “one and only truth”. Fact is that the heathens, or pagans, across Europe lived in very civilised and cultured societies. For example, the Germanic pagans practised democracy in their own society and treated both men and women with equal respect…
By Andrea Haugen, Norway
(Hagalaz’ Runedance)

“Lithuania Goddesses and Romuva”
When the world enters a critical situation, it is time to look, where our roots lie. There were no great cultural changes in Lithuania, no great invasions. That data, safeguarded by us, will one day prove to be useful in reconstructing a healthy world. We are the most European people (the science agrees). Let us look to our selves, to our sacredness. Many things are sacred among us – lakes, rivers, days, etc. Not even serfdom could brake us…
By E.Simkunaite and J.Trinkunas,
Lithuania (Romuva)