UZ press festival
The UZ press festival is an event that has been organized since 1974 by the newspaper “ Unser Zeit ” (UZ) at regular intervals - usually every two years - together with the German Communist Party (DKP), of which it is the central organ . It is the largest festival organized by communists and, according to the company, the “largest festival of the left” in Germany as a whole.
Origin and history of the festivals
At the first festival on September 21 and 22, 1974, the organizers counted over 700,000 visitors in the Düsseldorf Rhine meadows. (For the festival, which cost the party about one million DM, the North Rhine-Westphalian Office for the Protection of the Constitution stated a number of visitors of about 100,000.) The second "UZ press festival - festival of the workers' press" took place on 20./21. September 1975 also took place on the Rhine meadows in Düsseldorf after the city of Düsseldorf was sentenced by the administrative court to let the Rhine meadows. The UZ press festival originally planned for 1976 was postponed due to difficulties with the city of Düsseldorf regarding the clearance of the Rhine meadows and took place as the "Workers Press Festival - Volksfest der DKP '77" from July 1st to 3rd, 1977 in Recklinghausen.
At the early press festivals, according to statements by Peter Schütt, the performing artists were paid a fee of up to DM 100,000, which was made possible by the extensive financing of the DKP by the SED.
Other places were Essen , Duisburg - Wedau and Bottrop . The number of visitors to the UZ press festivals in the 1970s and 1980s was between around 200,000 and 300,000, with representatives of “ communist brotherly parties ” from abroad also being present. In 1995, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2005 and 2007 they celebrated three days each (Fri-Sun) in the Revierpark Wischlingen in Dortmund - Huckarde . According to the organizers, over 50,000 visitors came to the festivals in 2003, 2005 and 2007.
Konstantin Wecker and the Chilean band Inti Illimani Historico performed at the 16th press festival from June 19 to 21, 2009 in the Wischlingen district park in Dortmund . Willi Gerns , Robert Steigerwald and Hans Heinz Holz were present at discussion events on the positioning of the DKP , who also presented his work “Weltanschauung und Reflexion - Explain the Dialectic”.
The 17th IP Press Festival was held from June 24-26, 2011. Well-known music groups included Inti Illimani Historico, who played on Saturday evening, and others. A. the bots , Microphone Mafia , Banda Bassotti , Mark Foggo's Skasters and the bandwidth .
The 18th UZ press festival took place from June 27 to 29, 2014. Microphone Mafia , Konstantin Wecker , Esther Bejarano and Kai Degenhardt played among others .
The 19th UZ press festival took place in Dortmund from July 1st to 3rd, 2016.
The press festival - politics, art, culture
With this press festival , the UZ or the German Communist Party (DKP) joins the tradition of the other Western European communist parties and their newspapers, e.g. B. the French L'Humanité , the Volksstimme in Vienna , the Unità in Rome and the Portuguese Avante! , a. The youth organization of the Greek KKE also organizes an annual festival in every major city in Greece. The individual districts of the DKP and various other organizations such as B. the Association of Marxist Students (AMS), the DKP-affiliated youth organization “Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterjugend” ( SDAJ ), the Association of Victims of the Nazi Regime ( VVN-BdA ) and numerous so-called brother parties from abroad (e.g. the Partito della Rifondazione Comunista (PRC) from Italy , the Communist Party of Greece or the Communist Party of Luxembourg ).
At the festival you will find a wide range of cultural activities, from political discussions, cabaret, artist performances and much more. There is also a literature tent in which left-wing publishers present themselves. In the 1980s, the Moscow State Circus was also a guest. Artists who were represented at press festivals include: a. the songwriters Hannes Wader , Franz Josef Degenhardt , Konstantin Wecker and the cabaret artist Dietrich Kittner . In 2001, 2003, 2005 and 2007 the Cologne rock group Brings also performed .
chronology
- 1974 Düsseldorf: Rhine meadows
- 1975 Düsseldorf: Rhine meadows
- 1977 Recklinghausen: Vestland area
- 1979 Essen: Gruga
- 1982 Duisburg: Wedaustadion
- 1984 Duisburg: Wedaustadion
- 1987 Duisburg: Wedaustadion
- 1993 Bottrop: Volkspark Batenbrock
- 1995 Dortmund: Wischlingen district park
- 1997 Dortmund: Wischlingen district park
- 1999 Dortmund: Wischlingen district park
- 2001 Dortmund: Wischlingen district park
- 2003 Dortmund: Wischlingen district park
- 2005 Dortmund: Wischlingen district park
- 2007 Dortmund: Wischlingen district park
- 2009 Dortmund: Wischlingen district park
- 2011 Dortmund: Wischlingen district park
- 2014 Dortmund: Wischlingen district park
- 2016 Dortmund: Revierpark Wischlingen
- 2018 Dortmund: Revierpark Wischlingen
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b http://www.dkp-online.de/pressefest
- ↑ A description of the atmosphere of the festival can be found in Richard David Precht's autobiographical memory book "Lenin only came to Lüdenscheid".
- ↑ Peter Schütt: What the DKP has always denied is now confirmed by the writer Peter Schütt, himself a member of the party's federal executive committee from 1971 to 1989: From the beginning, the West German communists clung to the East Berlin drip: Wes Geld ich nehm ', des Lied ich sing. In: zeit.de . June 8, 1990, accessed October 20, 2015 .
- ↑ List of past UZ press festivals on the DKP website