UNESCO Courier articles from March 1997

UNESCO Courier archives from March 1997

Predrag Matvejevic
March 1, 1997... Interviewed by Jasmina Sopova, two leading writers from former Yugoslavia, a Bosnian Croat and a Serb, testify in the light of their experience of the war that tore their country apart. Looking beyond eastern Europe, they draw some general...

Vidosav Stevanovic
March 1, 1997... Vidosav Stevanovic, a Leading contemporary Serb writer, lived for thirty years in Belgrade, before going into exile in 1991. Since 1995 he has been living quietly in a house outside the town of Kragujevac, where he was born. Although his voice is...

Crossroads Cities
March 1, 1997... New York, Tangier, Bombay and the other dries profiled in this issue, have been dubbed "crossroads cities", a term which calls for some explanation. They are cities where life is particularly rich and variegated because their history has been...

Tangier: Myths and Memories
March 1, 1997... Tangier - a gateway to Africa, and a window on Europe - still draws sustenance from its myths and legends, even though the city has expanded, looks different and no longer recognizes its children. This is the fate of places marked by transience,...

New York Blues
March 1, 1997... New York is a city that breathes fairness and barks against inequality. It's this that has made it the marvel of the twentieth century, not its skyscrapers or its billionaires. New York's skyscrapers have lost their lyrical line, and no...

Bombay: One and Many
March 1, 1997... Bombay, the gateway to India, is a city of contrasts. On the one hand, the dazzling interiors of its five star deluxe hotels; on the other the poverty and squalor of its slums. The capital of Indian finance and films, it is a city of hope and...

Marseilles: Port of Call and Recall
March 1, 1997... It is the destiny of Marseilles to be a crossroads, a place of transit and a refuge. Merchants, travellers, migrants and merchandise meet in this city whose hinterland spreads out along rivers and roads, this mythic place that opens its arms to...

La Paz: A Tale of Two Cities
March 1, 1997... Nuestra Senora de La Paz (Our Lady of Peace) was founded by the Spaniards on 20 October 1548 in the valley of the torrential river Chuqueyapu. Located in the area where the high plateaux of the Andes (the Altiplano) give way to the slopes leading...

Vancouver: Or the Spirit of Place
March 1, 1997... Vancouver, pretty little Pacific town of my youth. Cedar trees and blue water. Snow-capped mountains and Indian legends. I returned to you after years away and found a city transformed. Whole neighbourhoods had changed languages - from English to...

Scientists, Politicians and Scientific Research
March 1, 1997... The Second World War marked a turning point in the relations between science and government. It was then, for example, that the first science adviser to the White House was recruited. This kind of assignment was something quite new to those who...

Notre-Dame D'Amiens
March 1, 1997... The cathedral of Amiens in France is a masterpiece of Gothic architecture celebrated for the stone carvings on its Western portals. It was placed on the World Heritage List in 1981. Notre-Dame d'Amiens, the largest cathedral in France and a...

Large Dams
March 1, 1997... "When the garden is full of fruit, it's time to bottle some for the winter," says Jacques Lecornu. managing director of the International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD). "In the same way. dams retain water reserves for use in the dry season."...

The World Is a Sanctuary
March 1, 1997... The time has come to abandon the metaphor which has for so long dominated our perception of the world and to reject the damaging assumption that the world is a clock-like mechanism within which we are little cogs and wheels. It has led us to...

Rediscovering Lili Boulanger
March 1, 1997... A brilliantly precocious French composer who dazzled the world of European music at the beginning of the 20th century. 'The works of Lili Boulanger," the composer and conductor Igor Markevitch has Written, "impress me with their solitude. They...