G. Lock and J.

Sokol: European heritage

Heritage means a property, something we use in everyday life for our personal or social purposes: the cultural landscape, buildings, techniques, works of art and literature. But any such heritage, on the other hand, was handed over to us by our ancestors for instance by our European ancestors. So we should not consider ourselves as the final users: this heritage should reach our descendants as well. Thus, heritage means something entrusted to our care and stewardship. And there is, third, an immaterial heritage of tasks, preferences or values, which our predecessors engaged us in. So the use of this heritage is not just a matter of choice, but also a responsibility. A complication in the present case is however that the European heritage must be regarded in a plural sense: how do we deal, in the light of the above, with this plurality? What do the European heritages look like from all these points of view? Alpbach, Austria, 2005