452
PARTISAN REVIEW
criticism of the unclear situation regarding new ownership of newspapea
and the "unpleasant incidents that arose from the distribution of critical
publications. "
The guests from abroad focused on one article, published in the pri–
vate tabloid
Globus
in Zagreb last December 11 th, which denounced five
outspoken female Croatian writers as "witches." The title of the article
was "Croatian Feminists Rape Croatia." Two of the brutally attacked
women, Slavenka Drakulic and Dubravka Ugresic (both of whom partici–
pated at
Partisan Review's
conference "Intellectuals and Social Change
in
Eastern and Central Europe" last April at Rutgers University), are mem–
bers of PEN. Drakulic and Ugresic were boycotting this congress because
they felt that PEN had not appropriately protested the
Globus
article as
they had hoped it would do. Both Danish and German PEN had can–
celled their participation on the same grounds. The result of the ensuing
discussion here at the congress was that regrets were expressed.
"Speak Now or Never" was the title of the booklet published by the
Croatian PEN Club commemorating the 1933 Eleventh PEN Club
Congress in Dubrovnik. Sixty years ago, it marked the turning point in
PEN's history. There, H. G. Wells relinquished the Club's nonpolitical
position in order to condemn the burning of the books and other inci–
dents that took place in Germany after Hitler had seized power. The
purely Aryan German delegation left the congress abruptly, in reaction to
Wells's and Ernst Toller's speeches. Only the Austrian Jewish writer Felix
Salten and the founder of the Austrian PEN chapter, Grete von
Urbanitzky, followed suit and walked out too.
This corning September the Sixtieth W orId Conference of PEN
will
take place in Santiago de Compostello in Spain. Rumors have it that
George Konrad will not seek reelection to the PEN presidency.
"PEN
has outlived itself," Alain Finkielkraut stated in Dubrovnik this spring.
But perhaps it is that the moral and human expectations of a mediocre
organization are pitched too high.
