International Festival „United Shakespeare”

As the past four centuries bear witness, Shakespeare’s oeuvre has gone beyond being ‘of his time’: it has become atemporal. His work has linked different époques, has traversed the conscience of humankind and, as Hamlet put it, has ‘held a mirror close’ to human nature, to thinking, to morals, to worldly vices. 

Shakespeare’s plays are not of a time or of a place; for centuries, he has been ‘unser-Shakespeare’ for Germany as much as he has been for the French; he has been, in turn, the most Romanian playwright, the most Polish, the most Japanese, the most Ukrainian one. His plays both dazzle and unite us, their conflicts and human conditions making them ‘our contemporary’ time and again. Power and war, peace and pecuniary interests, the tyrants’ world and vagaries, the overthrow and change of regime into the egocentric aesthetics of tyranny are all only too familiar. The world is recasting its geographical and trust frontiers: neighbor watches neighbor with poised attention and palpable fear; treaties are broken, bastards anoint themselves as legitimate heirs, (identity or land) heritage is stolen, children sell their own parents and brothers face each other in battle.  

In a Europe threatened by divisions, it is all the more urgent to remain united, not just politically, but also spiritually, culturally and artistically. Shakespeare’s work has this multinational force: to unite what belongs to the spiritual realm, to the emotional sphere, to the artistic world. 

The Shakespeare Days in Chișinău (Moldova) launches the concept: United Shakespeare. Over four days, United Shakespeare aims to unite actors, directors, theatre critics, academics, students, spectators from across Europe and to enable, through Shakespeare’s work, the dialogue about now and the pressing issues of today. 

United Shakespeare in Chișinău (Moldova) is a festival literally at the crossroads of different worlds and of history: between occupied Ukraine, attached by the world of yesterday and Romania, which has just joined the Schengen Area, the world of tomorrow.