Hubert Butler Witness To The Future
A Film By Johnny Gogan With Post Show Talk
Crescent Arts Centre Sunday 12 June – 2.30pm Tickets : Free
Born and raised in Kilkenny , Hubert Butler ( 1900-91 ) – once described as “ Ireland ’ s Orwell ” – is now widely considered one of the great essayists in English of the twentieth century . Proud of his Protestant heritage while still deeply committed to the Irish nation , he sought in his life and writing to ensure that Ireland would grow into an open and pluralistic society . His five volumes of essays ( The Lilliput Press ) are masterful literature in the tradition of Swift , Yeats and Shaw , elegant and humane readings of Irish and European history , and ultimately hopeful testimony to human progress .
In this unique and remarkable film by one of Ireland ’ s most innovative film-makers , Butler ’ s life and work are brought to the big screen for the first time . The film follows his writer ’ s journey from his Anglo-Irish childhood and study at Oxford ; through his time in Stalinist Russia ( where he worked as a teacher ), Nazi Germany ( where he helped expedite the escape of Jews ), and interwar Yugoslavia ; to his later life as a marketgardener , writer and public intellectual at Maidenhall , Co Kilkenny , where his family had lived for a century and a half .
Butler wrote on a wealth of Irish topics as diverse as the Irish Saints , archaeology , local history , the Anglo-Irish Big House , the Irish Literary Revival , the Churches , nationalism , republicanism , and Partition . A writer for whom “ the ethical imagination ” was paramount , he also wrote many essays addressing twentieth-century cultural nationalism , the dangers of globalization and mass communication , the search for humane community , racialism , Mitteleuropa , Stalinism , and the Holocaust .
Widely travelled in the Balkans , Butler wrote on a wide variety of subjects concerning his experience of the region , much of which remains deeply relevant to the recent history of Croatia , Serbia and Bosnia . He lived in Yugoslavia between 1934 and 1937 , and spoke Croatian fluently . Many of his Balkan essays deal with the genocidal Croatian quisling regime ( 1941-45 ) and the collaborationist role played by the Catholic Church and , particularly , by Archbishop Stepinac – a topic which embroiled him in a major controversy in 1950s Ireland , and continues to polarize the political and cultural life of independent Croatia , where Stepinac ’ s proposed canonization has yet to be progressed .
Historian Roy Foster , poet Chris Agee and biographer Robert Tobin lead the film ’ s impressive line-up of literary contributors . Steve Wickham ( of The Waterboys ) provides an original score with a suitably Balkan flavour , whilst the film ’ s historical sweep is assisted by rich archive footage . The publication in August 2016 of Butler ’ s sixth volume , Poteen in a Brandy-cask : Yugolsav Essays , by The Irish Pages Press ( in association with The Lilliput Press ), has been timed to coincide with Witness to the Future and its autumn tour of Croatia .
Following the screening there will be a discussion featuring Chris Agee , BBC journalist Darragh Maclntyre & Director Johnny Gogan .
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