From Dickens to Belgrade: The Words that Built the World
Did you know that Charles Dickens was among the visitors to the Great Exhibition in London in 1851? That the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson, in his collection In Memoriam A.H.H., wrote of “singing machines”, and that Charlotte Brontë, in her letters to her sisters, described the glass dome of the Crystal Palace as a symbol of a new era? The history of International Exhibitions has not been written solely in metal, light and architecture, but in words, as well. From the first Expo in London to the most recent one in Dubai, literature has been its quiet chronicler, witness and inspiration. That thread, stretching for more than a century and a half, will continue in Belgrade in 2027.
From Pen to Pavilion: Literature as the Architecture of Ideas
When the Crystal Palace was erected in the heart of London in 1851, the world saw for the first time how technology and culture could stand under the same roof. Alongside industrial marvels, the audience included writers: Dickens, Brontë, Tennyson, Eliot, who saw in those exhibits something more than machines: a metaphor for a humanity that was accelerating and losing its breath.
A hundred years later, in Montreal in 1967, the theme of the Expo - “Man and His World” - was born from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Wind, Sand and Stars. A single sentence by the poet-pilot became the foundation of the entire concept and proof that literature can serve as an urban plan for the future.
In Dubai, at Expo 2020, the word once again found its place: poetry evenings were organised, the World Poetry Tree anthology was created, and the “World Literary Club” gathered authors from all continents. Where steam and steel were once displayed, today human thought is exhibited.
The Yugoslav Pavilion in Brussels in 1958 was one of the rare ones in which architecture and the written word met. The curator was Oto Bihalji-Merin - writer, critic, visionary, and a man who believed that art is “the only true export of every culture”. His pavilion was not merely an exhibition of objects, but an exhibition of ideas, and it is no coincidence that this legacy returns right back to Belgrade - a city that, for centuries, has been a crossroads of stories and voices.
The Nobel Prize in Literature this year was awarded to László Krasznahorkai, a writer whose work, as stated by the Swedish Academy, “reaffirms the power of art amid apocalyptic scenes”. That description sounds like an echo of our time: a world that simultaneously builds and loses meaning. In an age of climatic, digital and spiritual turmoil, the book becomes more than an artistic object - it becomes means of survival. It does not solve crises, but it helps us understand them.
In a time when the world is rapidly changing its shape, the book remains that quiet, yet reliable guide - proof that progress is not possible without reflection, nor the future without depth. That is why the idea of reading today is not merely a cultural habit, but a civilisational act - the same one that for centuries has driven International Exhibitions: humanity’s search for meaning in a world that is constantly changing. Therefore, one of the cultural pillars of Expo 2027 will be devoted precisely to the word. From public reading rooms in the Expo 2027 Playground, through “Living Quotations” - digital walls whereon verses are translated in real time - to encounters with writers and mini libraries for book exchange, Belgrade will become a place where literature is exhibited as the technology of the soul.
I read, therefore I am.
International Exhibitions have always been laboratories of the future. Now it is time for the word to return to that laboratory. Expo 2027 Belgrade has the opportunity to show the world something that cannot be measured in square metres or screens: the power of a culture that still knows how to read, for every page read is an act of connection. Every word is a small bridge between the past and what is yet to come. Perhaps it is from Belgrade that a new movement will begin, for a future that thinks, feels and reads. I read, therefore I am.