Cultural cuts endanger journals in Czechia and Slovakia
In Czechia, cultural journals are facing an unprecedented crisis as the far right takes over the Ministry of Culture. And in Slovakia, Arts Council defunding has left many cultural organizations, including journals, facing imminent closure.
Eurozine’s partner A2 writes:
Eurozine partner journals in Czechia rely mostly on domestic funding, especially the grant system of the Ministry of Culture; it has been precarious, but relatively stable. Now, the new Czech government is cutting its budgets and, apparently for ideological reasons, the Minister of Culture from the far-right Motorist Party is refusing to stand up for his sector. Not only have the journals not yet received funding for the ongoing year, but according to leaked documents, the funding is set to be cut by 40%.
This applies to all Czech Eurozine partner journals and could lead to their closure. The cultural biweekly A2 has already launched a rescue donation campaign. Fearing a repeat of the scenario in neighbouring Slovakia, the Czech cultural community and art school students protested in front of the Ministry of Culture last week.
Eurozine’s partner Kapitál writes:
Slovak culture is undergoing further attacks, especially projects supported by The Arts Council. Until recently, the Arts Council was an independent institution allocating funds to a wide variety of cultural projects, ranging from book and music publishing to support for translations, cultural centres, theatre and the visual arts. Expert committees decided on the allocation of funds, and the Council’s board followed their decisions.
Following a change in leadership at the Ministry of Culture and within the Fund itself – which saw a large number of employees, including the director, leave – the process for distributing funds has also changed. Decisions are no longer made by expert committees, which now serve only in an advisory capacity, but solely by the board, essentially at its own discretion. It is difficult to say what the selection criteria are.
The Arts Council has now cancelled contracts securing funding for major three-year projects, which affects significant cultural centres such as Nová Cvernovka or Stanica Žilina-Záriečie, as well as magazines such as the translation journal Verzia, the literary magazine Romboid, and BRaK, the largest book fair in Slovakia.
The Arts Council’s board has intervened in many previous decisions in the past, but this move is unprecedented. The board members decided on it within a few minutes without any discussion or consultation with experts or the cultural community. All projects that have legitimately been receiving this support – whether for one, two or three years – have now lost it. This is a huge blow for these culture projects and many of them face termination.
