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In October Contrafort had a celebration - 20th anniversary of its founding. The magazine is read on both banks of the Prut River; there are readers who are looking for you not only in Moldova, but also in Romania, and wherever else Romanian is spoken, due to the online version. Why then, despite quality, culture publications are not profitable? What are their main problems, in your opinion?
The main problem of arts and culture magazines is the lack of funding. They, it is known, cannot survive alone, as they are not profitable. Culture magazines are not “profitable” anywhere in the world. In strictly pragmatic terms of the market, offer and demand, they shouldn’t even exist. If they sought profitability, they would have to betray their mission, alter their essence, lower the criterion of value they are guided by, publish scandals, obscene stories, gossip, rumors and whatever else there might be. They would no longer be publications of culture, but would become tabloids – there will always be plenty of consumers for this kind of “merchandise”.
The State bodies of Moldova are too little involved into supporting written culture. Only for the past two years the Ministry of Culture has been somewhat more active; it has shown interest for the arts and culture publications and has given out some grants. We, the Contrafort magazine, have also been helped, and we appreciate this support, especially in the context of the last year’s crisis at the Romanian Cultural Institute, which used to subsidize a number of arts and culture magazines in Bessarabia. Our relations with partners in Bucharest are gradually returning to normal, too.
What editorial policy should arts and culture publications have, and how do you manage that at Contrafort?
Value and critical spirit are the basic pillars of a serious editorial policy. And, at least at Contrafort, there is synchronization with contemporary Romanian literature and with the best reviewing patterns of the West. We have worked a lot to maintain these high standards. And we grew our authors. In addition to our long-time workers, writers known on both banks of the Prut River, we have discovered and encouraged many young promising authors. We have often accepted texts for publication after subjecting them to strict editing, only because we felt that these young authors have potential, only because we saw they are talented, hard-working, serious, studious and receptive to our messages and suggestions.
Contrafort does not survive from advertising or political partnerships. How does it manage to stay afloat in these difficult times for the print media?
Like I said before, life at such a magazine is not all milk and honey. It requires making sacrifice, searching for sponsors, preferably not involved in dubious internal games. Here is something I wish political actors in Moldova could understand: culture cannot be “of a party”, like in the times of communists; culture is national. Intellectuals and artistic people are pleading for universal humanistic values. In the civilized world these things have been an axiom for a long time. That is why there are State programs to support culture, as well as private sources, foundations, patrons of the arts that provide grants, scholarships, subsidies for creators. We don’t have a law of sponsorship in Moldova, which might encourage private investment in culture. A magazine with a circulation of 1,000 copies, which is being read by the intellectual elite, cannot attract advertising other than from the sphere of culture, publishing companies, for example. Now, if we launched a television, there would be an abundance of offers! In the conditions of material and spiritual poverty in Moldova, our partners abroad are still our main allies.
You said in an article that “a sign of our time in this part of the world is falsification, distortion of long-established notions with well defined symbolical and emotional value”. How should we understand it?
In the commentary you are quoting from, which I wrote for Radio Free Europe, I am supporting this statement with concrete examples. In it, I am referring to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, annexation of Crimea and the general danger of Putin’s policy for Europe and humanity in general. In the propaganda war that Russia fights against the rest of the world, they are distorting, misrepresenting the fundamental notions of democracy, such as plebiscite, the peoples’ right to self-determination, political pluralism, etc. These are values that Putin’s regime invokes in order to discredit them, presenting an abject invasion as “freedoms” that the West must respect so as not to be hypocritical. This type of manipulation and intoxication is successful among non-informed and poorly educated people. Russian imperialism relies exactly on that – naiveté and incapacity of masses to distinguish between the good and the bad, truth and lies; that is why it launches smoke agents, increases confusion in order to raise the most primitive and low human instincts and reflexes. As I said, the role of intellectuals and the civil society and the mission of arts and culture magazines that are betting on reflection and discernment is to fight against these monsters of propaganda.
Can the media in general and arts publications in particular be responsible for the level of culture, thinking, behavior of today’s society?
They are definitely responsible, as they can contribute to correct information and development as well as to misinforming and fooling the public. It is valid especially for mass media. Arts and culture magazines are aiming at a higher level of thinking and personality formation. They can also have erroneous visions and can fall into the promotion of orthodoxy, Pan-Slavism, so-called ancestral values (poorly understood) to the detriment of our Europeanization and openness to the world. I shall remind you that the bloodshed in former Yugoslavia in 1990s was justified and stimulated to a significant extent by a manifest of the Belgrade Academy, which served as an inspiration to Milosevic and other sanguinary Serbian leaders. That is not to speak of the intellectuals that justified Nazism and Communism, or “Moldovenism” in the case of Bessarabia. The intellectuals’ sin is greater than that of ordinary people, since they have greater influence on their peers. Just because they are doing harm intentionally – they know who they’re serving! – intellectuals are judged more severely… Broadly speaking, the mission of arts and culture magazines, their very reason for existence is to educate the electorate of democratic parties. Now democratic parties have to understand it. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really happen.
How well do local mass media cover the arts?
Rather poorly. Arts and culture are marginal topics in Moldovan mass media. The culture sections are reserved to pop stars, usually inconsistent, whose easy “rise” makes lots of young people daydream. Now we, too, have shows like “Moldova’s got talent”, but their effect is pathetic: these shows rather show the contrary – Moldova has no talent. Or, I should say that our talents must be searched for and selected not by means of such tasteless shows, but by means of hard work of professionals, by encouraging creativity, intellectual competition, starting with kindergartens and schools. Of course, arts and culture programs in our country don’t make “ratings”; book presentations on television disappeared, while other programs, focusing on theater, fine arts, or music, we have never even had. We barely see a frugal “artistic” report, as you say, at the end of a newscast – thanks to Mrs. Silvia Hodorogea on the Moldova 1 channel. Europeanization is unthinkable without the contribution of intellectuals. Building a European-type civilization requires a deep process of education, culture and change of mentalities.
Why do we have so few arts publications in Moldova? How can we change that?
Who are the readers of arts publications? Are there consumers of arts and culture media in Moldova?
They are primarily representatives of artistic communities and creation unions. Our peers. Then come students of specialized institutions, and maybe some refined lyceum students. We have a much more numerous public in Romania than in Moldova, but distribution difficulties do not let us be more present there, as we used to be in the earlier years of Contrafort. Of course, we have a web version of the magazine, but we don’t feel yet that it has a strong influence. And a website should be managed by professionals, who must be paid, while we have no money for that. The problem of culture magazines and culture in general is also related to living standards. A robust middle class is also a consumer of culture products. In Moldova, though, there is no middle class: the majority of people are just surviving, while the reach ones, oligarchs, don’t need culture. They are “content” with their Mercedes, luxurious summer houses and exotic holidays. Why would they be interested in a film by Fellini, a concert of music by Bach, or Contrafort?
Does doing journalism in addition to literature benefit a writer?
Yes and no. The benefit is that it makes a writer more visible, better known. And in the situation of Moldova it also provides a source of existence, money to pay monthly bills, although the pay in print media is small; only television employees are better off, but you can count them of your fingers… At the same time, journalism is devastating for artistic creation. At least I feel it on myself. Of course, it can provide you with topics, characters, psychological portraits, situations from life, but it also deforms your thinking, alters your language and vocabulary. Literary creation involves an exercise of meditation, dreaming, contemplation, maximum concentration on the meaning and nuances you want to express. As a journalist, you can’t afford such subtleties. You have no time and, more important, you are expected to do something different.
In 2013, you were recognized as one of the best European writers, a title offered by American literary critics for a novel that was about to be published. What records did 2014 bring to you?
You are referring to the “Best European Fiction 2013” anthology, published in the USA by Dalkey Archive Press, which established the tradition of launching annual “Best European Fiction” anthologies with the goal of promoting writers from the old continent on the immense market of North America. I feel honored to have been selected for this prestigious project, coordinated by Aleksandar Hemon, especially since the final list of authors is compiled by a committee of important American literary critics, who work with thousands of texts from all European countries.
This year I have published a novelette in the Sud-Est cultural magazine in Chisinau, titled “Engleza pentru cei care pleacă”, and I continued other prose projects I had started on earlier. I hope that at least one of them materializes in 2015 in a book published by an important publishing company in Romania. Also, a book of my essays, “Scribul în grădina fermecată”, has been published by the ARC publishing company in Chisinau. I wish to be more productive in 2015 under the literary aspect.
