The European Alliance of Academies (EAoA) is observing with great concerns the current cultural-political developments in the EU-member-state Slovakia. Since the elections of the new government in October 2023, Robert Fico is again prime minister and created his 4^th cabinet in a coalition with his party Smer, as well as Hlas and the nationalistic party SNS. The new government addresses openly their conservative, nationalistic, anti-EU and pro-Russian positions, and already proofs to be a great danger for the freedom of art and culture in Slovakia.

New Minister of Culture Martina Šimkovičová (SNS) showed with first actions the direction cultural policy is now taking in this small EU-country:

• Revoking the funding and therefore closing Kunsthalle Bratislava, the only state-funded contemporary cultural institution in Bratislava known for its progressive focus,
• refusing any further support to LGBTQ+-projects,
• threatening cultural professionals by implementing plans that any head of state-funded cultural institutions can be replaced at any time, as it happened already with the sudden dismissal of the director of Bibiana-International House of Art for Children, and the director of the Slovak National Library,… .
  

These are only some examples of the beginning of a deep change in Slovakia’s cultural policy landscape. While the minister herself describes these actions as “return to normality”, the Slovak cultural scene and civic society worries for good reason to face from now on similar restrictions as their neighbours in Hungary. A petition with more than 170 000 signatures – a current record – to force the resignation of Šimkovičová, remains without success.

The Slovak EAoA partner Slovenská akadémia vied (Slovak Academy of Science) expressed that they are currently not affected by the governmental decisions on culture.

If this becomes the “new-old normality”, Slovakia’s artistic and cultural freedom is truly endangered. Institutions and projects depending on state funding won’t have any chance but follow the directions of the new government, while we can only imagine from other examples which restrictions will follow for the independent artistic sector.

The Slovak example highlights again the importance of the fight of the European Alliance of Academies for democratic values and artistic freedom, as they are not to be taken for granted for all of us in Europe! We stand with the people of Slovakia who are suffering because of the new government’s decisions and are currently protesting in thousands to protect their democratic rights.

We all must keep fighting for democratic values and stand for the freedom of arts and culture in Europe.

As the most basic step, don’t forget to promote and to go vote for a democratic Europe in June!

Europe has never been in greater danger of being deprived of its achievements and democratic values as it is now. Or, in other words: Never before in the three decades since the foundation of the European Union have its citizens been more called upon to go to the polls than for the upcoming elections to the European Parliament between 6 and 9 June 2024.

While Europe is going through challenging times, right-wing populists are gaining a growing impact on our societies – with fatal consequences for the freedom of expression in the media, in the political and the public debate, in the arts and culture. Each of us is affected.

The hateful discourse delivered by far-right parties erects walls instead of building bridges. Diversity, respect and solidarity are the core elements of lively democracies. The European Alliance of Academies appeals to the citizens of Europe to assume their responsibility in protecting these values by exercising their right to vote.

Download the Call To Vote here.

European elections 2024: all you need to know (europa.eu)

At the beginning of the year, we reported on the critical situation of the Society of Hungarian Authors Szépírók Társasága. After another agressive budget cut the independent Society will receive zero funding from the National Cultural Fund for the upcoming year. At this point, the political decisions can be claimed to be an open attack against independent Hungarian culture.

Writer Czinki Ferenc, president of Szépírók Társasága, one of the founding members of the European Alliance of Academies describes in an Interview with Cornelia Geißler from Berliner Zeitung the difficulties the Society of Hungarian Authors if facing right now (in German language).

Development of the current situation

33%

In 2022 the National Cultural Fund radically reduced the funding of the Society of Hungarian Authors leaving the organisation with about 33% of its usual annual budget and even blocked the bank transfer for 6 months reasoning with the then starting economic crisis. 

0%

Receiving the latest news from NCA’s literature committee meeting, the board of the Society learned that for the year 2024 the budget will be cut entirely creating a most likely impossible task for the Society to even survive. The decision of giving the Society zero state fund is an obvious and open attack against the independent cultural scene of Hungary.

European Alliance of Academies stands in solidarity with Agnieszka Holland in her right to artistic freedom!

During its conference in Krakow today, the European Alliance of Academies, a network of over 60 academies from around Europe, has expressed its support of Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland who is facing personal hostility from the Polish Minister of Justice, Mr Zbigniew Ziobro, for her film Zielona Granica (The Green Border). The film was awarded with the Special Jury Prize at the 80th Venice International Film Festival this year.

Jeanine Meerapfel, President of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin and initiator of the Alliance, commented that “comparing Agnieszka Holland to the propagandists of the Third Reich is an attack to the dignity of a highly acclaimed filmmaker and colleague and a violation of the right to artistic expression.”

The European Alliance of Academies is joining the European Film Academy in its support for and solidarity with Agnieszka Holland, expressed some days ago (the text in full here).

See press release here

Cécile Wajsbrot, author and member of the European Alliance of Academies, summarises the concerns of Alliance members about the situation for art and culture in Hungary.

The Mathias Corvinus Collegium – originally founded in 1996 as a private university for art and social sciences – has over the years become an institution to shape the elite of Orbán’s society as well as helping to create an international network of right and far-right forces in Europe. Last May the MCC bought 90% shares of the private Modul University in Vienna. It will not infer with the University curricula or academics, was the announcement from MCC. But on the Kahlenberg* many were concerned about the future.

Two weeks ago, the same MCC has acquired a 98,41% stake in Libri, which is, along with Lirà, one of the two main players in the Hungarian publishing landscape. The MCC had already acquired 25,4% of Libri in 2020, enough to block decisions. Libri, as well as other commercial or most prestigious publishing houses featuring authors such as Péter Nádas, Colm Tóibín or Carlo Rovelli, possesses about sixty bookstores all over Hungary. Despite reassurances, a few authors already informed they would step out from Libri. The very official Hungarian Writers’ Union on the contrary welcomed the news.

And now the Parliament is considering a new set of restrictions in order to diminish professional autonomy for teachers in response to their demands for higher wages and reduced centralization.

We all know or should know how it works. At the beginning, dictators tends to offer a rather friendly face. But in the secrecy of offices and departments, they are carefully preparing the coming assaults against every kind of freedom – education, art, culture. And they later or earlier show their true faces. This is happening in Hungary, it is happening now in Poland, it is beginning to happen in Italy. Who will be the next in line?

Having just come back from Budapest, going soon to Cracow, the European Alliance of Academies wants to express its great concern about increasing aggressions against freedom of expression and creation in Europe, all the more as it happens under cover – without too much noise, without too much publicity.

More information on the Alliance’s activities for artistic freedom in Hungary:

Event Solidarity with Szépírók Társasága, May 2023

Event Battle with the Empty Sky: Language, nationalism and freedom of art in early 21st-century Europe, October 2021

Declaration Hungary beyond all Hope, December 2020

Report Freedom of Art and Autonomy of Cultural Institutions in Hungary, February 2021

Letter of Complaint to the UN Special Rapporteur for Cultural Rights, May 2021

Online Petition to the European Parliament, May 2021
                                                                              

* Where the university is located 

On 30‒31 May 2023, the European Alliance of Academies held a conference of solidarity with the Society of Hungarian Authors Szépírók Társasága in Budapest. 

Eleven European countries were represented. Both internal and public podium discussions focused on the increasingly restricted freedom of art and artistic platforms in Hungary and other European countries. In internal discussions, representatives from non-government-run cultural organisations drew attention to a lack of funding, production and distribution for alternative artistic work. During a public discussion with the writer György Dalos, filmmaker Béla Tarr, poet and novelist Katharina Schultens, director Bartosz Szydłowski and others, it became apparent that, unlike individual freedoms, institutional independence is mainly endangered.

We condemn the views of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in his speech on July 23, 2022. We regard them to be a violation of universal human rights. His words, evoking the spirit of the third Hungarian anti-Jewish law of 1941 – that prohibited marriage and criminalized sexual relationship between Jewish and non-Jewish Hungarian citizens – are scientifically and culturally unacceptable, politically and ideologically alarming. We protest against the Prime Minister of Hungary discriminating between people based on their origin and culture. Our conviction is that social existence rests on communication and contact (to quote his word, ’mixing’) between people and groups of people. This is the source of all scientific, cultural and spiritual development. Racist and ethnicity-based politics means the denial of human equality. It leads to discrimination, incitement, verbal and physical violence and – as the history of Hungary in the twentieth century and today’s Russian aggression against Ukraine prove – ultimately to bloodshed. That is why we find it vital to emphasize that the terminology of Nazi ideology cannot be used ambiguously: the use of such words is never independent of the ideology itself.

Budapest, July 28, 2022.

Dóra Maurer, president
Győző Ferencz, executive president
István Haász, head of Fine and Applied Arts Dept.
Géza D. Hegedűs, head of Motion Picture and Theatre Dept.
Imre Flóra, head of Literature Dept.
László Tihanyi, head of Musical Arts Dept.
Barnabás Winkler, head of Architecture Dept.
Zsófia Csomay, board member
Károly Klimó, board member

Link to the Hungarian language original:

https://mta.hu/szima/a-szechenyi-irodalmi-es-muveszeti-akademia-vezetosegenek-nyilatkozata-112311

A students initiative at DAMU and YAMU in Czech Rebuplic gives public voice to campus testemonies in order to uncover outdated structures and misrouted distribution of power. The European Alliance of academies strongly supports the initiative.

Please see here for more information on the ongoing activities: https://www.europeantheatre.eu/news/student-initiative-you-dont-have-to-endure-it-gives-public-voice-to-campus-testimonies

An interview with the initiators of the activities can be read here: https://www.ascendingdesign.org/?page_id=19776