13.11.2023
Support Szépírók Társasága
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.
Short and long-term solutions
The organisation is therefore trying to find a solution through a variety of means:
- contacting international literary and cultural advocacy organisations,
- approaching private sponsors to build a stable and growing sponsorship
- negotiating the expansion and continuation of ongoing national and international projects.
In addition to this, a fundraising campaign through community funding is necessary to ensure a stable operation.
Subscribe for the future of independent contemporary Hungarian literature and support the crowdfunding campaign of the Society of Hungarian Authors!
Please find more information and data in the Fact Sheet
The Society was established in 1997 to promote contemporary literature and democratic cultural policies. Its almost 400 members include some of the internationally most acclaimed Hungarian writers as well as cultural journalists and cultural managers from across Hungary, and also writers and critics of the Hungarian minorities and diasporas, along with international translators and scholars of Hungarian literature.