Today, the editors of three publications – “Echo Gone Wrong”, “Vilnius Review”, “Artnews.lt” and the Association of Culture Periodicals issued an open appeal to the Ministry of Culture, in which they criticize such flawed rules and ask whether the dissemination of Lithuanian culture abroad is unnecessary and therefore is excluded from the state-financed areas.
According to the publishers, “at a time when Lithuanian art and culture is experiencing a significant rise, our creators from various fields of art receive the highest international cultural awards, works are shown in the most important art institutions, biennials and elsewhere, the decision to eliminate any opportunities for independent culture media to receive state funding seems strange and unmotivated, making our culture more closed and less accessible.”
About the situation 15min interviewed Saulius Vasiliauskas, editor of Vilnius Review magazine, Vaiva Žukienė, chairwoman of the Media Support Fund Council. The Ministry of Culture also provided a brief comment.
Lukas Balandios / 15min photo / Saulius Vasiliauskas
The dead end of the cultural bureaucracy
Saulius Vasiliauskas is the editor of Vilnius Review, a magazine published in English and presenting Lithuanian literature 15min stated that due to the updated rules for submitting projects of the Fund, all publications presenting Lithuanian culture and literature to the world, which are published in foreign languages, primarily in English, are basically eliminated.
According to him, the problem that emerged these days also reveals the fact that there is no possibility for such cultural publications and media projects to be born in the future.
“After the emergence of the Media Support Fund, the Lithuanian Culture Council made a decision not to support those media projects that apply for Media Support Fund competitions. Thus, the magazine “Vilnius Review” and other English-language publications find themselves in a dead-end situation of the cultural bureaucracy, because there seems to be nowhere else to submit applications,” said S. Vasiliauskas.
Despite all the achievements, according to S. Vasiliauskas, today the magazine’s editorial staff is forced to be in a situation of anxiety and uncertainty about the future.
This year, Vilnius Review magazine in London was recognized with the prestigious design award “D&AD awards” for creativity and craftsmanship. And in preparation for the Lithuanian culture season in France, a special issue was published in French, which provides a detailed introduction to Lithuanian literature of recent years.
The editor of the magazine was happy that the publication is already distributed in France, presented at various festivals in this country. Meanwhile, on Thursday, the French media giant – Le Monde newspaper – published a detailed article about him and Lithuanian literature.
Despite all the achievements, according to S. Vasiliauskas, today the magazine’s editorial staff is forced to be in a situation of anxiety and uncertainty about the future.
“It is a pity that despite all the successes and achievements, when promoting Lithuania abroad, here in Lithuania, we have to be in a tense situation of uncertainty and uncertainty. This calls into question the aspect of the dissemination of Lithuanian cultural policy abroad. There is only hope, the situation is temporary and will be resolved in the near future”, said S. Vasiliauskas.
According to him, after the Media Support Fund made “such a conservative and culturally closed decision” to distance itself from foreign-language publications in Lithuania, such projects should be considered by the Lithuanian Council of Culture.
Marius Morkevičius photo. from the personal archive/Vaiva Radikaitė-Žukienė
Representation of culture is not a matter of one foundation
According to Vaiva Žukienė, chairwoman of the Media Support Fund Council, until now foreign language projects in Lithuania have not been singled out in any way. The only exception is the group of national minorities and communities, as well as the diaspora, part of whose projects may be carried out in the language of the country where the specific community lives.
Meanwhile, the problem with English-language projects in Lithuania arose only now, after the Media Support Fund project submission rules were clarified and updated.
According to V. Žukienė, in this case the essence lies in the purpose of publications published in English. “These are representative publications, the aim of which is to spread Lithuanian culture in the world in foreign languages. In this sense, they somewhat fall out of the basic provisions of the Media Support Fund”, said the interviewee.
Representation of Lithuanian culture is a separate field of cultural policy, which requires agreement with other institutions, such as the Institute of Culture or the Council of Culture.
She emphasized that the cultural representation of Lithuania is a separate area of cultural policy, which requires agreement with other institutions, such as the Institute of Culture or the Council of Culture. “Representation of culture is not the business of a single Media Support Fund,” V. Žukienė said.
According to the chairman of the Council of the Media Support Fund, cultural publications in foreign languages could be supported by the Culture Council until now, and this is perfectly demonstrated by the example of the magazine “Vilnius Review” in French – for the last issue, the editorial office received funding from the projects supported by the Culture Council.
True, she noted that in order to avoid possible project overlaps, the funding regulations for English-language publications should be clarified and this function of representing Lithuanian culture should be assigned to a single institution.
V. Žukienė did not rule out the possibility that the financing of such projects could also be carried out through the Media Support Fund. “The “Culture” program of this fund is large enough and there is a lot of money here, so perhaps it is worth considering to have a separate sub-program specifically for representative Lithuanian cultural projects,” said the interviewee.
V. Žukienė did not rule out the possibility that the financing of such projects could also be carried out through the Media Support Fund.
When asked how she envisions further opportunities for English-language publications that have been published for more than one year to survive and continue their activities for the next year, V. Žukienė said that the Council of the Media Support Fund, which gathered for a meeting on Monday, plans to meet with the chairman of the Culture Periodicals Association and discuss the current situation.
“Obviously, this situation needs to be taken seriously and everything cannot be left in the dark,” V. Žukienė said.
True, she noted that the draft amendment to the rules of the Media Sponsorship Fund was publicly announced for some time for consideration, but no comments or suggestions were received from the interested parties. Meanwhile, the commotion in the public space arose only now, after the announcement of the start of project submissions for next year’s funding.
“In this case, I miss the editorial staff’s active participation and monitoring of their affairs, not only after the funding rules are approved, but also long before that,” emphasized V. Žukienė.
Lukas Balandis/BNS photo/Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania
Commentary of the Ministry of Culture
15min after contacting the Ministry of Culture and asking for a comment on the situation, we received a written response, which we present:
“According to the order of the Minister of Culture, the delivery of projects financed by the Media Support Fund has been clarified rules both projects and activities of media in national minority languages (including English) can be financed.
Changes to the funding rules have been made to provide a clearer division into separate programs based on the language in which the content is created.
The draft amendment to the financing rules has been published publicly for comments from September 25 until October 9however, proposals to refine the project were not submitted on the issue in question”.
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