...to the deleterian systems or on the failing democracies or democracies in difficulties. It is quite a hard, not easy topic, but it is wonderful to have really great guests on the panel. the panel. Anastasia Patlaj, Michael Rowetzki and the moderation. Formally we thought it would be done by Katrin Romberg from a contact collection but Katrin Romberg needed to cancel due to personal reasons so there are some circumstances that does not allow her to come. But we are really really happy that Desi Gavrilova is doing the moderation tonight. Definitely Desi Gavrilova is a cultural entrepreneur and she's also the founder of the debate series and network time to talk well dear desi i give you the word now and ask you to start with the introduction of our two guests thank you a lot thank you very much and i'm really happy I had to jump in in the last minute. Today we're going to talk about culture and the arts under oppressive regimes, in the context of oppressive regimes, and about how these regimes affect the arts, but also to what extent the arts can create spaces of freedom in the context of these regimes. And we have these two great speakers that I'm happy to present to you a little bit. Anastasia Patlai is an actress. I know her first as an actress, I have to say, because she played in a performance that for me personally was very important one hour 18 minutes is a documentary theatre performance by Tata doc in Moscow in the year I think 2011 it was created this is when I saw it for sure in in Moscow and it is absolutely mind-blowing, touching, important performance about the case of Magnitsky. For me, it was the first documentary theater performance that I saw, which absolutely influenced my path to certain extent further on. And I, since then, followed Theater Doc, the Russian theater, with all the troubles that they had in the coming years until they were closed and absolutely destroyed and after the beginning of the war of course moved out of the country the people that still were in one way or another affiliated with it. But Anastasiya is also a theatre director and she worked also with the Sakharov Center in Russia with the Meyerholt Center many many I cannot tell all of your creative work that you had but a really important artist with a very strong civic position in the work that she was doing and still continues doing now in exile since 2002 in Spain. And Michal Kvorecki is an author from Slovakia, also an essayist known as column writers or essayists in many newspapers in Slovakia and also in the German-speaking world like the Frankfurt Allgemeine Zeitung und Die Zeit also. But since the last elections, I think you will tell us more probably about that, but you're putting probably more into kind of cultural activism if I can say this work or opposition to the regime through not political action but on the border of cultural work and protests you'll tell us probably more about this and whether I'm right that in a way you're devoting yourself to resisting the shrinking of the freedom for the arts that one currently can observe in Slovakia. But I would like to start with asking you both and probably you first, Michal, to tell us about, somehow to draw a picture of the situation in Slovakia to what extent there is a pressure on the arts how does it work to what extent and yeah thank you thank you so much Desi for the introduction and it's honor to be here and thank you for being here. Well, basically, since almost two years, Slovakia has a new government. This is the fourth government of Robert Fico, who, just to put it very short, started in the 80s as an apparatchik of the Communist Party and in the very long period of his career now he is some sort of a populist nationalist ready to cooperate even with neo-fascists this he's new coalition of three political parties two of them we still could somehow called the prowess somehow pro-Western standard political parties, but the third party is very unusual even for Eastern European political environment, because it's a Slovak nationalist party. But on the election list of this party um really dangerous mixture of conspiracy theorists white suprematists anti-vaccination conspiratorists came to power and basically they hacked this traditional party and and only the head of the political party got to the parliament with them. So all the other nine members who became parliamentarians are from this right wing scene. Basically a scene founded deeply rooted in the internet, in the online world. They are coming from the digital scene they are mostly coming from the fake news websites and and they got two ministeriums ministries they got Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Culture and that's where the trouble begins the real trouble and so since two years we have these two ministries run by people who basically are attacking the reason, to put it shortly. They are attacking the age of reason and they are attacking the enlightenment as we knew it for 250 years in Europe, in the Western civilization. we knew it for 250 years in Europe, in the Western civilization. And the reason why I got in trouble with the Ministry of Culture, with Martina Simkovičová, is that I called her, when this government was created, I called her neo-fascist. And I explained in a very short commentary, I explained her ideology, her right-wing ideology, her extremist views. For example, she believes in so-called big exchange, in the Groza Austausch. She believes that there is a hidden conspiracy behind migration, and there is a plan to change the population of Slovakia for Muslims or whoever. And she believes that the LGBTQ plus people are, so to say, to blame for most of everything in our society, but basically, especially for the decline of population, they're responsible for the decline of moral values, and they are there to be punished. So with this ideology to be on the power, this is fundamental change for my country because Slovakia is a democratic country, it's a state, it's a parliamentary democracy, and never since 1945 we had fascists in the government. They were in parliament, they were in some regional governments, but they were never in the national government. And so this is very dangerous development. Of course, the Ministry of Culture in the hands of these people also mean basically a frontal attack on the creativity in its whole. And so what we have observed in the last two years is basically a really brutal destruction of the whole cultural scene. I especially talk about the so-called national institutions such as National Theatre, National Gallery, National Library, National Archives and many others. The Ministry of Culture in Slovakia is organized like that, that there are 30 different institutions, big and small, which are directly run by the Ministry. From these 30 institutions, only four of them still have the former directors. All 26 other directors were exchanged, either for direct neighbors of the minister, or by party sponsors, some oligarch friends, oligarch daughters, sons, basically people with no experience in cultural management, no experience in the art scene, never ever had to do anything with this, but they are of a similar ideological background. And so we have seen a major change in the way how culture works in Slovakia and how it's organized. And, but on the other hand, just to give you some positive message at the end of this maybe first input is that one of the great things that I'm very proud of is that since like this October 23, Slovakia is protesting in the streets regularly, almost every week or every second week or almost every week. And culture, cultural politics became one of the major issues of this protest. Basically, it started with culture. culture. Then it switched also to geopolitics because one of the topics of the government is the new orientation which is much more pro-Russian, which is much more oriented towards Moscow and being influenced by the fascination of Robert Vico by dictators, by regimes like Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan. He's claiming now these are our, so to say, this is where we should look to as our allies instead of looking towards the West. So culture, geopolitics, and now also the economy are three major topics discussed by these protests and addressed by quite massive audiences and protesters coming to the squares, and not only in Bratislava or Kosice, but really landslide. We had protests in up to 50, 60 small towns, small communities, so it became a big movement. small communities, so it became a big movement. And if you would ask me last Thursday, I would probably tell you it's just a question of time till there will be election earlier, as planned. But surprisingly, and for me quite shockingly, on last Friday, just before I came to the Humanities Festival, we had a really unbelievable change of constitution of Slovak Republic. And for worse, for much worse. Another step towards almost like authoritarian system. And what I'm talking about is that the surprisingly, this weakening government coalition of three political parties, which quite often had true problem to get some legislation through, because they missed one vote or two votes and then couldn't get a majority in parliament. from 76 votes they had 90 votes when by constitutional change and he would ask why is this possible well unfortunately thanks to the opposition because they came with agenda which was very tricky and suddenly they said well we need another constitution that that there is only men and a woman like I have to say it's a based on Russian laws and inspired by Russian Russian laws that there is no non-binary person for example or you can be you can be bisexual, you can't be androgynous, you can be only man or woman. And of course there's also adoption of same-sex people, they cannot adopt kids anymore. But not only that, these are two so-called gender issues which the government addressed, but this became also a huge topic of discussion in Slovakia, but little bit in the shadow of these major gender issues, there is another one, not less important, that suddenly in our constitutions we have the definition of so-called national identity. And how can you define such thing? Is my national identity better than yours? Or is yours better than mine? Or is yours somehow more valuable than mine? Or is the identity of a small minority of Ruthenians or Hungarians in Slovakia or Roma, is their identity also part of this? Or very bizarre thing to try to put into constitution? But that's not even the worst. The worst is that in some parts of the legislation, Slovak law is now more important than the European law. So basically more important than the European law. So basically before we had some cases in history where for example Roma minority or one famous poet or different people didn't get justice in Slovakia so they could fight for the justice in Strasbourg. This change of constitution could mean that this will not be possible in the future. So it's weakening the rights of Slovak citizens. And there will probably be very intensive disputes because it's quite a strong changing of approach of Slovak Republic towards European law, but Robert Vico is celebrating. This is for him a surprising success and for the two-year opposition work and the protesters' work, this is a strong backlash so in the moment we will surely discuss it more but I am much less optimistic than I was ten years ago that they spent days ago but just the follow-up question because Slovakia is still a democratic country, right? So from one perspective, one can say, okay, when the majority comes to power, they can decide because they have the mandate by the voters to do the country, to run the country as they understand it, and they have the support of the people. So on the one hand, in order to fight all this that you describe, you should mobilize people to vote against these parties, right? That's on one hand. But on the other hand, you described how this new minister of culture changed the leadership of the most important cultural institutions with people that are absolutely incapable. How is this possible? Because that's still in a democracy. There are rules and procedures. There are qualifications that are required. There are public bodies that select these people. How is this possible? And also then, once these people are put in place, how much this affects immediately? Did this already produce change in the program? Are there cancelled artists? People that, let's say, theatre directors that cannot stage anymore in the National Theatre? That's a very good question, but that's very good detail and I'll put it short. Basically, the approach of the Minister of Culture was to weaken the institution, weaken them as much as possible, still legally, but really weaken them. So for example, when you look at the Slovak National Gallery, which is one of our most important institutions, it's on the river Danube, on the riverbank, it was renovated for 21 years, so we were waiting for so long to have a secede restored. It was award-winning architectural reconstruction. It's a national gallery with collection of arts since the medieval arts to contemporary art. Really the largest collection with many departments around the country and people loved it. They had like the records of the visitors numbers and people were really excited to see it and it started now fully with new program. Well now after two years of the Ministry of Culture with this far-right political party, 150 employees are not anymore there, so the leadership was fired because it was possible. Of course, the head of the curators, the whole board of curators was also fired, and then as a protest, 100 people who worked there in all sorts of positions simply decided to leave because they said we will not cooperate with this destruction. And when you ask about the consequences, well, they are brutal. From the 16 planned exhibitions for the next three years, the exhibition program, only two will take place if if ever it's still not sure so and I think this is one of the reasons why culture became such an issue in Slovak society that suddenly people who would never ever go to the streets to to fight for National Gallery or for National Theatre they feel like they are losing something very important in their lives. They feel like they are losing place, they love to visit with their families, where they love to see the exhibition, to have a family program or go to some event. This is lost and it goes through really like and it goes through really like a landslide, like suddenly from in a castle in Svolen, which is very important medieval castle from 14th century, they are organizing like a festival of beer, they are organizing discos, because our Ministry of Culture claims that a culture should be entertainment, culture must be apolitical, it cannot address any issues of public life. So it should just entertain the public. And so this is how they met. This is their vision of the true Slovak culture they were promoting. So, and I could continue like this in basically every institutions. This is the first theater season in the fall in national theater theater with 120 years history it's the oldest professional theater in Slovak Republic for the first time they have no show spiel premiere they have no no no no no new piece no new production because as a punishment for them because they are one of the loudest protesters among the cultural workers, so to say, so all the funding for new productions was stopped. Maybe they will have a new production next year, but so, you know, it's like, it's a fundamental change in the way how our culture is working. Thank you. Anastasia, may I ask you to draw a similar picture, a context in Russia in the last years? if I should, yeah, okay. Thank you very much. Actually, I was in Nitra in June. Yeah, we took part in the festival in Nitra, and all these curators and people from the festival were quite depressive because they don't know if they managed to manage to get fun funds for the next festival so yeah a little bit I had a chance to to have a look at the situation in Slovakia. Yes, but I gathered some pictures for you. Actually, it was quite stressful experience for me just to look for information for pictures for today because I don't live in Russia and I don't see these pictures in my routine, in my daily life. I'd like to start with today's news about a book, a book of former deputy Boris Vishnevsky. office seeks to label this book as extremist literature and this word extremist is like a routine word in current life in Russia yeah so it's funny that according to this prosecutor, an expert review concluded that in his book, Vishnevsky portrays Russia as a state sliding into fascism and describes the country as an empire of hypocrisy so it's more or less truth so it's how look books of foreign agents on the shelves of bookstores in Russia. We've got, according to the list of Ministry of Justice, we've got by March of this year, we had 50 writers, foreign agents. 50 writers foreign agents and now we have more because every Friday they publish the new list of foreign agents yes so among these foreign agents we've got two terrorists and extremists, and they are Vera Polozkova, very famous Russian poet, and Boris Akunin, the most famous Russian writer. Russian writer yes and this is another way to to seal books in transparent film with this t-cam saying unfortunately we are unable to display this publication because one of its authors has been labeled as a foreign agent by the Russian Minister of Justice and from the 1st of September actually there are some restrictions in legislation on this foreign agents so book bookstores can't sell their books because it's very risky for them They can be fined, they can be closed, can be liquidated, etc., like a legal entity. And yes, last week on this list of foreign agents, there was even a literature price called dar and yeah so even such not institutions but literature prize can be called foreign agent and this like names of very very famous Russian writers on the list of foreign agents and we even have rock stars labeled foreign agents like Boris Gribenshchikov, Andrei Makarevich, etc. And rap stars and pop stars as well. Maybe you should say just in one sentence, what does this labeling foreign agent bring? I mean, what are the consequences once you're labeled? Because one thing is that whenever you write something, you have to say this is produced by a foreign agent. Yes, but... But still you can... From this 1st of September, you anymore can't sell and maybe even buy the book of foreign agent of course you still can buy and still can have this book in your library but we don't know how it will be developed, these restrictions. Yes, so there is like logic of this totalitarian thinking. But what was exactly on 1st of September? Was this a new law or regulation? It was the date the new law started. So they can't take part in educational projects. projects and their public talks their meetings with readers etc etc can be presented like this educational activities so and this is like, yeah, an example of censorship. It's a biography of Paolo Pasolini. And I've got this book. It's like souvenir from Russia. A friend of mine brought it to me to Granada so I've got this souvenir and today I read that in Novosibirsk for example there was a growth of demand on the books with this censoring because the books with this sensory yeah because I don't know why maybe people think that it's only like phenomenon of the current life but I think that it's only beginning of this practice. Yes, so, and... This is my colleagues, playwright Svetlana Petrichuk and theater director Evgenia Berkovich. and theater director Evgenia Berkovich. Here, Evgenia Berkovich shows how many years prosecutor asked for them. So, and yeah, they were sentenced to six years in jail for justifying terrorism, but actually for the play that were before even got priced from the state, the Golden Mask, for example, from different other prizes for the same play. Yes, so this is how Zhenia Berkovich, this is her last picture from August. So a month ago we saw that she lost 10 kilograms in her weight. 10 kilograms in her weight and she was quite in a depressive mood so yeah we don't know how she will manage with this situation yeah so uh and yeah here uh j Zhenya gets the price of snob for the play. And you can look at this page to get some details of her case. And the same with Svetlana Petrichuk there are two different websites with all details about them and yeah I'd like also to tell you a little bit about the death of Pavel Kushner he was a musician and he was killed actually in jail he was killed by FS bear and yeah you can also get more information and please listen to his records on YouTube. For resistance, you asked a little bit about resistance. Actually, there is resistance, but you can see that to resist publicly is extremely dangerous, extremely risky. But there is underground resistance, of course. And for example, in July July two very young theater makers came to me to Granada and they told a little bit how they managed to on the topics they want to speak on. They organize like kvartirniki, like very small events in the flats of their friends. They don't sell tickets, of course. They just invite people and ask people to invite their friends. So every people they invite can invite five more people of their closest friends they trust to. It's very important, but there is no guarantee that among these invited people wouldn't be any secret agent of KGB. So there is no guarantee they wouldn't arrest it, for example, but they take this risk. Yes, I can't mention their names, of course, and the namesoc also still exists. And in 2022, they held a secret laboratory, documentary lab. It was organized by son of Elena Gremina to continue this documentary working on the topic of the war and of the repression. I don't think they do it. They still do it. But there are some exceptions. I don't know. For example, my own performance, Kantgrat, my own performance, Kantgrad. It was accused in 2019 as a Russophobian performance, etc. But it's dedicated to the post-war situation in Königsberg, so it's quite historical production. So it's still running in theater dog and it's like a new life of this this performance because for the audience of Moscow it's It's absolutely a pacifist performance. There are strange examples. There is also resistance in exile. I want to mention this Lubimovka Festival. It was a Lubimovka, Lubimovka was independent, a contemporary playwriting festival held in Moscow every year in September on the stage of Theater Dock. But in summer of 2022 the festival like understood they got to their competition a lot of place dedicated to the war and the word war already was forbidden you even couldn't pronounce this word in Russia so they announced that they can't hold the festival anymore in Moscow. And suddenly it was like very horizontal initiative of those who emigrated already to other countries they this our colleagues actors directors and authors they started organizing very small festivals called and they called them echo of Lubimovka they selected place from the short list of Lubimovka. They selected plays from the short list of Lubimovka festival to these small festivals and they started making readings of these plays with discussions after the readings because it's a very important part of the festival. From November 2022, the place was already translated. For example, for Echo of Lyubimovka in Paris, the place was translated to French, and then they were translated to German, to Polish, to English, etc. So it's like a movement, I think, and it's very important for us because it's our way to resist. So I even can announce Echo of Lubimovka in Vienna. It will be held in this stage in the poem so yeah please just follow the poor schedule thank you just to ask you all these oppressive measures did not start with the war right so maybe can you just probably very briefly probably on the example of theater doc tell us about mechanisms of the power in Russia to oppress theater or other artistic institutions structures initiatives when did it start and how did it grow in the last more than a decade now, probably two decades, to come to this point that you described now? you were telling about the situation in Slovakia, a lot of things reminded me how it was developing the situation in Russia 10 years ago, 15 years ago, because now I can say we've got this totalitarian regime in Russia. Finally. It's totalitarian without any doubt. Yes, so... But, yes, of course, we were... we were like participants of this resist resisting movement of culture we tried to resist we tried to fight against what we to try to speak out against what we saw in Russia in those days, in those years. And what about Teatr Dog? Teatr Dog was founded in 2002 by a company, a group of playwrights. by a company, a group of playwrights. Those playwrights who... like they... wrote a contemporary dramaturgy and they didn't find any way to take their place to the main stages of Russian state theater. In the 90s, there wasn't any opportunity for them to see their place on the stages of the state theater as maybe in Slovakia in Russia also and in these Western countries also theater is a state-funded cultural sphere, yes. So, and a part of this independent theater was very, very small. In 90s, almost zero. But Teatr Dog is the most famous independent theater, founded in 2002. and theater founded in 2002. Yes, so they started with this contemporary playwriting, but then they got like new words from British playwrights about methods and techniques of documentary playwriting so they started investigating the reality around them with these tools of documentary theater yes and they went to jails, to workers, to fabrics, to those spheres of life, very far from their routine life in Moscow. So in Russia there is a huge divide between regions and Moscow. And Moscow, like Berlin, isn't Germany. Moscow also is not Russia. Yes, but at the beginning they were allowed to do that, they were doing these stages. When did the oppression start and what were the first forms of oppression? If you can just zoom into this, how it was building up. Actually the oppression was connected with the start of the war in Ukraine. With Maidan actually. Yeah, because for example, we staged actually, Gaurav staged this one hour and 18, it was first, like the first political play they made with Gremina. One hour and 18 dedicated to the death of Sergei Magnitsky in this jail Matroskaya Tishina. statement against those whose activities led to his death. Yes, naming these prosecutors, judges, and investigators of the case of Magnitsky. But actually, they made it in 2010. And actually we played it for four years or even more. But when Maidan happened in winter of 13, 14, happened in winter of 1314. Our, we also worked very close with our Ukrainian colleagues like Maxim Kurachkin and Natalka Voroshbit. They lived in Russia and they were part of Theater Dog, part of Circles of Theater Dog. And Gremnen and Ugarov invited their new play about Maidan. Natalka, together with her colleagues, they made this play on Maidan. And they showed it, it was even on program of Golden Mask in March in Theater Dock. So and the same year, 2014, they started a press, a pressing theater doc. So in September or October, Gremina got this letter that we should leave the venue. And this repeat, the story repeated itself several times. The theater was asked to move, to go out of the places that they were working in. Yeah, we were pushed from this and it was first venue of Theater Dock for 12 years. But at the beginning it was like there are fireman's rules were not, that's why you have to go. It was not censorship per se, like blunt censorship. Actually, even with Zhenya Berkovich and Sveta Petrichuk, we've got this very not direct way to press, because this play was like prized, et cetera, et cetera, and then somehow it started being extremist, yeah. There will be a possibility to ask questions soon, so you can start formulating your questions. Sorry, I think now 12 years later, Maxim Kurochkin is fighting in the Ukrainian army, isn't he? Isn't he a soldier? I know him as well. Natalka lives in exile, no? No, they live in Kiev. Iniv, okay, they are in Ukraine. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they live in Kyiv. Yeah, so the next year, 2015, they pushed us out from the next venue because Gremena staged the play play Balotnaya Dela and this play was presented on the day of 6th of May so it was like red cloth for for powers so our So our premiere of I also took part as an actress there. So we played with dogs and police outside. So they were in the doors of the theater, all around the theater. of the theater, all around the theater. How do you feel when listening to this comparison? And I wanted to ask you actually, do you observe already in this context that you described of kind of shrinking of the space for freedom in Slovakia, that there are new spaces of resistance through culture and through the arts emerging also in Slovakia. Yes, well, thank you for this talk. And you know, Russia is a brutal, policed state. Russia is now one of the worst tyrannies there are in this world. And I really can't believe that my prime minister, Slovak prime minister, a member state of European Union, is visiting Moscow, is talking to this guy, shaking his head, shaking heads of Putin, that there are parliamentarians from Slovakia traveling to Moscow regularly, claiming it's the better regime, it's the better state, we should do it like them, and we should be closer friends, we should be closer allies. It's shocking, but there is so much unpredictable going on in the world today, in the United States, in Slovakia, in Germany. It's not an Eastern European problem, it's not a European problem, it's a global problem. There are things going on which are really completely irrational. And there is this really alliance of autocracies being developed. And that's why it's so important that really, like half a day after Robert Fico went to Moscow, there was a huge demonstration on the square of freedom in Bratislava and elsewhere, because we just cannot allow this happening. And we have to stop it before it's too late. Now we still are free country,. We still can't protest. But, you know, what is really scary about the Russian system is that it's a connection of some sort of a medieval tyranny with the digital technology. They use digital surveillance. They analyze our private data from the social networks. So they combine this most modern, they buy the most expensive modern digital technologies to surveil the public on massive scale, unimaginable scale, even in the Stalinist Russia. And, you know, recently Robert Fico went to Beijing to meet more dictators from all over Asia, all over Asia, all over also global south, and somehow Europe is not responding, I think, strong enough, and we are not anymore a partner, we are not an ally of NATO, of the European Union. We are quite often not invited to important talks on security issues. So, well, yes, I'm deeply concerned, I can tell you. But just, you know, what can you do? You can either give up or you can try to make a change happen. So that's why I, for the last two years, I'm mostly traveling every second Friday somewhere in middle or west Slovakia, and I talk to these protests, and I meet people who organize these protests, who organize demonstrations. I'm involved as many, many, many others are involved as well, and I appreciate these people because they are doing enormous work for the civic society to make it stronger more resilient and oppose these tendencies because because You know the Russian hybrid war in Slovakia did not stop with the war with the outbreak of the full-scale war It got more intensified our Russian embassy in Bratislava is Basically one of the centers of the hybrid war in the region of Central and Eastern Europe. It's spreading hatred, dividing society, spreading false messages continuously, 24-7. And now the government is repeating these lies. and now the government is repeating these lies. It's basically all about decadent, western, rotten societies where everybody's gay, everybody's lesbian, everything is just bad, and we just have to leave it because it's, and so on and so on. You know the stories, you know them. We know where it's you know the violence always begins in the language it begins in the speech the way we talk the way we thought you did dehumanize the others that's how once it's with when it's not stopped enough soon enough it's gonna get radicalized and and And we see Slovak society is now a radicalized society. It's more deeply divided than before. But last Friday, the vote on constitution showed, once you identify the cultural wars, you can go even further. You can suddenly, with the help of the Catholic Church, with the religious fundamentalists, you can get much more people into your scale than you even expected. So, well, yes, you know, the Democrats of Europe should unite the same way as autocrats are uniting. It's not just like that that Slovak politicians from far right are traveling to Moscow because they go there to learn. They go to learn how to manipulate elections. Look what's going on in Moldavia, Georgia, what's going on in Serbia. You see the Russian influences all over. They still consider us being part of their empire. They never gave up. Putin never gave up this idea. And so he's openly telling it, that he considers us to be Russian's own. And unfortunately, Slovakia, where I come from, differently than Baltic states or Poland or even Czech Republic, was not decolonizing from Russian influence strong enough. We were too weak. We were somehow not resilient enough. And we maybe didn't have the intellectual capacities to deal with this complicated issue and so yeah so that's why that's why that's why this is happening and now I can tell you another example from culture for many many decades Slovakia has a very strong tradition of children illustration illustration of children books, illustration of children books. We have beautiful children books for a very strong tradition of a school of the visual arts where this was a special issue. And we had a... It's like, I think it's every second year, there is a huge international exhibition on children's illustration. And because also this institution was, so to say, there was a change of the leadership and a complete change of the institution, it's the new director is a direct neighbor of our Ministry of Culture, a former teacher of yoga, and there is a big fascination for esoterics. That's a perfect qualification when you're dealing with illustrations. And she is proud Slovak. She lives in Kice in Austria. So, being a proud Slovak, you have to live abroad. And so, these two ladies now are organizing, so to say, alternative reality exhibition, because almost the whole scene of Illustrators is boycotting this exhibition now. But what they do, they invited artists from Russia and from China and from other, from Kazakhstan, from Azerbaijan. And they are doing, so to say, a parallel reality show for the... It's like it's a virtual reality show where they only meet each other, but they, so to say, pretend that this is the real thing. So that's why we are so proud that there is international boycott, that many other artists are not participating. And we are really happy that this is getting attention from abroad as well, because we have to cooperate to deal with these very serious issues. Thank you. I would like to turn to your questions. So we have some 15 minutes more for questions. We have a microphone. We are live streaming. No, no, no, because there is a live stream. There is a live stream. If you don't want to be heard in the live stream, you can refuse it, but otherwise it would be fine. My question goes to Russia, and this is from the Soviet period. You have the government, you have basically dissidents, but always there was in the middle people who are part of the cultural establishment, but in a certain way are trying to keep a distance, they're going to defend somebody. They're not, they're very much interested to what extent this is still there, because seen from outside, this is what you don't see. For example, well-established name is still there? Because seen from outside, this is what you don't see. For example, well-established names, still there. Theater directors that are staging on the state theaters, but for example, in the case of Berkovich and others, was this type of support present? Yes, of course, there are a lot of very good people still working even in state theaters. For example, they, mostly they are quite old people. Well, mostly they are quite old people. For example, Alexey Borodin, he is a head of Russian, like young people, Ramt, young people theater. He stages, he makes like more classical repertoire, but he defended Sofia Apfelbaum, who was one of case and he took her to the same position in his theater and she still works there so yeah they not make like public statements strong public statements but they are good people they I I believe I know I'm sure in their like souls they are against the war they try to support support Zhenya and Sveta, Zhenya Berkovich and Sveta Petrichuk somehow. I know that Evgeny Mironov, who is the head of Theater of Nations, he's also good person, but he was made to go to Mariupol and to show the support of the politics of state because he is in a very fragile position as a gay person. It's common knowledge. Yeah, so there are some people who are under pressure, and they sometimes are made to do something that doesn't look so good. But the question is, being the good people that you described, what are they able to do under these circumstances in order to widen the freedom for the arts, or to support oppressed artists? Yeah, they try. There are some premiers of good directors, they try to develop this Azov language. Everything we knew from Soviet times. To hide their statements behind something appropriate. So yeah, it exists, of course. Other questions? I would ask you, actually, because culture is not all state-run or state-funded culture. There is also a market for culture, let's say pop music, et cetera. And sometimes if we take pop music, for example, can be very strong tool to mobilize people against, against oppressive regimes. Or so do you see already in Slovakia, these instances of artistic work that is positioning, it itself clearly against all this that you describe and that is able to mobilize people against it and kind of widen the field of resistance in that way? Yes, I think so. Generally, mass culture is always a phenomenon which has some political issues deeply inside and was never quite innocent in that sense. We know it since the 60s and rock music and rock and roll and especially in Czechoslovakia, the underground music had a very special position in the opposition against the regime. Now with the digital media, of course, the scene is very different. I think there is a very strong movement of all sorts of internet influencers and comedians and other personalities who are very political and who are very popular. But basically we are somehow trying to look for innovative new ways of resistance because I think what we were mentioning the protests the media it's it's not enough if you feel like we have to look for for new ways and especially we have in Slovakia since 2018 we already had after the double murder of young Kucyag and Martina Kushnirova, investigative journalists, we had a similar huge protest movement with tens of thousands of people on the streets and and it meant the step down of the minister of the head of the police and the head of the Ministry of Interior and even the Prime Minister Robert Fico had to step down. So many say that this government now, this Ford government, his way how to, so to say, his payback to all those, he never really coped with the way that he had to step down. He said like, this is my revenge. This is my revenge on those who made me leave. At that time, the protest movement, of course, because in a parliamentary democracy, it ends up in election. But the election results turned out to be not really satisfying. Because what it meant, it meant the rise of the anti-system parties. And they were not ready to govern. So the opposition failed on a huge scale. And then came corona, pandemic. And it was a way for Robert Fischer to get his comeback to get his unsurprising comeback because after all this protest after this double murder he was he was really on the ground and he was here the huge health issues and and and alcohol issues and also many people saw that he's out of the politics that he will never make it again. But this multiple crisis really made it happen. And so, yes, there are some very popular singers who are speaking on the public squares. There are very famous actors and so on. But we see that in these deep divided societies, it's not just like that. That's why I am traveling. That's why I go to the countryside, to the smaller cities, smaller communities, because the election will not be decided in Bratislava or in Kosice. It will be decided where in the countryside where people traditionally are voting more conservative. They're voting more. They are more scared. They are more afraid of the changes. And it takes a lot of time and a lot of energy, but I think that you have to talk directly to the people, not just over commenting in online world, commenting on social media. You have to talk to them. It's much better way to convince them that they should not lose the trust in democracy as being a better system. Questions? One more. Now you have also the production of Russian culture outside of Russia. To what extent are Russians within Russia interested in what people like you are doing and staging or other Russian artists who are now outside of Russia? Is there a kind of interest? Is there a way to access for this? Russian in Russia interested in what we are doing here I don't know I think that yeah my friends they are interested in what I am doing I am interested in what they are interested in what I am doing. I am interested in what they are doing. I'm trying to save connections with most of my friends, with my colleagues, and I, in connection with Theater Dog, because I've got two productions there. I still have two productions there. So yeah, but sometimes they feel like they are guilty for something so they try to to be more expressive to express more like sometimes they like offended by those who are in exile. So there are a complex of feelings actually between those who went and those who stayed. Yeah, it's a question. As pop singers, I'd like to mention actually Alla Pugacheva because her interview got maybe by now around 50 millions of views and I think it's more influence of course of course then квартиrniki then resistance then everything else yeah because i know that my parents live in russia my they are quite old around 80 years old they learned how to use VPN, how to get all the news from Telegram, from YouTube, et cetera, et cetera. I believe in smartness of Russian people, actually. So yeah, I think most of these views of Pugacheva, they are from Russia. May I ask you something? Maybe this will be more common than a question. I still grew up in Czechoslovakia being a Russian colony, being occupied by 200,000 Russian soldiers. I still had to learn Russian and and I'm taking this very seriously that what's what's going on and I was dealing with these Russian influences in my country for maybe 15 years and and and I took seriously the text of Oksana Zabuzhko, who told that we should all look on our bookshelves, that we should start to decolonize ourselves first, before we start to decolonize our cities and our monuments and so on. And I changed a lot of my approaches and the way I read, the way I'm interpreting Russian arts and Russian art history and Russian cultural history. And I read these books of Russian classics, which all we had to have and all we had to read, and I was reading it very intensely. I don't have many of them anymore, but I had a lot of them, I can tell you. And there were so many translations, and we never learned anything that there is any Ukrainian literature. We never learned there is any Siberian culture. We never learned about any ethnical groups. We never learned that when Soviet Union was founded, half of the people did not speak Russian. I learned it when I was 40, 45. I learned it much later. And I'm always wondering when I am reconsidering these issues that how you Russians look at this. And like you, someone who was opposing the regime already for a long time, you went to exile, how you view this? How you look back to your heritage? Because when I have it in myself, and I feel, you know, I went to the high school which was called Red Army High School on the Red Army Street, and everything had these names. Everything around me was Pushkin, Dostoevsky, everything was Russia marked Bratislava city. Until today, I counted it, we have 37 streets named after Russian personalities. So it's still there, it's still there. And if you somehow, and in which way, how you change your approach to your own heritage, because it must be asking imagine it must be traumatizing but it's traumatizing for me to be to have it inside of me so maybe if you could a little bit emphasize on on this if it's if it's really very very important question as for me my story even more complicated because I was born in Tashkent it's a capital of Uzbekistan and I was born and I grew up in very Russian speaking environment with my Uzbek classmates speaking Russian yes so I left Ashkent at the age of 20 so like it's a half of my of my life i spent in in uzbekistan so yeah for me it's very very important i think a lot about it i try to to read more to read more and to speak to people from different parts of Russia from Buryatia from Tatarstan from Kalmykia etc etc I made in 2020 performance a play documentary play called near format it was about how Moscowites mostly but Russian Slavic people, how they see people with another face, from Central Asia, from Kalmykia, for example. made like investigation a small investigation talking to people and they when they meet Kalmyk they can't recognize him because they just think that he is from Central Asia, because for them he is like Kyrgyz. So actually in Russia people even don't know geography of Russia itself. geography of Russia itself, there is a lot of questions of colonization, of inner colonization. So yeah, and from this start of the full invasion, full-scale invasion, actually from this point, my friends and I, we started thinking in this decolonial way. maybe I started earlier because of the work on this play and because of re rethinking of my childhood of my youth in Uzbekistan etc but yes you're right. Actually, tomorrow I go to Paris to make a European version of my production in Theater Doc called Pushkin and Money. in Theater Dog called Pushkin and Money. And actually I thought that it can be staged in Europe, in Russian, and it was my idea how to help the Russian actors in exile because they are absolutely like they work like drivers like waitress etc etc so but yeah I I thought about how this pushkin and money can be perceived in Western Europe now. Michal, you started a topic that we can talk for days and weeks. Thank you very much Anastasia Patlaj, Michal Kvoretsky. Thank you. Thank you, Jessie. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Jesse. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for the moderation.