/ world today news/ Centralization today is greater than during the time of socialism, conductor Plamen Djurov believes
Plamen Djurov is a composer, conductor and teacher. He leads the chamber ensemble “Sofia Soloists”, he is the founder of the prestigious international festival “Sofia Music Weeks”, at whose invitation the world-famous Russian conductor Valery Gergiev visited Bulgaria last year.
– Mr. Djurov, those who are heard the most speak the least about culture in Bulgaria. Does that mean she’s okay?
– It is inevitable that a society that is in a turbulent environment should not have problems in culture. Culture according to legislation and according to UNESCO’s definition is a very broad concept. This is the value system that we take from the past, turn into everyday life and head into the future. The arts are an invariable part of culture, but they are a different thing. We suffer from a cultural deficit in interpersonal relations, in the protection of common property – look at the scratched walls, the broken monuments, the broken benches, the dirt, the rubbish on the bins. Therefore, even at the household level, Bulgarian culture has many problems. If you want, in the clothing, the background sound around us, our fat humor, which is often very crude. To the culture, I also add the acts of hatred – the hatred that spreads on social networks. Common sense is already lost there.
– How is this breakdown in the field of arts?
– Access to culture and arts in Bulgaria is very uneven. And this should not surprise us. In Bulgaria there are so many depopulated villages, cities with locked apartments, a barely flickering public life. They do not participate in any cultural exchange characteristic of the whole of Europe, and there everything happens at its own pace. And wherever you look – Italy, Spain, England, in small towns access to culture is guaranteed to a much greater extent than here. We have a cultural deficit in the media as well – bad behavior, rude language, disrespectful tone is spread there. Of course, Parliament is setting a very bad example. Because our politicians are so caught up in their own party or personal interests, their insufficient education, that they allow themselves behavior that is unacceptable for such highly paid representatives of a nation. Personally, I can hardly stand this thing. And there, in the parliament, there are “excellents” for this job. This is where the slang is carried over to television as well. I must strongly emphasize that there are several very significant factors in the nation that we do not count as factors of culture. First of all, it’s the media and the pubs. National statistics cannot answer how many pubs there are in Bulgaria, but, notice, they are always full. They inevitably influence the general culture and sensitivity to the arts. They marvel at the chalga as a musical, lyrical and behavioral phenomenon. The chalga emerged into a vacuum. And because it is easily accessible, attractive, it was recognized by many people.
– What created this vacuum?
– The turbulent environment I’m talking about. It interrupted the natural environment for the spread of arts in Bulgaria, the respect for small villages, the concentration in a few large cities, because of which everything else seems to have been forgotten. Unfortunately, cultural white spots coincide with demographic spots. In my opinion, the centralization today is greater than during the time of socialism. There are regions forgotten by politicians. The money is collected from the top and then distributed to this and that. The question of what principle and how fair this distribution is is very big. Therefore, project financing cannot compensate for this over-centralization. It’s the same in the arts – the way of financing music institutes, theaters is so centralized that I never imagined. In order for an expense to be approved, it must go through the Minister of Culture. And I, as the director of a philharmonic, that I have concluded a contract with you to print 300 posters for me or to transport the musicians to the neighboring city, if the ministry does not give them this money on time, you can take me to court because I am delaying you for half a year. These are seemingly small things, but they hinder the overall process. We are trying to make a model that is not known in Europe. There, the models have been tested for 300 years – way of financing, subsidizing, own funds. For example, the cultural center in the German city of Hof has several sources of funding – the local budget, a contract with a local sponsor, with local radio and television stations and own revenues.
– Where should one start?
– All these problems must be solved in symbiosis between the creative staff and the administration. The administration in Bulgaria has taken an awful lot of air, tries to dictate everything in an economic way, instills some provincial notions about market approaches in the arts, and they are very confident in themselves without proving it. The biggest problem is that the connection between the arts and the education of children has been broken. We certainly do not have strong traditions of using the family environment as a source of education. There are families with brilliant children and with them crooks and criminals. The composition of the Bulgarian nation became too heterogeneous. We don’t have a family environment, which is very difficult to create anyway. The connection between the children and the learning process was also omitted. The fact that there are music textbooks does not mean anything – if a child knows what to look for, he will find it in less time on the phone than in the textbook. The problem is that the curiosity to seek this information is not created in his interest. And music is not information, it is an experience, to feel it, to become a part of you. The modern man has everything on his phone, but he needs someone to tell him skillfully, not dictatorially: the world is much wider than you imagine, young man.
– Is there a tempo in music that can be used to describe today’s modern times?
– Prestissimo – hastily, we must survive, hurry. This is a problem of today’s time, even if you don’t want to rush, the equipment around you forces you – the transport, the telephone, the search. Perceiving art requires some small moment of contemplation, of relaxation, of introspection. This is healthy. We are already in the heart of chaos, of heartlessness and fatness. Everything is money and everything else doesn’t matter, no fathers, no mothers, religions. The past should be remembered with respect. In Japan, respect for fathers, for ancestors, is raised in an altar. We need such a thing, a return of our memory to the past. We suffer from a lack of memory, and so we are able to step on the hoe repeatedly, and always from the same end.
– How does this call fit in with the campaign in which the names of localities are changed to Turkish names in our country?
– When you see a campaign in Bulgaria that occupies large territories, spaces and many actions, know that it may be for fair motives, but it is a distorted way of thinking. That’s how they did the reforms in culture – five people came up with a model, and they are experimenting in the whole system. Why, when you are not sure about the first one, but want to harness them all. What does it mean that all the wells in Bulgaria are called differently? Even Napoleon was more modest. What will they gain – votes in the elections. Or should they claim to be patriots amid all this decorative patriotism? You can’t get away from people in Terminal 2. Words have become terribly meaningless in Bulgaria, we speak with great enthusiasm, great works, but there are no results. In our country, usually, when we know that we will not achieve something, we put it as the slogan of the nation. Words don’t help. And about the decision of the municipal officials who decided to rename localities, I will say this: The strength of the hydraulic system is measured not by the widest pipe, but by the narrowest. In such a collective body, one fool is enough to clog up the whole system.
– With so many prominent Bulgarian musicians out there, how do they succeed?
– For a Bulgarian, the chance is to be a concertmaster. For second fiddle outside, they have people. The concertmaster is first against equals, he is both a leader and cannot be separated from the collective. He is an interpreter for the conductor, makes things subtle, energetic. Bulgarians are very strong in this regard, because it is a combination of collectivism and individualism, it is on the border.
– However, doesn’t this prevent us from being a society when we are together – everyone thinks they have the potential to be the first violin, but as a collective we are worthless?
– Everyone thinks they can be first violin, but few are. The bad thing is that our environment is leveling. You may say something smart, true, but there will always be an opponent who will claim the opposite. With us, everything happens in two. The Bulgarian is not bad, but he is very matchless. He beats his chest a lot, wants to be noticed, and is compassionate at the same time. Bulgarians have united when there were dramatic and tragic moments. Then, as if suppressing our ego, we look more broadly at the world. We like the country because it is easy to achieve a lot.
Now
#live #pressingly #hastily #memory