GEORGI GROZDEV conversing with the talk show host of “Breakfast on the Grass” SVETLANA DICHEVA – March 11, 2006, program “Horizont”(Horizon), Bulgarian National Radio

- Our guest today is the writer and publisher Georgi Grozdev. We’ll be talking about the Balkan Library series of his publishing house “Balkani”, which, by the way, has a 15-year anniversary. So, congratulations!
- Thank you!
- I think it’s very essential that here, in the National studio, we talk about communication among Balkan writers, Balkan peoples, because it seems we really know more about western authors but we don’t know ourselves and our region. Through the Balkan Library series this matrix of self-isolation is broken.
- The Library is unprecedented in our literary and cultural history and I say this not to praise myself. It’s the result of the professionalism of many people and if there is time I can mention some of them. In fact through our Balkan trail or path we are trying to circumvent those lies and myths for domestic use which lazily lie in our way to the future, on our children’s way, in the way of our children’s children.
- Which is the rudest and most repulsive myth?
- It is concentrated in the national selfishness which exists not only in the Balkan countries. Every Balkan capital has its proponents of this thesis. And, humorously speaking, it’s expressed in the statement the first ape was a Bulgarian, a Turkish, a Serb, a Greek, a Macedonian, and so on. This is the most primitive level, which, however, automatically affects the psyche of the mass audience.
- Where is the line between the healthy, logical and constructive patriotism and destructive nationalism?
- Everyone discovers this line for themselves and it can be found when we compare ourselves with neighboring peoples, with neighbors in our own country, with our colleagues and when we have a sense of self-criticism.
- It seems to me it is becoming ever more necessary to talk about the obligation the country’s intellectual elite has to oppose the hate hysteria against “the other” and “otherness”. Something which, unfortunately, is entering our political life and at that by targeting an extremely instinctive and primitive level of the Bulgarian audience.
- This is so, but I haven’t seen anyone seriously opposing the so-called “intellectual elite” in Bulgaria. Meaning that many mass media, the press, including electronic media, I exclude you, actually give a shoulder to this hysteria. It receives support – direct and indirect. This comes to show we are in the whirlwind of the age of prey and all means to come into power are allowed. The door is once again wide open to political adventurers and parvenus, to the semi-intelligent in politics with one single purpose – prey on everything at all cost!
- All this sounds very strange on the background of our European ambitions and that natural foundation, most of all a moral one, of tolerance on which Europe practically rests.
- Here are our arguments as publishing house “Balkani” on behalf of dialog, cooperation, mutual tolerance. I find them also in the letters I’ve recently received, for example, from the world renowned poetess and writer Ana Blandiana. I have given them to you. We’ve published them in the Literary Balkans magazine in the Feedback rubric. After the publication of the new 10 books from the Balkan Library series there’s been feedback from the writers themselves as well as from different media in their respective countries. For example, Goran Petrovich – Belgrade, Ana Blandiana – Bucharest, Dragi Mihailovski – Skopje, Yevrem Burkovich from Montenegro, from Zagreb – Miro Gavran, to name a few. These are people with authority not only in their own country but also in Europe and around the world. Since we are setting a special place for modern Croatian poetry, prose and drama the new edition includes an interview with the Croatian ambassador Mr. Drazhen Tsolich, who’s a journalist by profession.
- Yes, ambassador Tsolich says, “…This idea and this library have already received all deserved commendations, from some of the most renowned names in the Southeastern Europe, some authoritative foreign specialists, such as the London Times critics…” And so on and so forth. Yes, this sounds great if the Bulgarian public would reach to get these Balkan books you’ve published, get to know itself, the Bulgarian and Balkan authors, so that the myths of hatred would gradually die away.
- It is not very cunning to instill in the public, especially the younger one, the idea we live in some sort of a besieged fortress and some enemies are constantly attacking us, instead of discussing our own shortcomings. They start hanging around our neck and want to save us. They start looking for traitors too. The natural sense of fear and prejudices are used. We are constantly sent back to the freezer of history instead of looking forward. Our responsibility for the future, and that is my conviction, is far greater than that for the past. In the public territory, which you mentioned, we see arguments of the past, we live in the past and in the end these people and these players on that cultural field remain in the freezer of history. The overcooling tremor has shaken our society for more than just the past few years. It’s something characteristic of the Bulgarian and also the Balkan folk psychology. By the way, this is also discussed in the Literary Balkans magazine where we reprinted an essay by the famous historian Prof. Petar Mutafchiev, About the Cultural Crisis in Bulgaria, first printed in December 1935. Seventy years ago the same things happening today were discussed – nihilism, denial, which are quickly overwhelming us…
- Does this mean the cultural crisis is permanent?
- It means, unfortunately, that our culture environment has not overcome the biggest problem it’s had since our Liberation, since the establishment of the Third Bulgarian State. And it is – quantitative domination of semi-intelligence in all areas of social life, including politics. Politics being also a highly intellectual activity…
- Is it? (laughter in the studio)
- … And when reasoning is not done at a high level, arguments are brought down to the level of “Who was the first ape on the Balkans?”
- Thank you!