Cultural elites were declared enemies

The literary program of the 33rd City Theater gave its audience another exceptional evening - the guest appearance of Gojko Božović, poet, literary critic, essayist, founder and editor-in-chief of the publishing house "Archipelag" and the Belgrade Festival of European Literature, vice-president of the Serbian PEN Center.

Božović arrived at Trg pjesnika Božović with his new collection of poetry "Mapa" (published by "Povelja" Kraljevo), the moderator of the conversation with him was Ksenija Rakočević, and as he pointed out at the beginning of the evening, although book titles are always difficult and are never accidental, this time he had that title "Map" in his head from the beginning of writing.

"I conceived and composed this book in such a way that it first rests on the figure of a journey, and from the beginning to the final cycle, the final poem, it is a kind of continuous journey. Sometimes it is through space, time, sometimes through culture, sometimes through topics, and that figure was important for me to meet different subjects of the contemporary world. Immediately afterwards, there are figures of memory and experience, individual and social fears, as well as figures of things that are recognized, separated and exposed to questioning in an essentially empty world. These verses recognize both despair and resignation, and composed silence and expressive voices in this recognizable everyday life of ours," said Božović, emphasizing that in the last two centuries, literature, art, and culture have never been under such far-reaching challenges as today.

"These challenges cut into the very center - not only of the survival of literature, art, culture, but also the very center of basic social issues, and the very center of our existence. Literature, art, culture are marginalized as they have never been in modern history, and they are, in fact, at the very edges of the public space. In order for literature to play an important role, to be a stimulating and motivating force, to be an instrument with which we can change reality and the world around us, it is necessary for literature to live a full life, and not just survive on the edges of the public space. At this moment, at least in these twenty years, we can see on a broad European scale that literature no longer shapes ideas that are then moved into social discussions, as was the case in the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries," says Božović.

According to him, this does not mean that there are no great writers, that there are no great books, great ideas, important topics and questions in contemporary literature.

"On the contrary, it means that those great ideas and themes, those books, those important challenges that contemporary literature presents to us, are actually no longer in the public space and do not communicate with wide circles of readers, audiences. The space that was once occupied by literature, culture, art, and the great forces of modern times, has now been taken over by entertainment. It was inhabited by reality formats, tabloids, it was inhabited by mere demagoguery. That demagoguery is, in fact, one of the key causes of the fathers and founders of the only political movement that unites the modern world, which is populism."

Speaking about the marginal place of literature, art, and culture in the public space, Božović particularly pointed out that this did not happen by chance, but rather the result of a well-planned, global political project whose goal is mass manipulation of people, and one man who controls everyone.

"The main sources of manipulation are, on the one hand, the constant production of fears - sometimes the causes of fears are internal, sometimes external enemies, sometimes the economic crisis, migrants, some people who supposedly come to our world to ruin the wonderful world we live in, sometimes they are intellectuals. Now, let's say, the intellectual elites are in the background, they are declared to be the biggest dangers facing humanity today. But, be that as it may, some enemies are constantly being created, and some dramatic dangers are constantly being talked about, which we see every day on the front pages of our tabloids and pro-state media".

As Božović emphasized, "internal enemies" are still the most dangerous, they are the sum of all hostility.

"Look, for example, at how dramatized and radicalized the language of public communication is. In that language, I am constantly witnessing some disasters - whether new wars are announced, talks about the purchase of state-of-the-art weapons that, as a rule, are bought by warring countries, impoverished, ruined like our Balkan countries, whether it is talking about thousand-year rains falling, or how thunder and storms will destroy this or that Balkan country, or how we will suffer from an infestation of locusts. Therefore, society is constantly faced with dangers and hostilities, conspiracy theories have been renewed to the greatest extent possible and new conflicts are constantly being created, because it is easy to rule on the principle of division in societies".

What is most interesting in all of this, as Božović pointed out when explaining today's cultural, social and political circumstances, is the renewal of the cult of the leader, the cult of personality, although part of European and world humanity lived through that time in one ideological moment, which ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall, and naively believed that he would never return...

"We can see not only today, and not only these last few years, that the only systematic and the only flawless construction that we can witness in our societies is precisely the construction of the cult of personality.

All other constructions are disputed - when streets are paved, cityscapes change, the identity of old and new cities..., there are so many disputed things everywhere, from those that are a matter of massive corruption to those that are an expression of construction instability. But when it comes to the cult of personality, it is approached in a planned, systematic way, and all social forces are harnessed to pave the way for a ruler, instead of investing all those forces and all those resources in the development of society. But it has been proven that society cannot develop where the cult of personality rules, and that the only way to social prosperity is through public critical discussions and political dialogue".

According to Božović, the idea of ​​conversation must be renewed, and literature, art, and culture today have a mission to find the strength to fight for the dominant place in the public space that they once had.

"Literature must ask questions and give answers, all those questions that are a rebellion against any system. Because a writer, an intellectual, by definition, would have to be engaged. And what is today one of the driving fuels of populism is retaliation against the intellectual elites. It is constantly said that they are reborn and that they, in fact, prevent social development by creating some kind of inequality, or by discriminating against certain social or other strata. They prove to be an essential danger, and this is especially disastrous in small, poor societies like ours, which have no other resources for development, which have never had a rich economy, or a prosperous policy, or a global initiative. The only waves of development in such countries were when a critical mass of responsible intellectuals and thoughtfully formed elites was created. If the elite is rejected, if it is declared as internal enemies, as opponents of the government, as something worthy of contempt, and we hear all this every day and we can daily witness these rituals of rejecting the elite, then it actually means that societies, and those who manage them, have completely renounced the idea of ​​development, that they do not need development, and that they are satisfied with the current situation", concluded Božović.

If there is no culture, there is too much senseless and frivolous entertainment

Populism, as pointed out by Božović, depletes strength, stifles social opportunities, stifles personal, social, and collective development, and we can see that it is not only a cultural challenge, but also a totalitarian one.

"If there is no culture, and there is too much senseless and frivolous entertainment, if there is no literature and art, and there is a reality format, then we, in fact, become mere puppets, mere individuals who are easy to manage, who are easy to demagoguely move for any whining. That's why I think that today the real challenge for poetry, culture, and art is to renew their public role, not so that writers would be as popular as they once were, not so that they would be influential personally, but so that their books, their ideas , their themes had that wider resonance, and to communicate with a wide circle of people. Because society will be better off if it is confronted with important ideas, and not with meaningless content, content that, in fact, stifles any type of critical dialogue, any type of conversation, any type of free thinking about topics that must still be important to us today," he believes. Bozovic.