The Day has on more than one occasion carried materials dealing with the crisis gripping Ukraine’s book market. The topic has been debated for several years, more often than not coming down to the need to grant our domestic publisher tax concessions and the situation supposedly will enjoy a cardinal change for the better. In reality, things are more complicated, so that tax concessions alone will not save the situation. This and many other aspects are broached in the following interview with Kostiantyn Rodyk, a prominent promoter of Ukrainian books and editor of the newspaper, Knyzhnyk Review.
A PERSON SHOULD NOT LIVE THINKING ONLY WHERE TO FIND MONEY
The Day: Many attribute Ukraine’s possible breakthrough in the intellectual domain to progressive hi-tech approaches in the first place, particularly by using the Internet. What do you think?
K. R.: Naturally, high technologies and the Internet are the wide open doors to tomorrow. That goes without saying. However, we should remember that the possibility of such technologies crowding out books has been debated for the past several years.
It was declared at the Frankfurt Book Fair, the world’s most prestigious such event, that electronic books and computer technologies in general would pose no danger to printed matter for the next ten years. No one knows as yet whether electronic books will ever get the better of printed products (in other words, there are no apocalyptic forecasts now, although several years ago there were). There are different concepts. A book is a subtle receptor capable of reaching innermost recesses unreachable for newspapers or television. As for the print and visual media, people remain passive onlookers (reading and watching familiar things and images). A book is magic. Indeed, a bound stack of sheets with symbols, yet you start reading and real miracles spring to life in your mind. I mean in this case other mechanisms of perception are put into action, so books are not threatened with extinction.
However, there is an actual possibility of a reduction in the reading public. In fact, the number of readers in Ukraine has dropped sharply over the past decade, not only because there is the Internet as a strong rival — or all those PCs — but also because people have found themselves in inadequate conditions; a person should not live thinking only about where to find money to have dinner today and breakfast tomorrow (and not even think about lunch and dinner tomorrow). Regrettably, the current situation is such that a large part of the population are doing precisely this. Somehow, for the past ten years Ukraine has been walking in circles, unable to find a single path leading to a higher living standard or at least allowing people to live the way they did when one could work nine to six, go home, and read a book.
PR IN LITERATURE OR WHY THERE ARE NO NOBEL LAUREATES AMONG UKRAINIAN WRITERS
The Day: Suppose we get back to the possibility of an intellectual breakthrough in Ukraine?
K. R.: What’s an intellectual breakthrough in any sphere, in our case literature? If a national literature has Nobel laureates it means that this literature is known the world over. How do these laureates come to be? It would be naive to believe that this or that author writes a brilliant work, is noticed, nominated to the Nobel Committee, and handed the prize. It never happens that way. Awarding a Nobel Prize is very much a PR show, professionally staged and skillfully acted out. Unless a literary work is available in English, German, or French, it is sure to pass unnoticed (the Scandinavian countries are a different story, for they are members of the family, so to speak). Take Mikhail Sholokhov. How did this Soviet writer receive the prize? Because the necessary arrangements were made by the Soviet regime. The ideological department of the Communist Party’s Central Committee went all the way down the PR line (although the term PR was never used, not even informally). His major works were translated into English and made into movies (there is a US film version of his And Quiet Flows the Don). It was also thanks to the Soviet regime (although it wanted precisely the opposite) that Nobel prizes were awarded Solzhenitsyn and Brodsky. I mean when they started being persecuted this caused a response in the West and they got nominated on the crest of the wave.
How can one expect a nomination without taking any steps in that direction? I read recently (I believe it was in the magazine Ukrayina) that certain prominent members of the Ukrainian Writers’ Union are broaching the subject, that a Nobel laureate is made, not just nominated. How? They are convinced this is the state’s responsibility. What state? What is the Writers’ Union? Considering their privileges, premises, that all our presidents, premiers, and vice premiers in the humanitarian sphere have traditionally favored them, this union is a state structure. In fact, the current premier in the humanitarian sphere is also director of the Academy’s Institute of Literature which is financed by the state budget. So there you are: two structures. What other assistance can they expect from the state? No one will ask us if we want a Nobel laureate, because this takes writing synopses, translating, sending copies, sponsorship, maybe television promotion, and commercials. The Russians are taking some steps in this direction, promoting their authors not only here but also in the West. I think that they will have their Nobel laureate in literature five or seven years from now. You should see how well Russia was represented at the Frankfurt Book Fair! Not so Ukraine. That’s what an intellectual breakthrough is all about. It must be prepared for, otherwise nothing will happen. If our literature continues to be isolated from the rest of the world, its quality will decline (as happens to water after you boil it several times).
The same is true of book publishing. We must reach a higher level, start selling our books in Russia and elsewhere.
WITH MORE THE PROFITABLE MARKETS ALREADY DIVIDED UP, PEOPLE WITH MONEY ARE PAYING MORE ATTENTION TO LESS PROFITABLE SECTORS
The Day: How do you see the Ukrainian book market’s prospects?
K. R.: I think the situation can improve, considering that the more profitable markets, like energy, have all been divided up and that people with money are paying more attention to the less profitable sectors. Of course, we don’t want to let the Russians have everything if we can work there ourselves. And so there will be money and efforts at lobbying to build a legal framework for the publishing business precisely due to this understanding. The book market means just 10% profit (as is the case all over the world), but this profit is stable.
INFORMATION VACUUM AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT
The Day: You have mentioned lobbying and one is reminded of a press release where such efforts are described as an objective of the project Knyzhnyk Review. By the way, how did it come to be, considering that all such previous projects proved short-lived?
K. R.: Indeed, the last issue of the newspaper Druh chytacha [The Reader’s Friend] was published in 1992. Subsequent attempts — Knyzhkova teka, Knyzhkovy kurier, and others — never gained a mass readership. I believe that this information vacuum is one of the principal obstacles for Ukrainian book publishing. That’s why a Ukrainian street book vendor won’t take Ukrainian books. That’s why we decided to start a newspaper meant for all readers, not just intellectuals or those fond of primitive pulp. Everyone who reads books is our potential reader. When one takes a book to read — any book, even a Shytov, if one has a reading habit, one is likely to take an interest in other books, and that’s when our review steps in. We do not impose our opinion and our reviews show just what’s new and worthy of the reader’s attention on the market.
By thus filling that information vacuum, we also plan (eventually, of course) to push Russian books aside a little to give more room for Ukrainian works. Also, of course, when we spot a good Russian book, we advertise it, because all that talk about imposing a customs duty on Russian books is sheer barbarism; we have to use civilized means in this struggle.
We discussed the newspaper idea for quite some time with Anatoly Tolstoukhov, head of the Fund for Fostering the Development of the Arts, one of our newspaper’s founders. Finally we decided that the Ukrainian book market will develop anyway, but this development takes information support; it cannot evolve in a vacuum, even if levied soft taxes. So we started publishing our newspaper. As was to be expected, the project does not pay off, not yet, but we hope to get close to the investment horizon next fall. We’ll balance our profits and losses with our Books by Mail project underway since the first day of the month and distribution returns.
In other words, we have potential. We are starting our own publishing series in February, launching several fiction series, including Ukrainian detective stories, thrillers, fantasy, and romances. We already have a literary agency collecting manuscripts. We are planning two detective series of five or six books each, so we’ll have about fifteen titles available by the time the Publishers Forum opens in Lviv, Ukraine’s book event of the year.
The Day: But what makes our situation so very special is that it is not enough to teach one to read (at least mass literature for starters); it is also necessary to convince one to switch from Russian to Ukrainian mass literature. How can we do this?
K. R.: Quality. What made the viewers interested in the 1+1 Television? It turned out a quality product (of course, quality takes money): good movies with good simultaneous interpretation. Who will want to click to a different channel just because the dubbing is in Ukrainian? (By the way, I think that over 90% of the residents of Ukraine treat the language normally, regardless of their ethnic origin.) That will also be our approach: producing a good product.
THE DAY’S REFERENCE
Kostiantyn Rodyk, b. January 14 , 1955, has a post-secondary education in Russian philology and journalism. He became editor-in- chief of Druh chytacha in 1992 and simultaneously of the magazine Knyzhnyk. In 1993-99 he worked as a critic columnist with a number of Ukrainian and Moscow periodicals, while also hosting of radio and television programs. He has been an advisor to the Minister of the Press and Information (1994- 96) and head of the department for political analysis and prediction department of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine (1996-99).
He is currently, editor-in- chief of Knyzhnyk Review, project coordinator with the Elit Profi Rating Study Center (a Book of the Year project), and a member of the Program Council of the International Renaissance Foundation.
