EVERY ART REQUIRES INVESTMENT, RECOGNITION AND INSPIRATION, BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY, AN ARTIST IS NEEDED – INTERVIEW WITH JANA JANEVSKA TERZIOSKA
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Анета Перевска
- What was the challenge by founding the “Slavko Janevski” Foundation?
After the closing of newspaper Utrinski, a group of journalists Zvezdan Georgievski, Katerina Bogoeva, Erol Rizaov, Manco Mitevski, Ljupco Popovski and Branko Trickovski agreed to form a foundation that will continue the established tradition of awarding the Novel of the Year award, which was then part of Utrinski newspaper. The appointment of the Slavko Janevski Foundation was their decision. Zvezdan Georgievski asked for consent. It is a great honor for me that the Foundation bears my father’s name and behind it there are great journalistic names.
- What are the core objectives and projects that the Foundation covers?
Although the main idea of establishing the Foundation was the continuation of the Novel of the Year award this year, several other major projects are planned:
– Exhibition of paintings by Slavko Janevski and miniatures by Tome Serafimovski. The exhibition will be at the beginning of October at the Museum of the City of Skopje:
– Issue of Almanac for the entire artistic work by Slavko Janevski;
– Issuing an annual magazine on culture “Debate”;
– Re-release of the first novel published in Macedonian “Selo zad sedumte jaseni” in one edition with his later processing in “Stebla”
All these projects require a lot of effort and dedication, which I am especially grateful to Zvezdan Georgievski and Katerina Bogoeva as well as the whole team from the Foundation.
- Your Fondation is supporting diverse cultural life. Why is this so important in our community today?
Why not support diversity? The wider the better.
- How much is the awareness in Macedonia about the importance of culture in a community?
Awareness about our culture is an awareness of our language, values, beliefs and all other elements of a national culture. Unfortunately, in Macedonia we hardly place our values on the world market primarily because our culture is humiliated by ourselves. We create a cult of foreign cultures or cultures towards artificial culture that leads to regression on the awareness of our true culture. It becomes clearer that the need for mutual understanding and support is not only to preserve the awareness of our culture, but also the culture itself.
- Do you think that our literature is marginalized in relation to visual arts? How can we jointly bring back the attention to the literature which it deserves?
Every art requires an investment.
All art requires recognition.
Every art needs inspiration.
But most importantly,
Every artist needs an artist.
The artist can bring his work to fame, but to failure.
In order to answer whether the fine arts have a greater chance of glorifying the literary art, I also need to answer an almost unanswerable question.
“Is the marginalization of art the result of a writer’s failure or a misunderstanding among the reader?”
I cannot say that fine art is more exalted by our state.
As an architect who knows the benefits of painting for the artists, I can conclude that they do not receive any special treatment from our society in comparison with literary artists.
- Share with us how did the idea for awarding the “Novel of the year” came and its development till today? What is your vision of this prestigious award in the future?
The award represents a continuation of the already established tradition of newspaper Utrinski. This is the first year award from the Slavko Janevski Foundation. Despite the great praise we have received, we are aware that we may need to change something.
- Slavko Janevski, first of all known as a novelist, poet, less known as a painter and essayist, as a screenwriter, even on a science fiction horror. Responsibility and satisfaction are huge for the winners, but also for you as organizers. How do you handle the pressure of this prestigious award, to goes to the right person?
A five-member jury decides on the award. The president of the jury is always the winner of last year. Whether there is pressure on jury members maybe they should say it themselves.
- What is the pulse about this award among the younger audience, given that the last winners are young attractive writers?
I would like this event to glorify the works of young authors who write in Macedonian language. The support, as I mentioned in the previous answers, is crucial for the development of culture.
The second key lies in motivation.
Creation in Macedonian can be jeopardized by the rapid resettlement of our young authors who do not believe that there is compensation or recognition for their deeds.
I believe that the award will contribute to increasing the quantity and quality of contemporary literary works.
- What does it mean to be the daughter of Slavko Janevski, is it an advantage or responsibility that creates a burden?
I think that for all of us parents are primarily parents regardless of their profession or importance in society. As a family we lived together all beautiful but also negative moments. Here I am thinking first of all when my father’s name was used for daily political purposes, which normally had negative consequences for me and my family.
