In sweltering heat, and despite the summer holidays, thousands of Slovaks took to the streets of Bratislava on Monday 12 and Tuesday 13 August to denounce a new stage in the worrying purges carried out by the populist government of Robert Fico, in power since 25 October 2023 in this small central European country. Made up largely of artists, the marches called, for two days in a row, for the “resignation” of his Minister of Culture, Martina Simkovicova, a figure of the pro-Russian far right who is pushing aside one by one the artists who refuse to align themselves with her vision of culture.
Self-proclaimed “defender of Slovak culture and nothing else”Mme Simkovicova has launched a real cultural war against “LGBT ideology”whom she accuses of participating “to the extinction of the white race” in Europe. After having already dismissed several leaders of public institutions in recent months, this antivax conspiracy theorist lit the fuse on Tuesday 6 and Wednesday 7 August by immediately dismissing the director of the Slovak National Theatre, Matej Drlicka, and the director of the Slovak National Gallery, Alexandra Kusa. Both were accused in a press release of“progressive-liberal political activism”not in accordance with the “government cultural program focusing on traditional values and the heritage of our ancestors”.
“A ministry official rang my doorbell early in the morning to tell me I was being fired.”tells, at WorldMr. Drlicka, who since 2021 has been heading the main Slovak public stage, which includes a theatre, an opera and a ballet. “Since I expressed my disagreement with what was happening in Slovakia during the ceremony of the Slovak equivalent of the Oscars, I was made to understand that I was screwed”assures this trained clarinettist who has also just been decorated for his career with the Order of Arts and Letters by France.
A country that copies Hungary
Even though he prides himself on having made his place “a mirror of Slovak society” With many political pieces in his repertoire, Mr. Drlicka assures “never having declared his political opinions, nor called for voting for anyone”. But, in a country increasingly openly copying Viktor Orban's neighbour Hungary with a government that attacks the independence of the judiciary, the police and the media and dismisses troublesome civil servants by the dozen, it is now enough to appear as a slightly protesting artist to be targeted by the government.
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Source: Lemonde
