Culture funding policies in transitional societies

Oleksandr Grytsenko

Final report on project fulfillment

The project envisaged a policy analysis of actual culture funding policies in Ukraine, based on comparative research in cultural policies of three post-communist countries of Eastern Europe, Ukraine, Poland and Russia.

The project began in winter, 2002, and consisted of three phases:

1) investigation and data collection;

2) comparative analysis and preparation of a Research Paper;

3) drawing a Policy Paper on culture funding for Ministry of Culture and the Arts of Ukraine.

It was planned that phase 1 takes six months and then is followed by analytic work. However, the process of information collection in fact continued for several more months, alongside the analytic work.

Investigations and data collection included continuous cooperation with the Ministry of Culture and the Arts and other Ukrainian government institutions in Kyiv; several study visits to other Ukrainian cities (Lviv, Simferopol, Donetsk, Vinnytsia, Chernihiv) and two study visits abroad (Moscow and Krakow).

In order to collect necessary data and clarify numerous funding-related problems, I visited several institutions of cultural administration. At Ministry of Culture and Arts of Ukraine, I had talks with the Minister, Yuri Bohutsky, and longer interviews with his deputies: Vladyslav Kornienko (in charge of financial issues) and Hanna Chmil (in charge of film industry, she is also my mentor). Other interviews and data collection visits to the Ministry included: department of finances, department of cinematography, department of performing arts, department of legal issues, department of heritage (museums funding issues).

A large amount of statistics and other data was collected there, of which only the most important part is displayed in my Research Paper.

Another important government institution, the Ministry of Finance, has also been visited several times for data collection and for interviews on such important issues as calculation of amounts of budget expenses for culture, the role and the effects of co-called “recommended norms of culture funding” applied by the Ministry of Finances for regional budgets, etc.

I also made visits to the Supreme Rada (Parliament) of Ukraine, for talks with Les’ Taniuk, Chairman of the Standing Committee for Culture, and other members of the Committee (MP Mykola Zhulynsky, formerly Vice Prime Minister for humanitarian issues, and MP Pavlo Movchan). I also had talks with staff members of the Committee on such issues as the draft Tax Code and draft Law of Ukraine for Culture which are being considered by the Parliament.

In November-December, 2002, I took part in the preparations for Parliamentary hearings on cultural situation and public cultural policy in Ukraine; some of my findings and writings were included in the information pack for hearings’ participants.

In February, 2003, I was included in the Advisory Council of the Standing Committee for Culture of Ukrainian parliament, and took part in its work on preparation of a new conceptual document on the State’s cultural policy.

I also interviewed leaders of many cultural organizations, both public and independent, in Kyiv, Lviv, Donetsk, Crimea and Vinnytsia, discussing their financial situation and problems they face.

During my study visit to Lviv, I interviewed former head of Lviv Oblast Department for Culture, Zenovii Mazuryk, and leaders of several independent cultural organizations (among them, Markian Ivashchyshyn, founder and director of one of the most successful private cultural organizations in Ukraine, DZYGA Arts Center, and Taras Wozniak, the editor of independent cultural journal «YI»). I also had one-day visit to Chernihiv for talks with chairman of Chernihiv oblast Directorate for Culture, Oleh Vasiuta, and for visits to some cultural institutions in this heritage-rich city.

During my brief visit to Vinnytsia, I talked to assistant professor Ihor Zhuravlivsky, of Vinnytsia branch of the State Academy of Culture Managers. We discussed problems that small cultural institutions in the countryside face.

In January, 2002, I made a visit to Moscow, Russia, and collected much of culture funding-related data at INFORMKULTURA, information center of Russia’s federal Ministry of Culture.

In December, 2002, I made a week-long visit to Krakow, School of Cultural Management of Jagiellonian University where I had discussions on Polish cultural policy with Professor Emil Orzechowski and with Malgorzata Sternal (she is a 2003 IPF fellow on cultural policy). I also presented a lecture on Ukrainian cultural policy at the School of Cultural Management. I collected a remarkable amount of Polish cultural statistics and numerous academic publications on this subject in Krakow. The knowledge obtained from this visit influenced my further work a lot. In particular, I prepared a questionnaire on income and expenditure of cultural organizations (styled after the questionnaire used by Polish sociologists in their study of cultural sector in Polish cities), and later used it in my case studies on financing of Ukrainian theaters and museums (see Research Paper).

In January, 2003, I visited Simferopol (Autonomous Republic of Crimea) and collected information on culture funding in the region from the Ministry of Culture of A. R. Crimea.

In February, 2003, I participated in the conference of Ukrainian theater managers in Donetsk, where, by disseminating my questionnaire, I collected the data on income and expenditure of several public theaters.

Another important part of my research was a study of legal regulations of culture funding. My study covered not only such major legal acts as Basic Law of Ukraine of Culture and Budget Code of Ukraine, but also several bylaws regulating public budget-making (see Research Paper) as well as regulation of public and private cultural organizations’ earnings. Regulations of charitable activities in cultural sector and the practice of targeted programming of cultural development were also analyzed in detail. Numerous problems raised by these investigations were discussed at the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Culture and Arts, and in my interviews with cultural managers.

Phase 2 of the project envisaged comparative analysis of the data collected in the three countries and the writing of a Research Paper.

The amount and diversity of gathered data (although sometimes incomplete, sometimes not quite credible, especially when it comes to earnings), as well as my interviews with cultural workers, scholars and government officials, made it possible to prepare a rather vast comparative study covering the following aspects of culture funding:

- legal and political environment;

- cultural administration system;

- actual public policies of culture funding;

- current trends in cultural economy in the three countries;

- possible future developments in cultural policy.

The results of this study as well as the description of possible policy options, including the preferred one, are presented in my Research Paper.

At the final phase of my project, I prepared a Policy Paper on culture funding for Ukrainian government. The Policy Paper includes a description of current economic situation in Ukraine’s cultural sector, a critical analysis of the existing policy, a description of possible policy options, and a set of recommendations dealing with the following aspects of public cultural policy:

a) proposed changes in culture-related legislation;

b) improvements in the existing funding schemes;

c) institutional changes in cultural sector;

d) protectionist policy for Ukrainian cultural industries.

A Communication Plan is also included in the Policy Paper.

The Research Paper and the Policy Paper were already presented at academic seminars of Ukrainian Center for Cultural Studies. My mentors (including Hanna Chmil, deputy State secretary for culture) are also acquainted with the papers and the recommendations.

Project fulfillment will be soon completed with the publication of the Research Paper and the Policy Paper, which will be then presented to the Ministry of Culture, the Parliamentary Standing Committee for Culture and to Ukrainian cultural community. Other policy advocacy actions will also follow.