The latest research by the Center for Empirical Studies of Southeastern European Culture (CESK) showed that residents of Serbia rarely go to the cinema, theater, exhibitions, or cultural events in general. The topic of the research was "Experiences of the centralization of culture in Serbia".
Active audience
"During the six months prior to the survey, out of 1.026 respondents in a nationally proportional sample, 5,4% of respondents had been to the cinema four or more times, 4,8% to a pop/rock music concert, 4,5% to a folk music concert, 2,9% in the theater, 2,8% in art galleries/museums, and less than 1% at classical music concerts (0,9%)," he told SEEcult Predrag Cveticanin, chief researcher of CESK.
"That means the active audience is less than 5%."
At the same time, the percentage of respondents who have not even once gone to the cinema, theater and other cultural events in their place is extremely high - between 70% and 90%.
Cveticanin says that there is almost no difference between the level of cultural participation in Belgrade and in other parts of Serbia.
"In Belgrade, for example, in the period of six months before the survey, 77,1% of respondents were not in the theater even once, in Vojvodina 78,5%, in Šumadija and Western Serbia 76,9%, and in Southern and Eastern Serbia 82.3% ", and a similar relationship applies to classical music concerts, cinema screenings, exhibitions... It is interesting that rock concerts in Belgrade are attended by fewer people than in other parts of Serbia.
Belgrade and others
The research also revealed a trend that Cveticanin particularly emphasizes "the trend of marked centralization of culture, which is directly opposite to the data on cultural participation that I presented."
"The causes of the centralization of culture in Serbia are found in the political and economic sphere. On the one hand, in the capture of the state (executive, legislative and judicial power) by the political elite and in oligarchic tendencies in political parties in which a career is made by implementing the politics of party headquarters, and not by representing the interests of the citizens of cities and municipalities who elected them to state bodies. On the other hand, in the fiscal policy in which most of the income flows into the central institutions, and then in a certain amount (based on the assessment of the center) they are returned to the cities and municipalities, and in the property policy according to which the property in the cities and municipalities is the republic's property. , says Cveticanin.
He explains that "the most significant contribution to the centralization of culture in Serbia is given by the fact that the republic's cultural institutions are almost all located in Belgrade (24 out of 27), that is, almost all the provincial cultural institutions are located in Novi Sad (14 out of 17)".
He also points out that these institutions are "republican" only because "their work is financed from taxes by all citizens of Serbia, but theater plays, exhibitions, concerts and cinema screenings, with rare exceptions, are attended only by those who live in Belgrade. In addition, a huge part of the budget of the Ministry of Culture is allocated for these institutions - between 60% and 70%."
CESK has been conducting valuable research in the field of culture for almost 15 years. Their researches are exact indicators of the current state of culture, and on the basis of which it is possible to correct what is unfavorable and negative, and build a positive one.
However, for this purpose, CESK's researches were almost never used.
Source: SEEcult
