At the beginning of his career, Slovak journalist Arpad Šoltes wanted to work in the editorial office for culture, but he became famous for articles about the connection of Slovakia's political elite with organized crime. "Investigative journalism happened to me like an accident, thanks to my stupidity," recalls Soltes. Because of his texts, he was threatened and had to move to the Czech Republic, he was called a traitor, he was sued several times for defamation and defamation, and he was even beaten once.
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Soltes' novel Pig became a bestseller in Slovakia. A film was also made based on it, which was the most watched in Slovak cinemas in 2020. The success was not the result of artistic qualities and narrative skill but of the fact that they are readers and viewers Pigs they recognized Jan Kucijak, murdered in 2018, in the form of the young journalist Ondra, and in the form of the President - Robert Fitz. With the awareness of this inevitable recognition, the book begins and ends with the same ironic words: "The author of this book is a foreign mercenary and unscrupulous invents. There is not a single true sentence in his novel. The action takes place in a country that, by all accounts, could be Slovakia, but is not. If, despite this, you recognize yourself in one of the heroes, report to the nearest police station or prosecutor's office without delay."
Ondro, the closest thing to a positive hero in a heroless novel, is a born analyst who sees clear patterns of corruption where others see only a pile of numbers. His example shows how investigative journalism has changed in the 21st century.
Following the trail of money in a seemingly simple case of tax evasion, Ondro notices that the criminals at the head of the state are not very sophisticated in their scams. They do everything "as a butcher, relying on their untouchability". The result of Ondro's research is a series of texts on the affairs of the Albanian and Italian mafia in Slovakia, then on the looting of agricultural subsidies from the European Union and donations for solar energy, on construction projects financed by drug money, on the sale of weapons, on money laundering through fictitious companies, and especially on the connections of the President and ministers with criminal groups.
When he first receives a threatening call from the controversial businessman Wagner, Ondro is not overly alarmed. Times have changed: they no longer kill journalists like they did in the 90s, it's easier to discredit them in the regime media or financially and legally exhaust them with pointless SLAPP lawsuits. Its editor believes that the powerful are not so stupid as to physically injure a person whom they previously publicly threatened: since they discovered the beauty of a defamation lawsuit, "not even the Pythagorean theorem can be defended in a bribed court." It turns out that times haven't changed that much after all.
Roman Pig it was born out of a desire to avoid the limitations of documentary (but also Fitz's defamation lawsuit!) and the belief that fiction better portrays truths about human nature and the consequences of corruption that are not readily apparent from mere data. As an engaged political thriller, where individual events are less in the service of plot development and more illustrations of wider social pathology, Pig somewhat reminiscent of the books of Robert Saviano, the most famous author of this genre. Scholtes claims that the novel is not about the murder of a journalist, but about the three-decade development of the system that made such a murder possible.
The plot line inspired by Kuciak's case is one of many in the book. For example, one of the subplots follows a juvenile from a correctional facility who tries to report rape and no one believes her. A correctional home, a drug rehab center in an idyllic mountain location, a spa center/nightclub "Ćilibarska zora" and a private security firm (which has better hidden cameras and electronic monitoring equipment than state authorities) together form a closed ecosystem that will remind today's reader of Jeffrey Epstein's island or the recent case of police-macros in Tuzla. The pig from the title of the book is the minister for social work, a pedophile and the "essence of a peasant". Although he is "dumber than a digital calculator watch" and barely knows how to sign, he allows the whole operation to go unnoticed. The secret is that they choose girls that no one will miss. Kompromat recorded in "Amber Dawn" unites visitors with a much stronger bond than friendship or joint work.
U Pigs no hope, no hero, no catharsis. The protest after the murder of Ondro and his girlfriend could have been a cathartic scene, but it was reduced to one paragraph. More space is given to the President's reaction to people seeking justice on the street in the middle of a freezing winter. "Never!" snapped the President. We will not make concessions to the street. There is no such god. What does that fool think? We are democratically elected. We have done nothing. We are not going anywhere. That would only admit something we have nothing to do with. Feel free to let two hundred thousand come out. So what? There are two years until the election. Two years will not hold them. What are two hundred thousand morons on the street? I got many times more direct votes. Our people understand that."
There is no difference between politicians, criminals, thugs, policemen, businessmen, secret service agents, media owners - sometimes the same person manages to be in almost all these roles during his career. Scholtes is uninterested in the characters' deeper motivations: they rob, kill and rape because they feel like it. There is nothing interesting in delving into the psychology of people reduced to animal instincts. Scholtes often compares the characters to animals or gives them animal nicknames. These people are the same in all systems, but they are only as powerful as that society allows them to be.
Closing the pages of this bestiary, the reader can conclude: yes, that's it, there are all of them in one place - the people who stole our future.
