The debate on culture management and the cultural reform prepared by Jerzy Hausner started last month. However, the debate has been based mostly on media news, not on official documents. Minister Bogdan Zdrojewski claims the reports are ready, yet the response to Indeks 73's official application to make them public in accordance with the Law of Access to the Public Information states something contrary... There are more and more gossips and misunderstandings around the future reform, and some documents have been inofficially dislosed on the internet. This is our calendarium concerning attempts to get access to“The Reports on Polish Culture”:

7 May 2009 – At the press conference of the Minister of Culture Bogdan Zdrojewski, Professor Jerzy Hausner presented a summary of his cultural reform guidelines. The Minister stated the Reports on Culture would be presented in September 2009 at the Congress of Polish Culture.

10 June 2009 – Gazeta Wyborcza published an interview with Professor Hausner by Roman Pawłowski entitled “Rewolucja kulturalna Hausnera” (Hausner's cultural revolution) presenting the guidelines of the future reform. Cultural institutions, organisations and activists became alarmed with the vision of privatization.

13 June 2009 – Gazeta Wyborcza started the debate on the cultural reform with Maciej Nowak's article „Kultura kwitnie, to ją podetnijmy” (Culture is flourishing, let's kill it). The main source of information was the interview, and not official documents. Rumour says Maciej Nowak was asked by the Minister to explain his critical attitude.

24 June 2009 - Indeks 73 Initiative sent an application to the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage to obtain detailed information on the culture management reform on the basis of the Law of Access to the Public Information. Indeks 73 explained the detailed information on the reform was required before the official presentation in September at the Congress of Polish Culture so that all culture-forming institutions and organisations could prepare themselves well to the public debate and civil society consultations. The Ministry was obliged to reply till 8 July.

29 June 2009 – Indeks 73 got an email from the information centre of the Ministry of Culture that the application had been registered and passed on to the competent employees.

30 June 2009 – Free University of Warsaw organised 'Warsaw Independent Culture Workshops for Professor Hausner'. Bogna Świątkowska and Kuba Szreder, the moderators, asked Professor Hausner why the guidelines of the reform hadn't been made public. He informed he'd supervised three analitical studies, namely: the report written by six experts 'Financing culture and cultural institutions management' (December 2008); the report by nine experts 'Crisis in culture, or culture in the crisis' (April 2009) and an expert opinion on legal regulations in culture written by Jerzy Hausner and Hubert Izdebski. Hausner stated that it had been guaranteed in his contract that all the reports would be made public.

7 July 2009 – Indeks 73 Initiative received a phone call from the Ministry of Culture that the application had been misdirected to another department, therefore the Ministry would extend the response deadline. Under this announcement on Indeks 73 website an anonymous internaut wrote “one needs to know where to look for” together with two links to the portal wrzuta.pl. There we could read two documents: 'Financing culture and cultural institutions management' (December 2008) and 'Crisis in culture, or culture in the crisis' (April 2009).

10 July 2009 – Indeks 73 received the letter dated 30 June from Zina Jarmoszuk, the Director of the Department of State Patronage at the Ministry of Culture, in which she said that works on the cultural reports were still in progress and as soon as they were finished (till the end of July 2009) they would be published on the website www.kongreskultury.pl

The letter was published on the Indeks 73 website. Immediately it was commented by one of the internauts: “There are more than twenty of such reports. It's worth asking for a whole list from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage”.

On the same day Indeks 73 received three phone calls from the spokesperson of the National Centre for Culture. Michał Laszczkowski suggested removing the commentary with reports links and informed the website wrzuta.pl had been also asked to remove the documents. At 4.30 in the afternoon the Ministry decided to publish the report 'Financing culture and cultural institutions management' on the website www.kongreskultury.pl. Another report 'Crisis in culture, or culture in the crisis', containing definite proposals and guidelines of the reform, was supposed to be kept secret.

14 July 2009 – Minister Bogdan Zdrojewski published his article “Address: culture” on the website www.kongreskultury.pl. He starts his article reminding of freedom of artistic expression and free access to cultural goods Polish citizens obtained in 1989. He explains that just after he'd taken up his duties as a minister of culture he comissioned a detailed report on Polish culture. He goes on the Ministry is currently in possesion of the reports concerning particular cultural organisations working in the domains of theatre, cinematography, audiovisual media, museums, books and art market, as well as of the detailed thematic studies regarding financing culture and cultural institutions management. The Minister states that culture management and financing institutions is the subject of discussion on the basis of the individual proposals, including the guidelines prepared by Professor Hausner.

On the same day the reports were removed from the website wrzuta.pl

17 July 2009 – Indeks 73 Initiative applied to the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage for a detailed list of reports, analyses and expert opinions related to cultural reforms comissioned by the Ministry after 16 November 2007 and for the full content of these documents.

27 July 2009 – 14 reports are available on the website www.kongreskultury.pl. But where are other documents, e.g. expert opinion on legal regulations in culture written by Jerzy Hausner and Hubert Izdebski?


Compiled by Lidia Makowska, Agnieszka Kaim
Translated by Małgorzata Głombiowska