Culture Wars

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Around 9,000 people took to the streets of Slovakia’s capital this week to protest the sacking of the heads of the country’s cultural institutions, a move critics said was politically motivated and part of an effort by populist Prime Minister Robert Fico’s ruling coalition to control public institutions, including the judiciary, Euronews reported.

On Monday, protesters demonstrated outside the National Theater and the Culture Ministry in Bratislava to denounce the dismissals by Culture Minister Martina Šimkovičová.

Last week, Šimkovičová ordered the firings of National Theater director Matej Drlička and National Gallery head Alexandra Kusá. The minister accused Drlička of involvement in “political activism” by criticizing her office and blamed the former director for the incident at the theater.

Šimkovičová, meanwhile, blamed Kusá for “several managerial failures” and intimated that because she was the daughter of architect Martin Kusý, who led the reconstruction of the gallery, she was also responsible for it turning out below standard.

Kusá countered the claims as “vague and mostly fabricated,” adding that her relation to Kusý was known before her appointment in 2010.

Šimkovičová, a former TV anchor, has come under criticism for her positions against the LGBTQ community, Covid-19 vaccinations and also for espousing pro-Russian views. Shortly after her appointment last year, she moved to reestablish cultural relations with Moscow which had been frozen since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The demonstrations also highlight anger toward some of the policies of the populist three-party coalition of Fico, who was reelected last year.

In June, Fico’s alliance passed a bill that would increase government oversight over public broadcasters, sparking protests from the opposition, civil society and artists.

Observers told news platform Balkan Insight that the media turmoil is seen as part of a wider assault by the government on Slovak institutions and the judiciary, which could undermine the rule of law and lead to conflicts with the European Union. Slovakia, once half of Czechoslovakia which itself was a Soviet satellite state for most of its 74 years, became an EU member in 2004.

Amid the demonstrations, Czech Radio suspended its cooperation with its Slovakian counterpart indefinitely, citing concerns over its independence – specifically, the political meddling in the public service broadcaster’s operations, Balkan Insight noted.