Gojko Božović: Times are difficult, but we have experience

Just before he will turn 15 on May 18, news arrived that the Archipelago publishing house received an award for its contribution to the improvement of publishing and cultural exchange in the region, at the International Book Fair in Podgorica. And that's good news.

In Serbia, the length of time a publisher has lasted this long is considered a great success, and above all it speaks of the books he published and because of which he survived in the local circumstances during those 18 years. And how those years were and what they are still like, "Archipelag's" slogan "Not everything is bad, books are good" speaks very eloquently.

Gojko Božović, editor-in-chief and founder of Archipelago, says that the slogan is "a little younger", and that he remembers how it came about:

Slogan from Saint Petersburg

"At the airport in St. Petersburg, between two flights, in a friendly discussion, I said that sentence. It was more than ten years ago. Discussions are best if they are friendly. We didn't change that slogan afterwards because the message was persistently shown to be correct. I would prefer that we had a reason to change it. But it's not a question of what I would like, but of how it is. On different occasions, we joined this slogan with some others. For example: "Every book is an island, together they form Archipelago Each reader is an island, together they form The archipelago." Or: "We publish books without compromise, and we have discounts only for readers." Slogans are, of course, important, some of them are memorable. But the most important thing is that what you do and say, you stand behind those messages addressed to the readers. Good books are needed at all times, even in times when nothing else is as good. I believe that both readers and books deserve better circumstances and better times."

"Archipelago" is coming of age in a year when culture is punished by budget cuts, and publishers who print books in Latin are excluded from the only competition that stimulates their work.

"It turned out that way, but we work all the time in the circumstances of crises: local and global, social and political, technological and media, health and security, economic and cultural-political, populist and authoritarian. As soon as you look out the window, you are already in the midst of some events. We did not choose the circumstances, but we chose what we would do and how we would do in those circumstances. So this is a difficult time for the publishing business, but we learned vitality through trials," comments Gojko Božović.

He notes that "Archipelag" is a market publisher, working on "the basis of readers' trust and support, and nothing has changed there for eighteen years. We will continue to do so in the future. But everything we do is not only market-oriented. If you publish poetry books, as well as other literary genres or certain genres of the humanities, it is certainly not a market decision and no publisher can come to it if he only takes into account economic reasons. We also take into account the interests of our readers and their right to reasons choice."

High culture and the market

He explains that "Archipelago" starts from "an assumption that was once taken for granted, but is no longer taken for granted for a long time, now it is a matter of conscious and not so frequent choice: publishing is a business that connects high culture and the market. Both are important to us. We check and base our values ​​in the principles of high culture. In the principles of the market, even if it is poor, and if it is 'shallow', and if it is beset by various crises and insecurities, we test the resilience of our ideas and the attractiveness of the values ​​we espouse, but we also test models with the help of those ideas and values."

Archipelago is recognized as a publisher of Serbian and world literature, but also books in the field of humanities - from historiography to political theory, from social studies to economics. "The books we publish promote cultural, poetic and social pluralism. In the field of literature, we publish books that are a sign of the best imagination. In the field of humanities, books that are a sign of reliable knowledge," says Božović.

And, at a time when the book is marginalized, an unfortunately unavoidable question: who is to blame, the government or the book that failed to impose itself?

Reasons for the crisis

"The book is marginalized and it is one of the most dangerous global problems with serious local consequences. There are several reasons. The book is facing a technological crisis: we are all digital today, and the book looks analog to many people of the civilization of moving images. The book is facing a crisis of attention: attention is today the rarest resource, and without it in daily doses of at least one or two hours of time there is no reading. The book is facing a crisis of critical thinking: if critical thinking is suppressed, then the need for a book is Undoubtedly less.The book faces a crisis of social relevance in a consumer society: where everything has a numerical value, where everything is expressed in the "pay and carry" formula, the book does not and cannot have the influence it had in the epochs when it was a formative force of society. The book faces a crisis of culture: the populist era rests on the Bengal fires of glamor and spectacle, on popularity rather than creativity, on promotion rather than creation. These are not book-friendly times, but they can't even overcome without a book."

Everything was learned in 18 years. Gojko Božović highlights the following:

"In this business, solid and long-term plans are needed. In these irregular times, when every day there is more information than events and more events than it is possible to cognitively and emotionally process, long-term plans seem a bit pretentious, not to say irresponsible. Behind some books there is more than a year of publishing work. In one circumstance we are preparing books, in completely different circumstances they will be in front of readers. Both we and society need responsibility, peace, commitment, the values ​​of freedom and democracy."