The State Duma will seriously deal with writers and book publishers

Legislation on culture will be brought “in line with the requirements of the time”

On January 24, the State Duma held the first meeting of the Culture Committee in the spring session. Its chairman Elena Yampolskaya, opening the “inception” meeting, outlined the plan for legislative activity for 2024. The deputy announced the creation of a working group that will adjust the current version of the law “On Culture”. In addition, the parliament will seriously deal with writers, publishers and the field of book distribution.

“The law that we have needs to be brought into maximum compliance with the presidential decree and in accordance with the requirements of the time. Therefore, we are creating a working group,” said Yampolskaya, identifying the “Fundamentals of State Cultural Policy” approved by Vladimir Putin’s decree as a strategic document.

“Send proposals for the composition of the group to the apparatus (of parliament), everything will be considered very carefully,” Yampolskaya assured, addressing her colleagues. At the same time, Elena Aleksandrovna called a “more complex topic” the desire to begin “legislatively regulating the sphere of book publishing and book distribution.”

She also called for a decision at the state level to finally determine what to do with writers (who seem to exist in Russia, but officially they don’t).

“Deputies of all factions constantly receive complaints from people involved in literary work that their profession is, in principle, not on the list (the all-Russian classifier of professions – I.V.), and therefore problems of a social nature arise,” Yampolskaya emphasized .

According to her, “The State Duma has begun to compile a list of experts who can be involved (on this problem), this is a very wide circle, and I would like them not to be “blah blah blah”, but specialists.”

It is noteworthy that here the parliamentarian, known as an ardent supporter of the fight against the excessive use of foreign language vocabulary in the Russian language, used an interjection, which is a calque of the English “blah-blah-blah” (bla-bla-bla), where “bla” is absolutely nothing a word that does not speak to the Russian ear and means “nonsense, stupidity.” But this is so, a lexical observation.

Let’s get back to the main point.

“The topic of who this sphere (literature) is subordinate to has already set teeth on edge. The government believes that this area should be subordinated like this; it is the prerogative of the government to make such decisions. In my opinion, the issue needs to be spelled out legislatively so that the executor can clearly implement this law for the benefit of domestic literature,” Yampolskaya said.

There is no need to grasp at the “dangerous” word “submission” here. Literature – as the Soviet experience clearly demonstrates – has never been subordinate to anyone, and Osip Mandelstam divided all poetry into authorized and written without permission, calling the former rubbish. But by the word “subordination” here we mean which branch of government or institution should supervise literature, support it and help writers solve those very issues of social protection, the notorious “housing issue” and so on. This is not about control, interference in the creative process or anything like that.

Note that the committee also discussed the “technical” bill introduced by the government, which will determine what a “national film” is. Without going into details, we didn’t have such a concept before – but now there will be a special register of national films. And, very likely, if the proposal of the Office of the President of the Russian Federation for Public Projects is taken into account, “films containing materials that contradict the policy of preserving traditional spiritual and moral values” will not receive a distribution certificate.

On February 29, in order to “not waste an extra day of the year,” Yampolskaya promised another meeting, but not of the committee she heads, but of the Public Council attached to it.