Director of GRReporter Maria S. Topalova was interviewed by the website knigi-news.com:
MARIA S. TOPALOVA FROM GRREPORTER.INFO: THERE ARE WAYS IN WHICH THE LITERATURE CAN REACH THE PEOPLE
NEWS Books: - I dare to say that GRREPORTER.INFO is a real “bridge” between the two nations – Bulgarians and Greeks. How did you come up with the idea of creating this media?
Maria S. Topalova: - The Idea about GRREPORTER.INFO came about 4 years ago. As a person who follows closely the Bulgarian and Greek media I realized how little Bulgarian media know about Greece and how little Greek media know about Bulgaria. That is why I decided to create a media which will show to Bulgaria the modern face of Greece. The Greece I live in, I love and I have chosen for my second mother country.
NEWS Books: Who is the addressee of GRREPORTER? It is a double language media – Bulgarian and English, and this is the future of electronic media – to be at least in two languages if not in more…
Maria S. Topalova: In the beginning GRReporter started as an news website in Bulgarian only for the news from Greece. It was natural that our addressee was the Bulgarian public, which is interested to know more about Greece. Later on we realized that there is lack of quality information about Greece within the English speaking countries and so we decided to make an English version of the site, which has become extremely popular. I have to admit that a big part of our English audience are Greeks, living outside of Greece. Very soon GRReporter will have a Greeek version, offering news from Bulgaria. We are waiting with great enthusiasm for the moment when the news form Bulgaria will start in Greek as this is something that no other media is offering. We are expecting a great interest.
NEWS Books: Is there a typical Balkan paradox – we, the nations who live in the Balkans don’t know each other. We didn’t manage to get to know each other in the XIX century or in the XX century. Now we are hoping to do this in XXI century. What, do you think are the greatest misunderstandings between us, which are stopping us from getting to know each other? Every common intelligent Bulgarian will easily name at least three American movie stars, at least five American writers, but cannot do the same about Greek actors or writers. The same is also true for the knowledge of the Greeks about Bulgarian writers and actors. Me personally, I can’t remember since when I didn’t watch a Greek movie… It seems that in a way the interest to get to know each other lacks. What do you think causes this?
Maria S. Topalova: I do agree and at the same time I don’t agree with this statement. It is true for may be 99% of the Bulgarians that Greek music is only symbolized by the name of Mikis Theodorakis, and the Greek cinema, by the name of Melina Mercouri. It doesn’t matter that the most significant success of both of them is in the 70s of the past century, and since than both cinema and music changed a lot. I seriously doubt that 99% of the Greeks can at all name any person from the Bulgarian cultural inheritance. However, let us not forget that the world progress has never depended on these 99% of the society. What happens with the remaining one percent? I recently interviewed professor Nicholas Stampolidis, director of the Musiam of Cycladic art in Athens. He knows surprisingly well the work of the deceased Georgi Kitov and told me he is trying to organize an exhibition of his discoveries in Athens. In the end of November I was at the 50th edition of the Thessaloniki film festival and I took an interview from its director Despina Mouzaki. She used very warm words to describe her cooperation with Sofia film fest. During the festival was shown the movie “Eastern stories” from the Bulgarian movie director Kamen Kalev. The hall was full and people were sitting on the floor and on the stairs. After the movie they all wanted to ask question, however in the hall there was not a single representative of the team that made the movie, nor there was a representative of the Bulgarian embassy… I will let you comment on this. Another example, the Bulgarian sound-recording company Virgina records last year gave the wonderful opportunity for cooperation between two great musicans – the Romanian composer Marius Moga and Greek rap singer Nivo, who, along with the Bulgarian singer Nevena, recorded one great hip hop song “Zuum”. I am not sure how popular it is in Bulgaria, however in the GRReporter music chart it was on the first place for weeks. The Bulgarian dance academy also has a great success in Greece. It is enough to mention the names of Galena Velikova, Kiril Pandov, Iolanta Zaharieva. The Museum for modern art in Athens is very often inviting to their exhibitions Nedko Solakov and his name is very popular throughout the fans of fine arts here. The cultural elites of the two countries are not strange to each other. It is pity that you haven’t seen a Greek movie for a long time. In 2009 the Greek foundation for culture organized a panorama of the Greek cinema in Sofia. Some of the most precious movies, produced in the past five years in Greece were shown there. I thinк there are chances.
NEWS Books: Why doesn’t GRREPORTER pay more attention to literature news from Greece and Bulgaria? Do you think these news could be of interest to your readers?
Maria S. Topalova: You are right, we don’t spare as much time on literature as we would like to and we should. The truth is that literature is in crisis. Out of all the arts it seems that it manages the least to adapt to the reality which drastically changed. Literature is in danger of becoming an art, like opera is, whose greatest successes are written in past centuries and are of interest to a narrowing every day circle of intellectuals. Literature has to embrace the digital age. Its big chance is called Kindle. The publishers are endangered to follow the fate of the sound recording companies whose sales disastrously collapsed. Today no body buys CDs. Madonna, U2, Beyonce are earning large amounts of money not from sold records, but from concerts, live events and publicity. I feel sorry for talented writers and authors who complain that no one reads their works. Look for new ways, new forms of communication with the readers. I will give you an example. I don’t know how much the works of Charles Dickens are sold in Greece. I don’t think they are sold very much. Just before Christmas in the Music hall in Athens, for two nights the actor Jeremy Irons read the Dickens’ Christmas Carol. Alone, no mimics and suits, just by using the intonation of his voice and a light musical accompaniment. Both evenings the hall was full and tickets were not cheap at all. There are ways for the literature to reach to the people. Look for cooperation with actors, musicians, artists and why not journalists. Allow me to make a personal digression. I don’t want to sound too technocratic. Me personally, I am from the old generation readers, who keep on buying books and love reading them in a peaceful café of a museum in the center of Athens.
NEWS Books: The only Bulgarian electronic newspaper from the world of literature NEWS BOOKS exists for several years and has loyal readers from dozens of countries and from all continents including Greece. These readers are reading NEWS BOOKS every day and learn the news from the literature, to know what new books have been published around the world and here. And yet I cannot remember a news from the Greek literature life – sad, even intolerable I would say… Do you think that together with joint efforts we could fill this terrible gap – we give you a news from Bulgarian literature life and you give us from the Greek?
Maria S. Topalova: This is a wonderful idea and it would be a crime not to make it happen. I would even suggest to you that we organize an online discussion between Bulgarian and Greek writers and literary critics and even everybody else who would be interested to take part in it under the topic “Why should we read literature today?”. Of course the two of us have to promise each other to be guarantee that the discussion will not focus on the nationality of Cyril and Methodius or around whose hero is Orpheus like it usually happens in such discussions. While we are arguing if the Thessaloniki brothers are Bulgarian or Greek, the people who created Kindle are now thinking on their next digital revolution.
NEWS Books: I have always admired the patriotism of the Greeks. How do you think this wonderful characteristic is being habituated in Greece?
Maria S. Topalova: Do you know that the patriotism is a very delicate subject which can easily transform into nationalism and Greece is a wonderful example of this. I would separate these two ideas. For few years now I am dealing with the Greek Diaspora around the world, which on one hand is very well organized and on the other hand very well studied by historians, sociologists and political scientists. I admire the aspiration of the Greeks abroad to preserve their connection with the mother country and to teach their children to speak Greek, to know their history, geography and to preserve for the generations their cultural identity. On the other hand the Greeks are very pliable towards the poison of nationalism. I don’t mean just the discussion about the name of the Republic of Macedonia. In Greek the official name of Istanbul is still Constantinople and many Greeks will even get offended if you start persuading them that Olympus is not the highest mountain on the Balkan Peninsula.
NEWS Books: I read in GRReporter a piece of information which confused me. From there I learned that the “Hellenic national council for radio and television banned the transmission of the reality show “The hour of truth”. This, is an example, which unfortunately the Buglarian council for electronic media will not follow. The sad though is that this information never came in Bulgaria, because the information for the Bulgarians is always being “filtered” very carefully – everything that could serve us as positive example is not being let in the media… In this sense I respect your media as it informs objectively and does not manipulate (Manipulation can be done by keeping silence as we well know this). Do you hear any control on the part of the Greek government or non-governmental body or organization?
Maria S. Topalova: I am surprised that this information confuses you. If you had watched at least one of the series of this show, you would have know what exactly we are talking about. In this case the regulatory body had to take this decision. However if you take a wider view on the censorship, the situation in Greece is not really so pink. I would like to remind you that Greece is a country which sent in jail a writer because of profanity. Greece is a country in which pictures were taken off exhibitions because they desecrate the religious feelings of the people who believe. I am talking about events from the 21st century, not from 50 years ago. The same regulatory body who took off the screen “The hour of truth” for many months was dealing with a homosexual kiss in a serial… When it comes to GRReporter we are an independent media. Until now we have never been a subject of censorship not from the Greek or from the Bulgarian part. Our job is controlled only by our own professional attitude towards it and our duties and responsibilities as journalists.
NEWS Books: Does anybody know at least roughly how many Bulgarians live permanently in Greece? Do you have any idea?
Maria S. Topalova: It is hard to answer that question because there is a great mobility and after the entrance of Bulgaria in the European Union it becomes even harder to count the number of Bulgarians in Greece. We could definitely say that the Bulgarian community is the second largest in number group after the Albanian. According to different sources its number varies between 70 and 200 thousand?
NEWS Books: According to you, does the Bulgarian government protect enough Bulgarian emigrants in Greece?
Maria S. Topalova: I think that emigration as a term is old-fashioned and has no place in a global, dynamic and mobile world as the one we live in today. For emigrants we spoke in the 18th, 19th ant 20th century. It is even worse when we are referring to counties like Bulgaria and Greece. In our case we have to talk about European citizens who have chosen to exercise their right to work in Greece. What the Bulgarian government has to do for its citizens in Bulgaria and Bulgarians abroad is to be a worthy member of the European Union and of the international community as a whole. From this point on, its role in the life of the Bulgarians in Greece has to be entirely educational, in order to assist in the preservation of the Bulgarian language, culture, and also the Bulgarian ethnic identity. Supporting the learning of the Bulgarian language, literature, history and geography by all Bulgarian children abroad, is the best our government could do for them.
NEWS Books: We are witnessing another paradox as well. It seems that Greece is constantly in the attention of Bulgarian media, however the country doe not become more clear and more understandable… Well, the media publishes short peaces of information on every strike, however notice that never anybody analyses the reasons causing this strike, or the results it brings no matter what they are. This is a terrible even though very successful formula. It looks like there is information about Greece, however the country as a whole stays complete enigma as the information which is published is “hollow”. Is it the same with the Greek media talking about Bulgaria?
Maria S. Topalova: I think that Bulgarian media is publishing the kind of news from Greece, which they believe is of interest to their audience. I don’t think there is some kind of Bulgarian media conspiracy against Greece. These are as a whole our international news. I am answering to your question on January 5th, and look at what are the international news of the most read newspaper in Bulgaria: “Russian political leaders with foreign skies”, “Berlusconi celebrates with a member of Parliament her birthday”, “America runs its fingers on passengers of flights from 14 countries”. The diagnosis is obvious. As a whole the Greek television and the popular press are looking from above at Bulgaria and do not pay too much attention to it. With the exception of Konstantina Kuneva case, however it is not Bulgarian news. The economic publications on the other hand follow closely everything that happens in Bulgaria. In issues like Katimerini, Naftemboriki, Imerisia you could find analysis of Bulgaria that could rarely be read in Bulgarian press. This is not accidental. If you look at the list of the 30 richest Greeks you will find that all of them have interests in Bulgaria. The interest of the large capital drags the interest of the media.
NEWS Books: For me it is clear that GRREPORTER has a great future ahead of it. What is its present?
Maria S. Topalova: I don’t know what the future holds for all of us. The present of GRREPORTER, however, is very dynamic, creative, interesting and full of challenges. Our team is comprised of about ten people, six of them working from Athens and the rest from Sofia. They are all young, educated, very ambitious and each one of them is an excellent professional in the area he or she works in, because media stopped being just journalism long time ago as you know for yourself, they are also marketing, software, cinema, photography… We started as a news website and the news will always be in our attention. Our reporters cover the most important events from all areas of Greek reality – politics, economics, crime news, sports, and culture. We are not however offering only news. We have a music chart covering the best of the contemporary Bulgarian, Greek and world music, we have job advertisements in Greece, we have a multi-lingual chat room, we have an electronic shop. We have a Bulgarian and English version of the site and as I already told you we are looking forward at starting the page with Bulgarian news in Greek. We are organizing competitions. The first one was photographic and the subject was “Greece reflected in my lens”. The second one was for an essay in Greek on the subject “Bulgaria in 500 words”. We are preparing our next competition which will be in the area of music. We are living a very fulfilling professional life.
NEWS Books: You personally how did you get related with Greece? What is your personal story?
Maria S. Topalova: I don’t see myself as a person related with Greece. Yes at the moment, when we are talking I live and work in Greece. I like the country and the opportunities for professional growth as well. But in a year or two I could be anywhere else. I keep opened all options. My personal story begins in Bulgaria where I am born. I graduated from university and started work. I have worked in newspapers, radio and televisions. In 1997 my family moved in Greece and in 2001 I followed them. I cannot compare my relationship with Greece with the love of first sight. It is exactly the opposite. In the beginning Greece and I were very much apart from one another. As I am a person, however, who believes that we create the life we live I had the greatest desire to integrate and grow in this society. I am a very active person – professionally and socially. At the same time Greece also changed. In 2001 the country was oriental, Mediterranean country. The Olympic games in 2004 however made it a modern, cosmopolitan and global. After the accepting of Bulgaria in the European Union in 2007 the attitude towards the Bulgarians here drastically changed. May be you will not believe, however we are very popular at present and we are considered to be very interesting and highly wanted.
NEWS Books: What do you not like about Bulgaria? What about Bulgarian media?
Maria S. Topalova: I cannot say that I don’t like the life in Bulgaria. It has its good and difficult sides. It is like this in Greece too, as well as in America and everywhere else. Physically I am not in Bulgaria, however my relationship with it is more alive than ever. We live in interesting itmes. Today it is absolutely possible to live on one side of the Atlantic and work on the other side. I am in a situation like this, only that the distance between Sofia and Athens is a lot smaller. The variety of the Bulgarian media is huge and we cannot put them under common denominator. There are colleagues who are doing their job in a wonderful manner and I admire them There is also very mediocre media. It is important to have competition because it is the only thing to keep the progress.
Interviewer: Stoyan VALEV
On the picture: Maria S. Topalova
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