Joanna Szulborska-Łukaszewicz

DOES KRAKOW STAND A CHANCE TO BECOME A FLOURISHING EUROPEAN THEATRE CENTRE? DELIBERATIONS ON KRAKOW’S POTENTIAL IN THE CONTEXT OF THE DISTRICT STRATEGICAL PLAN OF CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN KRAKOW
Looking for the priorities for the strategy for culture development in Krakow, the author presents the potential of contemporary Krakow as a theatre center. Analyzing the situation of municipal theaters, the author pays attention to the rich tradition of the theatre in Krakow, its role in the Polish theater history, the numerous and famous theatre festi-vals, as well as a rich human potential – prominent and creative Krakow artists (actors, theatre directors, stage designers). She draws attention to the fact that the latter wereoften forced to act in old, degraded buildings, which had little in common with the stand-ards of the XXI century. After the period of great investment in municipal museums in Krakow, the author thinks that the theatres should now become the most important object of care for thelocal authorities in this city. Trying to count the private theatres in Krakow, the author pays attention to the great difference between the number of private theaters in Warsaw and Krakow, especially the theatres, which have their own stage. In recent years, thelocal authorities in Krakow have not shown much interest in the private theater and its projects in this city.

11 maja 2006 roku w Szumen odbyła się inauguracja 15 edycji festiwalu Teatralne Święta Drumewa „Nowy Bułgarski Dramat” (Drumewy Teatralni Praznicy „Nowa Byłgarska Drama”). Organizatorami tego przedsięwzięcia są Dramatyczno-Lalkowy Teatr im. Wasyla Drumewa w Szumen oraz  Stowarzyszenie „Nowy Bułgarski Dramat”. To jedyny festiwal teatralny w Bułgarii, którego celem jest promowanie zarówno realizacji scenicznej, jak i publikacji nowych tekstów dramatycznych rodzimych współczesnych autorów. Po raz pierwszy festiwal zorganizowano w 1966 roku, od 1999 roku odbywa się corocznie, począwszy od 11 maja. Rozwija się, zyskując coraz wyższą rangę.

Culture institutions in Poland - the specificity of organisation and financing

The paper discusses the question of empowerment in management education and attempts to present internal contradictions of aforementioned concept. The main objection to the empowermet theory in management education here is the fact of concealing fundamental violence that defi nes relations within institution of academy. Removal of the question of conflict from the concept of empowerment deprives it from real emancipating power. In contrast to empowerment, Harol Bloom’s idea of subjectivity as an agon is presented.

Culture and cultural animation in the context of political and business activities

The article is related to competences and tasks of culture animators and culture managers in the contemporary world. Despite the diversity of tasks and functions between them, there are also competencies needed by both. These competencies are essential in solving a number of similar problems encountered in their work. One of the main problems is the issue of „profit”, understood in a broad sense far beyond the purely mathematical operation, although referring to the economy as the art of rational management of resources in order to add them together. For both the culture animator and the culture manager, the main idea consists in the multiplication of social resources, social potential, investing in human capital through co-creation of cultural events and programs animating community. It is therefore necessary to redefine the concept of profit (in the context of activity of the culture manager and animator), i.e. the perception of profit in two dimensions – a social and an economic one (a social profit achieved by the efficient use of resources of each type, including financial and social capitals).
The ethics of the culture animator and the culture manager relate to many areas: creating educational offer, cultural events and animation activities programming, responsibility for the range of products and services, their safety (in the context of mass culture), building lasting relationships with customers based on trust, quality, and adequate promotion of the projects, programs, products and services, as well as diagnosing social needs. Contrary to what J. Gajda wrote, the objectives of the activity of culture manager and animator, are not set in opposition to each other. In both cases, the objectives cannot be achieved, if the means and methods have been in conflict with the principles of the Code of Ethics. Cultural managers and animators, should inspire the same way of the understanding culture and its role in human life, especially as „Paideia”. Only at a later step as a product, but a product of special value, not only attractively packaged.
An important issue is also the question of the evaluation of the social impact of the animator’s and manager’s work in the context of the spent funds. There is a lack of effective, objective and measurable indicators for monitoring and evaluating their work. Another problem is the reference to the principles of corporate social responsibility – in the absence of a uniform system of values. The paper was presented at the conference „The Managerial Trends in the Culture Animation”, 27th, May 2010.

W dniach od 23 do 25 września 2009 roku, 20 lat po obaleniu w Polsce komunizmu, 5 lat po wstąpieniu naszego kraju do Unii Europejskiej, z inicjatywy Bogdana Zdrojewskiego, Ministra Kultury i Dziedzictwa Narodowego, odbył się w Krakowie Kongres Kultury Polskiej. Był to szósty kongres kultury w historii naszego kraju

The position of public culture institutions in municipal cultural policy in times of crisis. The case of Krakow.

The article is related to the public culture institutions management in Krakow. It presents the dynamics of changes in their financing from public budget, human resources, material and immaterial profits of its activity. The main thesis is that the problem of culture institutions in the public sector is not the lack of money, but rather the way of distributing it. The system of culture institutions management is not compatible with the reality of XXI century and the needs of the contemporary recipient. The perspective of yearly budget is too short to build long-term plans, the degraded infrastructure of culture can’t rival modern shopping districts. A very imperfect system of cultural education is the main reason why people are not used to participating in cultural events and they do not have sufficient competence to be able to perceive art.

The paper focuses on the cultural policy of the City of Cracow, including its premises and priorities, in the light of the incentives and support provided by the EU programs. Using Cracow as a case study, I make an attempt to show to what extent the European Community has contributed to the Europeanisation of Polish cities by triggering changes in the perception of the role of culture in the development of regions, including changes in the aesthetics of public space, human capital development (talent support, development of the cultural sector staff, development of civil society), quality of infrastructure, and support for creativity and innovation, including the use of new media and new technologies in culture.

Public or Private? The Artistic Institution Management in Poland

The article is devoted to the management of public artistic institutions in Poland in the context of a cycle of debates under the shared title: CULTURE AGAINST THE WALL – ABOUT CULTURE & WITH CULTURE. They were organised by the Culture Institute of the Jagiellonian University during the academic year 2013/14. The debates were organised in cooperation with the Foundation for Modjeska and the “Dziennik Polski” newspaper. The topic was concentrated around the privatisation of culture institutions and its consequences – looking for the balance between the mission and economy, the position of the artists, the way of employment, and different types of contracts.

The author tries to show the main problems of the functioning of public artistic institutions in Poland (taking into consideration the Baumol’s cost disease), the difficulties in cooperation between the public administration and private companies as well as the lack of models of good practices in the area of cultural policy system in our country. The  public-private partnership is too often understood in Poland as a public-social partnership. The public-private partnership is not known (act of law of Dec 2008). To underline the differences between Poland and other European countries, the author shows a few ways of supporting private entities in France, Germany or Czech Republic. There is a lack of such models in Poland.

U schyłku lat osiemdziesiątych XX wieku, po obaleniu systemu komunistycznego, w celu decentralizacji władzy w Polsce zaplanowano szereg reform ustroju administracyjnego państwa, z których najważniejszą stało się utworzenie w 1990 roku samorządów gminnych. Kolejnym etapem reformy miało być wprowadzenie drugiego, obok gmin, szczebla samorządu lokalnego – powiatów (tzw. reforma powiatowa). Powiaty jako jednostki administracyjne mają w naszym kraju wielowiekową tradycję. Ich przywrócenie wydawało się logiczną konsekwencją utworzenia samorządowych gmin. Jednak sytuacja polityczna w ówczesnej Polsce nie była stabilna. Zmieniały się rządy i zmieniał się stosunek rządzących3 do zaplanowanych reform. Podstawowym ich skutkiem miała być przecież decentralizacja władzy, a więc przekazanie części kompetencji i uprawnień, pozostających dotychczas w gestii administracji rządowej, samorządom niższego szczebla. Tymczasem, niezależnie od wcześniejszych deklaracji, przejmując władzę, mało kto chciał myśleć o dzieleniu się nią.

Przygotowywane przez wiele lat zapisy ustawy o pożytku publicznym i o wolontariacie miały umocnić prawa obywateli, stworzyć podstawy do budowania prawdziwie demokratycznego, obywatelskiego społeczeństwa, poprzez nałożenie na samorządy obowiązku współpracy z lokalną społecznością. Ustawa miała stworzyć warunki do twórczego dialogu między organizacjami pozarządowymi a przedstawicielami władz lokalnych, dialogu oczekiwanego przez lokalne społeczności, niechętnie realizowanego przez samorządy, nawet w chwili, kiedy obowiązują już w pełni, mniej lub bardziej trafnie sformułowane, zapisy ustawy o pożytku publicznym i o wolontariacie. Wynika to – z jednej strony – z niezrozumienia podstawowej misji samorządu przez stojących na jego czele polityków, z drugiej – z niechęci do dzielenia się władzą, pozbywania się prawa do podejmowania autorytarnych decyzji.

Setting aside the fact that lack of policy is also a policy, while analyzing the events of the last 25 years in cultural policy, from the perspective of the year 2014, I wonder whether we can really say that there is no cultural policy in Poland? The author describes and analysis the changes in the sphere of culture management and the cultural policy in Poland during the last quarter of the century. The responsibility for cultural policy rests not only with the central authorities, Ministry of Culture but also local governments, which are more including into the decision-making process the citizens. Citizens are becoming more aware of their rights. Apart from cultural institutions, nongovernmental organizations are more and more often the contractors of public tasks. They co-create and enrich the cultural offer of cities and regions signifi cantly. Not only the number of non-governmental organizations is increasing but also their creativity and the level of the professionalization of their actions. The cultural activity is more and more often undertaken by private economic operators (not only art galleries, but also artistic agencies and impresarios). They cannot count on subsidies from local governments’ budget any more, but they can become contractors of the services at their request under the Public Procurement Law, what, thanks to the last amendment (raising the threshold for public procurement to more than 30 000 Euro) will become a bit easier from the procedural point of view. The role of public cultural institutions is changing. Many of them redefi ned their mission and have been successively building new relations with the audience, taking into consideration the changing needs of the consumers, new economic conditions. Despite the underdeveloped sponsoring in Poland, many of them use the conceptions of CSR and CCR, others diversify their offer, both in terms of the merits and the price, often introducing commercial offer as a complementary one. The new infrastructure in Poland, in case of many cultural institutions, contributed to a substantial change and to the improvement of their conditions. After many years of total investment stagnation in this sphere, together with Poland’s accession into the EU, the Polish state and local governments started to undertake the tasks in this area more bravely. New infrastructure naturally generates the need of innovation. Cultural institutions more willingly and effectively make use of new media today (communication with the audience, mailing, FB, promotion, marketing, crowdfunding, crowdsourcing). They more often see the importance of spending money on marketing activities, which they used to economize on, in case of a shortfall of funds for substantive activities.

Podstawowe problemy dyrektorów teatrów bułgarskich nie różnią się generalnie od problemów w polskich teatrach. Dziś są to przede wszystkim kwestie finansowe. W dobie rywalizacji teatru z nowoczesnymi mediami to pieniądze najczęściej decydują o sukcesie przedstawienia. Mając je, można zatrudnić gościnnie popularnego reżysera lub aktora, który podniesie zainteresowanie spektaklem wśród lokalnej społeczności, a także – co najważniejsze – przyczyni się do wzrostu wpływów z biletów. Teatry szukają sponsorów. Po długotrwałych dyskusjach, w grudniu 2005 roku przyjęto wprawdzie ustawę o mecenacie, upoważniającą podmioty gospodarcze do ulg podatkowych z tytułu sponsorowania projektów kulturalnych4, jednak ulgi te można odliczyć od wykazanego na koniec roku dochodu firmy, tymczasem firmy bułgarskie nie tyle nie osiągają dochodów, ile wkładają wiele wysiłku w ich ukrycie. Stąd póki co, wejście w życie tej ustawy nie przesądziło o wzroście zainteresowania podmiotów gospodarczych obszarem kultury. Łatwiej znajdują mecenasów najpopularniejsze sofijskie teatry lub konkretne projekty festiwalowe niż pojedyncze przedstawienia teatrów pozasofijskich. Teatry utrzymują się więc wciąż głównie z dotacji budżetowych, pozyskując – w drodze konkursu – dodatkowe skromne środki z państwowych funduszy celowych.

Between the mission and economy. The management of the public culture institution in Poland

This article is a continuation of the considerations undertaken by the author in the text “Cultural Institutions in Poland – the nature of their organization and fi nancing” [published in the on-line version of „Zarządzanie w Kulturze” 2012, nr 13, z.4, pp. 305–328, Krakow 2012, http://www.wuj.pl/page,art,artid,1303.html], where the analysis of the concept of “culture institution” relating to the public sector was carried out. This article focuses on the management of the culture institution, analyzing the impact of the organizer on the mission of the institution, by appointing a director or entrusting the management to an external entity. The author analyzes the relationship between the culture institution and its organizer, asking questions about the possibility of reconciling the effective implementation of the statutory tasks of the institution with the principles of the market economy.