Motto: 

   He was here, but he ceased to exist, he was ceasing to exist painfully, with difficulty, in several ways, in several variations, in beautiful uncommon periodically appearing curves, again and again, annually symptomatic in tragicomic moments of self-preservationist fiction, whipped up to some truly remarkable affects of significant shapes. Sprouts and buds. Romantically self-destructive in difficult humiliating clichéd situations. Long and patient, long and patient, patient and long, it is not important, or it is important that it is not important. Either or.

   On 23 March 2001, Stoka commemorated the tenth anniversary of staging its first premiere. The motivation deciding about its origin was the need to prove that theatre can be made naturally and freely, without huge cost. In this well-intentioned feeling I was aware of the fact that I was reaching at the powers of the state and a sinecure of a number of nameless bureaucrats. I underrated, however, the spasmodic “vitality” and the treachery of the state apparat. And this apparat, after a decade of being on the defensive, has resumed its iron fist for a definitive revulsion. 

   The drawings of state officials, and the theatres subordinate to them, and dependent upon them, the majority group of critics and subscribers of the theatrical system are but a virtual weapon in the hands of those who have conquered the territory of the discourse – whether in the capacity of finance managers (the government, municipal offices, intendancies), the instruments for legitimisation of financial flows, and power positions and projects, (theatres, theatre schools), or opinion-shaping reflection tools (media, other spaces of theories and critics). Considering that the other party has almost no arms (theatre creators thinking differently) or they have – voluntarily or involuntarily waived them (spectators seeking other than Slovak drama theatrics), these virtual, and easily removable arms are the only ones in the field, and, hence, victorious. 

   The rise of Stoka in 1991 was the result of euphoria of the newly gained freedom of the group's founders and the revolutionary constellation of the second government, capable of esteem for freedom, while, at the same time, it was the result of insecurity of the establishment, which was waiting in insecure position, and was as yet unable to push through their “interests” fiercely enough. The subsidies of 1991, thanks to then section director Václav Macko, and to the founding of the State Fund Pro Slovakia in 1992 and its “administrator” Oleg Dlouhý, were generous, indeed, and created a decent base which helped Stoka survive the subsequent years under elementary technical provision. The years 1993 and 1994 were already years of substantially reduced subsidies and constant struggles to get them. Then the “wise government“ ceased to provide them altogether until the end of 1998.

   In the early stage, Stoka, while touring, encountered different forms of independent theatre existence. The most inspiring was the one in German Oldenburg (we travelled there on a “crystal night”), where a group of theatre enthusiasts (Kulturetage) got unused premises from the Municipal Board, a million marks atop (!!!) for its reconstruction, within which several theatre spaces were created with technical amenities, accommodation capacity and a restaurant, the profit of which went to finance this cultural centre and provided for its independence and self-sufficiency.

   We found this form most appealing. We anticipated the state allowances to grow smaller and we knew we would be needing our own economic activity. Of course, we did not expect, we could not have imagined that the government constellation would cease subsidies altogether. But they did. But it also happened that the city Bratislava , after some struggles, allocated the premises to us that we had been using and agreed to their reconstruction. Of course, we did not receive one million marks atop, or its equivalent 20 million crowns. Yet, we managed to put together a sum of money, and above all, deploy our suicidal commitment. In 1995 the Swiss cultural foundation Pro Helvetia allocated a grant which was, by our standards, unheard of. It was a sum of around 4.5 million Slovak crowns, which they disbursed in parts over three ensuing years (!!!). Clearly, a state theatre would not cover a month's operations with such a sum, but for us it meant security which was also encouraging. The Open Society Foundation and Soros' s Centre of Contemporary Art made also some contribution, and support came from the Foundation for Support of Citizens' Activities as well, and we got a not insignificant sum of money from loans by committed and trusting people (none of whom we disappointed). In 1996 we got reconstruction under way. Despite construction work being suspended, (as happens in Slovakia, one of the contractors cheated us of a square sum, which we have not yet gained through litigation), after nine months, Stoka resumed performing and creating and so did the restaurant facility. 

   The ideal (of idealists) has come true about an independent cultural institution which would finance its operations and could raise subsidies for major plans. After six years of our existence, we succeeded in fulfilling the often quoted Indian proverb by Snopko, one of our first ministers of culture. A self-governing, functioning theatre, which does not need tens of millions annually for its activity, but which does the same job for fractions of them. 
   It was then that a struggle commenced of a different quality. The struggle with the state administration and the self-government. A struggle, in which the formerly humble applicant for subsidies turned into a dignified subject, which had the audacity to stop being dependent upon anonymous bureaucrats and petty clerks. This was an offence the apparat could not bear and in turn made the “humble” subject into an object of racketeering. 

   It is true that Stoka gained two subsidies through personal involvement of Dionýz Hutár from the city ward, totalling SKK 350, 000. But it repaid it by now, almost as a loan, the interest included, because over the years of the pub's existence it paid the city (in the form of 10% fee on sale of cigarettes and alcohol, and the rent for the pavement for a summer terrace) a sum of roughly 650 thousand crowns. 
   The Mayor could cut or abolish these fees. It' s part of his personal power. But why should he do so? With iron regularity, there were negative responses coming from him to our humble and urging appeals which argued we did not do business for our profit but exclusively to make theatre. Why should he pardon the fees to a Stoka Theatre? What motif he could have for it? None. Mind you, they do not stage Christian plays at that theatre, neither do they contribute in any other way to the cultural life in the old city. Thus, the Stoka Thetare will nicely pay the money it made, amounting to 147, 000, to the city ward. The councillors, too, could return Stoka the money, but why? They do not like the theatre, which Stoka makes, and Uhlár is a man of conflicts, not acceptable. On the other hand, they like the theatre A h a Theatre makes very much. ,And they are not that big-mouthed, are well-behaved, almost friendly-like. Off it goes, the money made in Stoka for the Thetare Aha. Why, it is a budgetary facility of the city ward. They like such a theatre, they can see their personal and “ethical” taste come true under effective laws. Who cares, it is for someone else's money? 

   One hundred and forty-seven thousand is not much. It is roughly 1 per mill of the annual budget of our “ number one” scene. But for a small theatre it is quite a crucial amount. One can do a number of things from it.
   The feeling that you finance another theatre should not be necessarily so bad, provided you could sustain yours. A mother that feeds the neighbour's children while not affording food to her children is, quite logically, condemnable, ravenous. And it is likely she would be intercepted and punished by the court. Clearly, she acts at variance with societal interests. The Stoka's principal also acts at variance with societal interests - only this time while wishing to feed his actors. 
What authorises a councillor to divide people into first and second rank? Is he the Lord? Nothing is written about it in the Bible, or the Constitution. We can read in the Constitution that the councillors “exercise their mandate in person, according to their conscience and conviction”.. What conscience gives the man the right to lay down who will pay a fine because he wants to make theatre and who is then going to enjoy that fine? What conviction can make a councillor take from one and reward his friend with the appropriated money? Indeed, can such a thing be called conscience?
   This can only be done by a man lacking basic feeling for justice. And such a man in public office cannot be participant in equitable rule, fair administration. In this way, we, and those elected by us, got used to irregular ethics, and the irregular ethics has become a norm of our normalised society.

   Hence, Stoka actors have not been paid since February for their performances so that the state theatre actors in addition to their salaries paid from our taxes could make some extra crowns in a municipal theatre paid by our fees.

   Not to make things all that easy, the municipal ward, all of a sudden, changed the rules: in addition to the fees for last year, under the new regulation we have to pay fees for this year as well. Thus instead of 147 thousand, we must pay twice the sum! As each increase of transfers has to shake the taxed subject quite a lot, we asked for an instalment calendar scheme. The municipal ward agreed but proposed theirs, a tighter one, with a proviso that in each delayed payment we are to pay a penalty – again by law. Hence not only twice as high extortion, but a harsh penalty as well

   In 1998 we breathed out with relief. After a four-year rule of government of thieves, the government of change was created, and the change we did anticipate from them. In April 1999, a number of dissatisfied artists met in Stoka, as matter of course, and expressed their indignation over the current state of “cultural policy”.. The Minister of Culture honoured the meeting by paying a visit. The participants were under a heavy shock to learn from him that although there are other people in the government, the ministry must function according to the program of the old government. To put it in a nutshell, though we elected something else, we were going to get what we did not elect and did not want. The reason he gave were some incomprehensible laws and regulations. Despite this, the ministry managed to allocate Stoka 2 million crowns in all by the end of the year. Though the major part of it was allocated in November, 120 thousand even reached our account on 30 December, we had every reason to think that the evil days were gone by and from now on the life was going to be easier and jollier. We staged two new premieres in the season 1999/2000 and reran older performances. i

   When in an interview for Sme in August 2000 I put on airs that Stoka had settled almost all its debt and paid back all instalments on time (because the na?ve still think it is a positive phenomenon not to have any debt), soon after we received a notification from the magistrate (city office) claiming we did not substantiate any investments, through which we were to repay our five-year lease of the premises. We looked into our documents of past three years to find evidence of the contrary. We presented it to the magistrate and it turned out everything was all right. Soon after, the ministry notified us they were coming to conduct “control of compliance with regulations concerning the use of budgetary resources, at the time and for the purpose designated, which come from special transfers from the budgetary chapter of the Ministry of Culture of the SR and the state fund of culture Pro Slovakia in 1999”. 

   It was not so long ago, when it was not enough to be apt at something, one needed to be a member of a party as well. The latter was even more important in the evaluation. In result, it sufficed when one satisfied the criterion of party membership. What he did, and how he did it, was insignificant. 

   Already when we got the application forms for grants in early 1999, I was outraged. The application form was clearly produced by a state officer in a way which only a state officer understood, a specialist in the budgetary field. I have no doubts that any state theatre or other organisation would have a whole team of workers for filling out similar applications. Independent subjects cannot afford the luxury. They are too expansive. And they also don't want to, because they know that to employ several accountants is throwing money out. They want to make theatre, not accounting. Independent citizen groupings are non-state, because they have retained their authentic, logical and simple thinking, and their accounting is equally logical, simple and transparent. 

   One of the examples of the “rules of the use of budgetary resources at designated time and for a designated purpose” is that the money for a particular year is to be disbursed within that year. If the money is allocated for a project, I think it is utter nonsense that they need to be used in that year. The authentic logics would suggest they are to be used for the project. Not under our regulations. Thus the money for recording a performance in December, billed and paid in January, is by the diction of the law “ unlawfully withheld”. What brain damage may deem regularly paid money for unlawfully withheld resource?! Who withheld the resources? Where are they withheld? 

   In using transfers it is unlawful to effect capital expenditure. The ignorant person calls the accountant specialist to learn what this mystical word means. He learns it means a purchase of an article for a sum exceeding 20,000 crowns. This is how the law prescribes it. Only, some internal implementing regulation of the MC SR wilfully changes the notion. And… a capital expenditure is anything that was bought for the scene for a theatre performance. In other words, if you buy a vase for eight crowns, it is a capital expenditure and the eight crowns have been “ unlawfully used”. Just to remind you – we are talking about subsidies for creation of theatre performances! 

   If you want to make theatre in January, it is clear that the state will not give you money for it. According to recent regulations, though the applications for grants are submitted already by the end of November in respect of the ensuing year, despite this, if you get a portion in May , you can congratulate yourself . Thinking quite logically then, you borrow the money, stage your performance, say, in March and when the subsidy is credited to your account in July, you return the money. And that is another case of breaking the rules. It follows clearly from the recording in the bank and in the cash diary that you have given the money which was remitted by the state to, say, a physical person (that lent the amount to you) and by ”the rules” it is clear that “ you have used the resources unlawfully”.. Who cares, you have used them in staging a piece? No state officer is interested in that. You must return the unlawfully used resources to the state, and the penalty, too. This is where the arrogance of the state apparat is encoded by law. It assumes the right to determine for an independent man also when he is to make theatre. Because it is an impertinence to think somebody can make theatre whenever they like! By no means. There are strictly prescribed rules for it and the citizen is to abide by them. Else, he will be punished by law.

   If you apply for a subsidy for royalties for the whole year in January, then you reckon with, say, one hundred reruns. When the money does not arrive though, and it is not clear whether you are going to get it, it will be quite comprehensible, that you will only give so many reruns as your situation allows for. And when you suddenly learn in November, that you will get a million crowns for the reruns, you will hardly program the reruns for the whole year. In my opinion it is quite logical that you will use the money for what the theatre needs. Error! “Unlawfully used resources”.. 

   The creation of the theatre Stoka takes place in real time, here and now. It is a specificity, as we do not implement plays written in advance, they are created in the process of rehearsing . The same applies to the set or costumes. The state, however, in the application form needs an accurate budget of particular items. We, of course, submit a very rough budget. The clerk would catch up every item and require it to be consistently accounted for. Of course, we do not stand a chance to be successful before such a control. We would go against all our principles, if we fulfilled to the last dot our first ideas. It is nonsense, in any creative process. The state assumes the right, by authority of the Act on “budgetary rules” to take creative freedom from us. This no longer entails brutal, communist censorship but a refined not less brutal interference with the creative process. The artist can create, but according to the law. 

   In 1989, the majority understood that the dogma about the leading role of the party immediately needed to be abolished because it was the basic obstacle to any advancement. Today, the role was resumed by the state administration. The former Article 4 like a cancer had overgrown almost all laws and today it cannot be abolished through a single vote. It thus continues to be the hindrance to genuine development.

   I abhor describing further and further regulations, that Stoka, has failed to comply with and “unlawfully withheld” and unlawfully used” as a result. The fact that we have used all the “resources” solely for the creation in the theatre, which can be substantiated, was not of significance, that we actually were making theatre was insignificant, too. What was significant – we failed to comply with the Act of the National Council of the SR No. 303/1995 of the Collection of Laws on budgetary rules, and thus I must give back the state roughly one million and eight hundred thousand crowns.

   The grant, which the Association Stoka received from Pro Helvetia six years ago for the activity of the alternative art STOKA, was designated for literary, fine art and theatre activities and provided resources also for some elements of the director's activities. As we were at that time also working on the building’s reconstruction, and due to quite common circumstances occurring in here, we got both behind the schedule in construction works as well as in debt. Pro Helvetia responded flexibly to our situation, was forthcoming, and tailored the purpose of resources to our actual needs of the day. Pro Helvetia undertook also the control of the project, in which they monitored the achievement of the purpose of the project in the first place. Pro Helvetia officials, as well as independent consultants contracted by them, wanted to know in the first place whether the allocated means got in the account of the Association Stoka properly on time, whether the members of the Association Stoka were satisfied with the work of Pro Helvetia.

   State authorities think along illogical lines, starting from scores of laws that have a single objective – not to admit elementary and authentic, logical thinking and multiply the ranks of state officers. The thinking of the state is made by state officers and through laws they impose it on citizens. The more incomprehensible a law, the murkier the water. It is a paradise for those that fish in murky waters. What a citizen can manage to accomplish with 100, 000 crowns, the state will need three million for that. Therein lies the essence of state assistance. The state is not interested in seeing improvement and simplification of activity, but clearly retention of its influence. In depriving those it supports of their freedom.

   Always when I hear or read contemplations of last twenty years about the construction of the new building of the Slovak National Theatre (SND), which has cost us and still will cost us our money, I am moved. Equally so, when I hear state officials talking about where a theatre could be erected or reconstructed. In the former cinema Pohraničník a reconstruction was commenced of premises for a theatre under the previous government. From time to time I read that it is still in progress, and that one day it well may be used for a theatre. I do not want to even have a vaguest idea of how much it has cost us and how much it will have cost us.

   Does a state official, who, for three decades, has been constructing a theatre for our billions, a theatre that has not been functioning to date, where a number of facilities worth millions had been purchased and had to be written off without using them and discarded as scrap, does he have a moral right to accuse Stoka, which built a theatre without state money, of “unlawful use of resources”? What “use of resources” it is when we learn from the statement by experts of the ministry of culture that the Prešov theatre which has an annual subsidy of 50 million per year, is “ absolutely non-functioning”? What right do control authorities of this state have, which enabled the stealing of enormous property over the last six years through the very channels of state enterprises into the pockets of a handful of thieves, to control non-state theatres?

   The women staff of the Finance Control Administration qualified the creation of a business subject by the Association Stoka enabling it to survive, as something unlawful. „Even at the ministry of culture they were appalled by it,” we were informed, quite at variance with their own duties ( because a state official may only act within the law). They dared to notify us that the registration of our statutes with the ministry of interior was unlawful and added authoritatively that “something of it will need to be deleted ”(Though they did not include it in the protocol.). This feudal and communist atavism bespeaks of deep conviction of the state officer of his godly mission, superiority, when only he alone may decide whether this or that citizen has a right to self sustain or not. They have come up with an unequivocal no. That they live on our taxes and nothing else, of that they are unaware, and when you remind them, they take it to be an “assault”.

   The publishing of the results of the audit of state administration was for our society the same as Gorbačov's perestroika was for Czechoslovak communists. Nothing but additional pressure against it. No wonder then, that the culture minister himself called it in an unchecked moment a hit below the belt. 

   A theatre which for 10 years managed to live on grants, has turned out to be “ incapable” of implementing grants, “under the laws of the Slovak Republic”. 

   It was then that I decided both to return the money allocated to us for staging new plays in 2000, and not to accept any subsidy from this state. 

   My authentic legal awareness tells me reiteratively that the state has no right to interfere in thinking and creation of an individual in this way, even when it allocates the individual the resources for creation. Moreover, in my opinion, the state has no right to control an independent subject in the same way as the state institutions. I still am convinced that the state violated my civil rights, interfered with my civil integrity, attempted to nationalise me, my duties, without acknowledging the rights. In brief, it committed a crime. The lawyers rebut it though. 

   The result serves a clear warning to all non-state theatres. The striking of Stoka is intimidation of all. The results have already emerged. For second year, Stoka does not draw state money and does not apply for it, other theatres live in fear of control and prefer to return subsidy, and what is saddest still, over the past years, no new self-sufficient non-state theatre subject has come into existence.

   When the error of the “wise” government dawned on the ministry to liquidate Stoka by non-allocation of subsidies, it got inspired from the initiative by Gamatext – allocate and produce a debtor. 

   The decision not to accept any money from the state is a decision which is “romantically self-destructive”. There are not many possibilities how to raise money for independent theatre of alternative type in our current times. There are perhaps still two foreign foundations around, their number steadily decreasing, and their subsidies (with absolute exceptions) by far do not move in the range of the MC SR. Moreover, all these foundations are managed by officers whose links to state apparat are quite obvious. What is the logics according to which independent funds and foundations may support cultural activities of state organisations? It is against their own statutes, as well as against the spirit of their foundation. Nevertheless, in Slovakia this is the way it happens. Sponsoring is another option. Only, of all numerous applications for support we have written and dispatched over ten years, only absolute minimum have been granted. 

   The decision that Stoka has to return 1.8 million is a liquidation one. All its property does not amount to that value. What can follow? I don't know. By logics would have it, the execution of the person liable for damage. My property, too, does not amount to the required sum. Hence – the court, perhaps, and the corrective and educational institution, from where they will slowly deduct the money earned toward the redemption of debt. I don't know. Perhaps… 
 

   Not much. We have never thought of ourselves as indispensable, we never advocated a law about us being the best alternative theatre. 

   Roughly 200 Bratislava viewers and perhaps additional 300 theatre-goers in Slovakia will lose a theatre they find interesting. That is, indeed, a negligible minority. A handful of non-state bodies will lose a chance, to stage though not free of charge altogether, but nevertheless cheaply and quite conveniently, their “projects and tiny projects” (the number of which is steadily shrinking thanks to state administration). A few writers will lose a chance to present their books in these premises, even some state theatres will be deprived of possibilities to present themselves in the capital. The current position, once they become again opposition, will lose a chance to publicise their views to a narrow circle of the interested, but during their current “position” they, for sure, are preparing other, more comfortable locations for the purpose. A few pub visitors will lose their homely sitting place - that can be replaced most speedily of all. All these are things that do not constitute any tangible loss to the state. 

   Yet, there is loss here which can be expressed in numerical terms: the municipal ward will lose around 150,000 crowns annually, the city will lose around 40,000 and the state around 500,000 annually. The state, of course, will have to pay out unemployment benefits to several people who have lost their - not luxurious yet not altogether alien to their soul - way of making a living.

   Yet, the loss for the state given above, is worth the liquidation of independent activity. The spiritless and parasitic state apparat won one more time. Our state is weak, I guess it would lose the war against any other state, but it is winning unfalteringly the war against its citizen. 

   Between 1995 and now Stoka received 2, 860, 104 crowns from the state and the city. During the same time, Stoka made a transfer of 3, 589, 538 crowns to the state.