Author: Ivaylo Noyzi Tsvetkov
DV: "I wish Slavi and Toshko health, freedom, independence, happiness, love, courage, courage, dignity, honor and intelligence. They have the rest." I can't stop laughing with bitter tears. Calm me down, tell me that it is still possible for irony to be alive in the media and in society, not only in our chats with you. And in Kierkegaard's writings, of course.
Ivo Siromahov: Irony is a worldview. It is not subject to willful control. This is a natural reflex that I have had since a very young age, and you, being my classmate from high school, can confirm it. Irony is the safest shield, and it can also be a sword. As someone who has been making a living with words for 30 years, I treat them with great respect and am careful not to use them in vain. Radichkov used to say that a person tames words, but lately I think that to some extent they also tame us. And sometimes they brutalize us.
DV: Now everyone is longing for something "yellow-brown", like "what was the argument between Slavi and Siromakhov". But I will give a great example to future journalists with the following question: Why and how do we lose faith that a relatively honest media environment is possible, and how, in your opinion, did ITN step into it, politically, with muddy boots?
Ivo Siromakhov: An honest media environment has not been possible since 2009, when the people's favorite Borisov rode the journalistic community and turned it into an obedient beast that graze meekly near the magnolia in Bankya. However, it is appropriate to note that the enslavement of the media was not forced. It happened completely voluntarily and by their own will.
The media owners and the overwhelming majority of the journalistic army lay down deliciously before the Prime Minister, even affectionately calling him "Bate" and were possessed by him just like the hetaeras from Apuleius' "The Golden Ass". But in our version, the donkey turned out to be not golden, but ordinary. And when the hetaeras faded, they replaced them with new ones. The end of freedom in the media was consumed by mutual consent, so it is hypocritical to cry for it.
ITN trampled the media environment with their muddy boots, because they see that others are doing the same. They are trying to be like the Batkovites, imitating them, in the hope that one day they will be invited to sit at the big table, with the fatty steaks.
DV: Is media freedom possible at all in our country, or were there successive "new beginnings" throughout the transition?
Ivo Siromakhov: You and I know very well that it is possible, because we enjoyed it in the 90s, as well as in the first ten years of the new millennium. Remember how free the media were back then - from the newspaper "24 Chasa" through "Egoist" to "Ku-ku". We were intoxicated by this freedom and thought it would always be like this. Well, it turned out that it is not a given. That freedom is like bread, as the great Radoi said - it is kneaded, baked and eaten every day.
DV: Something personal, if you allow me: didn't you stay at this "party" too long?
Ivo Siromakhov: I don't know how it looked from the outside, but I always had complete freedom to say whatever I wanted and not to be beholden to anyone. And I did. I left the moment I was told to drive more quietly. And I can't drive more quietly. I am 53 years old, it is too late for me to learn to bend over. Of all the opportunities that life offers me, my favorite is the opportunity to get up and leave at any time.
DV: You were and are like the last Mohican of political satire, including replacing Slavi. Why is it no longer in the major media?
Ivo Siromakhov: Because authoritarian power is most afraid of laughter. Good satire is very painful for those who long to be dictators. It literally drives them crazy. That is why in those shameful, bloody days after the coup in 1944, one of the first victims of the caps was the cartoonist Rayko Aleksiev. Later, for jokes, Sasho Sladura was beaten to death in the camp in Lovech. Satraps can swallow anything, but not ridicule.
DV: What would you say to the following anti-argument: well, he also made fun of famous people, especially in the heyday of "Slavi's Show".
Ivo Siromakhov: Of course I will make fun of famous people. Should I make fun of unknown people? In the civilized world, this type of satire is considered something completely normal. But in our lands, the famous scream and expect to be perceived only with religious reverence. These are provincial complexes.
DV: I, and probably you, grew up with Saturday Night Live, which still makes fun of all politicians and celebrities. Where and whether, however, are we crossing the line here?
Ivo Siromakhov: Not only do we not go through it, but we are far more gentle and kind. From time to time I watch my favorite series Little Britain on BBC. There are such brutal sketches that if you did something like that in Bulgaria, they would hang you from the first tree. Our jokes are far more humane.
Sometimes I have heard criticism from sour intellectuals that our humor was too "dirty", too sexual and spicy. Only people with a severe deficit of knowledge in literature and culture can say this. For them, I have to explain that such a genre of show programs was born with the square humor from the times of the Italian commedia dell' arte. And if you want, with the phallic processions during the little Dionysias, but let's not burden their thinking apparatus with so much information.
This humor is folk, bodily and celebrating the joys of life, including sex. In my opinion, there is nothing dirty in sex, on the contrary. But for a people who call intimate organs "shame", such pseudo-moral outrage is somewhat understandable. I wonder if these sour people have heard of Boccaccio's "Decameron", Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales"? And do they know the sexual poems of Hristo Smirnenski and Penyo Penev? I hope they have at least watched Sacha Baron Cohen's films to see that true humor breaks all kinds of taboos and knows no boundaries. What are you outraged about? You used to shout that you were "Charlie Hebdo"?
DV: What do you regret if you look back at these 25 years on "Slavi's Show"?
Ivo Siromakhov: Nothing. The show gave me the opportunity to meet personalities like Mikhail Gorbachev, Lech Walesa, Nigel Kennedy, Franz Beckenbauer, Rob Halford, Carl Lewis, Irwin Welsh, Nikita Mikhalkov, Yuri Bashmet, Claudia Cardinale, Ray Liotta. I have remembered their words. I am sure that these people have left their mark on the minds of many Bulgarians.
DV: Okay, here's something like "devil's advocate": is it possible that the Toshkovites have good intentions with this bill (to restrict freedom of expression, ed.) - for example, that some people really cannot make up disgusting personal "news", raping the publicity? But at the same time, are the Toshkovites in question so clumsy and ignorant that they provoke both your and the public reaction?
Ivo Siromakhov: I am sure that they have good intentions. I do not believe that the deputies are some sinister Harry Potter-like dementors who go to work every morning thinking "how to screw up this ancient people". On the contrary - probably some of them even want to do some useful work.
Of course, people's personal space should be protected from abominations, and I can think of at least ten ways in which this problem could be solved. They chose the eleventh, which is the most disgusting - to imprison people who spread any personal information. I don't know which weak-minded lawyer wrote this amendment to the law, but I'm sure his law professors sank into the ground with shame.
However, there was one remarkable moment in the entire operetta that made me squeal with delight. This was the moment when Boyko Borisov suddenly appeared in his favorite role of the people's protector, saving paradise from the enemies, and said that he would withdraw Slavi's law. The big boss good-naturedly and fatherly spanked the little mischievous ones from the serving party, then uttered a great phrase: "The deputies did not read the bill properly. Now they will read it properly." This is perhaps the most accurate and merciless description of Bulgarian parliamentary life.
DV: You have built a career as a subtle and not-so-subtle ironist towards Bulgarian folk psychology, including through your books. In what, in your opinion, did you succeed, and in what did you fail?
Ivo Siromakhov: For me, the categories "success" and "failure" are complete nonsense. Nowadays, it is accepted to measure success in some consumerist nonsense - how much money you have earned, what house you live in, which Halkidiki you are vacationing in. I believe that success is when a person is at peace with themselves. And as for my books - it would be too immodest to evaluate them myself. I have enough readers - let them say.
DV: We have talked about the problems with ITN, I have written about them. You could have become, for example, the head of their parliamentary group, and whatever you want, but you chose something else - for which I admire you. Why?
Ivo Siromakhov: I couldn't become one. Bulgarian understandings of politics are disgusting and there is no way I can play by those rules. This is not politics for us, it is "oh, let's get something to eat here". Besides, I believe that democracy and the party system are in an insoluble conflict.
Democracy presupposes pluralism of opinions and equality of votes, and parties are essentially monotheistic structures in which the supreme leader whips and hangs, and everyone under him is a silent serf. The leader decides, and the serfs just press the green or red button, just like Pavlov's puppies. And if they press them correctly, the leader throws them small treats from above. And all the button pushers long for the party congress, where they can put on their new clothes and, if they're lucky, take a selfie with the Leader. This is the ultimate thrill for the soul of the ordinary party member. Then for six months they'll be telling their relatives how down-to-earth their leader is. Just like a normal person, please.
In my ideas of dignity, it is humiliating to be a button pusher, as well as to order some wretches to push buttons and throw them small treats. It still seems to me that this cannot be the ultimate purpose of a person in this inhospitable world.
DV: Do you remember how back in the Classical (National High School for Ancient Languages and Cultures - ed.) we rebelled against the socialist system, I even wrote a "novel" by hand, in which you were Yves Popper (pauper - "poor"), the magnificent French detective who investigates various things in the graduation class and from there - "criminals" of the system? I remind you of it for no other reason than because with your current act you can remain in our socio-cultural history.
Ivo Siromakhov: Well, let's not pretend to be dissidents, because we are not. We did not rebel against the socialist system, rather we made some jokes with the aesthetics of the time. Just like fifteen-year-old Alfred Jarry made fun of the classics, writing "Father Uby". But I am still flattered that I was a character in a novel, albeit an unpublished one. I hope I was a positive hero.
DV: Relatively yes. Tell me why I did not become a great theater director, the kind of person the late Krikor Azaryan and Chocho Popyordanov talked about.
Ivo Siromakhov: If I did not become one, then I obviously did not have the qualities to become one. I did not have the talent or character. But in my old age I returned to the theater not as a director, but as an author of plays, in one of which - "Bulgarian Literature in Brief" and you contributed with valuable ideas. I love writing about theater and will continue to do so.
DV: Who and what makes us free, especially in the conditions of the status quo of social networks?
Ivo Siromahov: Freedom is like the irony that we commented on at the beginning of the conversation. Either you carry it within yourself, or you don't. If you don't want to be free, no one can make you free by force. If you carry freedom within yourself, it will be difficult for them to take it away from you.
And finally: will artificial intelligence (AI) be able to become Siromahov?
Ivo Siromahov: I hope that the creators of AI set more ambitious goals.