Jan Kravčík: When you lose the cultural war, then the nation is totally lost

Jan Kravčík is a Czech writer, translator, and publisher. Kravčík has over twenty-five years of experience in book publishing as an author, translator, book designer, editor, and publisher. In 2022, the war’s escalation prompted him to study Ukrainian, and he is now seeking partnerships with Ukrainian book publishers.

Despite the ongoing war, Jan Kravchyk traveled to Ukraine with the goal of discovering new authors who can captivate a broad audience and offer an alternative to the clichés of Western mass literature. Driven by both commercial interest and a desire to support Ukrainian culture during these challenging times, Jan participated in the Book Arsenal and in the Book Arsenal Fellowship Program 2024 in Kyiv. We talked about the current needs of the Czech market and how the Ukrainians can respond to it.

What is the latest news from Czechia — what is the publishing sector facing? We’ve only heard positive news: starting this year, Czech publishers aren’t required to pay VAT tax. Plus, the National Recovery Plan was launched in 2022. In your opinion, how have these changes affected the industry and your publishing house?

Jan Kravčík: I understand why this news might seem positive to an outsider, and I’ll try to reveal a little bit of the context.

First of all, the Czech book market is oversaturated. More and more books are being published every year, leading to a never-ending contest between big publishers, who inevitably prefer quantity over quality. Basically, they are pumping more and more new titles to the market because their competition does that too. Nobody dares to stop; it’s a vicious circle, really.

This has several consequences. First of all, the insatiable hunger for new content on the publishers’ side could be an opportunity for Ukrainian literature. But it also means that a lot of content unworthy of publishing finds its way to the bookstores, and good books get drowned in the ocean of mediocre production.

I was shocked to find out that juvenile manuscripts I rejected a decade ago are now being published by respectable brands. They simply need content — any content — and, in some genres, they are willing to publish almost everything. I’m not kidding, the books often feature the same immature stylistics and plot inconsistencies that I was pointing out to the authors twelve years ago. It signals to authors that persistence, rather than self-improvement pays off. It also shows how editorial standards are worse than before.

My last point, about the quality of editorial work, is connected to another problem —  industry professionals are being underpaid. In a country of 10.5 million people, you can only have so many good editors, translators, and proofreaders. But the market needs more people, and those less experienced lower the bar and salaries for those who excel at their jobs.

The Czech book market is still quite fragmented compared to the West, but the big players have emerged who control the whole business chain — they own publishers, distributors, and bookstores. I am afraid that, over time, this will lead to a situation as in Poland, where the market is, in fact, a duopoly — two major corporations control the market. It could even deepen the problem we already have where the distributors essentially take half of publishers’ profits. 

I don’t like to go to large bookstores in Prague anymore. I feel overwhelmed and frustrated by so many new books. I’m like, why bother? Why work on something nice, cherish it, and publish it, only for it to disappear in the sheer volume of new production? So much paper was spent on this continuous flow of pictures and letters.

Naturally, I’m not the only one who feels this way. I’ve heard from lots of people that they become confused in bookstores. Let’s say they want to buy a good crime novel – how to choose from the twenty detective novels published that week? Should they pick one from the previous week or wait for another batch? The words “tyranny of choice” has found its embodiment in the Czech book market.

Chytomo: So zero VAT  on books will not help to strenghen the book market itself?

Jan Kravčík: In this situation, when the books keep selling and the market produces more and more, the zero VAT on books makes no sense. I see it as a rather populistic gesture from the center-right government which is otherwise hell-bent on austerity measures in crucial areas like healthcare, education, and state administration. 

And it’s not like this tax cut serves some noble purpose. Let’s not pretend the book market today isn’t just another branch of the entertainment industry. There will be more useless cookbooks by even more pseudocelebrities, and — soon — young adult novels written by AI.

Meanwhile, the lost income from the VAT could have been used by the state for the promotion of Czech books abroad, for example. You might be surprised, but this opinion is shared by several smaller publishers that I’ve talked to. The little extra money we get doesn’t solve anything. In times like these, it simply doesn’t make sense.

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Chytomo: Which genres of pop fiction are you interested in?

Jan Kravčík: Basically, all of them. Thirteen years ago, I founded a publishing house named Gorgona focused exclusively on fantasy or, to put it better, speculative fiction. At that time, fantasy in Czechia was already crawling out of the ghetto and infiltrating the mainstream. The genre exploded and has been omnipresent ever since. 

Originally, my idea was to publish fantasy from not-so-usual languages with flavors of folklore and local mythology. For that purpose, I researched the Ukrainian market. But in 2011, to my great surprise, I found that fantasy had been largely written and published in Russian since it opened the authors to a much wider market. So for me, it is tremendous to be at this festival now and see this boom of Ukrainian literature.

There are so many new writers, so many new publishers, so many new books. From what I’ve heard and seen, interest is only growing.

Chytomo: Indeed, interest is growing. According to research published in October of 2023 by InfoSapiens, the number of readers of Ukrainian literature has doubled since the full-scale invasion began. I have two different questions for you. First off, could you expand on the trend toward the fantasy genre in Czechia?

Jan Kravčík: This trend is rooted in a general interest for translations of canonical authors like Tolkien, Martin, Rowling, and their copycats. I wanted to expand it by publishing authors who have an original approach to the genre. We handpicked several original books from abroad and started to work with manuscripts by local writers. Then we came up with the idea to organize a short story contest, which proved very popular, out of which we published anthologies.

By the time fantasy truly became mainstream and the major publishers were interested in it, Czech bookstores were flooded with run-of-the-mill American and British productions. While it has its merits, it promotes the stereotypes of the genre.

We were trying to do something else, which wasn’t very successful in terms of business. The books paid for themselves but didn’t provide a huge profit. 

Over the years, as the world became darker, I’ve become increasingly convinced that publishing escapist literature about dragons and magic makes little sense. When reality is so hard, we should be working on something more relevant that helps to change it for the better, or at least inform people to better equip them against the threats we are all facing.

Chytomo: What’s it like to be a niche publisher in Czechia? I’ve seen bigger numbers of independent publishers in neighboring countries. In Germany, for example, I see fewer publishers concentrating on different low-profit topics like visual poetry. 

Jan Kravčík: I think independent publishers are very important because they act as a fermentation process for the whole book publishing industry. It’s in niche book publishing houses that the raw literature happens. 

Authors who publish there are usually regular folks who have day jobs or are studying somewhere writing their manuscript. They’re often learning the book writing process — most of them subconsciously copy the literature they like to read. Then, you have ten percent of outstanding texts.

A second advantage for small publishers is that they have less pressure to bring in money. They often publish with their hearts. If you are part of a big corporation, you are less inclined to take risks. Smaller publishers can experiment. 

Chytomo: So the small publishers make literature happen because making art takes courage. And it’s tough to be courageous if you are a big publisher because you still need to pay rent and big bills for the crew. Unable to risk much, you go to the easy, known solutions.

Jan Kravčík: Exactly. At some point, the big decisions are made according to the numbers. Meanwhile, everybody’s hoping for a black swan event — that they will publish something that will, you know, explode.

Another helpful ground for the niche publishers in Czechia is that the market is not yet monopolized, as it is in the West. In a way, we are still growing. Meanwhile, our market is quite large. Compared to Ukraine’s, it’s five times larger. UBI projects the Ukrainian book market to be between €40 and 60 million, while in Czechia it’s €340 million. Keep in mind our population is three times smaller, if not more. 

The Czech book market’s estimated total volume for 2022 is approximately $361.5 million (8.4 billion CZK) in retail prices, including VAT, representing a 3% decrease from the previous year. Source: The Association of Czech Booksellers and Publishers

I can see that the Ukrainian market is also more recent, and unlike markets in Poland and Czechia, yours is still full of opportunities. So that’s the place for independent publishers. And the state should support them because you never know which one will become a huge taxpayer over the years.

Chytomo: When did you begin studying Ukrainian?

Jan Kravčík: The full-scale invasion was a huge motivator for me to start learning the language seriously. I began reading about its authors and following politics and the civic grassroots movements. That’s also how I learned about Chytomo on Twitter, now known as X. Basically, since February 2022, I’ve been learning the Ukrainian language and following news from Ukraine on a daily basis.

When I started learning your language, I was surprised by how relatable it is and how easy it was to learn. I felt ashamed for not learning it earlier. I tell my friends that if, like Czech, Ukrainian was written with the latin alphabet instead of in Cyrillic, they would see how similar the two languages actually are. 

My mission today — in Kyiv at the Book Arsenal — is basically to do some “field research” and connect the dots. It’s fascinating to see some of the people I follow on Twitter actually here in front of me, like Olexandra Matviichuk (Nobel Peace Prize Winner in 2022, Ukrainian human rights defender).

Chytomo: Could you share your observations of topics and titles of contemporary Ukrainian literature you find potentially interesting for the Czech people?

Jan Kravčík: Yes — I’ll start with the big picture.

So there’s a war going on. Everybody should be contributing for it to end in our victory. But there isn’t just war on the battlefield where the blood is spilled. There is also a cultural war. This is essential to remember, because even if a nation loses on the battlefield, they can still live. They can still publish their literature by some means. The culture will somehow survive and continue living — the nation is alive. But when you lose the cultural war, then the nation is totally lost. 

I would love to be one of those thousands and millions of people all over the world who are contributing their tiny bit to a victory in this cultural war. In my case, I celebrate each tiny victory by introducing and spreading awareness of Ukrainian literature in Czechia.

I would love to bring as many Ukrainian books to Czechia as possible, regardless of their genre. I don’t want Ukrainian literature to be seen only through the lens of the classics or big names like Zabuzhko and Andrukovych. Yes, these are important writers, but it’s only one part of the canon. 

Then there is the aspect of Ukraine now being largely associated with war. We have a lot of new books in Czechia about Ukrainian history and the ongoing invasion written by American authors. This is because people are interested in Ukraine and it is the easiest way for big publishers to quickly translate something offered by Western markets. Yet we don’t need these Western lenses. We should be giving space to Ukrainians — let them explain their history to us and document current events. In Czechia we publish about 16,500 new titles per year. That is a rather large amount for a population of 10 million.

An estimated 14,500 titles were published in the Czech Republic in 2022, according to the National Library of the Czech Republic (ČNB), which had recorded 14,200 titles as of November 1, 2023. Source: The Association of Czech Booksellers and Publishers

Chytomo: So we need to look for titles that engage a larger audience?

Jan Kravčík: Definitely. Sometimes I feel sad that writers who are widely promoted outside of Ukraine are almost exclusively authors of intellectual prose, such as Oksana Zabuzhko and Yuri Andrukhovych. Yes, every language’s literature has a couple of flagship names that can be considered modern classics. But as a reader and a publisher, I understand that this type of writing and language is not accessible to everyone. It requires intellectual effort to understand and appreciate the context. We, and by this I mean Czechia, Ukraine, and other, let’s say, “smaller” categories of literature, don’t seem to promote authors who are more easygoing and who can potentially address and reach a bigger number of readers.

The average reader just wants to buy a good thriller or a detective novel. And it shouldn’t be important whether it was written by someone from Ukraine or someone from Britain. It just needs to be good. You have them and should promote them more. I know I will.

Chytomo: The next question concerns your experience translating Stanislav Aseyev. Could you tell me a bit more about why you picked up this book and how everything went?

Jan Kravčík: I was just reading my Ukrainian Twitter feed one day, finding events and reading the news. And I found an announcement by certain Mr. Aseyev that his book was going to be published in the US. In the comments under the tweet, he wrote that he’s surprised that no one from Czechia has picked the rights for the book because part of it takes place in Prague. And I just wrote to him like, okay, can I help you? What can I do for you? 

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We exchanged a couple of messages and I approached Grada Publishing, one of the major Czech publishers. They liked the book and bought the rights from Old Lion Publishing, a Ukrainian publisher. It was that easy. So I started to translate it. 

People in Czechia weren’t aware of what 2014 was like in Ukraine. The Russian “separatist” narrative was prevalent. Aseyev’s book should have been published years before — immediately, I would say — and I’m surprised that nobody picked it up before. I know that it’s quite the heavy read, but I’m sort of used to it. My thesis was on modern Croatian war prose.

The interesting thing is that war prose published during the conflict and the first years after is very raw; it’s like a documentary. It takes at least a decade for this kind of literature to become more artistic. It transforms from documentation to take a more artistic form.

And it is logical. When you initially feel endangered, you share your own immediate experiences and traumas. Once you have had some distance, you can process the traumas in a different, more literary way. 

Stanislav Aseyev’s book is a documentary story. He’s a journalist after all, and I very much like his sober, publicist style, which is very condensed. He objectively describes how Russians are torturing people. He doesn’t tell you how to feel about it. That’s important because the readers can make their own decisions about what they will take from it.

Chytomo: And what about Kyiv? If you don’t mind, I’ll ask you a personal question. Were you afraid to come to Kyiv?

Jan Kravčík: Absolutely not. I don’t want to sound disrespectful to all the people who are in danger in this country, but it didn’t even pop into my head that I could be in danger in Kyiv. It’s a great city. Millions of people live here. 

But then I heard my first air raid alert. To get woken up in the middle of the night and hear the sirens for the first time was surreal and scary. Even though I was in the privileged position of being accommodated in a well-protected area, I felt very uncomfortable. It was very real.

Copy editing: Terra King