Culture Ministry officials, among them people from Ukraine, gathered in Ottawa recently for a conference to discuss problems facing ethnic cultures in view of the globalization and commercialization of the cultural process.
These problems seem best summed up as the dual character of any such “cultural product”: a commodity, as good as any, with its cost and market demand, on the one hand, and on the other as a very specific one – unique and priceless, reflecting certain cultural efforts, reminding one of Pushkin’s winged words written over 150 years ago: “Inspiration is not for sale, but you can sell a manuscript.”
World culture offers many such products today, ranging from commercial, purely entertainment programs, generally known as mass culture, to ones essentially noncommercial, nonprofit, meant for a handful of cultural “gourmets” and individuals craving aesthetic sensations. One cannot draw a line between these two extremes. “Big-time art” is being effectively mastered and adjusted by mass culture operators, launching their products in the market, all that pop hit and horror/thriller movie stuff. On the other hand, we have all those highbrow creative personalities appealing to their elite audiences, incorporating those very mass culture elements in their creations, hoping thus to make their “products” edible for their respective consumers.
Thus, considering that most can accept (theoretically) the concept of commercial art as yet another line of business, and that it should be taxable, like any other business, how can one regard any creative activities as being noncommercial? Here one is hard put to draw any lines, especially in terms of law, taxation, politics, and personal “creative” ambitions.
It is this fear of the powerful, well-equipped and advertised US show business which made such different countries as Great Britain, France, Canada, Mexico, Spain, Iceland, and Croatia put their heads together at the conference. According to Canadian National Heritage and Culture Minister Sheila Copps, only every third book, every fourth song, every fifth magazine, and every 25th movie available in his country were truly Canadian (and as for the movies, the lion’s share of the genuine national product came from French-speaking Quebec). Most of the rest were cultural imports from the United States.
Naturally, the Americans were not invited to the conference, on the formal pretext that they had no Department of Culture, so they could send no officials to discuss the issue. At the last minutes the Americans got observer’s status, but this did not lessen the gatherings’ anti-US spirit. The conference’s main result was the awareness of problems facing all of the participants and the readiness to coordinate efforts aimed protecting their national cultures as a manifestation of each country’s national identity. The conference participants agreed that all international accords on free trade and inland investment must have reservations relating to national culture, a sphere in which a degree of protectionism is necessary and well-motivated.
For Ukraine, the threat of Americanization is as vague as the possibility of integration into international trade, economic, and other structures. Yet foreign mass culture dominating the domestic market is a real threat, as much as it is for Canada, the only difference being perhaps that all our US products are more neutral, and most importantly of superior quality than what we get from Russia.






