We hope to contribute with our newsletter Tusovka to an active exchange
of ideas on the level of analysis, background information on regions and
topics, strategy and political theory across the barriers of language and
culture between activists in Western Europe and Eastern Europe. Lately,
communication and collaboration between activists of East and West has
been on the agenda of several meetings that some of us attended (first
PGA conference in Geneva, Switzerland in February; Bankwatch seminar in
Kiev, Ukraine during the EBRD meeting in May; A SEED Europe meeting in
the Pirin mountains in Bulgaria in July).
Looking back at those events, an uneasy feeling remains that except
perhaps on a personal level, during breaks and in front of a beer or coffee,
such communication has not really taken place, that all these meetings
were a failure in this respect. It is not enough just to bring people from
different backgrounds together (with Western organizations funding their
travel, room and board in order to compensate for the lack of funds in
the East) and have them discuss ideas on campaigns and collaboration. We
feel that there is a need for the activists from various regions to better
understand each other's background. This is why we intend, with each issue
of Tusovka, to present in both Russian and English language some of the
important ongoing and historical debates which are or have been important
to each movement. We hope through this to help prepare the ground for a
better mutual understanding and a fruitful common practice of both theory
and actions.
What does Tusovka mean?
Tusovka is a Russian slang word designating a circle of communication with
room for discussion, exchanging ideas and relaxing, with a group of people
regularly participating. It is also used self-ironically to designate the
sort of political tourism which takes Eastern European activists to Western
Europe for conferences and seminars, or the frequent participation in conferences
and seminars by Western activists. People who regularly travel to such
conferences and seminars will be called Tusovshchiki (sing. m: Tusovshchik;
f: Tusovshchitsa).
When will the pilot issue be out?
We intend to have the pilot issue of Tusovka out by mid-december 1998 (our
apologies -- due to some difficulties in translations, we decided to postpone
the publishing of the pilot issue for some time and make sure we
would offer as precise translations as possible, along with some extra
editorial comments to put the articles into their context -- it will be
out really soon now). This will depend on our translating capacities, since
Tusovka is published in both English and Russian
language. After that, we intend to publish an issue of Tusovka every other
month. This will depend on the material that we have and manage to get
translated from all sorts of languages into Russian and English.
How is Tusovka distributed?
For reasons of limited budget (close to zero ;-), Tusovka is distributed
first and foremost by e-mail and through these web pages. The table of
contents including hyperlinks and instructions on how to order articles
by e-mail is distributed widely through relevant e-mail lists and Usenet
news conferences. In time, we will set up an automatic e-mail ordering
service, which will send requested articles to people who do not have web
access.
A further project, if there is sufficient interest in this option, is
to print at least the Russian version of Tusovka locally in Moscow and/or
Kiev (could be other places, too, if someone wants to help there), in order
to facilitate the further distribution of Tusovka to people with no internet
access. Contact us if you want
to help with this, or if you want to set up a mirror site of these web
pages.
What can you do to help?
The most important contribution you can make to Tusovka is to look around
your own political movement/group to see which existing articles, either
newer or historical, you think might be worth sharing with people in Eastern
and Western Europe, in order to raise the understanding of each other's
background. If you find an interesting text, or write one specifically
for Tusovka, please make it available to us in at least one of the following
languages: Russian and English. We can then do the translation into the
missing language.
We would hope this to work both ways, and Tusovka to be used as a pool
of articles: You can also take articles from Tusovka, translate them
to your language if necessary, and distribute them further in your own
media. The texts in Tusovka are copyrighted, which means you have to acknowledge
Tusovka as the source of the article, and indicate the web site (http://www.savanne.ch/tusovka)
and the e-mail address (tusovka@savanne.ch)
of Tusovka. Please send us a copy of your newspaper, or at least a note
about where you published articles from Tusovka.
In what languages is Tusovka available?
Tusovka is distributed in English and Russian
language. If the articles presented in Tusovka are originally in another
language, we try to provide them also in the original language.
If any of you translate articles from Tusovka into other languages,
please make a copy available to us. We will put it on this web site as
well. In this way we hope to build up an archive of valuable analysis texts
in various languages of Eastern and Western Europe.