Skip to content
  • Looking for a suggestion?
  • What’s going on here?
  • Ce e asta?
  • Contact

A reader has no favourite book

(eco-friendly reading diary)

Tag: Kajet Journal

Kajet: a journal of Eastern European encounters

Posted on 3 Apr 20213 Apr 2021 by Gabriela

I am finally getting around to write about something that I’ve been really excited about for a couple of months now: Kajet Journal. It might just be my ignorance, but despite it being around for 4 years, I hadn’t heard of it until January, when I saw the most recent issue in a bookstore and decided not only to buy it but also to try and find all the other issues because, ironically, I get all consumerist when it comes to leftist things (a broad term referring to literally anything). Unfortunately, I was a bit late and had to read the first issue digitally, but I have the other ones physically and they’re just pure beauty. Yes, they’re worth it even if just for being so aesthetically pleasing, but they’re a lot more than that.

The ethos of Kajet is to bring unexplored, neglected Eastern European narratives to the fore.

Kajet Manifesto

I’m not going to make an in-depth analysis of each of the four issues, as I don’t feel I could give a good enough account, but I think it’s worth mentioning that each has a central theme: On Communities, On Utopias, On Struggle, On Periphery. While being related to the central theme, each contribution (text, photographs and/or illustrations in the printed journal, but the digital version makes use of videos too) offers a completely different perspective, interpretation or instance of the topic so as to show the plurality of a world that is usually portrayed in a very unidimensional way by the mainstream Western narrative: Eastern Europe, the inferior Other.

Kajet aims to discredit this not by suggesting an equally limited counter-narrative, but by painting a complex picture: trivialising a culture or, even worse, multiple cultures to an easy to digest idea will never be satisfactory, however appealing it is to use such simplifications. In a world that cannot dream nor imagine the future, Eastern Europe is striving to forgo its past and history and get as close as possible to the neoliberal ideal, even if it means leaving a lot of people behind. Scrambling for an identity, we substitute it with a westernised chimaera that seems to be just a placeholder for something we are unable to make sense of.

What I really appreciated about each of these articles is that there is no fake impression of impartiality and they do not hold anything like that as their higher goal. Everything is unapologetically leftist, anti-capitalist, intersectional; each text has an embedded message and tries to be more than a superficial account of a phenomenon or situation: it’s not story-telling and it does not aim to be so. We are being presented with both further questions and conclusions without being told what to think – that is an equilibrium that is very hard to achieve without losing the complexity of the analysis.

One of the tendencies of these texts that really melted my anarchist heart was the continuous intention of redefining our relationship with the objects we possess, the buildings we live in, the places we occupy. The so-called inanimate bears the responsibility of our entire lives, but a capitalist society cannot allow us to build a deeper relationship based on this, as it would mean emancipation from our necessary roles as users and consumers. Addressing the topic of city-planning from a perspective that does not intend to aimlessly maximise productivity but to build communities and to entail mutual aid seems strange and unfamiliar, but it also feels like the appropriate way of designing something that we might end up calling home.

I could write about everything I loved about these journals all day, but I feel like I can’t actually make them seem any greater than they are so just go on http://kajetjournal.com/ and convince yourself. While being quite academic in formulation, I think that the writing is accessible for anyone that has some minimal knowledge of leftist theory and issues (and the references can be useful for learning more too).

Because I have no idea how to end this, I’ll just add another point from the Manifesto here:

Not being afraid to tackle apparently trivial matters, we consider that every socio-cultural development in the East shall be taken seriously. Everything needs to be questioned, doubted and interpreted accordingly.

Kajet Manifesto
Tagged Kajet, Kajet JournalLeave a comment

Te-ai pierdut?

Recomandarea lunii (Monthly recommendation)

Sappho – ‘If Not, Winter’

Ce am citit şi ce am scris (Choose your favourite)

  • Adrian Schiop (1)
  • Agustina Bazterrica (1)
  • Ana Barton (1)
  • Andrea Gibson (1)
  • Andreea Răsuceanu (1)
  • Annie Ernaux (1)
  • Augustin Cupşa (1)
  • În română (sau majoritar în română) (34)
  • Boris Pasternak (1)
  • Brandon Taylor (1)
  • Bret Easton Ellis (1)
  • Brit Bennett (1)
  • Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche (1)
  • Chris Kraus (2)
  • Cristopher Moore (1)
  • Dan Sociu (1)
  • Daniel Kahneman (1)
  • David Mitchell (1)
  • Diana Adamek (1)
  • Dona Tartt (1)
  • Elena Ferrante (2)
  • Elias Canetti (1)
  • Elif Shafak (1)
  • Emma Rendel (1)
  • Evgheni Vodolazkin (1)
  • Fernando Pessoa (1)
  • Fredrik Backman (2)
  • George Orwell (1)
  • Gillian Flynn (1)
  • Guzel Iahina (1)
  • Harper Lee (1)
  • Haruki Murakami (1)
  • Henry Miller (1)
  • Horia Ursu (1)
  • Ian McEwan (1)
  • Ioana Bradea (1)
  • Ioana Nicolaie (1)
  • Irina Denejkina (1)
  • Irvin D. Yalom (1)
  • Irvine Welsh (1)
  • Italo Calvino (1)
  • J. D. Salinger (1)
  • Jeanette Winterson (2)
  • Jeffrey Eugenides (1)
  • John Steinbeck (1)
  • Jonathan Coe (2)
  • Jonathan Safran Foer (1)
  • José Eduardo Agualusa (1)
  • Juan Felipe Herrera (1)
  • Julio Cortázar (2)
  • Kazuo Ishiguro (1)
  • Liliana Corobca (1)
  • Ludmila Uliţkaia (1)
  • Margaret Atwood (3)
  • Mario Vargas Llosa (1)
  • Matei Vişniec (1)
  • Mia Couto (1)
  • Michel Houellebecq (1)
  • Mihail Șișkin (1)
  • Milan Kundera (3)
  • Mohammed El-Kurd (1)
  • Natalie Diaz (1)
  • Nicole Krauss (1)
  • Olga Ravn (1)
  • Orhan Pamuk (2)
  • Rachel Kushner (1)
  • Radu Mareș (1)
  • Raymond Radiguet (1)
  • Reading issues and conversations (1)
  • Robert Musil (1)
  • Sally Rooney (1)
  • Salman Rushdie (3)
  • Samanta Schweblin (1)
  • Shaun Bythell (1)
  • Social issues (1)
  • sometimes I feel like writing in English (21)
  • Sue Monk Kidd (1)
  • T.O. Bobe (1)
  • Umberto Eco (1)
  • Will Carver (1)
  • Yuval Noah Harari (1)
  • Zines and magazines (1)

Scrie-ţi adresa de mail, apasă butonul şi voi deveni sâcâitorul tău personal, trimiţându-ţi un mail de fiecare dată când public un articol.

Type your email address, press the button and I'll personally (email) nudge you every time I post something new. You don't want to miss that, do you?

Join 197 other subscribers.
Blog at WordPress.com.
  • Follow Following
    • A reader has no favourite book
    • Join 197 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • A reader has no favourite book
    • Customise
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...