Preface to the first issue in the form of a letter.

Dear friends,

In light of recent events in the international cultural and psychoanalytic space, it has become clear to me that the constant sense of foreboding and anticipation of consequences from taking the wrong turn lead to mounting anxiety, as well as to the disruption of horizontal connections. The subject becomes sealed off, withdraws into themselves, stops exchanging the most secret and desired thing—their own Desire. The contemporary media field, enslaved by the techno-feudal elite, has issued demands to all of us: consume and create only on our platforms, use our tools, expand our platforms, drink only our milk, exist within our laws, pay us, work for us, at us, for us.

Interaction with one another has become fragmented and difficult due to language barriers, political disagreements, and passport restrictions. Because of the impossibility of entering or leaving, one must constantly sit in corners, occasionally raising one’s head in hopes of catching a friendly glance from another corner. Living in completely different realities and jurisdictions, the desire to speak out grows, but the externally imposed symbolic restrictions bind our hands.

In such circumstances, I undertook a mental return to the point when all this began for me and became the leading strategy for interacting with the external world.

Everyone will find their own point of reference on the temporal plane; this will be influenced by numerous individual and social factors, personal tragedies and social upheavals. An event that changed everything in one moment is not automatically preserved. However, the language that attempts to describe everything that happens after it (after the event), in my view, returns agency to the person.

Alain Badiou writes: the subject is not a person, but a position in truth that maintains fidelity to the event. That is, the subject is one who says: “This happened, and I will remain faithful to it, even if the world says nothing occurred.”

In Lacan, the event is connected to the Real; to speak in more everyday terms, this is shock, trauma, bodily pain, death, sexual pleasure—things that cannot be fully expressed or understood. Over the past several years, every person living on planet Earth has encountered War, an event that is impossible to comprehend.

As a result of such an encounter, a new Subject emerges, whose presence covers the resulting hole—a response to the Event. Covering it with their own body, they experience again and again the horror and fear from the wind coming from the abyss.

The Subject continues to be constructed around oral and written stories. The birth of new intelligence beside us and before our eyes only confirms this. However, there is nothing more material than oral speech, and nothing more abstract than written speech. Therefore, I decided to organize an abstract space of interaction that one could hold in one’s hands.

A periodical about foreboding. A series of disparate texts gathered in one place simply to be near one another, continuing to manifest absurdity through their existence.

If you have literary fiction that you would like to see published, and it touches on themes of the art of searching for random connections, narcissism of lost causes, the history of the subject in constrained circumstances, or communities of direct interaction — send it for publication in the next issue of Buğaz journal.

If your texts are filled with foreboding, an ominous feeling, premonition of trouble, or a sense of impending threat, you can submit work in any language and any length — from 50 to 10,000 characters.

These can be psychoanalytic texts, psychohistorical notes, free-form essays, poems, stories, plays, and literary translations.

With the first issue, we are opening a dialogue between different communities, countries, and languages. In the process of working on the journal, a neologism appeared, or more precisely, a verbal form of the journal’s name Bugaz: “Pobugazim”. This became a kind of rallying cry for the group of like-minded people working on the first issue. In moments of despair or boredom, there would always come the suggestion, maybe we’ll work on Bugaz? What do you think? And after an epic action or active merriment at ourselves, it would always be summed up with the expression, now that’s how we “Pobugazili”.

I’m not calling on you to “make Bugaz”, but to be angry, despair, lose, have fun, and give yourself over to “St. Vitus’s dances” together is undoubtedly more pleasant. Bugaz is the welcoming summer atmosphere of a resort town, where different voices sound like the hope for new company in the evening.

Bugaz adheres to principles of inclusivity and equal opportunities, supporting people regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, age, or social status.

We strive to form a platform for meaningful discussions, even when they cause discomfort, even when they are marginalized, questioning established norms and making audible those whose opinions traditionally remain beyond the bounds of public attention. At the center of our work is fellowship with authors and themes located on the periphery of public discourse, where we defend their right to be heard and participate in public dialogue on equal terms.

You can publish new texts, as well as already written and previously published ones that you would like to republish.

I will be glad for any response from you — whether it’s confirmation of participation, questions, or simply an exchange of ideas. Send your texts or questions to bugazpublication@gmail.com

Respectfully,

Harri Kraievets