Gopal Mikhailovsky – about the abandoned world of shows, the pursuit of science excellence and the Roma Names
Now Gopal Mikhailovsky with the portal 15min welcomes from the University of Hungary, where he studies cultural heritage. The interviewee believes that the knowledge gained here helps to destroy a lot about the Roma community in Lithuania.
– Gopals, more than five years have passed since your debut on TV. You’ve shone on stage, but you’re out of the world of entertainment. Who made such a turn?
– I’m not lost anywhere, I live my life. Withdrawal from television was driven by a long period of pandemic and my own choice to continue studying abroad.
In fact, television has never been my main goal. My aspiration is to win a television project and make money so I can study. Although I did not win the project, the knowledge gained in it did not disappear anywhere.
But to get on TV, you need contacts, production and motivation. That’s what I didn’t have. I have withdrawn my offers of cooperation and I am very pleased with this decision. I am delighted with my current consequences and what I am doing today.
If I could help the development of art culture and welfare policy on television now, why not come back? This conversation of ours is because people also want to know what I do. And right now I’m studying (smiling).
– You have completed your bachelor’s studies in Lithuania. What seduced a master’s degree to pursue abroad?
– The desire to acquire knowledge and experiment helped to create a better state of Lithuania. Lithuania to offer preparatory rom programs. I also think there are differences in employment opportunities due to the higher value of the diploma.
Although today I think it is not the diploma and not the institution that matters. I don’t think a diploma speaks for a person. I was not bought by scholarships offered by foreign universities. I was led here with a youthful vigor and a desire to improve. I wanted to go out to gain new perspectives, see and meet other people in the culture. I didn’t want to sit in one place. So I left, met new people, and new paths and plans for the future opened up.
– You have obtained a diploma in classical vocals in Lithuania, and now you are studying cultural heritage. Wondering why you chose non-music sciences this time around?
– The music has never run away from me, I do not abandon it. I have a musical activity in Hungary. I attend private singing lectures with perfect vocals. I am also currently invited to perform an opera.
Nevertheless, already in Lithuania, I worked alongside music on issues of national minorities. My path as a human being and an artist was very much determined by Roma culture. The label of the Roma is attached to Lithuanian politics, so it was interesting to see how I, as an artist, can raise awareness in Lithuania about a different approach to the Roma. That is what I went for. I’m glad life leads me in more ways than one.
While working as a music teacher in Lithuania, I interacted a lot with people of Roma culture, and we paid a lot of attention to social and cultural education. In fact, I studied myself. While working, I discussed unfair, correctable rules. The Department of Work Experience and the Roma Community Center encouraged me to study because, as an opera singer, I was able to achieve a reduction in discrimination with my songs. I want to find a way to allow all nationalities to live in harmony under one sun.
– You mentioned that in Lithuania you were discriminated against on the grounds of ethnicity due to stereotypes. How did it come about?
– Discrimination is not just about me. The fact that I have experienced it and still do. At the level of both work and simple jokes.
Studies show that even 58. would not want to live with the Roma in a common neighborhood. Also, many would not want to work with the Roma. Consequently, there are negative attitudes towards Roma people.
I am no exception. When I say that I am a Roma, it resonates with certain spectra of possibilities – what I can get, what I can gain in that field, compared to the same Lithuanian.
Being a Roma, you suffer, but don’t always live discriminated against. We should look at it positively – what can we do to change that?
– What would be your answer to this question?
– In order to find nations in Lithuania and to live in a harmonious way, nations should improve their existing initiatives and try to look for newer ways of common dialogue and seeing Lithuania as diverse. I hope that after returning to Lithuania I will be able to make changes.
– Let us return to the topic of current sciences. What conditions at the Central European University met you as a freshman? Were they very different from Lithuania?
– The conditions here surprised me. However, I cannot compare it with everyone else in Lithuania, because I think I can do it everywhere, and I have experience only with the infrastructure of the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theater. I lived there in a non-renovated dormitory, I had no privacy because I have lived for three each. And privacy, especially for an artist, is extremely important because you’re often tired of wanting to be with you.
In Hungary, I study at a private university, so the conditions here are quite different. The dormitory in Budapest has all the possibilities for studies – computer classes, learning laboratories, libraries … Such spaces inspire learning.
Despite the modern conditions that exist here, I do not want to underestimate my past academic institutions. The ironing mechanism is not just black or white.
– And how do you assess the quality of science in Lithuania?
– I could only comment on the academy in the most beautiful words. The professors were amazing, they were dedicated to their beloved work. The human connection has redeemed the financial aspects. Contact with the teachers, their mouth-to-mouth musical heritage was close. Until now, I remember my first teachers – Virginia Noreika, Algirdas Januta …
Overall, I think Lithuania is making a big difference in terms of better student provision. The state is trying to combat the consequences of the Soviet legacy. A period of 30 years of freedom is too short for us to have the same conditions as Germany or France.
– You went to Budapest to study at the beginning of the pandemic, and since then time has passed. Isn’t Lithuania longing?
– Near Budapest, he won my heart, but I always miss Lithuania. For me, Lithuania is a country I love. Here I grew up, here I have my friends, here I speak my own language. This is my country where I want to live and contribute to its well-being. I want it to be on the same rung as the world’s leading countries. Of course, without losing your identity or your values.
– Does this mean we can expect you to return to your home country?
– Next year I will have a diploma and plan to pursue a higher academic qualification, I intend to become a doctor of science. I think that doctoral studies could be studied in Lithuania.
Returning to Lithuania does not depend on pragmatic planning. I have ideas for what I want to achieve, then my further plans are to fulfill those ideas. If I find a niche in Lithuania, I can implement my plan, then Lithuania will be a wonderful excuse to return. However, there are several other European countries on my list of priorities.
– You talk about future plans that are really inspiring, you are eager to change some established things. But among all these activities, do you remember remembering the music that brought you this stage of life?
– It is impossible that there is no music left in my life. Music is me, it’s my inner powerful part, I’m extremely identified with it. I have sacrificed my life for this plane. It is very dear to me, I feel grateful. Also, I won’t forget my music teachers.
As I mentioned, I continue to improve my vocal art so that I don’t forget what I already have. Nostalgia for music accompanies me at every step of life, it is always together. when I often remember musical works, I sing or hum them. I support the form, but I have no plans to enter the operating world one hundred percent, at least for now.