In every era, in every country and in every city, there has always been the richest person. All of these people, having grown enormously rich, have grown old, and have left for another world. They have remained nameless in the memory of mankind.
That is, apart from one man, whose name is still remembered and has become a household word. He was Gaius Maecenas (Gaius Cilnius Maecenas). He was the richest Roman of his time, and a friend of the Emperor Augustus. He is revealed in some detail in the 2005 TV series Rome.
Desiring to support his friend, the Emperor Augustus, and being a patriot of the revival of the greatness of Rome, Maecenas from a spirit of philanthropy, turned his energies to selective financing of the biggest artistic creators of his day, namely Virgil, Horace, Lucretius and Ovid. The philanthropy of Maecenas soon became a permanent, regular award and was remembered. Even when Rome lay in ruins after a series of civil wars, families were wounded by repression, and the former greatness of the Republic was forgotten, the memory of Maecenas lived on. Undoubtedly, Virgil in his "Aeneid" fulfilled a certain ideological order and it is rather unusual that the rich Maecenas lived not on the aristocratic Palatine Hill, but on the Esquiline, just like Virgil. Perhaps they were neighbours, and perhaps Virgil almost every day, showed Maecenas new lines of a gigantic work that is, perhaps Maecenas was his first reader. This is just our guess.
Anyway
Time passed and one and a half thousand years later in France, the niece of Cardinal Mazarini, Maria Mancini, the first and foremost love of Louis XIV’s life, suggested to him to adopt the ideas of Maecenas. At that time, France also lay in ruins and after ten civil wars as well as foreign invasions, but after some years, when the royal treasury was gradually filled, thanks to the wise Colbert, the sun king began from time to time to appoint lifelong royal pensions (that is, annuities) to the most brilliant talents of contemporary French literature, that is Moliere, Corneille, Racine. This move by Louis, along with other moves in politics and economy, gave France that famous chic and status that continues to this day.
Thus, in the entire history of mankind, there are only two precedents for the awarding of annuities to artistic creators in precisely this format.
To Kazakhstan in the present day
Our project has been made possible out thanks to a Maecenas, a Kazakhstani businessman, who is so modest that he wishes to meet with the press only after the judging of the competition, this is so as not to distract the attention of journalists from their literary tasks
The sponsor`s name was kept strictly secret for the first 2 months and has only now been made public to the general public. He found out to be Timur Turlov, the founder and majority shareholder of the investment group Freedom Holding Corp.
On February 14, 2022, on his Facebook and Instagram accounts, he wrote:
"It just so happens that I love to read. Ever since I was a kid. It was for me the most accessible and most "unashamed" way to enjoy and quench natural human curiosity. To this day I "pity" the time I spend watching TV or YouTube, no matter how useful the content is, and yet I spend almost two hours a day on average (I looked at the screen time statistics on my phone) reading just books. Useful and not so useful.
When Yerlan Askarbekov told me that he has a dream to create a literary award for the best contemporary novel about Kazakhstan, I responded with pleasure. We decided to make a product with our life insurance company and give the winner a voluntary lifetime pension annuity of the equivalent of $500 per month.
Why is this important?
Because by the example of our business, I know for sure that there are a lot of talented people in Kazakhstan who are able to create the best products and services in the world.
It is the writers who can help formulate the national idea and cultural code. It is better to communicate the important thing that unites us (and not just divides us). The same thing, biz birgemiz!
It is writers who develop their language and take it to new heights.
And now, when we have so many young people, as we have almost never had, we especially lack strong works. Both in Russian and in the state language.
I am sure that our outstanding writers have not been left behind.
To build a strong and independent state, society needs those who will help find the meanings without which no goal can be achieved.
See the terms and conditions and share the link mecenat.kz , try your hand. Nothing disciplines us and helps to put things in order in our heads like writing texts. Even if you`re not a writer"
