MARKING THE 75th BIRTH
ANNIVERSARY OF YURI TRIFONOV
By literary critic Natalia Ivanova
Bulky, slightly stooping, with a heavy pale face and tired look, Yuri
Trifonov looked slightly apathetic, and his bearing was pointedly calm
and seemingly indifferent. But this outward impassivity concealed inner
strength. This is the portrait of the o
utstanding
Russian writer as remembered by people of his generation. Now it's about
two decades since the writer's death. During these years a great number
of changes have taken place in this country. But the message of Trifonov's
work can be destroyed by neither time nor regime. It had its point in Soviet
times and continues to have it nowadays. In many European countries and
the United States his work is a required subject in the departments of
Slavic literature.
Yuri Trifonov's prose may serve as a university course on Soviet civilization.
In his novel "The House on the Embankment", he describes the
life of high-ranking government officials of Stalin's time, who live in
an elite house on the embankment of the Moskva River. His other novels,
"Time and Place", "Another Life", "A Long Parting",
"Change", also reflect his time. As a writer, Trifonov never
belonged to any literary trends or groups. He created a kind of "alternative
literature" inside official Soviet prose. In his work he looked up
to Chekhov and Dostoevsky and idolized Babel, Platonov, Bulgakov and Hemingway,
which was not always in line with the generally accepted.
Yuri Trifonov created a world of his own. When you open a book of his
you find yourself in this world and stop noticing that this is literature.
This world is inexhaustible, it engulfs you. And you know this is what
fine prose is all about.
Trifonov's prose developed in the years of total censorship, and many
racked their brains over the riddle why Yuri Trifonov was ever published
at all: everything he wrote was directed against the regime, or as Trifonov
specified, against "the bitterness of life, the injustice of fate,
the ordinary daily horrors which we tolerate and live with". More
than that, in the 70s the authorities decided to hold the writer as an
official symbol of the freedom of creative work in the Soviet Union, as
a showcase for the West. The literary critic Leonid Bakhnov writes that
"judging by Yuri Trifonov's diaries, this role weighed heavy on the
writer, yet he agreed to participate in what he described as "games
in the twilight". Apparently, this strange role had to do with one
of the main features of his prose - the implied message, which Yuri Trifonov
regarded as a great force. Small wonder that the writer's work aroused
ideological and intellectual passions.
The writer was constantly attacked by semi-literary circles, which
regarded him as an alien. Ultra-patriots showered him with accusations
that his was city prose, far removed from the national roots. Some critics
and historians insisted that he, the son of a career revolutionary, brought
up in a rich house of the Soviet elite, must not be believed. Yet there
were a great number of favorable reviews by Russian and foreign literary
critics. There was an understanding on the part of his readers for whom
Trifonov used a kind of "Aesopian language". His clever readers
could read between the lines. They had a deeper insight into the message
of Trifonov's works than many critics.
Trifonov's characters are people in the humanitarian professions, often
writers or historians. Sergei Troitsky in the novel "Another Life"
is a historian who works on his own, going to great lengths to find out
facts, which is banned by the authorities and, consequently, dangerous.
His characters often wonder whether it's good or evil to indulge in recollections,
whether people must think of the past. This is the crucial question for
the writer himself. Trifonov used to say that "memory is produced
by conscience and produces what gives the energy to live."
Trifonov believed that the writer must test everything on himself and
did not hesitate to do so. During the peak of his career - from 1969 through
1980 - he worked to the point of exhaustion. Only for his novel "Impatience",
he studied and made abstracts of 450 historical sources. He gave his blood
to his characters. In this sense he was a donor-writer. When we read Trifonov
we liberate ourselves and become stronger .
MOSCOW SPHERE THEATRE OPENS ITS
20TH SEASON
By A. Proschenko
On August 3 Moscow Sphere theatre opened its 20th season. Located in
the Hermitage garden, a kind of theatrical-musical enclave in the center
of Moscow, Sphere is close to the New Opera theatre and the Hermitage drama
theatre. The latter is the traditional venue of music festivals and jazz
shows.
The theatre owes its existence to its manager and artistic director
Yekaterina Yelanskaya. The daughter of the well-known actress of the Moscow
Art theatre Klavdia Yelanskaya and theatre director Ilya Sudakov, she was
an amazing actress. In the 60s she worked at two leading Moscow theatres
- the Maly theatre and the Mayakovsky theatre. From her mother she inherited
talent and charm, from her father she got perseverance and determination,
which played a crucial role in her life.
Yekaterina Yelanskaya says that at a certain stage she took an aversion
to traditional theatrical forms and felt a strong inclination towards a
different kind of theatre she called "sphere". Explaining this
inner change, Yelanskaya recalls the Greek amphitheatre, the famous Shakespear
theatre in which spectators and actors were not separated from each other
by any distance. The so-called "shakespearean" carpet on a crowded
square could, by force of imagination, become a royal palace, a wood, or
whatever you like. Later a cubic theatre emerged, in which spectators watch
at a distance what's happening on the stage.
In the 20-th century many outstanding producers, among them Vsevolod
Meyerhold, rebelled against the cubic form and favored a return to the
Greek-style theatre in which the actor is the dynamic center of the show.
This trend manifested itself in the latest productions by world-famous
directors such as Kama Ginkas (Russia), Peter Stein (Germany) and Declan
Donnelan. The same principle is used by Bergman (Sweden) and Grotowski
(Poland).
The Sphere has a small round stage with scarce settings scattered around
the hall. When two characters talk to each other, sitting on a bench, spectators
can not only see the expression of their faces and eyes, but hear their
breathing and feel their pulse.
"The theatre's spherical shape brings the actors and the audience
very close together", says Yekaterina Yelanskaya. "Often spectators
themselves participate in the show. But this poses some difficulties when
we are on tour, for nowhere we could find a similar ground".
In South Korea the theatre showed "Doctor Zhivago" based
on Boris Pasternak's famous novel. In New York it presented an adaptation
of Vladimir Nabokov's story "King, Dame, Knave". Swedish theatre
lovers saw Shpere's version of "Erich XXY" by Strindberg.
Since the moment of its foundation the theatre put on plays that had
been banned for ideological reasons, among them "A Theatrical Novel"
by Mikhail Bulgakov and "People And Passions" by the classical
Russian poet Mikhail Lermontov, written at the age of 16.
The theatre boasts a wonderful ensemble of actors upholding the best
traditions of the psychological and romantic school of Russian theatre.
All plays have a live music accompaniment .
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