MUSICIAN - A CITIZEN OF
THE WORLD OR A CITIZEN OF HIS COUNTRY?
By N. Yakhontova
October 1st is International Music day established by UNESCO in 1975.
Each year it is celebrated with traditional concerts featuring best soloists
and ensembles. The program includes best pieces of the world music heritage.
Back in 1975 the 20th century Russian classical composer Dmitry Shostakovich,
one of the initiators of International Music Day, issued an open address
to musicians of the world. For one he said: "Even in their everyday
speech people use many music terms such as tactical conduct, rhythmic work,
a harmoniously developed person. Music opens up new horizons and performs
a noble mission to promote the unity of nations".
The idea of unification and a single cultural space is hovering in
the air on the threshold of the new millennium, affecting the lives of
musicians. The well-known US pianist Van Clibern believes that Mistislav
Rostropovich, whose turbulent creative and public activity embraces a great
number of states, is a true man of the world". In the middle of the
1970s Rostropovich and his wife, opera signer Galina Vishnevskaya were
forced to leave Russia. The then Soviet leadership actually deported them
for political reasons. Many other Russian musicians emigrated to the West.
So, perhaps, "a man of the world" is a forced title? But how
about the famous "Russian Seasons" organized by the famous Russian
entrepreneur Sergey Dyagilev. How about Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova
whose grand tours in the 1910s glorified the Russian ballet and gave impetus
to the development of ballet art across the world. Finally, how about Petr
Tchaikovsky who at the end of last century was given a rousing welcome
in Czechia, Britain and the United States. No one deported them. They were
free-lance artists, free citizens of the world.
The world-famous violinist Vadim Repin was born in Siberia. For the
past 12 years he has been living in France where he spends three days a
month between tours. He has just finished his first grand concert tour
of Russian cities. In Soviet times he would've been rejected as an outcast.
But now it's all different.
As he carves out his international career, Repin still believes that
his real home is in Russia, in Moscow and Novossibirsk. He says that when
he feels that when his concert schedule is too tiresome for him and that
it's preferable to spend more time in one place, he is sure that this will
be Russia.
Another Russian celebrity is composer Rodion Schedrin. For more than
a decade he has been living in Munich, Germany. He is also very fond of
Lithuania and has a house there. Schedrin is a frequent guest in Russia.
In 1997 Moscow hosted a festival of his music. The composer once admitted
that he liked the business atmosphere of the West. He has many commissions
abroad.
"I consider myself a Russian. I think in Russian, I was brought
up on Russian culture, and I don't want to change anything in that side
of my life, even if I settle on Tierra del Fuego".
Music requires no translation. Its language is understood by people
of all nationalities. But a musician - who is he? A citizen of the world
or an adherent of his national culture? The two notions should, probably,
be united into one. A musician is a free man brining his national culture
and his talent to the whole world .
THE MASTER OF EPIC CINEMA
(the 80th anniversary of the birth of Sergei Bondarchuk)
By V. Berezin
On September 25 the outstanding Russian actor and film director Sergei
Bondarchuk would have turned 80.
An man of great talent, Bondarchuk experienced fantastic rises and
disappointing falls. He is, to some extent, a typical "hero"
of his time and the Soviet regime that molded his philosophic outlook.
Yet, his powerful gift expanded and sometimes swept away the borders set
by communist ideologists in domestic cinema.
Bondarchuk was born in a Ukrainian village in 1920. At the age of 17
he made his debut as an actor, then received 
professional
training in Moscow, at the State Institute of Cinematography. Many years
later he would become its leading professor and absolute authority for
students and colleagues. Bondarchuk's post-student career started from
scratch. He even had no place to live and slept in the director's study
at the Maxim Gorky film studio.
In 1948 Bondarchuk played a leading part in his diploma film "The
Young Guard"... And in 1952 the film "Taras Shevchenko"
about the classical Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko brought him the title
of the People's Artist of the USSR. Having seen the film, the then Soviet
leader Jozeph Stalin was very pleased and called Bondarchuk a truly people's
artist. The next day he was conferred the highest title a Soviet actor
could ever hope for. "Taras Shevchenko" won him international
recognition and a prize at a film festival in Karlovy Vary. Bondarchuk's
debut as a film director was also a success. His "The Fate of a Man"
(1959), an adaptation of Mikhail Sholokhov's story about the hardships
survived by a Soviet Army soldier during World War II, took the Grand-Prix
at the Moscow International Film Festival. Bondarchuk quickly found his
niche. He is best known as a master of epic cinema. The destinies of a
whole nation and the drama of individuals portrayed in his films look equally
expressive and convincing.
In the 60s Bondarchuk made "War And Peace", a monumental
4-part epic based on Leo Tolstoy's famous novel, in which he himself stars
as Pierre Bezukhov. The plot centers around the battle near Borodino during
the Russian-French war of 1912. Spectacular battle scenes involve 15 thousand
men. Uniforms and costumes are exact copies of 19th century clothes. In
1967 "War And Peace" won an Oscar, the top prize awarded by the
US Cinema Academy.
In the early 90s Bondarchuk signed a contract with an Italian firm
for a screen adaptation of Mikhail Sholokhov's novel "And Quiet Flows
The Don". The work was nearly over when October 24, 1967, brought
news about Bondarchuk's death.
Here is a short posthumous interview composed of some of his remarks
made in different years.
Which of the numerous episodes of "War And Peace" do you
like best?
"May be it's the Fire of Victory, when the winners and losers
get together around a fire. This is sort of a finale ending the war theme".
How can you briefly define the relationship between literature and
cinema?
"Writer Sholokhov once saw the eyes of an actor on the screen
and said: "It took several pages to describe that, and in cinema one
scene says all".
How do you view the future of Russia?
"This country survived the times of trouble and was on the brink
of collapse, but each time it found strength to revive, because, as Leo
Tolstoy put it, the life of the people flows its own course, often irrespective
of actions by politicians".
What's your favorite season?
"Autumn. In autumn I always feel well, both spiritually and physically.
Strangely enough, my soul is blooming, while nature is fading. Autumn air
is pure and transparent. Perhaps, my love for autumn is connected with
in September 1. A new school year meant a new life, so different from summer.
Or perhaps, it's because I was born in autumn".
COMMEMORATING THE 105th BIRTH ANNIVERSARY
OF SERGEY YESENIN
By V. Zherdeva
On October 3 we are marking a memorable date in Russian literature
- the 105th anniversary of the birth of the outstanding Russian poet Sergei
Yesenin. The poet died young, at the age of 30, but the imprint he left
on Russian poetry was so profound that neither the attempts of some of
his contemporaries to downplay his talent, nor the ideological bans of
later decades could eliminate it. Yesenin's poems devoted to Russian nature
and the Persian series have become classics of Russian and world literature.
Thick and slightly curly hair, large light-blue eyes, the starched
collar of a white shirt and a fancy satin ribbon instead of a tie - such
was Sergei Yesenin as he appears on one of his best-known photos, dated
1919. A dandy of the early 20th century, a beau and a lady-killer but with
a sad and tired look in his eyes.
Contemporaries
had different opinions about the poet. Some praised him as the greatest
lyric poet of his time and a singer of eternal youth. Others censured him
as a drunkard and hooligan and dismissed his poetry as gibberish. What
kind of person was Yesenin?
"The life and death of Sergei Yesenin remain one of the most mysterious
phenomena in 20th-century Russian literature," says the researcher
of the poet's work, Doctor of Philology Lyubov Zakopskaya. "His personal
tragedy was like that of many other people caught between two epochs, living
during great historical changes. According to recollections of the famous
Russian writer Alexei Tolstoy, who acted on many occasions as the poet's
patron, Yesenin was all aflame during the revolution but the daily routine
suffocated him, and the last years of his life were in fact a waste of
his talent."
Sergei Yesenin was born in the settlement of Konstantinovo not far
from the old Russian city of Ryazan. He was brought up in the family of
his grandfather, a well-to-do peasant. The boy loved to listen to his grandfather
singing folk songs for him and indulged in Russian tales as told by his
grandmother. For his lyrical verses the young poet drew on the Holy Scripture
and folk poetry. This may account for the melodious character of his poems,
many of which were set to music.
Yesenin received an excellent education. He studied at Moscow People's
University meant for young people of common origin. As a student he began
to read books by Anatole France, Edgar Poe, Longfellow and Oscar Wilde.
He admired such Russian poets as Pushkin, Lermontov, Blok and Klyuev. He
was very young when his lyrical poems brought him literary fame. As a master
of short poetic forms, he remains unrivaled in Russian literature. His
poetry breathed, as he put it, one great love for his motherland. This
love embraced all - nature, peasant life, philosophical meditation - and
launched the young poet on his literary career.
"Yesenin came in contact with representatives of different literary
trends: symbolists, decadents, imaginists. But he never felt at home with
them," continues literary critic Lyubov Zakopskaya. "The narrow
ideological tenets of literary groups restricted his talent. But it was
next to impossible to achieve recognition on one's own, without connections
and recommendations. The poet used to say jokingly:' I hope one day someone
will like me and help me make a name...' In 1919 the poet came into close
contact with imaginists - proponents of 'free' poetry and anarchy. This
shortly plunged him into a crisis."
The new friends took Yesenin to the most despicable haunts of Moscow.
He became addicted to alcohol and was notorious for the rows he staged
in public. Poet Vladimir Mayakovsky described one of the last meetings
with Yesenin: "I saw a man with a swollen face and disorderly tie.
He and his two suspicious-looking friends reeked of alcohol". The
admiration for the beauty of living in his poetry gave way to the motifs
of degradation and a wasted life. In the last years he wrote about being
a stranger in the world and anticipated an early death. In late 1925 he
suddenly left Moscow for St.Petersburg, saying to his friends that he wanted
to begin a new life.
But instead he committed suicide. This happened in a hotel in St. Petersburg
in the early hours of December 28, 1925.
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