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By Asia Khairetdinova
Time is merciless... Who remembers Anna Marlie today? Yet there was a time when her courageous marches, anthems and songs inspired thousands of people, could be heard on the radio every day, carried hope and faith. raised armies to the battle. General Charles de Gaulle, who headed the anti-Hitler coalition, said about Anna: "Bu her talent Anna Marlie created weapons for France". Marlie is the author of a large series of songs, one of which - "March of Guerillas" became the anthem of the struggle for liberation. Anna Marlie was declared "The Troubadour of Resistance", she received France's high awards - the National Order of Merit, the Order of the Legion of Honor and a gold medal. In Russia her name is not known at all. This country did not hear her wonderful songs full of light and optimism, does not know how great her love for her home country was.
Anna Marlie, is a pseudonym of Anna Betulinskaya, born into the family of the gentry, in whose family tree comprises many celebrities, including Mikhail Lermontov, a hero of the war of 1812 ataman Platov, Prime Minister Stolypin, philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev. The year of her birth was 1917. A year after the death of her father in the prisons of the Bolshevik regime, her mother with two little daughters left for France. Like most of the Russian emigrants, the family badly needed money. But many of the troubles luckily missed her child's mind, not darkening her natural vivacity.
The talented girl studied singing at a French conservatoire and takes lesson of composition from Sergei Prokofiev shortly before his return to Russia. At the studio of the celebrated Kshessinskaya she mastered the language of the ballet. At 19 she appeared with "The Russian Ballet of Paris" and passed the competition exams to the Society of Authors and Composers. At 20 Anna Marlie received the title of the Russian Beauty. She and her guitar were welcome guests wherever she appeared. Maurice Chevalier and Marlain Dietrich asked her to write songs.
World War Two... The Nazi troops invaded Paris. Anna Marlie went to London where anti-Nazi headed by General de Gaulle get together. She performed in front of soldiers, sailors and pilots at the theater of British Armies. Then she appeared at the BBC radio station. There she created her cycle of Resistance Songs: "Our Paris", "Madlon", "A Small Promenade", "Courage". Anna Marlie wrote: "In my mind I'm with Russia. As never before I feel myself a Russia. In one breath, as a cry of the heart, the penetrating and mobilizing song "Guerilla March" is being born inside me. I whistle the tune, sing and can see these fighters for freedom, Russians, French and British fighters for freedom... In this way this song was born in a matter of one night, in the winter of 1942 in the depth of England, among those who were leaving for the battle, risking their lives."
"Guerilla March" was written in Russian. After a while its French version appeared. Its music became the call signs of the French clandestine radio. Later it was recorded and broadcast by the BBC in eight languages. "Guerilla March" was sung by the whole fighting France.
The long-awaited victory came. Anna Marlie returned to Paris and saw her portraits everywhere and heard her songs in the streets. Those were the days of fame. On June 17, 1945, she sang for de Gaulle's Staff and the Paris elite. "A choir of 180 people standing in tiers reproduced in color the French national three-color flag. I am alone in front of them with my guitar, I am no more than a grain of sand on this huge stage. It's strange but I feel neither fear, nor embarrassment. At first the choir sang marches, then I sing "The Call of Guerillas", "The Anthem of Liberation", "Marseillaise". The whole hall stands up in a body and sing "An Anthem to Freedom". I can see my mother, sister and nurse sitting in the first row. The nurse comes from Novgorod Region, she abandoned everything she had in her village in order to follow us in emigration, and now she is present at the moment when her nursling is at the height of fame. The tears of joy are rolling down her cheeks..."
Then came the appearances in the huge movie hall of Gaumon-Palace, and in the ceremony on the esplanade of the House of Invalids, where Anna Marlie rose to a rostrum against the background of banners of all the allies sand military songs with her natural gusto and Marshal Montgomery says to her: "Do you know that my soldiers sang your songs in the desert?", and Lady Diana attaches a diamond brooch to her blouse. The radio broadcasts a series of the singer's memoirs, illustrating them with songs. Her friends - Pompidou, Malreau and Mtterand - applauded to her. Anna set out on a tour with concerts. In Rio de Janeiro she met her future husband, Yuri Smirnov.
Today Anna Marlie lives near Boston in the United States, She lives an intensive artistic life: appears in concerts, writes new songs and anthems, leads a choir of Negro boys, writes the continuation of her book of reminiscences. Her eternal motto is the call in one of her songs: "My heart, be on fire, always be on fire". It remains to express our great gratitude for her talent, for her songs, which finally have come to Russia .
 
 Contribution from our staff writer Olga Rusanova
"I love art even stronger than virtue. I'm addicted to it incurably, like a sot to vodka. Whenever I stay and whatever I indulge in or admire, I always nurture visions of it in the most closely guarded depths of my self".
These are words from a letter by the great Russian painter Ilya Repin who in his field is held in the same esteem as Alexander Pushkin in literature. August the 5th marked 155 years since his birth.
Decades of Repin's creative work (he lived to 86) produced a string of portraits of many of his contemporary luminaries including the authors Tolstoy, Gogol, Turgenev, Gorky, Pisemski, Fet, Stasov and Andreyev, the composers Glinka, Musorgski, Borodin, Rimski-Korsakoff, Glazunov and Lyadov, the painters Surikov, Kramskoi, Vasnetzov and Kuindzhi, the scientists Mendeleyev, Pavlov and Sechenov, the psychiatrist Bekhterev, the surgeon Pirogov and the art collector Tretyakov.
Ilya Repin is best known for his historical paintings, such as 'Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan on November 16 1581' (a bloody scene of a Tzar killing the Crown Prince) and "Cossacks in Zaporozhye Writing a Letter to the Sultan of Turkey', and social panoramas, such as "A Procession of the Cross in the Region of Kursk", where you can see guards using sticks and whips to drive shabbily dressed people away from a revered icon surrounded by the more well-heeled. In his famous 'Barge Haulers on the Volga' you can clearly discern individual faces in a crowd of labourers at hard work.
Repin's pictures are known to almost everyone in this country, if only from numerous reproductions in primary school textbooks. Fact of his biography, however, are not part of common knowledge. Places where he lived and worked are now in separate sovereign states. Born in Kharkov (Ukraine), he studied and spent most of his life in St Petersburg (Russia) and owned a small estate in Zdravnevo near Vitebsk (Belarus).
Details from Valeri Shishakov, curator of the Repin Museum in Zdravnevo: "In 1892, Repin's 'Cossacks' were bought by Emperor Alexander the Third at an exhibition in St Petersburg. The painter decided to use the proceeds to acquire a country retreat and bought Zdravnevo after rejecting options outside the capital. People say he was struck by the wild beauty of the rapid and turbulent river Dvina when he first arrived here on May 1st. Without much bargaining, he laid out a handsome 12 thousand imperial roubles for a package which included a decrepit mansion with outhouses, 270 acres of land with some forest and ploughfields and 40 cattle. The mansion became a small fairy tale castle after several years of reconstruction guided by Repin blueprints."
The year 1999 saw the rebirth of this castle from ashes after a blaze 5 years before. An alley of lime trees, where the painter used to walk, is alive and well. So is an old branchy pine tree, which can be seen on many Repin canvasses. There is also a long rectangular pond, which he dug out as part of his exercises in landscaping. He extended these exercises to the river Dvina, where we can still see what remains of an embankment of boulders and gravel.
Repin described his life in Zdravnevo in a letter to the arts critic Stasov on July 22 1892: "I live here like an ancient Greek from the 'Odyssey'. My only work is with spade to turn earth and stones. Sisyphus often comes to my mind. I also wish I was Antheus with his miraculous ability to derive strength from earth. This would rebuild me from my bodily ruin in St Petersburg."
The daily cycle of his "primitive existence" in Zdravnevo usually started at 4 or even 3 in the morning. In a letter to the daughter of Leo Tolstoy, he writes about his impressions from harvesting and threshing grain, mowing grass and tilling vegetable gardens.
In Zdravnevo, Repin started to wield his powerful brush in the open air, creating a series of landscapes and portraits which ended up in museums from Finland to France and from the Czech Republic to the United States. The works from this period include 'A Byelorussian Man' (the Russian Museum in St Petersburg), 'An Autumn Bouquet' (the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow) and 'Moonlit Night' (the National Museum in Minsk). 'An Autumn Bouquet' is a portrait of Repin's daughter Vera painted in the surroundings of a fading and yellowing orchard outside the main house in Zdravnevo. Pavel Tretyakov, the collector, snatched the picture without bargaining. He knew he had a masterpiece before him.
'A Byelorussian Man' is an open-air portrait of a handsome young lad leaning against the handrail of a bridge. The actual model was a certain Sidor Shavrov, a local peasant with whom Repin made friends. He was on a friendly footing with the community around despite a class barrier that could not be ignored.
Curator Valeri Shishanov again: "On St Elijah's Day (August 2 Gregorian style) there were fireworks, music, dancing and lavishly laden tables for guests which usually included commoners from a village nearby. In 1918, a year after the Bolshevik takeover, the local Peasants Committee saved the Repins still in Zdravnevo from repression and expropriation under revolutionary decrees. Members, often destitute, readily donated food to keep the family alive.
The Zdravnevo period came to an end in 1901. Repin moved to Kuokkala near St Petersburg where he lived until 1930. He met his death and was buried there. In Zdravnevo, the family of his daughter Tatyana lived on. The surviving descendants of that family are now in France.
Having undergone comprehensive reconstruction, the Repin Museum in Zdravnevo is bracing to reshape itself into a major tourist attraction for art lovers from far and wide. It's a place where you can enjoy landscapes that the great painter Repin committed to canvass and oil.
 
 
THE 21-ST MOSCOW INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL EPILOGUE
 
From the 19-th through the 29-th of July Moscow hosted its traditional international film festival held on a biannual basis. This one was the 21-st. The word "festival" derives itself from the Latin "festum" which means "holiday". This word suits perfectly to describe the Moscow event. Here are just a few figures that give a true picture of the scale of the festival. More than 200 films were shown in Moscow cinema halls over 10 days. Half of them Russian, the rest came from dozens of countries in all parts of the world. To pick up candidates for the main show the selection board watched about 2000 films - over one third of the world's annual film output. The organizers strove as hard as they could to expand the festival's geography and avoid sliding towards a mere fashion show by presenting a whole variety of styles and genres. The main program consisted of 17 films with debuts and works by little known yet promising film-makers prevailing.
The best director prize was awarded to August Gudmundsson from Iceland for "The Dance", an ethnographical film telling about life and traditions on the Faroe archipelago in the Atlantic. Both the jury and audiences were equally enthralled by exotic landscapes, wonderful music and choreography used in the film. The victory may become a springboard for Gudmundsson's rise to notoriety. Another of the festival's awards went to the film "Fara" by the Kazakh director Abay Karpykov. Farhat Ibrahimov starring as Fara, a kind old fatty capable of dissipating evil, also received the best actor prize. Like Gudmundsson, Karpykov is a bit over 40. Both are talented and original directors, both tend to collaborate with foreign film-makers. "Fara" is a Kazakh-Russian production, while "The Dance" involved cinematographers from Iceland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany and Britain. Perhaps this integration is going to be customary in the 21-st century cinema.
There were twice as many foreign directors and actors attending this year's festival compared to the previous ones. On the whole it's altogether wrong that cinema is divided into "ours" and "foreign", that at colleges Russian and foreign cinema are studied separately, and that the same principle is pursued in TV programs devoted to cinema, because this is by far and away a global and multi-national process.
Another prize-winner of the Moscow festival is "Dilettante", a light and elegant comedy by Pascal Tomas starring Cathrine Fro who got the best actress award.
"Courage Tea" by the Spanish director Antonio Mercero was marked by a special prize for the "condemnation of war and as representing the eternal power of art that can rescue the world". The film is a dramatic story about the evacuation of paintings from the Prado Museum during the civil war in Spain in 1936.
Finally, the Grand-Prix went to "The Lust for Life" by the patriarch of Japanese cinema Kaneto Sindo. This is his third Moscow Grand-Prix. The two previous ones were for "The Bare Island" in 1961 and for "Live Today, Die Tomorrow" in 1971. "The Lust for Life" is a profound reflection on moral values, youth and old age, life and death.
As the main program rolled quitely to its end, thousands of Muscovites flocked into cinema halls to watch "Emprisoned" by Bertoldo Bertolucci , "A Tea With Mussolini" by Dzeffireli , "Happiness" by Solonds Todd and other non-competitive films as well as retrospective shows devoted to famous Russian and foreign directors.
The Moscow premiere of a new film from the Star Wars series by George Lucas shown on the last day of the festival caused a real sensation. One can argue about the quality of the script and actors' performance, but the fact that this is a fantastic sight is beyond dispute. Special effects, computer graphics, technical novelties and all sorts of screen wonders make it a film of the future.
A film festival's program falls into two parts: one for movie-goers, the other for experts. The latter included, apart from news conferences and seminars, a young directors' contest featuring full-time and short films, documentaries and animated cartoons. Though it didn't receive much coverage, many of the works presented for the contest merit attention. President of the Moscow Festival Nikita Mikhalkov hopes to improve the situation next year: "I want to set up a kind of campus for the young, put up tents at a stadium, bring in food, and show the films they made on a big screen with master-classes also held there".
The audicences appeared to have liked some novelties introduced by the organizers, among them night shows grouping several films into one program, for example "The Night of Latin American Cinema".
The participants in the inernational cinema market that took place during the festival decided to create an European Cinema center in Moscow. France was especially keen on the project. With this festival barely over, preparations have already been launched for the next one to be held in two years. Many world movie stars have got interesting plans connected with Russia. For one, Vanessa Redgrave has been offered the main role in the film "Donna Qixota". The script was written by the well-known Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko. Another of the festival's guests, French actor Pierre Richard will probably star in a new film by Nikita Mikhalkov and script-writer Rustam Ibragimbekov to be shot in the Azeri capital Baku. The details are being kept secret. Claus-Maria Brandauer has been invited to play the part of Lenin in the adventure drama "Faith, Hope, Blood" by Marina Dubrovina. The Italian director Dario Argento whose thriller "The Opera Ghost" was shown during the Moscow festival, which was his first, announced that he would make his next film in Russia.
The honored guest of the festival, French movie idol Alain Delon was granted a special prize for his contribution to the world cinema.  

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