Entertainment, Arts and Culture

Le Monde: the French are sharply interested in Russian literature

Le Monde: interest in Russian and Ukrainian authors has grown sharply in France.

MOSCOW, May 10 - RIA Novosti. Demand for works by Russian and Ukrainian writers has jumped in French bookstores, writes Le Monde.

“In recent weeks, all of Dostoevsky’s writings have moved from the shelves to the windows of French bookstores. The same thing happened with the works of Tolstoy, Gogol, Bulgakov, Grossman, Pushkin, as well as contemporary Russian and Ukrainian writers,” the publication says.
As noted in the publication, booksellers talk about the keen interest of customers in this region in the context of the situation in Ukraine.

"Readers are asking for books that will help them understand (the origins of the crisis in Ukraine . - Approx. ed.)," said Natalia Tyurina , owner of the Globe bookstore.

Russian films are replacing Hollywood, by Olga Andreeva for VZGLYAD. 12.13.2023.

Over the past two years, a real revolution has occurred in Russian film distribution. Foreign blockbusters, which until recently were the most popular films in Russia, have given way to Russian films. The reason for this was the state policy on the development of cinema, Western sanctions and a number of other circumstances.

By November 2023, the total box office (grossings) of Russian cinemas amounted to 35 billion rubles. The Ministry of Culture, however, believes that by the end of December it will be possible to earn all 40 billion, since there are several significant premieres ahead. The last figure is extremely important for Russian cinema owners. This is where their break-even existence begins. If there is no 40 billion, cinemas are losing money. In the “fat” year of 2019, the total box office of Russian cinemas amounted to an enviable 55.5 billion rubles. But after pandemic restrictions and sanctions, 40 billion is already a victory.

However, the good news is not even that the box office is showing a confident trend of returning to pre-pandemic levels. The biggest achievement of the year was something else: the bulk of the income - 25.1 billion rubles - came from the distribution of Russian-made films.

Back in the 2000s, all domestic distribution was strictly focused on Western content. Hollywood and Europe supplied the Russian market with an inexhaustible stream of blockbusters, in comparison with which the production of domestic cinema was clearly inferior. Thus, the decade of the 2000s brought viewers only two Russian blockbusters: “Night Watch” (449.6 million rubles) and “Day Watch” (888 million rubles) - their box office receipts were close to those of Hollywood blockbusters. In 2011, the Profcinema portal bitterly admitted the sad fact: Russian audiences prefer to watch Western films.

However, at the turn of the decade, events occurred that radically changed the prospects for Russian cinema. At the end of 2009, the activities of the Cinema Fund, which formally existed since 1995, but eked out an inconspicuous life on the outskirts of the Russian film process, were sharply updated. The government decree approved a new version of the foundation's charter and a new range of its tasks.

From that moment on, the Cinema Fund became one of the key state sponsors of film production. Until 2010, the amount of support for the film process varied within 2.45 billion rubles. In 2010, it doubled and amounted to more than 4.9 billion rubles. Throughout the past decade, the volume of investments in cinema has grown steadily, reaching almost 9 billion rubles by 2018. This was immediately reflected in the movie poster.

From 2010 to 2020, ten Russian blockbusters were filmed, whose box office grosses exceeded 1.5 billion rubles. Three Russian films confidently entered the top 10 of the Russian box office of the decade, and two of them – “Slave” and “Moving Up” – topped the rating, receiving box office 3.178 and 3 billion rubles, respectively.

But even this success did not lead to a significant increase in the share of Russian cinema at the box office. Back in 2011, the then Minister of Culture Alexander Avdeev, not without bitterness, stated that the share of American cinema in our box office remained between 75-80%. In ten years the situation has not changed significantly. The share of Russian film products has fluctuated between 14% and 28% over the course of ten years, amounting to only 22.8% in 2020. Russian cinema needed, as they say, time to accelerate.

However, the trend has already formed. Perhaps not as quickly as we would like, but the growth in the number of Russian releases on the playbill continued confidently. “The share of domestic films at the box office increased from 14% to 30%, this was done in ten years, as they say in the film industry, in three filming cycles, on average about three years,” Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin proudly noted in December 2021. But this 30% was still far less than half of the rental content.

By the beginning of the SVO, “our film industry turned out to be extremely vulnerable to the coordinated policies of US and European studios,” says film critic and jury member of international film festivals Daria Mitina. The sanctions that began, among other things, hit our cinemas hard, which, after a victorious 2019, have already suffered one blow during the pandemic. In the spring of 2022, the five largest Hollywood film studios (Universal, Warner Bros., Disney, Sony and Paramount) expectedly left the Russian film market. This brought the Russian box office almost to the brink of disaster. The overall market decline after the departure of Hollywood content was 42% compared to 2021. Film box office receipts fell by 17.1 billion rubles to 23.7 billion rubles. From April to September 2022, cinema attendance in Russia fell by 70%, and 166 cinemas announced closure.

However, it was in the difficult year of 2022 that distributors first realized that only Russian film products could really compensate for the loss of Hollywood.

In its 2022 report, the Cinema Fund recorded an increase in the share of domestic films in the total box office to 52.1%, or up to 12.3 billion rubles in absolute values. Thus, for the first time, Russian films collected more than half of the total box office.

In May of this year, the chairman of the Association of Cinema Owners, Alexey Voronkov, expressed hope for the success of Russian cinema. “The association believes and hopes,” he said, “that the unprecedented financial support of film producers from the state will bear fruit by 2025-2026 - and Russian content for cinemas will be able to provide a turnover of 40 billion rubles per year, which is the break-even point.”

This support over the last two or three years has really looked phenomenal. From 2011 to 2020, the number of films whose production was supported by the state ranged from 79 to 38 titles. However, in that very disastrous year for distribution, 2022, a colossal foundation for the future was made - with the support of the state, 406 national films were put into production. The total volume of state support for film production at the end of 2022 amounted to a record 14.9 billion rubles. The Internet Development Institute (ANO IRI), which on a competitive basis distributes government subsidies for the creation of creative digital projects of various formats, including film works, has also become a serious source of funding for film producers.

As a result of all these unprecedented efforts, already in May 2023, the box office of Russian films exceeded the annual figures for the last eight years, said Minister of Culture Olga Lyubimova. Overall, in 2023, the share of Russian cinema in the total market has already  reached a record 70%.

Director of the Cinema Fund Fyodor Sosnov proudly stated at the St. Petersburg International Cultural Forum: “When we say that the fuel for the development of national film distribution, the fuel for the development of national film distribution is Hollywood or major releases, then here is an interesting illustration of what “Can national distribution survive and does this affect its volumes?”

This year, the top lines of the ratings were occupied by two real film masterpieces, which confidently surpassed the American blockbuster “Avatar: The Way of Water” (its box office is 1.2 billion rubles). “Two big Russian films made it to the box office,” says Mitina. – These are the sensationally shot “Cheburashka” and “Challenge”. "Cheburashka" was very expensive to produce - 850 million rubles. And according to recent data, he brought in more than 8 billion rubles. It paid for itself tenfold. This became a record in the entire history of post-Soviet box office. This success can only mean that people want good family movies, and there are few such films.

The second highest-grossing film is “Defiance.” It cost about a billion and grossed approximately 2.5 billion at the box office. Whatever its artistic merits, it is already written in history in golden letters. This is actually the world’s first experience of space filming.”

But the year is not over yet. Five weeks ago, the Russian film “At the Pike’s Command” was released. By the end of November, its box office totaled 2.232 billion rubles, and there is every chance that by the end of the year it will overtake “Challenge”.

By the way, Russian viewers were not left without Western content. The cinemas were helped by the trademark Western hypocrisy. Huge holes very quickly appeared in the harsh sanctions policies of American and European studios, through which a wide stream of new cinema, as usual, flowed into Russia. As a result, both European and even American cinema remained in Russia. For example, based on the results of the first nine months of 2023, three foreign films entered the top 10: the American “John Wick 4”, the French cartoon “Lady Bug and Cat Noir: The Force Awakens” and the British film “Operation Fortune: The Art of Victory”.

“All these terrible boycotts from the West failed,” says Daria Mitina. – Hollywood hasn’t gone away. After the start of the SVO, Europe also actively built a goat’s face and did not sell us anything, but now all our distributors have purchased Cannes, Venice, and Berlin laureates. Everything is shown perfectly. The West is not its own enemy; it will not shoot itself in the foot. The Russian market for Western cinema is too attractive to refuse. The hypocritical new ethics is relevant only as long as it does not interfere with the economy. As soon as economic interest comes into play, then all this hypocrisy like cancel culture disappears. Economic profit is always primary.”

However, we can already say that distributors have drawn conclusions from the collapse of 2022, which put the industry on the brink of survival. “We don’t expect Hollywood to return,” said Olga Zinyakova, president of the Karo cinema chain, in June of this year. “In addition, it is clear that it is unacceptable to be so dependent on one supplier that with one decision he could destroy the entire business.”

According to Zinyakova, the new “distribution foundation and box office driver” will be Russian cinema, for which all marketing strategies for film promotion are urgently changing. “Foreign films are present at the box office, but we must build marketing, allocate funds, space and budgets with an eye to our cinema,” she believes. For the stable existence of the industry, according to the expert’s calculations, “every month there should be one picture released that will collect more than 1 billion rubles based on rental results, plus two major films (with a box office of at least 500 million) and three or four middling films (200–300 million each). )".

In this matter, stable frequency is very important; the success of one “Cheburashka” did not allow the industry to collapse, but is not a guarantee of the future. The state understands this, as evidenced by the growing amounts of state support and the total number of films being put into production.

And the viewer, who has already confirmed that he is quite ready to watch Russian, should closely monitor the releases. Next year, high-profile premieres are expected: a new film adaptation of “The Alpine Ballad” by Vasily Bykov, a third film about Major Thunder, the military drama “Litvyak” and the new “The Master and Margarita” from the creator of “Silver Skates” Mikhail Lokshin.

https://vz.ru/culture/2023/12/13/1242351.html

Russian art has one last chance, by Elena Karaeva for RiaNovosti. 04.29.2024.

Any crisis, especially the current one, where Russia restores justice and establishes geopolitical balance, clears the sinuses of creative and gifted individuals clogged with sinusitis reflection of “fifty shades of gray” and encourages them to think and work in a different coordinate system. Setting for ourselves, first of all, and for our colleagues, and, of course, for the audience, new standards for creative achievements, and just professions.

A necessary clarification is for those creative people whose choice was our country, compatriots, their protection and the interests of the state.

The sudden rise in interest in poetry at the beginning of the Northern Military District was the first signal. And we heard this signal. The instant reaction to what was happening in the SVO zone, “behind the ribbon,” metaphors and rhythm appealed to the heart and soul, and only then to the mind. Emotion, especially the first and immediate one, caught by a sensitive gut, usually turned out to be the most accurate. That is, sincere.

Cinema, purely technologically, could not keep up with this: it was easy to make a film longer - and significantly longer.
But once again: by harnessing slowly, we know how to ride quickly, choosing a precise rhythm and an equally precise pace.

And most importantly: today those who work in cinema have managed to return - or, if you like, revive on our previous foundation - a completely special and exclusively Russian intonation of conversation. With the country, with time and with its heroes.

Probably, the reason for the current reflection could have been found in a more neutral way, which does not raise questions about the bias of the author of this comment and the inclusion of this same author in the resource media mechanism.

But since we are talking about sincerity, then it is ethically correct to go to the end.

On the anniversary of the presenter of Vesti Nedeli (and the general director of the media holding Rossiya Segodnya), his longtime colleague in the creation of television documentaries, Said Medvedev (one eight-episode saga "USSR. The Collapse" is worth it, or the same "Red Project", which they made together with Dmitry Kiselev ) released the film “The Same Kiselev”. This film - through a magnifying glass, in detail, in a clear optical and human focus, without the slightest respect for rank and certainly without pathos at all - showed (and proved) that significant Russian documentary filmmaking has not just returned. She came back to stay.

After all, how was it before? It’s not that documentaries aren’t being produced. The editors worked. But the creative output (aka exhaust, that is, the influence on public opinion and the designation of vectors) was absolutely the same. It was a continuous production - quite high-quality: an interview plus a “picture of events” (this is when the commentary is sometimes “flooded” with suitable archival footage) and, of course, some author’s text. Which for some reason was always read with the same intonations and was even timbre indistinguishable. It could be about any significant event or person, but the scheme was always almost identical.

I don’t know whether I’ll make you sad or happy, but this method of handling and processing the material is in itself a tracing, a copy, a mirror image of what all Western television companies did. Broadcasting from Atlanta, London , or Brussels . It's cheap, it's cheerful in the sense that it "dilutes" film or television broadcasts with something interesting. Filmed, however, for copper money. And lackluster creativity. There is only one reason - lack of sincerity. In a conversation, at least about time, at least about an event, at least about a hero.

Russian documentaries - the one that was once the best in the world, with footage, each of which could cost the lives and fate of the creators, until it was devoured by fans of Western film and television technologies - suggested a completely different approach. Without “pictures,” but with honest to the limit intonation. And that is precisely why that very magic and that very magic arose when the author of the documentary film and his viewer turned out to be both accomplices and hostages - the truth of the characters and the truth of the events that took place in that world and at that time.

If our previous Westernized documentaries for the last 15 years chose a story about time, and the hero’s life was always something like a minor still life against this background, then in Saida Medvedeva’s documentary the main character lives life together with the country. With all the mistakes, illusions, dramas. This is a different world and a different view of the world, when the destinies of a person and his homeland are common. And even when these mistakes are tragic, responsibility for them is also shared. Maybe in different proportions, but it is common.

This is not the effect of presence “in the background of what is happening,” so beloved and so often used in the West.

This is a destiny that is intertwined with time and inseparable from the life of the country. This is the very thing - together and only together - that made our former documentary films a phenomenon in the life of society.

And this is what the film by Saida Medvedeva and her team took and returned to the everyday use of documentary cinema. Now you won’t be able to shoot “like before” anymore.

Between an indifferent “picture”, diluted with an indifferent voice-over commentary, and a story about the hero in such a way that one gets the feeling “damn, we were wrong, we failed, we fell and rose, but together,” the viewer will definitely choose the second.

New stories are waiting for us, or rather, we are waiting for new stories, because the SVO, having returned our documentary films to us, will return - and there is not the slightest doubt - new incredible heroes, building a new world, about which they talk so much, building it sometimes at the cost of their blood and life.

And the “picture-making” is over, because both common ground and common destiny have returned to Russian documentary cinema. Hero and country.

https://ria.ru/20240428/svo-1942808011.html

Slightly older article but it's still good

https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2024/02/01/russias-new-found-love-of-african-art

What's behind Russia’s new-found love of African art?
As Russia’s cultural venues are cut off from exchanges with Europe and the US—and in the wake of President Putin’s Russia-Africa summit—museums are filling the gaps with exhibitions of African art
Sophia Kishkovsky
1 February 2024

African art is booming—in Russia. As the Kremlin has moved to strengthen its trade and diplomatic ties with African countries, rekindling a Soviet soft power campaign on the continent, Russian museums and galleries are pivoting too. The wave of displays is partly filling a gap as culture venues have been frozen out of exchanges with their European counterparts since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Russian-US museum partnerships have been suspended since 2010 due to a dispute over the Schneerson Library of Jewish texts.

The trend mirrors the African art boom of recent years in Europe and the US, but it is also on message with the Kremlin’s evolving foreign policy. Reversed Safari, Russia’s first major exhibition of African art, took place last summer in St Petersburg’s Manege Central Exhibition Hall, with more than 300 works by 49 African and 14 Russian artists. The State Russian Museum, run since April by a Putin loyalist, Alla Manilova, held a concurrent exhibition, Africa in Russian Art. Both shows were associated with Putin’s second Russia-Africa summit held in the city in July. The declaration of the first summit in 2019 had included a pledge to facilitate cooperation in culture, education and tourism, among other areas.

Meanwhile, the international network of “Russkii dom” cultural centres is rapidly expanding in Africa, most recently in Burkina Faso and Chad. The Institute for the Study of War, based in Washington, DC, last month reported concerns raised by Ukrainian officials that the centres, which promote the study of Russian and cultural exchange programmes, are being used to “promote Russian propaganda and conduct ‘subversive work’ abroad”. Though they are often billed as NGOs, they come under the aegis of Rossotrudnichestvo, an agency run by Russia’s foreign affairs ministry that is currently under EU sanctions for “disseminating the Kremlin’s narratives” via “agents of influence”.

Reversed Safari, a pan-African exhibition featuring artists from nearly 20 countries, has been billed as “anti-colonial in its essence”. It moved in October to the State Museum of Fine Arts in Kazan, the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan, where it runs until 4 February.

Some artists, such as Mederic Turay from Côte d’Ivoire, posted on social media about participating in the St Petersburg show. Others, including the Ghanaian sculptor El Anatsui, said they had no idea their works were included, according to the US-funded broadcaster Radio Liberty. Nnenna Okore, an Australian-born Nigerian artist based in Chicago, confirmed to The Art Newspaper that she had not been informed.

The exhibition’s co-curators are Alessandro Romanini, an Italian specialist in African art, and Yulia Aksenova, formerly of the State Tretyakov Gallery and Garage Museum of Contemporary Art. Triumph, a commercial gallery in Moscow with ties to Russia’s elites, is also listed as an organiser. Lis10 Gallery in Paris and Arezzo, Italy, which represents many of the artists, promoted the exhibition on its website and social media.
Concerns over lack of artists’ consent

In an interview with Radio Liberty, the Ukrainian-born art historian (and contributor to The Art Newspaper) Konstantin Akinsha raised concerns over the lack of consent from many of the artists involved, due to their works being sourced from private lenders and Lis10. He described the exhibition as an “amazingly successful propaganda effort” offering “politically correct decorations for Russian intentions in Africa”.

Contacted by The Art Newspaper, Turay says he was motivated to participate in Reversed Safari by the similarities between Africa and Russia and the potential for further cross-cultural collaborations between African and Russian artists. While he recognises that the show could be used for political ends, he says: “It’s not my responsibility as an artist to judge each side, but to have a higher positive statement.”


Ivorian artist Mederic Turay has work in the exhibition Reversed Safari

Triumph Gallery’s co-founder Emelyan Zakharov told the Russian state-owned RIA Novosti news agency that Italian collectors readily loaned works for the exhibition and that “cultural dialogue continues despite all the political difficulties”.

Reversed Safari also features pieces from a collection of traditional African art amassed by the Romanian-born Brazilian photographer Eddy Novarro, who was a friend of Pablo Picasso and other Modern masters. In 2003, Novarro’s Russian widow, Tatiana, transferred the collection to the estate of Vasily Polenov, a revered Russian landscape painter.

Natalia Polenova, Polenov’s great-granddaughter and the director of his museum and former country home in the Tula region, tells The Art Newspaper that the “renaissance of interest in Africa” has been a boon to the Novarro collection. Eighty-six pieces were recently exhibited at the Yaroslavl Art Museum and African sculptures and masks from the collection are on show at the Polenov museum until 14 April.

Late last year, a gallery located within Russia’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Moscow exhibited around 200 works from another single-owner collection of African art with 20th-century roots. Most of the works owned by Marina Schmidt date from 1950-80 and were purchased from Soviet specialists who worked in African countries at the time, according to a press statement.

A Soviet-era collection of Congolese art was the subject of a recent exhibition at Moscow’s State Museum of Oriental Art, focused on the Poto-Poto school of painting. In the summer the museum’s director, Alexander Sedov, also announced plans to open a venue dedicated to African culture in a former Moscow contemporary arts centre that had been shut down for political reasons.

Russia’s official news agency Tass reports that the new museum will advance the “strategic partnership” between Russia and the African continent, looking back at the role of the USSR and positioning Russia today as “its successor in supporting the struggle of African peoples for independence”.

The world is waiting for Russian authors for export, by Igor Karaulov for VZGLYAD. 06.06.2024.

It is necessary to show that Russia is not an impersonal force, it has good, intelligent human faces. And it is very important that modern Russian writers find their place in this gallery.

The assumption that modern Russian literature could become an important component of Russia’s “soft power” abroad is often met with considerable skepticism by today’s official or grant operator.

Well, what is this literature of yours? She is not even popular within the country. Books by living authors are sometimes published in editions of a thousand or even five hundred copies. Twenty thousand is already a huge success. At the same time, movies are watched by millions of people, and songs by popular artists such as Shaman are listened to by tens of millions.

Therefore, when we think about what we should invest money allocated for culture in, we, of course, give preference to mass genres. There, at least, the results of intellectual activity are obvious; they do not then need to be looked for “in the dust in stores where no one took them and no one takes them.”

And if we decide to highlight some literary text in the information field, then again we have to bow to the same mass genres. For example, in order to promote Vlad Malenko’s good and correct poem “Russian Lighthouses,” it was necessary to write a song for it, shoot a high-quality video, and in addition, attract Grigory Leps himself to sing one of the verses. With these crutches of mass genres, you writers can still get somewhere.

What can you say to this? Firstly, the current low circulation is precisely the result of the fact that for decades literature was the stepchild in the family, that it was not seriously pursued, and that even those modest resources that were allocated to literature were farmed out to people far from national interests, but close to narrow party interests. Left to its own devices, the field did not produce “a hundred flowers,” as expected. It is overgrown with monotonous and sometimes poisonous weeds. As a result, it turned out that at a difficult moment, when the Northern Military District began, a number of notable writers did not support their country.

Secondly, if we are talking about books of a high intellectual level, and not about chewing gum about the “psychology of relationships,” then they are designed for the appropriate audience, which is not large. But one of the main differences between this audience is their long memory. This means that books that are remembered by today's readers will influence the reading stratum decades from now, when everyone has forgotten which rappers and pop singers were at the top in 2024. That is, literary policy is a long-term policy.

Thirdly, it is literature that underlies all other types of artistic creativity, it is the source of their meaning.

Fourthly, if our partners in the world expect from us intellectual leadership, or at least such an intellectual contribution that would be commensurate with our geopolitical claims and our economic potential, then this primarily concerns literature. Simply because Russia is known primarily for literary classics, and then for music, theater, etc. Therefore, partners are interested: what is being written today in the country of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky? Is there anything worthwhile?

Today, if we take countries friendly to us, Chinese literature, for example, looks more significant on the international market than ours. The Chinese were able to seriously interest the world in their authors, from the magical realist Mo Yan to the science fiction writer Liu Cixin. What is stopping Russia from turning its literature into effective “soft power”? No names? Or is the promotion system not working well?

Writer German Sadulaev studied how this system works in China and Iran, and came to the conclusion that it would not hurt us to take the best from the experience of these countries. Yes, we have the Translation Institute, which distributes grants for the translation of Russian literature, but its strategy is that foreign publishing houses and translators themselves must apply for grants and, accordingly, determine the range themselves.

An active, proactive strategy could change the current state of affairs. Its essence is that a specialized agency is created, which annually, with the help of experts who objectively represent the literary and publishing community, forms a list of 100 book titles (fiction and non-fiction) that are recommended for translation and publication abroad. Based on this list, a beautiful booklet is compiled, which is translated into various languages ​​and sent to publishing houses in countries of interest to us, and distributed at book fairs and festivals.

In this scheme, the state itself will determine which projects of foreign publishers it will support with its money. Of course, this should be literature that honestly reflects the life and history of our country, and does not echo Russophobic myths. These myths were in demand in the West in the past, but today, when we are reoriented to the market of the South and East, their promotion is inappropriate, even though such literature, as well as “literature of trauma” and romantic books about same-sex relationships , there remains a significant lobby in the literary and publishing community. Let us remember that Nikolai Ostrovsky’s novel “How the Steel Was Tempered” is still popular in China. It can be assumed that the Chinese reader is waiting for similar books about the present day in Russia, and such books written on the material of the Northern Military District are already beginning to appear. It's time to open the way for them to foreign readers.

Russia's participation in book fairs and exhibitions could also be much more beneficial. This is not just entertainment for officials and writers dear to their hearts, who wander from one event to another to no avail. An indicator of success here could be the number of contracts concluded and business contacts established.

However, there is a side to promoting literature that is more important than financial. Writers are first and foremost public intellectuals, along with philosophers and scientists. They personify our values ​​and the meanings that we strive to offer to the world. The perception of Russia abroad depends on what set of public intellectuals we promote. These are the faces of our country. Today the gallery of these individuals is small, it needs to be expanded. It is necessary to show that Russia is not an impersonal force, it has good, intelligent human faces. And it is very important that modern Russian writers find their place in this gallery.

https://vz.ru/opinions/2024/6/6/1270021.html

Pushkin - Russian Adam, by Vladimir Mozhegov for VZGLYAD. 06.06.2024.

Pushkin was called everything: a belated Russian renaissance, a humanist, a revolutionary. All this is just passing by. Pushkin was, first of all, the Russian Adam, the pioneer of our existence in a new, troubled world.

Pushkin was born on June 6, 1799 in Moscow, in the last year of the outgoing 18th century. The latter is very symbolic. Pushkin is clearly not a man of the 19th, and certainly not of the 20th century; to a much greater extent, he is a man of the 18th century, as if closing the brilliant century of the Petrine Empire.

At one time, the Bolsheviks tried to mold Pushkin into an almost poetic “Aurora”, pointing the way to a bright revolutionary future. In fact, with all his being, Pushkin is directed not to the future, but to the past. Pushkin sincerely hated all so-called progress and democracy - these sacred cows of the New Age, as evidenced by many caustic statements (see, for example, his most poisonous remarks about American democracy in the article “John Tenner”).

The future rather scares him; he sees signs of the end everywhere. What is his “Little Tragedies” if not a brilliant diagnosis of the sick decline of Europe? And his “Boris Godunov” - if not a majestic canvas that describes the end of the world of tradition, which is replaced by an impostor world, a world torn from all foundations and flying into the abyss?

By the way, another symbol beloved by Soviet Pushkin scholars. The story is about how a nanny, walking with little Alexander in the St. Petersburg Yusupov Garden, met Emperor Paul, who reprimanded her for not taking off the child’s cap. The Bolsheviks loved this story - as a moralizing story about Pushkin's early opposition to tsarism. And Pushkin himself told it with a laugh: “I saw three kings, the first ordered to take off my cap and scolded my nanny for me...” In fact, this anecdote, of course, is about a meeting with Great History. This is her blessing on the brow of the little genius, and the fact that this first meeting with Paul, the Tsar-Knight, the outgoing figure of the 18th century, is also, of course, a symbol. “This is the rest of the glorious flock of Catherine’s eagles,” this can be said about himself, about Pushkin.

If as a person Pushkin belongs to the past, then as a genius he soars above time, surveying the world from the very beginning to the very end of history. And the older he gets, the deeper his philosophy, the more consciously he plunges into the layers of history and comes to the greater generalizations.

His last, philosophical, “Kamennoostrovsky cycle,” written in the summer of 1836, is not only about the fate of man, taken in absolute ontological categories, it is about the fate of the world, which is completing its earthly paths.
“Ancient history is the history of Egypt, Persia, Greece, Rome. Modern history is the history of Christianity,” noted Pushkin. But if the world has reached the point where it is throwing off Christianity, in the “sacred element” of which it once “disappeared and was renewed,” then... what can await it now? To this question of Pushkin the historian, the answer of Pushkin the prophet follows: catastrophe. Here’s how in his last dedication to the Lyceum: “...The confused peoples rushed about; / And kings rose and fell; / And the blood of people, now of Glory, now of Freedom, / Now of Pride, stained the altars crimson...”

True, a glance into the eschatological future is almost always suppressed. As a prophet, Pushkin sees apocalyptic flashes ahead, but as a realist, he does not allow himself to talk about it. Gogol and Dostoevsky will agree on this. Pushkin himself will hide his metaphysical anxiety in wonderful fairy tales, full of eschatological hints, especially menacing ones in “The Tale of the Golden Cockerel.”

Pushkin is a thoroughly imperial man, thoroughly rooted in that old, pre-capitalist, pre-democratic Russia. The last traditionalist, the last genius of the departing Christian Europe, who captured this apparently collapsing world. This is his place among geniuses equal to him in power: Homer, Virgil, Dante, and, perhaps, also Shakespeare and Goethe. Here too he is the last, closing the line of brilliant poets, philosophers and prophets.

Pushkin's main themes are from infancy to death - personality and freedom, or - the life of an individual in all possible manifestations of his freedom. It is as if he is opening all of existence anew, from a blank page, from the very beginning. You. Rozanov, it seems, was the first to compare Pushkin with Adam, walking through the Garden of Eden and giving names to all the things of this world. Brilliant metaphor! This was probably Pushkin’s main task: to give all the things of the new world their new, but at the same time their real, main, primordial names. Pushkin built us a House, built us a Space. One in which Russian people would be free and comfortable to exist: in a new world, but according to eternal, unchanging, God's laws.

Pushkin was called everything: a belated Russian renaissance, a humanist, a revolutionary. All this is just passing by. Pushkin was, first of all, the Russian Adam, the pioneer of our existence in a new, troubled world.

https://vz.ru/opinions/2024/6/6/1271469.html

Much in the same way as the US became in the post-WWII a country that attracted famous writers, erudite musicians, renowned painters, artists and academic personalities in general from all over the world in the pursuit of the American Dream, Russia should follow the example for this convoluted global era characterized by the decline & mediocrity of the hegemon and of the West in general, to persuade eminent distinguished intellectual personalities to come to the country which is becoming the global lighthouse for over the horizon prospects in these fields, through providing economic and ambience incentives in a peaceful and futuristic perspective working as a magnet for this dynamics.

Well, in order to implement that on a long term basis, then organise international festivals and contests somewhere in appropriate Russian territories. In this sense, language barrier might be an issue, so provide with well trained interpreters and translation infrastructure for these events, as well as carrying out worldwide intensive efforts for Russian language courses and publishing houses' work over printed Russian efforts in these areas.