One of the most significant theater festivals in our country, the Christmas Festival, has ended in Novosibirsk. It is held every two years by the Globe Theatre. Collectives from the countries of the European Union, Moscow and St. Petersburg gathered in the capital of Siberia. The creative project of Alexei Devotchenko, a brilliant actor who plays in the best theaters in St. Petersburg - Alexandrinsky and Maly Drama, also came to the festival. He is known to the viewer from the series "Gangster Petersburg" (Styopa Markov) and "The Golden Calf" (Koreiko). The New Times columnist met with the actor in Novosibirsk
Alexey Devotchenko to Artur Solomonov
You tour, play in two theaters, act in films. Your schedule is overburdened. But recently you stated that you feel unclaimed and unnecessary.
The schedule can be busy and overstrained, but still I feel that I am not playing something, I am not rehearsing something that I could. I have a quality that is not very good - self-blame. It provokes depression. Although everything seems to be great. But thoughts constantly arise about the lack of demand, uselessness, worthlessness, incompetence ... Again, this is my personal property, my character. In no case do I call for all artists to eat themselves. It's just not lucky for me.
Doesn't it happen with you, as Stanislavsky said, "success in oneself"?
Never! By the way, Stanislavsky has many controversial theses. Let's say, "there are no small roles - there are small artists." Because there are small roles. But that “the theater begins with a hanger” is true. Most of our St. Petersburg theaters are such a homeless person, or a housing office, or a distributor, or a vegetable warehouse ... With the rarest exception. I can say that we have two theaters in St. Petersburg - this is the Alexandrinsky and the Maly Drama, where the theater begins with a hanger. You enter the building and realize that you are really in the theatre.
Stanislavsky also called the theater a "voluntary dictatorship." In public life, as I understand it, you are categorically against dictatorship...
And in the theater - absolutely "for"! When democracy comes to the theater, it ceases to exist. In the theater - in the theater! I am for a strong hand. The country is categorically against it. Because we all know what it is, what are the consequences of a strong hand…
"The word "citizen" is vulgarized"
What events can you name that determined your path? I mean both creative and human.
The fact that I managed to enter the theater institute the first time, and not to anyone, but to Arkady Katsman. The meeting with him and the meetings with Valery Fokin and Lev Dodin were especially important for me. And I entered the institute in 1983, right after school. Then there was a monstrous competition, simply monstrous. Moreover, Katsman was very afraid to take me, because the army was threatening ahead. But still he took me. Communication with Arkady Katsman, I'm not afraid of this word - a brilliant theater teacher, determined my whole future life. It has become as important to me as military service. Only one was very positive and the other was very negative. I was taken into the army quite shamelessly when I finished my second year. It was a school for me, which largely shaped my views on everything that happens in the country. Because the army is a direct projection of what is happening in the state. What is the country - such is the army. So all the most terrible and disgusting things are concentrated in the army. Therefore, now, when Sergey Ivanov… or this guy from the furniture store who became the Minister of Defense, says that we have a good army, this is a lie. A blatant lie. Then a lot of things happened, very important for me. August '91, when it seemed that we had won. And no one could have imagined that events would lead to everything that is happening now.
What made you write an open letter in response to a message to the President of Russia with a request to stay for a third term, signed by Nikita Mikhalkov, Zurab Tsereteli and other cultural figures?
The main motive is outrage. My personal indignation at the fact that these people are signing on behalf of all the creative workers in Russia. And their motives are very clear: this is a desire to once again light up, once again demonstrate their loyalty to the authorities. Because, of course, these people have something to lose, except, so to speak, "kina", painting and the like. I was especially struck by all these lexical turns of their message to the president, taken from the dense 70s: "under your wise leadership", "thanks to your wise foreign policy." I often ask myself: what happened to our intelligentsia? What scared her so? In conversations in the kitchen, she expresses seditious thoughts, criticizes the existing order, but does not go further.
Perhaps the point is that the concepts of "civic position" or "expression of civil protest" are devalued and cause only irony in the majority of intellectuals?
Quite right. Apart from an oligophrenic giggle, these words do not even evoke any emotions in my colleagues. And the very word "citizen" is also trivialized. Yes, and the phrase "civil rights" - too.
"Hope the past doesn't come back"
The play "Epitaph" in 1993 based on the works of Limonov and Kibirov you described as "farewell to the scoop." When did you realize that it was too early to say goodbye?
When we decided to resume this performance in 2005, it turned out that it was very modern, despite the fact that many years had passed. And in 1993, it seemed to me that we were forever saying goodbye to the "scoop", to the entire dark kingdom. But we were too optimistic... I hope that the Soviet past will not return. But it can come back to haunt the unpredictable turn of our history. The now fashionable rhetoric can lead to this: Russia has its own road, its own way. But what kind of "own" path it will be - perhaps even worse than the Soviet one ... After all, when the head of state declares that we have, above all, the interests of an indigenous nation, this leads to very sad thoughts. And first of all, the very phrase "indigenous nation" ...
It seems to me that the point is that in our society there has not been a work similar to that which was done in Germany: awareness of one's past, repentance. We live as if there is only a Russian misfortune, and no Russian guilt exists.
The entire German nation, all of Germany, repented. She asked the whole world for forgiveness for what happened in the 30s and 40s. And ours is all tryn-grass. We are absolutely not to blame. On the contrary, we are all to blame. Until there is universal repentance, until there is a genuine awareness of one's guilt for what happened in our country in the 20th century, it is unlikely that something good awaits us ahead. But when the FSB completely seized power in the country, what kind of repentance can we talk about? I don't understand what the authorities are afraid of when they ban "dissenters' marches", which are attended by very few people. I really cannot understand what is the nature of the fear with which power is afflicted.
Alexey Devotchenko: “Now a whole generation is entering life, which, in general, grew up in satiety and prosperity. And in the right hemisphere they have Ksyusha Sobchak and the entertainment programs of our vile television, and in the left hemisphere they have Internet communities and chat rooms. And only a small piece remains in the minds - that vacuum, which is intensively filled by the state machine, which works even when they throw the cry "Beat the Estonians!" I don’t believe that these, I’m not afraid of this word, faces that burn bonfires and dance around them near the Estonian embassy, are sincerely worried about the transfer of the monument. Because of people like these “Ours”, “Young Guard” or someone else, Russia’s chances to remain forever in the past are greatly increased.”
Alexey Devotchenko – The New Times • New Times • RIMA — Russian Independent Media Archive
