Translated material
The opening of the Olympics and the convertibility of culture
The grand opening of the Olympics in London made, of course, a strong impression: conceptually, technologically, and aesthetically. High patriotism and loyalty to tradition permeated the entire ceremony, but how organic it was, in contrast to the pretentious and loud pretense and artificial contrition of ersatz feelings.
But that's not what I'm talking about. In the second part of the production, when fairy-tale characters from English, and indeed world literature, come to life, one of the presenters on Channel One said: “Still, we must admit that English children’s literature is in no way inferior to ours.” It became funny and disgusting. Twenty-five again...
But how much we all - at least the educated population of Russia - grow up not so much on our own, but on world literature, music, foreign food culture, and so on and so forth: Charles Perrault, Radari, Milne... Now Rowling. The Beatles... This is a convertible part of the culture of a particular country. What about us is convertible? Well, isn’t Ilya Muromets, Ivanushka the Fool or Vasilisa the Beautiful?...
At the opening of the Olympics, McCartney sang, Beckham drove the boat, James Bond jumped with a parachute - the whole world knows them. What Russian does the world know? Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Yuri Gagarin and Maya Plisetskaya, Kalashnikov assault rifle?...
Of course, a lot of time has passed since the time of Chaadaev, who said that Russia has not contributed anything to the treasury of world culture, and a lot has changed. And yet, there is still very little that is Russian in demand abroad, and a lot of European, American, Japanese is in demand here. Incomparable.
Yesterday, while watching the opening ceremony of the Olympics, someone said that this is happening because we don’t know how to do PR, but, they say, we have something to convert. I highly doubt it. Alas...