The "victorious" dexterity of Besogon

The insulting words of the director Nikita Mikhalkov, who compared the prestigious European prize received by the Yeltsin Museum in Yeltsin Center in Yekaterinburg, with the " fuel cross" from the Wehrmacht , caused a great public resonance. Why Mikhalkov, a former hot Yeltsinist, abundantly showered with money and awards in the 90s of the XX century, Including from the hands of the first president of Russia, so hated the memory of him?

"Yeltsin Center" on May 8 apologized to his European colleagues for the statements of Nikita Mikhalkov. The corresponding application was published on the official website of the Yeltsin Center, which on May 6 became the first Russian laureate of the European Museum of the Year International Prize, established in 1977, and received one of its three main prizes-the name of its founder Kenneth Hudson. And already on May 7, Mikhalkov says on the air of the Moscow Radio station, he said that he was reacting to the presentation of the Yeltsin Center award, as if he found out that "a citizen of the Soviet Union, some Kotsyubailo who became a policeman, received an iron cross from the Wehrmacht." The Yeltsin Museum says that they apologize to the “European colleagues who have publicly humiliated a person who has a passport of Russia,” and emphasizes that Mikhalkov insulted not only them, but also dozens of other museums in the world who won this competition for 40 years.

Yeltsin Center opened in Yekaterinburg in the fall of 2015. Its main object is the Museum of the First President of Russia Boris Yeltsin, dedicated to his era and political heritage and in general Russian history. For the first time, Nikita Mikhalkov drew attention to his work in March 2016, in one of the issues of his Besogon TV program on YouTube , which he completely devoted to the exposure of the "anti -state" orientation of the Yeltsin. On December 9, 2016, during the parliamentary hearings in the Federation Council , Mikhalkov said that the Yeltsin Center supposedly biased Russian history and thereby "destructively affects the national self-awareness of children." On December 17, Nikita Mikhalkov visited the Yeltsin Center and said that if he had visited him before, he would have spoke even tougher.

The Executive Director of the Yeltsin Center and the Yeltsin Museum Alexander Drozdov in an interview with Radio Liberty discusses the true motives of the great director of the director:

- Nikita Mikhalkov is not falling on you for the first time lately. Why did you become the object of its so acute hostility, more than some other people or organizations?

- I thought a lot on this topic, but then I realized that there could be many reasons - from internal creative, professional disorder to the implementation of direct tasks, outgoing you can guess from where. The most regrettable here is that this indicates that a person has lost a connection with reality and that he has nothing to take himself at all. We generally live with him in different worlds, or in two different Russia. This is all - rigid defocusing of a professional gaze, and loss of taste. All these things are said by a person from somewhere in the distant past, it is not clear from what fright suddenly "insighted".

This is all - strict defocusing of a professional gaze, and loss of taste

- Just about the past. In the 90s, the Mikhalkov family, and personally, Nikita Sergeyevich himself were not less regained by the authorities than and in all other eras of the history of the USSR and Russia. He still received awards. In the 90s, he himself was a Yeltsinist! And his studio "Three Tae" received a lot of money - for example, to create Yeltsin's election videos, in 1996.

- Yes, exactly! In our museum archive in Yekaterinburg there is a weighty material of its correspondence with the administration of the President of Russia and personally with Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin. Therefore, it is definitely a sin to complain to those years! By the way, if, as they say, “smell in the spirit of the master”-but how then to regard the “Oscar”, which he received in the 90s? With all its current anti -Westernity and anti -Americanism? I would return this award in his place! What happens? Some kind of "Honorary Medal of the US Congress" , or there is a "purple heart" ! I would throw Obama in the face!

Another award of Nikita Mikhalkov from the hands of Boris Yeltsin. The 1990s

Seriously: how regrettable! Mikhalkov is a person who has a large audience, sincere fans, I really appreciate his work, films that you know by heart and you can still watch from any moment. But today is the bitterness and anxiety that a person who goes to a large audience is perfectly and cynically distorting the real picture of the world. In general, for an artist who has authority, this is at least irresponsible and immoral. On May 6, just on the day when the fate of the Prize of the “European Museum Forum” was decided, in Yekaterinburg we had meetings dedicated to the Victory Day at the Yeltsin Center site. There were veterans, Suvorov boys, search engines, heroes of Russia. It is terrible if these boys are suitable and say to our guys: "Listen, and we were told about you that you have some Bandera and Nazis here! And you, it turns out, are normal people." Honestly, this is frost on the skin.

- As for the “Bandera” and “Nazis” - Nikita Mikhalkov, it seems to me, successfully his words, about the Wehrmacht, the Iron Cross, put it right on the next day of victory. He came out very cleverly. I specifically waited for, what do you think?

- I do not exclude at all, he is a creative person. And he could portray this as an absolutely spontaneous comparison. But this is not an accidental coincidence, of course! This, I repeat once again, amazing cynicism. This is the corruption of people who listen to this person, and for whom, perhaps, his every word is important.

If there was his will, he would have sent us all to the stable, they would give us lashes!

-Everything is connected, perhaps, with some of his personal unpleasant memories of the past, about the 90s, about some little-known shame? After all, Nikita Mikhalkov always played the role of an aristocrat master, a kind of pillar nobleman who boasts his pedigree. Maybe he does not like Russia's genealogy - what is you presented with?

- Oh, I think that, of course, if there was his will, he would send us all to the stable, would give us lashes, I have no doubt! This is the anger of such a sleek, but at the same time a very wild master. Here we need, probably, a psychiatrist, an anthropologist, a psychologist. "We need to do business, dear, deed!" That's what you can advise Mikhalkov with the words of his cinema hero - if he still has gunpowder in the powders.

"Yeltsin Center" in Yekaterinburg

- I heard a joke that "the Mikhalkovs are eternal, they will still survive Vladimir Putin." And we will still hear from Nikita Sergeyevich stories about "terrible Putin times."

- I do not exclude. In any case, the author of the anthem of the Soviet Union easily survived his co-author El Registan , whose name in the first years after the creation of the anthem stood next to the name of Sergei Mikhalkov. But now he went somewhere, and no one remembers him, but they remember only one person-the father of Nikita Sergeyevich. And this is not so. In our archives there are very interesting materials that say that Mikhalkov Sr. was nothing more than an equal participant in the process of creating the anthem. You know how the Chinese say: "A wise man is indifferent to others. Live as you want." I might like to live like that, but I have to enter into some conversations, explanations. From my point of view, society devotes too much time to Nikita Mikhalkov and his neurotic reactions.

Yeltsin was a big, serious and responsible person - but a living person. Of course, Yeltsin had mistakes!

- Naina Iosifovna Yeltsina again painfully reacted to this?

- Certainly. She, in principle, not only recently, but in general painfully reacts to unfair and mainly dirty accusations, which are brought by the first president of Russia. She is a very sane person. It is difficult to suspect her in rampant apologetics. She, I think, knows the first president better than us and remembers that it was a big, serious and responsible person-but a living person, after all. Of course, Yeltsin had mistakes. But it is one thing when we talk about this at the level of analysis, research. And we have this in the museum. But when the abuse is heard, when this verbal husk is sprinkled, especially from the screens of our TV, in fact, how can a living person react?! Of course, painful.

Naina Yeltsin in the Yeltsin Center at the celebration of the 85th anniversary of Boris Yeltsin's birthday. February 1, 2016

- Once again, let's clarify. The Eltsin Center received the "European Museum of the Year", or is it precisely the Yeltsin Museum itself, which is part of it?

- It is the museum of the first president of Russia. Yes, it is important to clarify. It was not a competition of objects of such a scale as the Yeltsin Center. We are quite unique, but the museum is our core. So he received this prize, one of the prizes. And the first main prize went to the Museum of the History of Slavery in Guideloupe , ”said Alexander Drozdov, Executive Director of Yeltsin Center and the Yeltsin Museum.