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They came to support Gogol Center
Afterthe 6-hour interrogation of the director Kirill Serebrennikov, he was released. It boils down to the fact that he should appear at the first call of the investigator. Thus ended (for now) a search and interrogation of the head of the Gogol Center. In the theater itself, it was also a search all day, but its results are still unknown. During Tuesday, many people came to support actors and creativity. Here are some statements of this day.
Actress Chulpan Khamatova. Collective statement in support
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0:00 0:01:38 Download the media file"We, colleagues and friends of Kirill Serebrennikov and the Gogol Center Theater, are shocked by today's events! Kirill Serebrennikov is one of the most striking Russian directors whose merits are recognized not only in our country, but throughout the world. We all know him as an honest, decent and open person. The work of a talented leader and the entire theater was interrupted by a sudden search. We will support our colleagues and we hope that the investigation will be objectively and fairly, without excessive cruelty to the persons who were affected by the investigation, and will not violate the creative activity of the theater, troupe and Kirill Serebrennikov himself.
There are a lot of us. Evgeny Mironov, Chulpan Khamatova, Oleg Tabakov, Mark Zakharov, Sergey Garmash, Alla Demidova, Alexei Agravovich, Vika Tovstoganova, Yana Sex, Anatoly Bely, Julia Pereshild, Ksenia Rapoport, Evgeny Zakuchkin, Sasha Petrov, Irina Starshenbaum, Husky, Ekaterina Skanavi, Marina, Marina, Marina, Marina, Marina. Aleksandrova, Nina Zarkha and the magazine "The Art of Cinema" and many, many others. "
Politician Dmitry Gudkov
- You can’t be silent when such things happen to other people! Even if you are not related to the theater, to politics, it does not matter. If you see how the authorities act in relation to their critics, it does not matter what profession they represent, any normal person should be here. And I all the time recall a quotation of Nieller, who said: "I said nothing when they came for the Communists. I said nothing when they came for Jews, social democrats. I am not a communist, not a Jew, not a social democrat. But when they came for me, there was no one to protest." Therefore, you cannot be silent now. This is a political action, this is an action of intimidation, it is an action against critics of power. And in general, what is happening today is already an invasion of politics into the house to everyone. Even those people who generally have nothing to do with political activism.
- That is, you think that this is a matter of embezzlement absolutely ...
- This is such a point repression, aimed at intimidating people on the eve, maybe on June 12. Give some kind of signal of various kinds of elites that it is necessary to be silent, you cannot criticize power, you cannot argue with it. Each of you will find an article, if we want, is the fact that today the authorities are trying to show. To whom did they come, these employees, investigators of the Investigative Committee? There is no to Medvedev, not to the Seagull, but they came here. It's obvious! Then the operation happened as if it were generally captured ... It seemed to be captured by the Nord-Ost building on Dubrovka. They came, collected everyone, they seized mobile phones ... What is it? Therefore, today they came to the theater not with censorship, but with handcuffs, and this already seems to me, the transition to some other level.
-You will make some attempts to protect, do something?
- Now I have no power. I would be a deputy, I would send a request. Well, I will write about it, I will talk, everything in my power, of course. Now we need a public outcry, in my opinion. This is probably the only thing that can force them to at least answer questions from journalists, to questions of citizens, to the questions of society. We will ask these questions in all ways available to us. Through our media resources, blogs, with the help of Radio Liberty and other remaining independent media that can be counted on the fingers of one hand. We will do it, of course!
Film director Fedor Bondarchuk
- Kirill Serebrennikov is my friend, we have been together for a long time and a lot of things together. This is the first. Secondly, there are a lot of artists of the theater, and not only the Gogol Center, and not only artists, but also filmmakers, producers, and cinema community. In the morning calls are heard, no one understands anything. From the information that we know from the media, something is also not very clear. In an attempt to figure out that with Cyril, I came here, the first. And the second is to support the Gogol Center, which I love and respect. Kirill Serebrennikov is not just a novice young director, this is the pride of Russia. He represents the country in the world, he is known in the world. And you can’t react to this, at least at least in some attempt to figure out, but what is happening and where Kirill Serebrennikov is.
- Do you have versions, what is happening?
- I said at first - in an attempt to figure it out. There are no versions. Maybe now I will find out, maybe you will tell me something. He came to say hello to the artists and support everyone. And try to figure it out, and then we will see. I just arrived, and there are many versions of this event. So that the versions do not go wild and do not turn into bikes, with such a desire I would like to leave here, or maybe it will not work.
- How do you assess that they came to Cyril Serebrennikov himself today at 9 am with a search?
- Home? I think this is a disgrace! I do not think that he was going somewhere ... Although everything is written-within the framework of the legal field, but home, in the morning ... I am not ready to comment, you see, I arrived in slaps from the filming. I’ll figure it out a little and a little later, maybe I will give a comment. But first of all, I want to support the theater, colleagues and Cyril.
Actors of the movie about "Gogol Center"
Anatoly White:
“Cyril is my comrade and friend, and a person close to me, so I'm here.” It seems to me that what is happening here is horror and, perhaps, some kind of intimidation action, I don’t know, but we all know very well that Cyril is a crystal honest person, and nothing of the kind ... all the more, the artistic director to charges the financial order is somehow strange and stupid. This is not his competence. Therefore, it is clear that this is some kind of action of a completely different kind. We are here to support him! We are here to express our support to our comrade.
Victoria Tolstoganova:
- I and we all want to support a person who is honest. Not a single person who knows him doubts that he is honest, not a single person who has at least some kind of attitude to our theater world. But besides the fact that he is honest, he is the main leader of the theater-the Gogol Center, which is considered one of the best theaters in Moscow. And my mind is incomprehensible how to simply come to visit a person who was not going to, as I understand it, leave, run away, and thus talk to him. I can be mistaken, and of course, I need to understand, probably, they will understand this from all sides, and my word does not matter here, but I support a person who is now unexpectedly bad, and I doubt that he understands what he is responsible for. Just like we are all. Because there are different approaches to the conversation, there are different opportunities to conduct dialogue, and this, it seems to me, is not the most true way.
Politician Ilya Yashin
-I came here because the employees of the Gogol Center called all their supporters, all the audience, in order to express support. I am here in order to express support and solidarity to those people who are illegally pursued. I believe that we are dealing with such a primitive, vulgar struggle against dissent. Employees, Gogol Center leaders never engaged in politics, they were engaged in culture. But they have an obvious system of values, a system of views than those people who live in the corridors of power. That's exactly because of this this attack takes place. I have no doubt about such a political, ideological motivation for this attack. And this means that the country has very big problems. When people are pursued for views, this means that there are very big problems in the country, you can’t be silent and you can’t let all this on the brakes.
- But some believe that these are financial problems.
- Some are employees of the Investigative Committee, they say so, but I think they don’t think so either. I think that they were just looking for a reason for a long time in order to organize such a full-scale attack on the Gogol Center. But I just want to remind you that the Gogol Center is not the only independent theater that is engaged in independent art that has been under pressure. Remember what pressure the theater was. Do, how riot police burst on the stage, how they were kicked out of one room, from another room. This is just another art that the authoritarian regime considers a threat to its existence. When people think differently, when people reason differently, this is a threat to any authoritarian regime, and any authoritarian regime will try to eradicate it. That's exactly what we observe.
Poet Lev Rubinstein
- I also thought especially, these days, I believe that in the behavioral code of the cultural community one of the most important and important words is solidarity. Now this is especially important and very relevant, because we are observing an attack on modern culture on all fronts literally. And it seems to me that the task of everyone who is somehow connected with free, independent art is somehow solidarized, each other, if possible, protect and express their sympathy and solidarity in every possible way. I just could not help but come. It seems to me that this is very important! I understand that those who started all these procedures, of course, will motivate all this with purely economic circumstances, but we all understand what is the matter. We all understand that absolutely every person who leads something, especially the state, is especially vulnerable in this sense. If someone needs to find something like that, they will find. But, firstly, I begin from the fact that all these investigative committees cannot be believed in any case, even if they say that today is Tuesday, and secondly, the political motivation for this is quite obvious to me.
Literary critic Alexander Arkhangelsky
- I consider it a complete outrage so demonstrative ... not committing violence, this is not the commission of violence. This is the creation of an atmosphere of a slurred threat. If there are any questions to Cyril, he just had to talk to him. Searches to arrange in an apartment and in the Gogol Center is a demonstrative action. From my point of view, this is not a legal action, but atmospheric, hinting, symbolic to a much greater extent. You want symbols, it means that you must already create retaliatory symbols. My symbol is solidarity. Those who came today are people who cannot change anything, but show solidarity. Solidarity is more important than views, more important than aesthetic preferences, the most important thing. In a sense, I am grateful to the Investigative Committee - he teaches us to this feeling of solidarity, which we began to lose. This does not mean that he can continue to act like that, which means that we must live differently, we must live shoulder to shoulder. And I want to express solidarity with Cyril and his wonderful theater! I believe, I am sure that we will go to his performances. And the Investigative Committee, maybe someday transformed, and it will become some other committee. The theater, in particular, the theater of Kirill Serebrennikov, is a much more important thing than any committee in the world.
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Irina Lagunina
Head of Special Projects of Russian Service Radio Liberty
Laguninai@rferl.org