"Matilda Forum"

The performance of Mikhail Zygar at the St. Petersburg International Cultural Forum. Several of its participants were declared by persons of non gratia for opposition

On November 16-18, the sixth St. Petersburg International Cultural Forum organized with the participation of the Russian government was held. The day before its beginning, the publication of COLTA published a document (its authenticity was not confirmed, but not refuted) signed by the Deputy Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation Vladimir Aristarkhov. It was a certificate that explained why several famous people should not be invited to the "theater" section - the artistic director of the Lev Dodin small drama theater, the artistic director of the Great Drama Theater Andrei Mogeliy, directors Kirill Serebrennikov, Dmitry Krymov, Anatoly Vasiliev and theatrical critic of the Dolzhansky Roman. One of the speakers at the forum was the journalist and writer Mikhail Zygar. The speech of Zygar is not only a story about his new book “The Empire must die”, but also a comprehension of what is happening in the relations of the state, culture and society. "Medusa" publishes the full text of the speech.

I would call this cultural forum forum named after Matilda Kshesinskaya, because it is in it that all the problems discussed in connection with this event are embodied. The conflict of society and the authorities, officials with artists who make up the glory of Russian culture in the world, the problems of corruption in culture and the development of state orders - all this is Kshesinskaya.

A little over 100 years ago, here, in St. Petersburg, there was a discussion between the largest theater figure and the largest artist. The latter said that taking money from the state is dangerous and unworthy. The first believed that without state support it is impossible to make those breakthrough, innovative theatrical projects that he conceived. These were close friends Sergey Diaghilev and Valentin Serov.

Diaghilev really used budget money, as a result he was accused of theft, inappropriate spending. When a criminal case was instituted against him, he was in Paris, he stayed there. He created all his great projects for the “Russian seasons”, which glorified Russia. Diaghilev was lucky, he was not taken under house arrest, unlike his great colleague Kirill Serebrennikov. Cyril does not participate in this forum or in the projects that he invented.

What does Kshesinskaya have to do with it? She was the customer of the Diaghilev case, the organizer of his persecution. On the one hand, she did not forgive him for the fact that for the "Giselle" he chose not her, but the little -known Anna Pavlova. On the other hand, she was not just a ballerina. One of its large enterprises was the Putilov plant, it was its shareholder, and two other powerful enterprises were lovers of Grand Duke Sergey and Grand Duke Andrei. The Grand Duke Sergey was responsible for the supply of the Russian army with shells, and the most important state orders left the Putilov plant. Therefore, contemporaries considered her and Grand Duke Sergei the most important culprits of the catastrophic situation in which Russia was in the First World War, when shells ended six months after the beginning of military operations. For contemporaries, Kshesinskaya was a symbol of prohibitive corruption, and not at all ballet, and absolutely no one was worried about her personal relations with the king.

It seems to me that this is an important detail, because Russian history looks very different if you look at it, for example, from the point of view of the emperor’s personal life and from the point of view of Russian society.

I am sure that this is the main problem of Russian history. We have no history of Russian society. Classical works on history, starting with Karamzin, are devoted to the state, or rather, even personally sovereigns. Our whole story is very leading centric, we are used to looking at history through the eyes of emperors and presidents, how they made decisions, what choice made, how everything depended only on them. This habit has an obvious consequence: a stereotype that nothing depends on society.

In recent years, I have studied a huge array of different direct sources, diaries and letters, memories that give ideas about how Russian society looked like a hundred years ago, what these people thought about, what they were striving for.

The beginning of the XX century until 1917 is the most difficult, but also the most important period when Russian society was very influential in the world. If you are now in Google, you will score the “most popular Russians”, then, I think, out of the first 50, except for Putin and Maria Sharapova, the remaining 48 will be those people who could meet somewhere here, within the same day within the same city or square. These are Rakhmaninov, Dostoevsky, Kandinsky and dozens of others, who made up Russian society.

Imagine, although it is very difficult, the situation in which Russia is the most popular country in Europe. The educated part of Europe loves Russia, everyone reads new Russian writers, go to the Russian theater, everyone pray to Russian artists and listen to Russian composers, in fashion Russian. Artists take Russian pseudonyms. That was exactly the situation at the beginning of the last century. It’s hard for us to understand this now, we are stuck in stereotypes. And it is important, it seems to me, to think that it was not always, and this is not the only possible perception of oneself and Russia.

While I got acquainted with the heroes of my book “The Empire must die”, and their huge number, I caught myself thinking that this is a completely different Russia, not the one we are accustomed to. Here I want to give five examples regarding values ​​in Russia a hundred years ago.

The first example was not tortured in Russia. This is a unanimous perception of civil society. In March 1901, the Kazan Cathedral, the first powerful, real protest in history, when not just student unrest, but representatives of a variety of layers - nobles, merchants, raznochintsy - go out to the square. Journalist Ariadne Tyrkova is in a cordon and she is taken to the station. She is worried because there are two children with her grandmother at home, she will have to stay in the site for a night or for a couple of nights, but one thing is good - she knows that they do not try in Russia. Russia is no longer a barbaric medieval state, we are respected by human rights, and torture in the Russian police, in Russian prisons no longer.

Second: in Russia the value of human life is very great. I think for many this will be a surprise, but Russia in the 19th century was the most humane state in the world: back in the XVIII, the death penalty was canceled here. Elizaveta Petrovna, the daughter of Peter the Great, when she planned to commit a coup d'etat, swore in front of the icon, which if he became an empress, she would cancel the death penalty. And so it happened, the execution was canceled, the exceptions were state crimes - attempts by the coup and attempt on the emperor, and only by the personal decision of the emperor could a person be executed. For the entire 19th century, 300 people were executed in Russia. For comparison, in the twentieth century in the most vegetarian years [Soviet] thaw, in the 1960s, from a thousand to two thousand people a year were executed. And by world standards, it was incredible humanity. Moreover, in Russia, at that moment there are outstanding political thinkers who are actively fighting for the complete abolition of the death penalty. Leo Tolstoy and Vladimir Soloviev, for example. After the murder of Alexander the Second, Tolstoy writes a letter to Alexander the Third with a request to have mercy on the people's volumes, terrorists and not to execute, not to hang them, but to send them to America.

Third, Russia is respected in Russia. Since the 1860s, there have been local elections, after the reforms of Alexander the Second, and since 1905, the Duma elections have appeared in Russia. And how do they go? The central authorities, that is, the Ministry of the Interior, which is directly responsible for organizing elections, of course, with each next elected campaign is trying to organize it in such a way as to make the Duma more loyal.

The Moscow governor Vladimir Dzhunkovsky recalls how he comes to the deputy minister of the internal affairs of Kryzhanovsky, he takes out a pack of money and says: “This is for you to organize the elections.” Dzhunkovsky does not immediately understand that this is a bribe and says: “Thank you, but the budget has already been allocated for the organization of elections, everything is in order.” - “No, no, you did not understand! This is for you to organize elections. ” Dzhunkovsky does not take, and then, returning to Moscow, he understands that the money was given to falsification. And he says in horror: “Suddenly there would be other governors who could take this money?!” And in general, at least, the large opposition factions were in all thoughts, and in the latter there was an opposition majority at all. That is, the fears of Dzhunkovsky as a whole were in vain, most governors, when they were called to the authorities and gave money, refused to falsify.

The fourth fact - there was a free press in Russia. Of course, censorship physically existed. Now we, thank God, are prohibited by the Constitution, and then it was. Before signing, each newspaper was sent to the censorship committee, and there at the last moment censorship could remove any text, and the newspaper went out with a white hole on the page. But it is interesting that this happened all the time. The editors constantly sent newspapers to censorship, from there they removed something, but they continued to do the same. The phenomenon of self -censorship is absent, these editors and journalists do not learn anything. Moreover, they are trying to push this censorship, wait for the moment when censorship is overlooking. And this happens. Sometimes even a journalist is punished. Ampheatrova, an outstanding editor, a journalist, was twice referred. That is, which is important, a person was exiled twice to Siberia for texts. This is impossible for us. If we once were exiled to a person, for example, in the 1990s to Ukraine, there were such cases, then, if he returns to VGTRK, he already firmly learned the lesson, and he will not repeat the previous mistakes. And there, you see, people continue, just as they worked and work, they have some values.

The fifth point, the last in my transfer, is corruption. We all know about corruption that she has always been, everyone read Saltykov-Shchedrin. You know, she was, but the perception of corruption in Russian society is different from today. Corruption scandals do not remain without consequences. Often, higher officials, governors, ministers, resign and are under trial. My favorite case is the uncle of the emperor Grand Duke Alexei, the younger brother of Alexander the Third, the man whom the emperor is very afraid of. Nicholas the second is generally afraid of all his older relatives. The Grand Duke Alexei is a much more experienced and even wise man, he commanded the Russian fleet during the Russian-Japanese war, but civil society considers it a corrupt official who plundered the fleet, and this became one of the causes of defeat. The prince cannot go outside, because his carriage is thrown with stones, they shout to him: "Thief!" And he retires. He is not fired, he himself goes under the pressure of public opinion.

If you carefully read all these sources, diaries, that country does not look like a country doomed to a tragedy to a disaster. She does not look doomed to always be authoritarian. It does not look like it should always be a tough vertical of power. I don’t even have to prove it to you now, because once for me, Sergei Witte proved it to Emperor Nicholas the Second.

This is perhaps the most amazing moment in the history of Russia, an amazing document that the head of the Russian government brought the head of the Russian state. October 1905, a real revolution takes place, unrest in St. Petersburg, the king in Peterhof was cut off from the city, he has no connection with the government. In the Gulf of Finland there is a German warship that came to save the emperor to take him to Germany.

Kaiser Wilhelm, the future enemy in the First World War, but for now it’s just a cousin, offers to introduce German troops to suppress protests, because there is no more hopes for the Russian army. The whole royal family “for”, everyone persuades Nikolai to agree. Several people are against it. For example, Witte, whom the emperor does not love and almost does not listen. Formally, Witte is the chairman of the Committee of Ministers, he comes to Peterhof with a political science.

A long, thick, almost philosophical report, which begins with reasoning about why the state exists. Witte writes that the state exists for the sake of the material and moral well -being of its citizens. With the material is understandable, and moral well -being is freedom. Each person strives for freedom and feels prosperous and happy when he is free. Only the struggle for freedom is the only traditional value that has existed in the world from the Stone Age to the present. Unlike the struggle for freedom, authoritarian power, autocracy is a neologism invented relatively recently in the history of mankind. He gives examples from the history of Russia - Novgorod, Pskov, the Don Cossacks, the Decembrists - proving that the whole history of Russia is a continuous struggle for freedom. Witte concludes that the only way to preserve the state and its stability is to make a struggle for freedom the slogan of the government. The revolution can be stopped if it is headed if the government itself begins to fight for freedom. And Witte persuades the emperor. He signs the manifesto on October 17, gives formal freedoms, creates a Duma, in general a miracle occurs, because the revolution has already happened, but has come to naught.

This important example shows that history can be looked at a completely different way, at any story. If you look as it is accepted today, it seems that the only thing we can be proud of is that Russia is a great empire, it should have strong power, it always was, "the only allies of Russia is its army and the fleet." However, other examples show that other reasons for pride are also possible. And this is not only a great culture, but also a great civil society, which all the time of its existence fought for freedom. This is also a natural occasion for pride.

I do not want to idealize either Russia then or Russia now. People are equally prone to errors, to conflicts. The last, very curious example that I want to give will also seem relevant to you, even familiar. One group of cultural figures organized a bold artistic and theater project a little more than a hundred years ago. They were criticized and they understood that there would be problems. Friends from cultural officials warned that for the biblical plot they would be accused of insulting the feelings of believers. And there will be precisely problems with the appearance of a naked person on stage, probably the production will be banned.

This soulless company included Alexander Glazunov, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Mikhail Fokin, Lev Bakst and Ida Rubinstein, they staged the performance “Salome”. When it became clear that the performance would be banned, Rubinstein at his own peril and risk decided to speak with a separate number, the famous “The Seven Dance”, when she remained at the end only in a dress from beads, and it seemed to many that there was nothing at all. And at the end of her dance, the police entered the hall to stop an insult to the feelings of believers, seized John the Baptist from Papier-Masha.

I was not able to find the names of neither the policeman who did this, nor officials who banned the production. Ida Rubinstein, Mikhail Fokin, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Alexander Glazunov, Leo Bakst is known to the whole world today, they make up the glory of Russian culture.

And this is a great example of how attempts to prohibit, not to allow, to limit nothing, they do not protect anything, do not lead to anything. This is to the fact that the desire to protect the cultural forum from Alexander Sokurov, Leo Dodin, Andrei Mogeli, the novel of Dolzhansky and other people, whose names we saw on the persons of Non Grad, is at least pointless and stupid. I hope my performance was not meaningless here. I believe that it’s always better to speak than to be silent.