"There is no excuse bombing!" Culture figures about the "special operation" of Putin

For the third day, how Russian troops entered Ukraine. During this time, hundreds of cultural and art figures who are asked to stop the war have already addressed President Putin.

Military operations against Ukraine Russia began on the night of February 23 to 24. Officially, the Russian authorities call the war a "special military operation." Putin in the appeal on the morning of February 24 stated that Russia wants to protect people who "are abuse, genocide from the Kyiv regime," and the Russian Federation will strive "for the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine." After the announcement of hostilities in Russian cities, mass anti -war actions and rallies were held. More than 1800 people were detained throughout the country, most of all in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Wed to Yandex.Zen CR on Instagram SR in Telegram

Formers of culture and art did not stand aside. From the first day, they urge to stop any military operations of Russia in Ukraine: they sign appeals and open letters to Putin and express their opinion on social networks. Petitions against the war are already several dozen. They are signed by directors, critics, actors, artists, art historians and other Russian artists. For example, the petition on the website of Spectate has already gained more than two thousand signatures, hundreds of famous cultural figures sign a letter from Andrei Erofeev. Some of the signed admit that this is almost the only way (after rallies and stocks) to express their position on the war with Ukraine. But the fact that the Russian authorities will hear the request to stop the war are confidently sure.

Under open letters there are no leaders of the main state museums and theaters, notes the St. Petersburg art critic and art critic Pavel Gerasimenko.

- It seems to me that now after aggression happened, any letters have lost their meaning and strength. But still we must sign them. The main thing is the list of signatures. I would like to see the names of Zelfira Tregulova (art critic, general director of the Tretyakov Gallery. - SR), Marina Loshak (director of the Pushkin Museum in Moscow. - SR). We perfectly understand that these names under these letters will not appear. In a letter on Spectate there are more than two thousand people, there are many artists. I respect the personal position and the right to express everyone, but I understand that this does not require courage from us - we are now not under bombing and not under shelling. But the lack of significant names under these letters will also be on the pages of history. What will this war turn out for the cultural community? Sorry for my rudeness, but they will give in Russian in the face. Russia, the Russian language and Russian culture will become toxic. If earlier we could say that so bad people did this, bad Nazis who do not understand our Russian culture. Now we will have nothing to oppose this.

Opera critic and specialist in the directorial opera house, member of the expert council of the Golden Mask Award in the 2017/2018 season, Aya Makarova believes that the Russians were hostage from the war.

- You know, I just spoke with a friend who is now in Kharkov. I tell her: “It seems to me that this is all pointless, because it will not change anything,” and she answers me: “It will not change anything, but it is not pointless.” Now I don’t understand anything at all, I have no feeling that I know what to do and how. It is clear that there are some things that cannot be done, and they are just that if you have some kind of voice, do not be silent. I have no doubt that those on whom the decision related to the war depends on to shit it. It also seems to me that it is important to understand that not all of us can live with this at all - with the fact that I live in Hitler Germany, which behaves like Nazi Germany. This war is not a decision of the Russian people. I do not know whose war this war. I do not understand what is happening and how it can happen at all. All that I understand that all the people with whom I can talk not only do not support this, but they can’t even imagine that this is happening. What turned out for Germany both the first and second world disasters? In particular, the fact that so far a very large number of people cannot adequately or somehow perceive German art and German culture. Wagner is not performed in Israel, and Wagner himself is generally a very problematic composer. I am much more sorry for those people who do this art than art itself. Art, as you understand, is inanimate, but the fact that now everyone is hostage from the current situation, the system, in Putin, and the war.

According to the Kaliningrad artist Yevgeny Umansky, petitions and rallies are one of the ways of public protest, which, perhaps, can somehow affect the situation.

- What is happening in Ukraine now is complete madness. In a sense, this is a shock for all people in Russia, and in Ukraine, and in the world. We monitor the situation and, perhaps, it will turn out in some way to influence this public protest through letters, through exits to the streets. People should have a civil position. And she is. People thus express their protest. Because of the war, some communication channels are already closing, which still remained. Colleagues call me from Poland, Georgia. They say that they are forced to turn the programs and wait for how the political situation will be resolved. Those communications that were related to education are violated. My daughter finishes school this year and was going to go to study art in the Czech Republic. Now there is a ban on entering the Czech Republic - this is the result that I feel in my family. There is another point - this is the general opinion of ordinary people who live in Europe. They conclude in general about the country and people who come to them, that these are people from the aggressor country. They begin to relate to us negatively. This is an unpleasant and long -lasting aspect in the life of our people. I had previously encountered such rather sharp statements towards the Russian Federation and towards the culture that we broadcast. But it was possible to say that this is not so necessary all under one comb. But, in my opinion, now we are all under one comb ... This is a crazy lie into which we were loaded. This is a deception. This war was being prepared, but all the main Russian media tryndeli and distributed a lie. It is very unpleasant that we are being deceived all the time. This lie is crazy, lies - it humiliates you. I feel humiliated in relation to my political regime.

Russian art critic, curator, head of the Modern Art Department of Hermitage Dmitry Ozerkov He told the north. Realiy that for everything that Russia does today, he is experiencing personal responsibility.

- I feel shock and shame. Because I believe that as a citizen of the country, I bear not only a collective, but also personal responsibility for everything that my country in which I live and pay taxes. Due to what is happening now, I can no longer look into the eyes of people. I'm ashamed. I am not a political scientist and not a military expert and cannot claim my own opinion about the global processes of the future. I have a historian’s diploma, and history teaches everything to place everything in place, ”said Ozerkov.

A rare unanimity was shown by Russian animators, masters engaged in the production of cartoons, who opposed the war. Signatures, which are already more than 800, continue to collect at the forum the associations of animated cinema, where the text of the collective letter against the war has been published. This letter states that Russian and Ukrainian animators always worked together, and that "war carries nothing but death, pain and destruction. And it cannot be justified." The authors of the letter emphasize that animation is the art of animation, "which helps people feel like people ... And today our children, brothers are sent to kill those with whom they had played in the same yard and watched only cartoons, without distinguishing, Russian or Ukrainian."

Under this letter, the actor, director, screenwriter and poet Vadim Zhuk put his signature under this letter.

- A letter of Russian animators is a protest against this monstrous war. The first two people who signed the letter is the artist of the Cheburashki Leonid Schwartzman and the most famous animator Yuri Norshtein in the world. Why did this letter become so mandatory for Russian animators? Until 2018, a joint Russian-Ukrainian animated festival was held, at which the best animators, artists, directors from all over the world exchanged experience. And I am sure that the shells of any power will not tear our love and friendship. But what is happening now is monstrous, very afraid of the words "irreparably." These are not drawn, but real deaths. Now, here is my Ukrainian acquaintance writes that they bomb the city of Chernigov, associated with the name of the hero Ilya Muromets - he freed this city from the Tatars and, in general, it seems that more or less hero was honest. And the fact that now a huge bear attacks a almost peaceful country is completely unbearable. Here they report that they bombed a residential building in Kyiv, but our media write that the people of Kiev carved themselves, they themselves launched this missile. Immediately recall the story with the Malaysian Boeing.

There will be a lot of disinformation on both sides, the beetle is sure.

-Only when you write or call Kyiv or Kharkov friends, you can find out some truth. War is a magnifying glass for lies and misinformation, unfortunately, for sure, ”he says. -I signed not only this letter-I also signed a letter from the St. Petersburg Pen Club and other letters, although I understand that they will help only cleaning our conscience. And it is also very important to be together people of the same profession, people close to understanding what the horror of war is. This is the union necessary for our conscience, although still to the end our hearts will never be clean and honest - we all carry the terrible belonging to the country in which we live, to the country that unleashed the war. And no matter how much you say: I have to do with it, it hurts so unbearably!

The famous animator Yuri Norshtein, the author of the famous Hedgehog in the fog "and" Tales of fairy tales ", who signed this letter, nevertheless believes that in the current tragedy there is wine and the Ukrainian side.

-For me, this is some kind of Greek rock, there are continuous provocations, all sorts of intelligence services drove the situation into a terrifying impasse. A letter against the war was permeated with a humanistic spirit, so I signed it. It is terrible that in recent years the connections between people were torn-my Kyiv friends wrote to me that they could fly to Russia either through Istanbul, or after some third city-well, what is it? People always die in the war, and on both sides. But I want to remind you that after all, Ukraine did not think that living people also live in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, that they also have live blood through the veins, they were immediately declared "quilted jackets". I believe that contempt for people is the most vile that has developed humanity. You can’t despise people, even a pot of porridge is given a criminal. In Ukraine, I have a lot of friends with whom I have the most cordial relationship, but even among them I have recently noticed some kind of bitterness. But the artist must sign such letters, and if he begins to reason - this is like this, and this is like this, then come from here, this is not your business to do art.
"Animation and art ... have always been permeated with an anti -war spirit. We believe that today's military operations are directed not just against our Ukrainian friends and colleagues, but against all people, humanity and man as a whole. We are against war. We want the words about the fraternal people to not turn into a bloody nightmare. There is no excuse and murder!" - With these words, the anti -war letter of Russian animators ends.

The St. Petersburg Theater Journal published on his website a collective letter of the Association of Theater Critics. It is very short.

"Dear colleagues and friends! We are horrified by the military aggression that the Russian government unleashed against the Ukrainian people, and condemn it. Here we try to express our protest as we can - in manifestations and petitions against war. We feel shame and impotence. We hope for your safety. Let the theater will always be the space of humanity."

According to the editor -in -chief of the magazine, the theater, Marina Dmitrevskaya, this letter is the result of an open vote of the entire association, which consists of about 200 people.

- My Kyiv friends left in Rivne yesterday, at first they wrote me and my son - dear, we are always with you. Now they, my childhood friends, begin to write to me: you didn’t understand what was happening, you didn’t see that the scum in power - why were you silent?! And these are our friends in three generations - Mama’s friend married a Ukrainian, and they left to live in Kyiv. And in my generation, we already made friends with her daughter Lena, a Ukrainian who married a Belarusian. Once my son and I rested in Forosa savages, in our rented apartment in one room we lived in another Ukrainians with children, in the third - Georgians with children, and our children remembered this as the happiest summer of their life. We now correspond - all these three rooms. It is clear that the Georgian scenario was already there, there the airport has already been bombed, now the Ukrainian script is playing out, and I am to blame for everyone, now my Ukrainian friends are rolling out "petitions" to me. I think that this war is, in fact, also the failure of European diplomacy, but we never wash off.

Wed VKontakte Wed in classmates Wed on Twitter