TRAC
Interview Transcript

Kirill Razlogov   (cont)

So the differences between the elite and the masses are also differences between different kinds of elites, which brings me back to the feelings of the artistic elite, presented in this discussion. One of the problems is that art has been very highly conceited in Soviet Russia.  You know that.  You know that the censorship is the result and the reason why art is considered important, and art, and especially literature.  Every written word was considered part of the holy book, so it has to be censored personally by Stalin or by some very powerful censor.

After the changes--in the first phase of the changes in the Gorbachev Revolution, the artists and the artistic community and the intellectuals have become the avant garde of the changes.  But then, of course, it was thrown out because other people took their place.  And it was felt like some kind of an insult that they did the revolution, and they didn't gain much except personally for us.  But as the part of the society that didn't gain much by it, and this feeling was followed up by a feeling of nonimportance of artistic creativity, nonimportance of literature, nonimportance of film, nonimportance of theater, and only a fear subsisted, which made the political elite pay some attention to what was going on in the artistic circles.  Now the importance of literature is much lower than before the events, before Gorbachev, but literate activity, and I hope that Victor won't contradict me on that, has become much more free, much more diversified, and much more artistically rich.  But it was known now only to a small circle of people linked to artistic and literate activity.

As far as the falldown of the Soviet Union is considered, the average mistake that is made by many commentators from the West is to say that the falldown of it was the renaissance of Russia--that Russia didn't have its independence, it has its independence now, so there is a link between Russia before the Revolution, the Bolshevik Revolution, and Russia today.  In fact, the falldown of the Russian Empire started before that, and the first two countries which became independent, Poland and Finland, became independent a long time before the falldown of the Soviet Union.  And what we are calling Russia now, the Russian Federation, is of course, as you know very well, a small part of the Russian Empire before the Revolution.  So the falldown started in the beginning of the century.  It just went on till now, and there is one of the scenarios is that it might continue in the future, quicker or more that say this could take 10 years, 100 years, or 1000 years.  We don't know about it.

 The second point I wanted to touch is the difference of scope when we are analyzing what's happening in Russia from a cultural point of view.  I was always astonished how people involved in the government, involved in the political circles, had a special view of things that was very different from the grassroot level they lived in, because, despite being members of the government, a part of the political elite, they also are citizens, they go out, they live in houses, they look around, they see what's happening.  But their point of view is very different from the everyday life point of view, and the most astonishing thing is that the everyday life point of view sometimes is more reasonable than the political elite point of view.  These elderly specialists in politics and economy and the Soviet status, they're exchanging views, not taking into consideration that the young generation has quite different approaches to them.  And I wanted to make the young generation speak, but they didn't speak till now. 

 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8