You mean the guy who should have won the peace prize last year?
"Russian musicians’ support for Putin not playing well" by Jeremy Eichler | Globe Staff June 14, 2014
The celebrated Russian pianist Denis Matsuev comes to Harvard University’s Sanders Theatre Saturday evening for a solo recital. But audience members making their way to the hall should expect more than a serene stroll through Harvard Yard. A pro-Ukrainian group is planning its own cultural event called the Arts Against Aggression Street Festival, to take place before the recital. On Facebook, organizers urge audiences to “Come celebrate the creative power of arts and protest Denis Matsuev’s role in supporting Putin’s aggression against Ukraine.”
The side-by-side events are only the latest in a season that has seen music colliding with politics at an unusually heightened pitch. Last month, a man was arrested at another Sanders Theatre performance, this one by conductor Vladimir Spivakov and the Moscow Virtuosi. The Boston-based group behind the street festival also organized protests of Spivakov’s concerts in six cities. Another Russian conductor, Valery Gergiev, has been similarly embattled in New York and Munich.
What all of these musicians share is a place among the list of Russia’s cultural elite who signed a letter in March endorsing Putin’s policies in the Crimea.
“In the days when the fate of Crimea and our countrymen is being decided, Russia’s cultural figures cannot remain indifferent, cold-hearted observers,” a portion of the letter stated, in a translation published in the Moscow Times. “We want the commonality of our peoples and our cultures to have a strong future. This is why we firmly declare our support of the position of the President of the Russian Federation in regards to Ukraine and Crimea.”
Whether their endorsements flowed from sincere personal beliefs, from fear of the consequences of declining to sign, or from a more calculated desire to secure continued political favor at home, the pro-Putin stance of these musicians is now catching up with them as they perform outside the country. It is also prompting a larger debate, at home and abroad, about the meaning of such letters, the freedom these artists do or do not enjoy, and the ghosts of the Soviet past that some see hovering in the background.
I've already soured on this piece, sorry.
Indeed, Spivakov is no stranger to guerrilla protest in the concert hall. As a young violinist in 1976, while he was in the middle of performing Bach’s towering D-minor Chaconne on the stage of Carnegie Hall, he was attacked with a paint bomb that landed close enough to splatter his white dress shirt with red. Yet in a display of preternatural cool-headedness, Spivakov on that occasion did not stop playing — or, according to a New York Times review, even miss a beat.
Spivakov showed less steely indifference when the protester took the stage last month during the applause at the end of the Cambridge performance. The demonstrator made a speech that drew the conductor into a brief but heated confrontation captured in a YouTube video that has since been viewed some 57,000 times.
In the video, Spivakov can be seen walking to center stage to confront the protester, and facing off only inches away from his opponent. A member of his orchestra steps between them as if to cool tempers. The protester is then hauled away by a Harvard police officer.
Meanwhile, in New York and abroad, Gergiev seems to be veering precariously toward a kind of political radioactivity. Russia’s most internationally prominent conductor and a longtime Putin ally, Gergiev was among the first to sign the March letter — an event that came after he had been protested at the Metropolitan Opera and Carnegie Hall in the fall for declining to clearly denounce Russia’s anti-gay legislation.
After Gergiev’s current season of politicking, his long-planned appointment to the helm of the Munich Philharmonic apparently was sufficiently endangered that the conductor defended himself in a letter to the orchestra’s subscribers last month. Its text is a curious blend of candor and obfuscation.
“I cannot ignore the fact that parts of Russian society live according to fundamental principles that are different from those of Western societies,” Gergiev wrote. He also concedes that “circumstances of Realpolitik can suddenly infiltrate the common ground of our cultural work and cause harsh and jarring discord.” And yet his letter ends with a kind of deus-ex-machina solution, simply prescribing music itself as “the best bridge-builder!”
Spivakov did not respond to requests for comment for this article, and Matsuev’s Moscow-based manager conveyed a message through the tour presenter — which rented Sanders Theatre for both the Spivakov and Matsuev concerts — that the pianist’s schedule in recent days had not allowed him time to address e-mailed questions. This is a shame. Russian musicians who publicly engage in politics at home should not expect to sidestep the issues here.
Look whose talking!
That said, some of their defenders have quietly wondered how free these musicians really were to reject the Kremlin’s call for endorsements. Gergiev, as artistic director of the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, and Spivakov, as director of two orchestras and president of the Moscow International Performing Arts Center, are both at the helm of large institutions that are heavily reliant on government funding. Matsuev too has his own music festival. With the Russian government so financially invested in artistic life, can mainstream Russian classical artists really be expected to oppose Putin?
Lurking behind all of this is also the question of just how far away the Soviet legacy resides today. When it comes to classical music, this legacy is both complex and double-edged. The regime ennobled this particular art form, placing it and its most prominent champions on a national pedestal, while also cynically harnessing music’s prestige for the purposes of the State.
I'm finding it insultingly offensive that my war-promoting paper is trying to drive us all back to the 1950s!
Sorry, guys, that will never work again.
In the Soviet era, that prestige was not requested, but demanded, of musicians, under threat of state violence. Stalin called Shostakovich personally in 1949 to ask him to travel to the Waldorf peace conference in New York, and there was only one real answer that could be given. But in the later Soviet years, the terms of the cat-and-mouse game shifted. Today matters are even less clear cut, as the state wields its influence through different channels.
“I don’t believe anybody was forced to sign anything,” said the Moscow-based conductor Constantine Orbelian, in a recent Skype interview. “You can always just keep quiet.”
The pianist and conductor Ignat Solzhenitsyn, who is a son of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, voiced a similar opinion, in response to questions submitted by e-mail. “There is always a choice,” he wrote. “In this particular case, with overwhelming support among the Russian public for the Crimea policy, it stands to reason that many of the artists who signed were genuine in their feeling; but others would have felt a strong implicit pressure to sign.”
Yet Solzhenitsyn also cautioned against overdrawing comparisons between now and earlier eras of Soviet cultural life. “It’s an authoritarian system with certain echoes of the Soviet past, but also with basic freedoms and opportunities that Stalin’s terrorized intelligentsia could barely have imagined,” he wrote. “Any zigzags on Russia’s decidedly non-linear path toward freedom should never be confused with the crushing weight of the Bolshevik boot.”
See: Secret Facts - Soviet & Jews
I suppose the names Kaganovich and Yagoda don't mean anything to you?
Indeed, the Soviet legacy becomes necessary for understanding the situation of today’s Russian artists, but it is not sufficient. If anything, it reminds us chiefly of how deeply music and politics in Russia have long been intertwined. When today’s Russian artists are courted by the Kremlin precisely because of their cultural eminence, these musicians should not be surprised when the Kremlin’s actions then follow them, far away from home.
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Related: Putin’s Pivot
I'm going to do one myself because after a series of setbacks, the battlefield victory in Mariupol underscores a growing confidence among Ukrainian officials that the tide may have turned.
What goes out must come in:
"Separatists down military plane in Ukraine, killing 49" by Andrew E. Kramer | New York Times June 15, 2014
LUHANSK, Ukraine — Separatists in Ukraine used a shoulder-fired missile to shoot down a large Ukrainian military transport jet as it was trying to land at an airport in this eastern city Saturday, killing all 49 people on board, the military said.
The attack was the deadliest episode for the Ukrainian military since the unrest began in the country’s east.
****************
The military wing of the prosecutor general’s office said in a statement [that] the office had opened an investigation into what it called a terrorist act. Separatists from the self-declared People’s Republic of Luhansk confirmed that they had shot down the jet and said that all military airplanes in the area, which is near the border with Russia, were targets.
Right. There is a war on son, haven't you heard?
A surveillance video that captured the plane’s destruction showed a streak of light rising from the ground, then an explosion near the airport where the plane was making its final approach to Luhansk.
Related: Globe Tells the Truth About TWA 800
It was a one-day wonder, and even then it was a half-truth.
The plane crashed into a barley field about 12 miles from the airport. Parts of the four-engine jet plane were mangled beyond recognition, other items were oddly intact, and all lay scattered about, wholly unguarded by either side.
Yeah, that is odd after what we saw in Shanksville.
Wind blew over the site, fluttering torn pages from a flight manual and patches of torn, bloody clothing.
No passports?
The plane had been packed with ammunition and as it came down or when it hit, some exploded, leaving empty shells amid the rubble, along with intact rounds and unexploded grenades.
By late afternoon, scavengers from a nearby village were walking gingerly through the site.
“Brother kills brother. When will this end?” said one man, who offered only his first name, Taras. “I heard the plane when it exploded last night. How many mothers won’t see their sons again? And for what?”
Ukraine’s new president, Petro O. Poroshenko, called an emergency session of the country’s security council and declared Sunday a day of mourning.
In Washington, a White House spokeswoman, Laura Lucas Magnuson, said US officials “condemn the shooting down of the Ukrainian military plane and continue to be deeply concerned about the situation in eastern Ukraine, including by the fact that militant and separatists groups have received heavy weapons from Russia, including tanks, which is a significant escalation.”
Is there anyone in the world that actually listens to the US anymore?
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President François Hollande of France called President Vladimir Putin of Russia to convey what a German government spokesman called “dismay” over the downing of the plane.
An online post by a group called Information Resistance, which often conveys news from Ukraine’s armed forces in more detail than official statements do, said Ukrainian soldiers at the scene had found empty firing tubes for two shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles and a third missile that failed to fire.
??? That was left behind?
Looks like propaganda to me.
The post said the missiles were Iglas, or “needles,” Russian-made antiaircraft rockets of a type that separatists have shown to journalists in recent weeks.
Pro-Russian groups say they obtained them from Ukrainian military bases.
The jet was making its approach into a contested area. The Ukrainian army controls the airport, but separatists hold Luhansk, which is important for patrolling the border with Russia.
The State Department said Friday that Russia had sent tanks and other heavy weapons to separatists across that border, supporting accusations made by Ukraine.
A convoy of three T-64 tanks, several BM-21 multiple rocket launchers and other military vehicles crossed the border near the Ukrainian town of Snizhne, State Department officials said.
The Ukrainian army reported Friday that it had destroyed two of the tanks and several other vehicles in the convoy.
Secretary of State John Kerry called his Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, on Saturday to complain about Russia’s arms shipments to separatists and to express concern about the downing of the transport plane, the State Department said.
"Yes, John. Yup. Yup. Okay. Uh-huh. All right. Bye." Asshole.
Kerry also called Ukraine’s prime minister, Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk, and assured him that the United States and its European allies were prepared “to raise the costs for Russia if it does not end the flow of weapons across the border and break with separatists,” the State Department official said, a reference to the additional sanctions President Obama has said would be imposed if Russia keeps up its support to the Ukrainian separatists.
Which will raise costs for Europe and the U.S. even more.
Buttressing the State Department’s assertions about Russian arms shipments, NATO’s military command on Saturday released photographs of the three Russian tanks the State Department said were sent from southwest Russia to Ukraine.
In the photographs, the tanks do not have the typical camouflage paint of T-64 tanks that belong to the Ukrainian military and have been stripped of any markings, much like the military vehicles Russia sent to Crimea.
Now I'm convinced lying war media is telling the truth!
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Once the gas was cut off there was a pipeline explosion that was self-inflicted, but the Russians are blamed anyway!
What's next, blaming them for Ukrainian perverts?
Ukrainian leader proposes cease-fire, but separatists scoff
Some demanded that the Ukrainian military leave the region, called Donbass, while others wanted a war tribunal for Ukraine’s newly elected leaders.
I'm for that.
Most said they wanted the restoration of “stability,” the precise definition of which remained elusive. Denis, a separatist fighter from Makeyevka, a depressed industrial town outside of Donetsk, when asked how and when the conflict might be resolved. Another fighter jumped in helpfully. “The Third World War,” he said to nods of assent.
I'd rather not do that, thanks.
A stick-thin fighter who, like many others here, identified himself only by an alias, said, “If they want peace, then they can leave.”
Sounds good to me!
Instead I get NATO trying to build a case for invasion with the U.S. directing it all.
And Putin has gone beyond Hitler now!
"Putin’s Stalinist musings | June 19, 2014
Russian President Vladimir Putin, a former colonel in the KGB, doesn’t hide his nostalgia for the old Soviet Union, the collapse of which he has called
“the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the [20th] century.” He even
expresses admiration for Josef Stalin, one of the bloodiest tyrants of
modern times, praising him for winning the Second World War and transforming the Soviet Union into an industrial superpower.
I addressed who was behind that above, and I know it is D-Day that won the war over here; however, when one goes beyond received dogma one can see that was the western allies scrambling because the Soviet steamroller was looking like it was going to take all of Europe. Up until then and beyond, the western allies had been bogged down in Italy.
But enough chatting history.
Now Putin is hinting that he would like to see the dictator’s name
restored to the city of Volgograd, which was known as Stalingrad for 26
years, a period that included the monumental battle that stopped the
Nazi advance into the USSR and helped turn the tide of World War II.
When a Soviet veteran, meeting Putin during D-Day ceremonies in Normandy
this month, asked whether the Stalingrad name could be reinstated, the
Russian president voiced no objection. The city’s residents should “hold
a referendum and make a joint decision,” Putin said. “We will do what the people say.”
Historical memories of the Battle of Stalingrad evoke understandable
patriotism in Russia’s World War II-era veterans, but the historical
record of Stalin’s human-rights atrocities should evoke universal
revulsion. Tens of millions of victims died during the Great Terror over
which Stalin presided, and the Soviet victory in the war trapped half
of Europe behind the Iron Curtain for the next five decades.
I know. I know.
Stalingrad was renamed Volgograd in 1961 as part of Nikita
Khrushchev’s campaign to undo the former tyrant’s personality cult, and
there is little evidence that most Russians want to bring back the old
name.
We call him president over here.
Surveys by the Levada Center, an independent Russian research organization, have consistently found strong opposition to the idea. In a 2012 poll,
60 percent of respondents were against it; only 18 percent in favor.
Within Volgograd itself, city councilor Alexei Volotskov told The
Guardian, three out of four residents are against restoring Stalin’s
name.
The autocratic Putin may look back at Stalin’s reign with high
regard. Most Russians know better. For 53 years, Volgograd has borne the
name of one of Russia’s great rivers. It needs no other eponym, least of all that of one of Russia’s greatest villains.
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Well, I'm going to break for a while and go watch a villainous soccer team, if you know what I mean. Just watched another villain lose a heart-breaker.
