Years ago I was involved in a Cold War caper when the Russian theatre director Yuri Lyubimov defected to the West in the course of an interview with me. To the horror of the management of the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith, he sneered at the chinovniki - petty bureaucrats - who meddled with his work at the Tanganka Theatre. After that, in Yuri Andropov's Soviet Union, there was no going back and, in 1984, Yuri was stripped of his citizenship. It was an exciting time for me. I was given strange warnings by a man in a room full of mirrors - 'Very distracting,' he said ominously - and I raced around London with Yuri, his wife and friends, avoiding the rest of the press and the KGB, who, I was assured, would snatch him if they could. Oh and Yuri's production of Crime and Punishment at the Lyric was one of my great theatrical experiences. But all the time I was watched coldly by his Hungarian wife. She blamed me for all this. She had not known he had intended to defect and now she thought she would never see her family again. 'Look what happened to Tarkovsky,' she said to Yuri. Andrei Tarkovsky, that great, great artist, also defected and was separated from his family. He was to die, still in exile, in 1986.
All of which came to mind when I saw some Russian expert on television this morning. He used the word 'liquidate' to describe the killing of Alexander Litvinenko in London. 'Liquidate' is the verbal equivalent of my Cold War capers. I was enjoying the game, but the eyes of Yuri's wife spoke of the horrible reality. Similarly 'liquidate' sounds exciting and James Bondish. But what it really means is the torturing to death by evil people of a man whose only crime was to speak out.
Saturday, November 25, 2006
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
To pick up the thread of Tarkovsky, here's a couple of links to the great man talking on art, with some very relevant lines as to the conditions of life the artist works under.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V27XlEDLdtE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aedXnLpKBCw
For me, perhaps the greatest single greatest artist of the 20th century.
Do you know the term 'siloviki', Bryan? When you say his only crime was to speak out, were you referring to your friend or to the one who just died? Because if the latter, you haven't been following either UK Daily Pundit or me. The description above does not apply.
ReplyDeleteWe have a very odd relationship with the truth. Each day, from the moment we wake to the moment we drop off, we walk a tightrope that is stretched between truth and untruth. To speak one's mind can be catastrphic. Not to speak up can have equally dire consequences. We know some things we shouldn't know, and we don't know other things we should, and nobody knows who knows what. And that's just at a personal level. If one tries to understand what's going on further afield, in others' minds, in politics, in other cultures, one enters realms in which the truth is completely out of reach. It is almost irrelevant. Irrelevant in so far as it is buried so deep nobody knows where to dig. Occasionally, someone gets lucky and finds out something. Occasionally, we get lucky and that person speaks out and is believed. But rarely do they prosper for their good deed.
ReplyDeleteYou seem to have an odd effect on theatre types Bryan. Pinter wanted to kick you in the balls, and this Russian fella' decided to defect while you were interviewing him. Will you be interviewing Andrew Lloyd Webber in the near future?
ReplyDeleteI did some time ago, Pundit. Towards the end he started telling me he wasn't as rich as people thought he was. Not quite a defection or a kick in the balls but getting there.
ReplyDelete