“People need to feel sorry for their housing problem spoiled, a lot of trouble around. It is necessary to protect himself from judging others, even if they deserve it,” — said the Russian writer, playwright and historian Edvard Radzinsky, which on April 26 will represent in the House of Congress his new program “to predict the future, you will have to understand the past. XX century. The results of the”. In an interview with Delfi Radzinsky tells about the affair with Latvia, the influence of the revolution and high technology and the battles around the monuments.
Unique and non-repetitive narrator. His drama asked the best Directors around the world. His programs about history on the First Channel awarded four national television awards TEFI. His books published the world’s largest publishing houses, and among the many historical narratives have become the world’s bestselling biography of Nicholas II, Stalin and Rasputin.
Radzinsky rarely allowed to broadcast their own night on TV: “This conversation is only with those who are in the hall.” The residents were lucky, they were the first outside of Russia, will become spectators of the new program, which premiered in late January in the Concert hall of Tchaikovsky — “to foresee the future, you will have to understand the past. Of the twentieth century. The results of the”. In may Radzinsky waiting for her in London.
Delfi.lv: Latvia do you have a long-standing affair?
Edvard Radzinsky: what! It’s part of my life, which is called the House of art in Dubulah: wonderful girls, lovely weather, the sea in which you can pass many miles in hopes of swimming, but above the knee does not go…
I watched at the beach absolutely marvelous story. There came a Secretary of the Central Committee of Mongolia, and the two guards. Normal Jurmala June morning, four degrees at sea, eight on land. The Mongols decided to bathe and go. The guards in the eyes of horror. He goes on and on, and the horror grows and grows. He’s already barely visible and suddenly plops down in the sea. And they looked at each other and imaterialise, ran into the sea too.
This was Dubulti, where me lived Bella Akhmadulina. Each morning, step out onto the balcony, she asked me: “Tell me, Edward, you swallow not flying?! She’s here somewhere made a nest”. I told her, “Bella, how lucky you are, you can see the swallow and I, no matter how you look, you see only the editor of “Literary newspaper” Chaikovsky”.
— Your plays because in Latvia put.
— Was a powerful performance of “movies” in the theater. Rainis. With a great ending. Played Vija Artmane, and put — Peterson. We had a rather peculiar conversation: I told him a long text, and it is only a “Yes!”. The main point is that Moscow is not interested in this play there was a huge number (censored) “wymark”, and in Latvia in the Latvian language played in their entirety — nobody cared. I’m only on the reaction of the audience realized that this is my thrown piece. And I was happy!
— You know that Riga theatre STADIA last year put another one of your powerful play “It in the absence of love and death”?
— It is my great pleasure to know about it. And willingly would have looked. Anyway, I like it, even if they, as expected, threw poltext. I know how hard it is to play when the hall sits this strange man called the author, who believes that his every word — logic, psychology, and action… my pieces — a paradoxical story. They put the best Directors Efros, Tovstonogov, potters, Viktyuk, Fokin. For example, in 1991 I was just nine performances in Moscow, sometimes three a day — and I visited them.
The paradox is that all of them were very successful (the same as “Socrates” was 16 years of age), while none of the pieces have not been delivered as it is written and what is written. The playwright has trouble with the TV with the screen off — you can hear the sound but the image stays with him and goes with him to the grave. To see your picture, I never managed.
For example, the play “It in the absence of love and death” — the Directors saw the main character as a strange girl, sometimes it was called “volodinskaya heroine”… actually, it’s scary and dangerous creature that lives alone in the world — the sort of Marina Tsvetaeva. Around the world a communal apartment. I wanted all of the rooms were simultaneously on stage and the people in them at the same time talking, and not just that one talk, then in another talk. It is very difficult, so the way I see it, no one has ever done.
The world can’t this girl take. When she met a simple man and imagined him as my lover, although he any relation to it had not, he quickly tired of it and waiting couldn’t wait for when this thread will stop — he does not understand it. When he destroys her dream world, and for him she becomes a normal — Galey, Sveta, Natasha — she is doing everything to get him killed. But when it happens, more deadly desperation than hers, it is impossible to imagine. She received love and death with which she played… Alas, none of the Director I did not see it.
I saw were two wonderful Actresses and the laughter with the applause of the audience was told about the meeting thirty years. The stalls were frankly waiting for this “young fool,” passes from the scene below appeared the famous actress.
Phrases from this play today acquire some new bizarre meaning. For example, “for me the value of human existence is determined by its individual deviation from the norm”. And today any deviations can be harshly criticized, and by others to be led to the absurd…
— Well, to hell with them! I perceive the world as a play about the rhinos — everything they run, while they themselves have turned into them. For example, I was invited to a performance at the Bolshoi theatre, where the scene was from three Onegin. One was drinking — the audience laughed. Sang sometimes. None of the three did not know how to read Pushkin’s poems. Since I know Eugene Onegin by heart, I always wanted to tell them, because sometimes they were wrong in the text. But it didn’t matter — there was everything, except for Onegin. And hall the same as them. Such banter at the start of perestroika, which to this day remains the main language of the theatre.
— Does this upset you?
— Come on, people outside I do not particularly take. Now I’ll read your plays. For example, a play about Mozart read in St. Petersburg with the orchestra in a crowded hall for 1500 people plus 200 on the chandeliers. And for the most part they were men of 25-35 years, and not a single call on a mobile phone. Probably, we become the same. Although, the attitude we have rather different.
The question is, which character. For many, it is one of those “God will deliver to gray hair is to live in service to an empty pastime.” Yes, you can do Figaro, who says, “damn”, but not a single monologue of Figaro did not say — he does not understand them. Another journalistic phrase from the “they steal everything, and you demand honesty”, “needed a bookkeeper, so naturally, they called the dancer,” he can read, and about love — not. You look and think, well, okay, let it be so.
There is organized by lowering the culture dreamed of by the Bolsheviks — it is felt everywhere. But don’t pay attention to it, it is necessary to do their work.
— This year marks the centenary of the revolution. In your opinion, do not overdue it new? And we somewhere not to openly roll…
— As the great Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich, we go forward, but for some reason through the anus. Maybe so, maybe not. One thing I will tell you, in addition to reading plays, what I consider to be my hobby, I’m still trying to tell people about the past… But the trouble is that I somehow talk about the present. And what is worse — talking about tomorrow. Because the history of mankind, unfortunately, frozen.
For example, if I now begin to outline the reflections of Pliny the elder about the Emperor Titus — it is all about our restructuring. Pliny could not understand why in the time of Nero there were so many denunciations, all pounded each other, all afraid, all praise of Nero and have lost the shame — he talks about it like it did his dad and grandfather, and some unknown people. He thinks it’s all in the informers, which we ought to all be collected, put on ships and send them to stormy seas — they are dying, as those who have suffered from their denunciations. And all this on the shore applauded. But I assure you that most applaud incognito scammers. And tomorrow new born scammers, because people don’t change. And the whole world is not changing — not only in our country.
The boom of Christianity has departed far, and people here, where is the Eiffel tower of high technology and a pathetic mound of human morality. All do the same thing, just from time to time change. First, they wore a toga, then camisoles, coats, jackets… But they are very recognizable. So it is not necessary to say “damn”, to understand everything about Figaro.
— How can we get off this vicious circle? Already tired of walking like a donkey after a carrot…
— This should change. But if I tell you that tomorrow will be a man who will fulfill all God’s commandments, you will laugh. But while these are not there, it will be like, from century to century. And it’s my job to tell you what happened to us. This is the story of that with us now. Must tell them so honestly, that people feel the psychology of time. For example, Nicholas I and literature. On the one hand, the man who even walked home in uniform. On the other — literature, which is all not in uniform, not organized. How do they interact? Everyone will think that I’m implying something, but I swear I only tell.
I read the poems of the 19th century — can bet they will be met with applause, everyone will think that it is about us. Want to remind people about the important spiritual things, which they in routine forgot. For example, the entire play about Mozart — the story of the spirit, and not just about genius. It turns out, laughing the scoffer was an incredible depth, and he always knew what death, without which the artist must not live. My task is to remind about the high.
— Why we are born, in your opinion?
I answer this question do your whole life! Trying to understand why man is created, what is its mystical Enigma and is there only the moment that is given to us, or it there another moment. Where I was going, why was how the drawing was set in his fate. To me it all very interesting.
— Today, many people live in the past, miss him, and not strive in the future… On the same Soviet time.
Is very clear. After all, what the Bolsheviks said about their socialism, they lied. And here’s what they said about capitalism — it’s the absolute truth. When we had true capitalism, then suddenly everyone realized that this is also a very bad society. Unfortunately for those who need freedom, not only equality, other companies are not established.
I have a lot of the plays went to America — I went to the theater on Broadway, where they were placed. For the first time from the Soviet Union I was released in the late 80’s, I was shocked, what a wonderful theater. I asked them: why don’t you have ads all over town? And they answered: it is very expensive.
Later I spoke with a journalist from the New York Times and was indignant: how come the government does not support this wonderful theater. He didn’t understand: why should it support? After all, he who pays the Piper calls the tune, and the theater wants to be free. Only then my Bolshevik consciousness came: it is bad when there is no support from the state, but even worse, if it supports Piper calls the tune. The main thing — freedom!
— As someone who wrote many biographical studies of famous personalities, what do you think about the current dances around the monuments — you put Prince Vladimir, Ivan the terrible, we strive to demolish the monument to Soldiers-liberators.
— It is also clear that idols like to put. Let put, to hell with them! I think it’s a harmless thing. Some people think that it achieved some political goals — no. Our nation is revived only when the ban, that’s when you take down a monument — then all of them start to engage. Or if you are not allowed to put — too it should.
I assure you, a lot of people do not go to the center and do not know what the Kremlin is poor Prince Vladimir, who every day recall the phrase “Russia is a joy to drink, can already be alone”. In fact, he said, explaining why did not accept the Muslim religion is to not drink.
— Well, what do you think about semireducible Nicholas II? When you wrote his biography, could have imagined such a plot development?
And let mirotochit! Understand, we from paganism to come out anyway we will never understand it. I called the man and in all seriousness said that he zamirotochila postcard with the image of Nicholas II and the Royal family. Think about this… In General, the attitude of the people never forget two things — irony and compassion. This is very important. They need to communicate. People need to feel sorry for their housing problem spoiled, a lot of trouble around. It is necessary to protect himself from judging others, even if they deserve it.
