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2005: antohins 100 Father-Russia [an error occurred while processing this directive]

Summary

Questions

antohins

Notes

2004 & After

Liberty is always unfinished business. --anonymous

ANTOHINS: summer 2005 -- Russian. Family History.

Тексты по-английски были написаны чуть не десять лет назад. Как получилось, что я потерял интерес к "Отцу-России" -- возможно от того, что интерес к России оказался в Америке очень "политическим"? То, что происходило и происходит в России, принадлежит к (большой) истории, настолько "глобальной", что самим русским трудно понять, что происходит с ними. Девяностые годы, смутные времена там, здесь будут десятилением позора американской "внешней политики". Клинтон не просто пропустил момент, но и повернул отношение русских к Америке на "вражесткое".

Конечно, это дело самих русских разбираться в "своих" делах, но дела эти были "коммунистические", глобальные. Полвека Холодной Войны, годы обязывают. Что последовало тут после "Падения Коммунизма"? Да особено ничего. Понят ли был этот огромный поворот истории? Нет.

Похоже, пишу это не на "той" странице. Или вообще не в "том" месте.

Index * Shows * Film-North * Theatre w/Anatoly * Theatre Theory * Classes * VIRTUAL THEATRE * Plays * Father-Russia: nonfiction (fragments) * In Russian: plays-in-progress * Cyber 3 Sisters: prod notes * Students mini-directory *

BEING RUSSIAN

There are plants, animals, humans and Russians.

From the Russian Book THE RUSSIANESS
"Russia is a country with an unpredictable past." (Yuri Afanasiev, May 1993)
Contents:
HISTORY REVISITED
WE, THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE
THE FAILURES OF THE RUSSIAN IDEA (questions)
FORMAL, SYMBOLIC AND REAL POWERS

        

My Lord, I know not what I ought to ask of Thee.
   Thou and Thou alone knowest my needs.
   Thou lovest me more than I am able to love Thee.
   O Father, grant unto me, Thy servant, all which I cannot ask.
   For a cross I dare not ask, nor for consolation;
   I dare only to stand in Thy presence.
   My heart is open to Thee.
   Thou seest my needs of which I myself am unaware.
   Behold and lift me up!
   In Thy presence I stand,
   awed and silenced by Thy will and Thy judgments,
   into which my mind cannot penetrate.
   To Thee I offer myself as a sacrifice.
   No other desire is mine but to fulfill Thy will.
   Teach me how to pray.
   Do Thyself pray within me.
   Amen.

Somehow I leave Russia always late in Spring, when after a long winter everything is a promise and hope. The last days before a departure are the most torturous time. I knew that I wouldn't be back. I lied to all, but they saw it, it was expected long ago. There was a big event on TV -- Solzhenitsyn arrived with his family to Vladivostok. Or was it Magadan? He was away for more then twenty years and he wanted to take the trans-Siberian train to Moscow, to see Russia. I saw him coming from the plane and kissing the ground, right there on the runway, the Russian soil....
Something I never did and will never do, I guess. It was a gesture, he didn't really kiss the asphalt, I think. I like him, not so much as a writer or a thinker, but a man. Maybe because his son was in my show, maybe because his wife was at baptism of my son, maybe because he is stubborn.... I don't know. I feel for him. He is what I am not. I can't even cross myself. And I do not pray. I wish I could fall on my knees and say, "Teach me how to pray." But I can't.
He was arriving, I was about to leave. Maybe he is a bigger man than me. The people who met him, the local officials, they were the ones who threw him into the Gulag and later out of the country. I saw it on their faces, in their eyes, I knew what they were waiting for -- to get. I watched myself stepping out of the plane two years ago. I dismissed their looks, I ignored their eyes and the sound of their speech, their moves.... I tried to be back home, to be Russian. I wanted to know Russia....
....
We have to give "our" meaning to everything. We have to occupy everything, mentally. The skies above have to be the Russian skies and the air in the city of Moscow is a special Moscow's spring air of my youth, the street corner is a Russian piece of space, the rain has to be special -- the Russian rain.... Why? I ask, why?
What is the STORY of those two years? Well, I felt foreign in Russia, I had to experience it, but that was my position in this world before, always and everywhere. Sure, there is "Russian" stuff in Russia, the exotics, but mostly it's just a naked situation of man's conditions today. What do we have? The insecurity, when the future we design is no friend to us, when the changes we beg for crush us. When there's no place to call home.... In a labor camp Solzhenitsyn was in Russia....
Why do we need it, the home? What home does my soul have? Is it possible for an immortal soul to be "Russian"? The one which was created at the beginning, before there was any mention of Russia? No, we created Russia, the souls. People, why do you insist that is Russia the source of my being? When my heart asks for this Russian smell and taste, do I not betray my soul? I have to denounce myself.... That's what the communists did.
I did it, too.
Russia was my home. It's gone. No more.

"In Thy presence I stand, awed and silenced by Thy will and Thy judgments, into which my mind cannot penetrate."
Well, I think that I know what's happened to Russia. In fact, I know it too well. Yes, I know Russia's future. Are you ready to hear? Russia has no future. Russia is destained to vanish. Like me. I know it because I cursed Russia. I did it several times. My curse stans as firm as ever. I didn't ask God to punish Russia, I did it myself. Die! -- I said, and I haven't changed my mind. I, Russia's son, wish her death. It's me against the country. Nothing can help them, not the western loans, not the millions who live in Russia and try to save the place.
I don't have to predict Russia's future, it's in my heart. I can do nothing to help them; that's how I feel, and unless its changed, the curse is there to ruin them. It's not "my" feeling, it's Russia's own voice. I'm only the one who hears, the one who knows the true reasons for all Russia's misfortunes.
I was consumed with being Russian; thinking about the future in "Russian" terms, seeing history from Russia's perspective, walking through life in this Russian emotional chronotope... before I realized that I don't see it, the future. I haven't seen it even a few steps ahead. I saw nothing, as if there was no Russia anymore. My Russian mind betrayed me. I was blind, because the ethnicity was a part of my intellectual methodology. More important -- the attitude. Oh, talking about Euro-centrism -- the Russians were preoccupied with the Russianness, even in the Soviet period (seemingly "anti-Russian" time)! A century ago after Russia's entrance into the club of great cultures, communism gave Russians a chance to become a dominant world civilization. The Third Rome! The temptation was too strong to resist. Too bad, communism recognized no ethnicity. Russia had to kill herself to be the goddess of future. So, she did. As usual, the problem was that this operation had to be performed by the Russians with their Russian mentality. They did it the Russian way. In excess.
Cry, Russia, cry... Can you hear her songs?
Silence. "My Lord, I know not what I ought to ask of Thee."
Russia is a danger as long as she is a danger for herself.
To destroy your own home is to be at home in Russia....

To read the rest go to Being Russian

Sorry, for many months I have no time to work on this book and I do not know whe I will have the time.

@ 1998-2003 Anatoly Antohin * ©2004 filmplus.org * * home * about * guide * classes * advertise * faq * contact * news * forums * mailing list * bookstore * ebooks * search * calendar * games * polls * submit your link * web * film-north *

Russian Classics:

WRITE directories:

Хронологически (сюжетно) "Отец-Россия" относится к 1992-94 году, когда я был в Питере с Русско-Американским Тетром. О Ельцыне мало, даже не знаю, если у меня на страницах его фотография. "Переходный Период" -- за ответами надо идти в прошлое, к этим вот лицам. Может быть в "Веке Антохиных" получится. Не личности, конечно, а что было ЗА ними, какие скачки в "сознании России": от Ленина до Сталина, от того до Хрущева, а с Брежневым словно все остановилось, дальше лица без новых идей, какие-то реформы, перестройки, обновления, реконструкции, возвращения... как и сейчас идет. "Отказ от коммунизма" -- а что это значит? Как дерево может от свого прошлого отказаться? Какая глупость! ©2004 filmplus.org * * home * about * guide * classes * advertise * faq * contact * news * forums * mailing list * bookstore * ebooks * search * calendar * games * polls * submit your link * web * film-north *

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Эти вообще на одно лицо (одна команда, политбюро), что можно было от них ожидать? А тут молодой коммунист Горбачев, только вся разломал, говорят. Так они и старались ничего не трогать, так целое поколение прошло. Не знали, что делать. Никто ни марксизма, ни коммунизма, ничего не понимал в идеях. А ныне и вовсе от идеологии отказались, "как в Америке"! Что называется "без царя в голове"... Даже Турции без идеологии нельзя, как Россия обойдется? Как в Америке? Дурни, так в Америке государство лишь случайный, побочный "продукт" общества. Это оно теперь разрослось из-за войн, выть хочется, а так Америка и без США жить может. США -- это паразит Америки. Как в Америке -- это что опять догонять? Только теперь по-ихнему? А с капиталистами (олигархи) все равно будем бороться! Кто будет? "Элиты" (это что вроде КПСС?). И "президент" (как их вырают в России еще не понятно) ходит с серьезным лицом Штирлица по царскому Кремлю -- что не могут они построить что-нибудь для правительства, а Кремль отдать под музей, как сделали с Зимним Дворцом? Поди пойми!