Yesterday, Georgian authorities banned Sergei Bezrukov’s theater performance in Tbilisi, just because this actor had expressed in favor of Putin’s policy with regard to Ukraine and the Crimea.The Chamber of Culture in Georgia has announced that thus it is protecting the sovereignty of Ukraine and its territorial integrity. The previous day, a number of well-known and popular artists: Oleg Gazmanov, Fyodor Bondarchuk, Mikhail Boyarsky, Oleg Tabakov, Nikolai Tsiskaridze and others, signed a collective letter, which expressed their support to Putin for his recent Ukrainian policy. The statement was also signed by Bezrukov. As for how appropriate are the vows of loyalty given to the authorities in the 21st century and the letters “unanimous welcoming” party-government policy or “condemning with wrath” the machinations of the enemies, let’s put them aside. We should not require heroic dissidence from all artists, they also have their own interests.
However, let us return to the stance of our neighboring country’s authorities, which, in my opinion, is also wrong. Let’s not have a long discuss of whether the expected referendum in Crimea is a realization of the right to self-determination of the nation or an annexation of the peninsula by Russia. Probably, both, but I ask forgiveness from those seeing parallels with Karabakh, it is more similar to the second one.
However, it is not essential in this context. It is more important to maintain the bridges that were established between our peoples during the time of Russian and Soviet empires. Whereas those ties, particularly, between the Russians and Georgians are primarily cultural. The evidences of it are many. At this point, I remembered that one of the great Russian composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s most famous works, the prelude of “Romeo and Juliet” ballet, was first performed in Tbilisi, where, by the way, the composer’s younger brother, Anatoly, was occupying high state positions. For centuries, people were living not only side by side, but it can be said “within each other” regardless of regimes and political circumstances. Now, just to take it and throw it away, it seems to me not sensible. Yes, sometimes, perhaps, very often, the artists making some calculations give a tribute to the political conjecture. Anyway, we must continue to perceive them as ambassadors of a great nation, and a great cultural. It only enriches all of us. The opposite approach makes us poor.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
