Mikhail Shvydkoy: We are not heirs of “Tolstoyevsky”
Mikhail Shvydkoy
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Despite its quite complicated international stance Russia keeps strengthening its cultural ties with various countries including ones, which have imposed sanctions. Mikhail Shvydkoy, Special Representative of Russian President on International Cultural Cooperation and RIAC member told Mariya Smekalova about interest for Russian culture abroad, shared what Russia has to offer to the world and explained the main difficulties of modern art promotion.
Despite its quite complicated international stance Russia keeps strengthening its cultural ties with various countries including ones, which have imposed sanctions. Mikhail Shvydkoy, Special Representative of Russian President on International Cultural Cooperation and RIAC member told Mariya Smekalova about interest for Russian culture abroad, shared what Russia has to offer to the world and explained the main difficulties of modern art promotion.
You said that Russian culture is a great culture and it has nothing to be afraid of. Is politics a challenge to culture?
The people who say that culture is outside politics are right in a way, but on the other hand they are being disingenuous. Culture depends on politics and is under its pressure, but this does not mean that its root system changes – it gives shoots over millennia, and this is our salvation. Obviously, in their public activities artists have their political preferences and feel tempted to take part in political life. This is normal. However, the greater the artist, the less he is dependent on the current moment. Mayakovsky wrote many political poems, but what he did with language survived the era of revolutionary romanticism of the 1910s and 20s and the revolutionary reactions that began in the 1930s. What makes us love and appreciate culture is the fact that it addresses us as creatures who live eternally and not as creatures who live temporarily. That is why in a sense culture is above politics.
Another point. Politics is the art of the possible while the artist is after the impossible. Einstein wrote that you only become and feel like a Man when you go beyond the limits of the possible. This is what makes a creative artist different from a practical politician. Politicians always act in the corridor of the possible and artists in corridor of the impossible. That said, the corridor here is different.
Do complications in international relations find reflection on cooperation between states in the cultural sphere?
The position currently taken by the Russian leadership is, in my opinion, highly productive. Cultural cooperation does not depend on current politics. We are promoting contacts with all countries regardless of what is happening in international relations. For example, with Ukrainians in spite of the extremely acute situation. I don’t think we have taken such an extreme position as the Ukrainian leadership. We do not block the path of all that is Ukrainian in our Russian culture. The USA is another example. Granted, we have a difficult relationship with America, always had and always will have. Nevertheless 80% of the repertoire of Russian cinemas is American movies and 30% of employees of Metropolitan Opera are Russian. With the Brits it’s always complicated, but on 25 February 2016 we opened the Year of Russian Language and Literature in Great Britain and on 27 April 2016 we are going to open the Year of the English Language and Literature in Russia. The opening will be marked by the launch of a metro train named after Shakespeare. And the list goes on. On 4 April 2016, in spite of the complicated international situation, we shall hold a meeting of the intergovernmental commission on culture, education and youth together with the French Foreign Ministry, after a break that lasted since 2007. Naturally, we are working with our partners in the CIS and in the East. There is as much demand for classical and modern Russian culture as for Russian gas and oil, but unlike oil and gas, it’s price constantly rises and does not experience volatility, as they say today.
In other words, would it be true to say that Russia fully uses its potential to spread its foreign policy influence through culture?
In general, I don’t like the expression “soft power.” I’ll tell you why. It’s either force, and then it is not soft. You can’t win love by force. International cultural cooperation is like love, and you cannot force anyone to love you. A Japanese colleague of mine (Director General for Culture and Information Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan) said that international cooperation was like Chinese medicine: you have to take drugs and courses of acupuncture for a long time before treatment brings results.
As Stendhal wrote, love begins with wonderment. We have to learn to offer something. We have to understand the simple truth: people will never learn a language in order to be able to read certain writings in the original. You won’t find more than a thousand people in Russia who are learning English to read Shakespeare and Dickens in the original. Interest in the Russian language tends to wax and wane. As soon as we become everyone’s enemies, interest in the Russian language picks up. As soon as we become friends, other mechanisms kick in. Language is learned in order to gain some advantages, more opportunities to fulfil one’s potential. Let me cite an example. There are currently about 6,000 German companies working in Russia where they need people who speak two languages. So we are interested in seeing cooperation develop over a wide spectrum, above all in economics. It should be brought home to people that learning Russian is an advantage that will enable them to find a better job. Besides, international humanitarian and cultural cooperation is not simply propaganda of culture, but propaganda of our country through culture. And in our actions we should bear in mind that we are working in a fairly hostile environment. We have instruments that we must clearly use. Thus, the Bolshoi Ballet is always a great success in Britain, whatever Mr. Cameron may say about our policy in Syria and whatever the BBC shows on television. Again, this is not about forcing anyone, but about awakening interest.
Soft Power: Reality and Myth
What can make Russia attractive culturally in the present-day situation?
The question you are asking has been tormenting me for the past 30 years, ever since I began promoting Russian culture abroad and vice versa. On the one hand what the Western public today wants is obviously performing arts, especially music. Although we have been losing some competitions Russia has a formidable artistic and musical school which is represented by some brilliant talents. But there are problems even there. Let me explain. In China today 50 million people are learning to play the piano. In my country, unfortunately, proportionally there are fewer people learning the piano by an order. If 50 million Chinese are learning the piano, we should have 5 million. As it is, we only have 500,000. For one symphony orchestra to come on stage musical schools have to be attended by 10,000 kids every year, and that for a single orchestra. To me it is a very sore topic: I think art education is the main thing we should try to preserve today. Our public is very uneducated and its quality is deteriorating. The audience wants popular stuff, including popular classics. Russian ballet is welcome abroad: Bolshoi, Mariinsky, Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk. Naturally, they want opera, Russian classics – this is our calling card. Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Theatre have proved that they are competitive in the market, just like the Bolshoi opera. Both Mariinsky and Bolshoi are part of the pool of top opera houses in the world, and the majority of them, mind you, are mono-professional. Metropolitan Opera and La Scala are famous for their opera. Our two main theatres manage to be competitive both in ballet and opera. There is also world demand for symphony orchestras, including the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Yu. Temirkanov, the Yurovsky State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia, Gergiev’s Mariinsky orchestra and others. Exhibitions of big museums – the Hermitage, Pushkin and the Tretyakov Gallery – are always in demand. Individual artists, wherever they live, are always popular. A musician may live in Paris or Vienna, but represent Russia. Demand for Tolstoyevsky (Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky) and Chekhov will never flag – these are the three main writers who are known everywhere. Then comes Pushkin, and then Gogol. Our past is wonderful, but for me the key problem has always been to generate demand for our modern art and modern literature.
Speaking about cinema, I hold the view that Russian cinema is interesting not because it is like Hollywood but because it is Russian. One can rival Hollywood on its own turf: examples are Alexandrov’s “Jolly Fellows”, “Circus” and presumably “The Battle for Sebastopol.” Unfortunately, cinema-goers today have been brought up on American movies, they don’t see and don’t want any other. I would like Russia to be presented abroad in its new look. We are custodians of a certain mentality, our values are similar to those of Europe diverging on only some points, for example on same-sex marriages. I see Russia as a European country based on general Christian values. If they tell me something other, I would not believe it. We have been seeking to be part of Europe for 250 years and it would be foolish to deny it. The phrase “Moscow is the Third Rome, and there will never be a Fourth one” shows that we are part of Europe and an extremely important part.
Would it be true to say that our strong literary and drama traditions continue, or are we living off the legacy left to us by the classics?
I have to say that my colleagues from Rospechat’ are very active in promoting modern Russian writers at major festivals, fairs, book salons and they are meeting with some success. Literature is a difficult case. Russian literature accounts for just 2% of the world sales and most of them are classics. We have a score of real major modern writers and we must help them by all means.
One simple thing should be understood: not only tradition, but development can be attractive. We are only pretending to be red-blooded heirs to Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. That is not so. We are not that good of heirs and we have forgotten many things. If we are talking about inheriting, we should inherit all the traditions of Russian art. If we look at contemporary art, we must present Russia as a country which preserves the great traditional culture and at the same time is developing art. This is, as I see it, the most important phenomenon we have to keep in mind. We cannot position ourselves as the country of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. That is impossible and wrong. Yes, we are a country where Rublev, Dionysius and others worked, but we are forward-looking and that is also very important. Yes, we will always preserve the memory of the war, but it is not enough to position ourselves today only as the country which has won the war, bearing the brunt of that war, was the co-founder of the UN and shaped the post-war world order. We are a country which blazed the world’s trail to outer space, gave the world a nuclear project and a number of other inventions. We cannot concentrate only on the past: we should understand what we can contribute to the future.
Should culture be accessible? Attending cultural events in Russia every weekend has become pretty expensive.
Проблема культурной грамотности населения напрямую связана со школьным образованием. Я считаю, что школа сегодня во многом дегуманизирована. Она готовит людей не к жизни, не к искусству, а к сдаче ЕГЭ — это совершенно разные вещи.
You know, this is, unfortunately, the result of our poverty. When the 2008 crisis broke out, the French government, at the insistence of Sarkozy, decided to raise the age of people who can visit museums for free. They knew very well that youth unemployment would increase and the state should show concern for people. Museums charge high prices for tickets because they need money. Moreover, the current policy is fairly tough: the takings are seen as an indicator of the museum director’s performance. This cannot be universally implemented because by no means all the museums have the capacity. I think the state’s social policy should seek to expose people to culture as much as possible. Our Constitution says that Russia is a social state, which means that many things should be free. Today, because of budget constraints, museums, theatres and philharmonics have to survive. Besides, affordability is not the same as intellectual accessibility. Plautus used to say that a person hears only what he understands. Understanding has narrowed, language is being debased, the cultural code is changing. The quality of art depends on the understanding of the public, and that is where the role of the mass media comes in.
Did I understand you correctly that interest in exhibitions is growing? We have seen the hoopla around the Serov exhibition,
… take me, Seryoga to the Van Gogh exhibition.
… the music video with Van Gogh that caused such a stir. There is a kind of disconnect: exhibitions are becoming more popular, but cultural literacy is going down.
The problem of cultural literacy is directly linked with school education. I think school has become dehumanized in many ways. It prepares people not for life, not for art, but for passing the Unified State Examination (EGE) and these are very different things.
Many believe that the internet impedes the growth of television and the printed media. Do you agree?
Definitely not. There are many reasons. First, the majority of people want to have the program shaped for them. What is television? It is a method of delivering certain content, though perhaps less advanced than the internet. As for the printed media, the situation differs from country to country. I can’t say that the internet is in a poor way in Japan, but the Japanese like their printed media and newspaper circulations are not falling. The Japanese are a nation that keeps the fine balance between tradition and innovation. There is warmth in paper and it is not by chance that some psychologists advise people against reading electronic books before they go to bed — it affects their sleep.
Can you name three books that made an indelible impression on you?
Three is certainly not enough. If you take foreign literature it’s Faust, Don Quixote and Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain. Of the Russian literature it is War and Peace, Chekhov’s plays and prose and The Karamazov Brothers. I would also name The Captain’s Daughter by Pushkin. Honestly, my favorite Russian book is Lermontov’s Hero of Our Time. I read and re-read it regularly and every time discover something new for myself. I was stunned when I came to Pushkin House and saw something opposite to what I had imagined: Pushkin wrote laboriously, with a lot of corrections, re-writing stuff. Lermontov, by the way, wrote in a rounded schoolboy’s hand without any editing afterward. Fantastic.
What media do you trust, where do you read the news?
You know, there is an old Soviet-era joke: a man walks down Gorky Street and does like this “zh-zh-zh.” “What are you doing?” they ask him. He says, “I’m jamming The Voice of America inside me.” I tend to trust myself rather than information sources. That’s the done thing, you have to filter everything. I read everything that comes my way: newspapers, magazines, I listen to the radio. The main thing is to remember that you need to jam The Voice of America within you, then everything will be fine.
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