Grebenscikov: Empires come to a bad end
Russia's most famous songwriter admonishes Putin for the attack on Ukraine. He urges Russians not to fall into depression over what is happening today. He reminds that the Soviet Union was not only influenced by the West, but also by the East and the South.
Moscow (AsiaNews) - "There is an immortal soul, that of Blok and Turgenev, of Igor's Song of the Host [an epic text from ancient Rus'], and an imperial soul that will come to a bad end, as has already happened in the past... there is a wonderful and universal Russia, and there are the victims of the imperial conscience, be it Russian or British, or from any other latitude".
This is the warmomh of Boris Grebenscikov, Russia's most famous songwriter as he speaks of today's Russia, which seems to erase yesterday's: 'The Third Reich did not deny or erase Bach, Schiller or Goethe... The men who tried to use Germany to make an empire have disappeared from the face of the earth, and the same thing will happen with Russia'.
The artist emigrated to London after the invasion of Ukraine to 'escape the madness'. In recent days he has given several interviews to present the release of his band Aquarium's new album ('The House of All Saints'), which he will combine with a concert tour across Europe. The prophet of dissident rock from Soviet times confesses to Radio Svoboda that 'many of my friends and relatives still secretly hope that I will become a respectable person'.
Having studied mathematics in his younger years, Boris explains that 'there is a contradiction that philosophers often talk about, between the description of the world according to which we try to live, and the real experience of the world'. The singer says he experiences this in music, art and freedom, which teach him to truly be himself: 'Every time I wanted to become someone, life showed me something more interesting'.
In the 70s and 80s, Aquarium was often censored and persecuted. "It would have been hard to bear, if I had expected help from the State, but I knew well from the upbringing I had received and from experience that the State exists to use its citizens as slaves," recalls Grebenscikov, who was taught by his parents not to believe a word of what is said on television and in official speeches: "The State," he argues, "has nothing to do with real life.
The singer urges Russians not to get depressed about what is happening today: 'There is no choice between life and death, there is only life. For me it is music, everyone expresses it in their own way'. In the most difficult times, Grebenscikov was forced to work as a stadium caretaker, when even unemployment was forbidden by law, and music could only be official music. At night, he and his friends and 'fellow caretakers' published St Petersburg's first clandestine musical newspaper, 'Roxy', with poems, stories and artistic drawings. "There was no boredom," recalls BG (Be-Ghe, as fans call him).
When the Komsomol, the communist youth organisation, kicked him out, Boris was forbidden to give concerts. He says he felt gratitude towards the state: 'I had paid my debt to them, they had given me freedom'. Grebenscikov also represented 'religious rock', in a mixture of syncretist spirituality, which greatly influenced the 'religious revival' of the youth before the end of the USSR. Even today he states that 'music reveals the divine nature, and makes you discover it within yourself, so you feel part of the divinity. It is one of the most certain things in my whole existence; that is why I have always said that when I sing, I feel like a god'.
Reflecting on the changes of post-communism, which resurface so much today in the negative judgments of the Russian leadership, BG argues that 'we were not only under the influence of the West, but also of the East and the South; I listened to Japanese, Chinese, Armenian, Indian, Latin American music; I remember a record on the music of Asia and Africa that I liked very much'.
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