Can One Understand the Russian Soul?

I would say, NO. Maybe Russians do, but I would not be so certain however silly it may sound. Living in western societies for many years and in Australia most of the time, but being born Polish, arrogantly, I felt that I have an advantage in the field of understanding the Russian soul in comparison to people around, now I am not so sure. I am not sure how much I actually understand myself. OK, so I have read Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Bunin and others. Even Pushkin as I had to read Eugene Onegin at school.  I even learn some of it by heart. I have not read Nabokov, but this should not count as he defected Russia and I do not consider him having a Russian soul so much. I am planning to check it out as he seems to come to my mind rather often recently. I like the Russian music, but not more than anybody else who likes music. Definitely not more that Lech one of the people who comment sometimes on my blog. I appreciate that there are so many famous Russian musicians famous in the world. The nation seems to be more sensitive to feelings and changes in mood than many others. It seems to stand out in the sensitivity department. 

                              

I get mushy seeing birch forests, be it in reality when I go to Poland but I get sentimental even seeing the trees on films. I am not sure if this is a normal reaction because they are beautiful trees or it is because I have this purely eastern liking and birch associations. Today I watched The Last Station, compliments of Netflix, film about the last days of Tolstoy.   I loved the film, it fitted beautifully with my current mood and just after I finished the book about Shostakovitch listening quite a bit to his music. Helen Mirren played convincingly a hysterical wife of Tolstoy (aren’t they all hysterical in Russian literature?)  played by Christopher Plummer who was not himself a symbol of composure and control over emotions. And the film is based on a book by Jay Parini, an American writer. They all seem to understand the Russian soul as well as Julian Barnes does. And they all gave me an opportunity to get immersed in a very Russian climate and get emotional in the process. I realized that my feeling of being comparatively a bit of an expert on a Russian soul does not have grounds. I got humbled.

                             

 I think it is time to get out of the eastern climate and read or see something more level headed. Like Bachelorette or more likely some book by Alain de Botton. I have ordered so many of his books and I wonder how many of them I will read.  Will I have time?

                                and there are others...

The Noise of Time – Julian Barnes

                

                    

I just finished the book and seem to be in some sort of daze, mesmerized by it. Not long time ago I declared that I do not like Barnes.  This was after reading his  The Sense of an Ending. I did not like the book and I still have this unpleasant clammy feeling that I associate with the story. There was something repulsive in the story for me. The feeling is still present when I happen to think of the book and that perhaps means that it is really a good book even if I find it unpleasant for some reason. I even do not know what the reason could be. I saw the film based on the book as well and it was again a good film which I found unpleasant. I think that I have a problem with the story itself. It is a heavy story. The lives described there are messy and there is a climate of unavoidable unpleasantness, mistakes and disappointment.

There are similarities in the climate of the two books, maybe even the messages are similar. For the moment I link it with Amor Fati. Only in a negative way. Reading Barnes one cannot have the feeling of loving one’s fate. This is like Amor Fati in reverse. No wander that a stoic in me does not like the climate of Barnes’ books.

                            

                           

And yet, again reluctantly, I need to accept the genus of the author. Since I started to read the book I was very often in a state of WOW. It was a pianissimo WOW with a question mark following.

The book is about a big part of life of Dmitri Shostakovitch starting in the thirties of the last century till his death in 1975. It is about the meaning of art, in this case – music, and its place in our lives. This is not a biography as such but fiction based on facts. I have not checked how true the whole story is, but my impression and knowledge of the times made me take it as the book truthfully represents the history. Being fiction gave the author freedom of passing judgement and making the story live and fascinating.  It was not long time ago that I thought that the style of writing is not that important to me, this time I am under big impression of the structure of the book. Small paragraphs tell us only fragments the story, pass views on seemingly unrelated subjects and put readers in meditative state.

                                        

The book made a strong impression on me also for the reason that living in Poland during the times of Stalin I was able to understand feelings that made Shostakovich a broken man even if he was famous in the world and Russia living a privileged, comfortable life. Forced by the system of The Soviet Union Power he composed in a way that was dictated to him to make impression that he lives in the country of positive feelings and happiness. The sounds of his compositions were supposed to be uplifting and related to the events that brought communism into power. Pessimism in the Soviet Union was forbidden. At least among people who were visible, like composers. Creating art according to communistic rules made Shostakovich lose self-respect. He was obeying out of fear. Sometimes he produced bad music to please. The story with self-respect is the same as with virginity. Once you lost it is gone forever. So many people experienced that and were profoundly unhappy in life. One contradicting examples of a famous Pole comes to mind, though. He was a “practical” man,  Wojciech Fangor. He painted to please and earn big money through whole his life and his life was not even threatened like Shostakovich’s was. Different type of sensitivity and different nation. Russians were always more tragically sensitive and suffering.

Fangor's picture showing (from the left) a useless decadent and (on the right) meaningful life of the working class

                                              

It is a bit surprising to me how well a Britt can understand the Russian soul. And Barnes seems to understand and describe it so well. He writes about people in danger becoming less than fully themselves, about terrorized people becoming reduced versions of themselves. And he writes about it in such a way that he moved me and he scared me. I am thinking of countries like Poland at the moment where a new society is being engineered. Just like it was so successfully done in Russia. In my country of origin school programs have changed to be in line with the current government’s ideology. History is being changed to make villains out of heroes. Walesa being the major villain those days but thanks God only in Poland. There are black lists of people of culture who are criticized for presenting  views of the opposition to the current government. The intention is to silence those who think in a way different to the government. One is afraid to be afraid (sorry, this is not the best translation of a Polish saying).

P.S. While reading the book I was listening to Shostakovich music of pieces that I read about. I may become a fan of the composer. The one which is not characteristic of his work and coming from a bad propaganda film The Counterplan is rather quite catching and melodious. I remember it from my childhood days, must have been played on Polish radio. Or sang at school events?

To listen to the Fifth Symphony would be a bit too much so I will not include it in my post. However The Waltz nr 2 I would recommend to listen to. 

To Kill a Mockingbird

        

I read quite a lot of books mentioned or recommended by one of my Polish friends, Raf. I perhaps would have never read To Kill a Mockingbird if not for his passing comment that the book is remarkable. That and my guilty conscious (have I mentioned that I am a specialist in GUILT?) not having read such a famous book, featured for a long while on many short lists of must-reads. Now, I had a chance to redeem myself and I took it. I was a little surprised that my local library had a lot of school versions of the book but none in the form and length that was originally written. I got a copy from another library and having started to read I understood why my library has so many abridged versions but few originals. It is a book for school youth taught in many countries around the 8^th grade. But it is also a book for adults. For good, decent grownups or for children who we want to be trained to be sensitive, good, caring, tolerant individuals later on. I like very much the sentiments masterfully conveyed in the book and at the same time think that they may be a little (or a lot) outmoded. It seems to me that the core values of current societies are so different to those promoted by the book that young people may laugh at them or at least doubt in them. I sincerely hope I am very wrong.

                                      

Thinking more about the book I remembered the part when Dill Harris, the young friend of the main characters Scout and Jem, cries during the court case of a black person accused of rape of a white girl. Observing the proceeding Dill cannot cope with injustice he sees as he realises that the innocent person will be punished even if the accused is so obviously innocent. The boy cries because he realises the horror of people blindness caused by prejudice towards those who are different in some ways. Like having different skin colour. An older man says, Dill cries because he is still a very young and has not lost his innocence. This allows him to see how wrong and tragic is the situation of the accused. He has not been influenced by the society. He does not have any preconceived views on life yet. But while his innocence protects him from being like others, he is going to lose it and, in few years, he will not cry in similar situations and wrongs will not pain him in the same way. If I take this message as a lesson I see why the book may be embraced by young children, before they lose their ethical virginity.  This makes me retract my earlier doubts, at least to some extent.

The crying boy stands on the  right obviously in a different mood this time. Apparently the character of Dill was based on Truman Capote when he was a child. 

                                     

I am still afraid that in the current times with technology giving information to even very young they must see what happens around them and what values are important to be successful, popular, macho, admired, rich and famous… And they see that many countries in the world are currently ruled in populistic manner and that the need for truthfulness seems to be forgotten by many nations. People like Trump, Erdogan, Putin, the Polish leader and many others lie blatantly and too many people do not seem to have a need to stop and think if they are not pulled wool over their eyes. They vote for dishonest, racist, misogynistic politicians as long as they see some benefits for themselves in the election promises. It seems to be difficult to find an honest politician who really wants the best for their country. They seem to want the best for themselves. Australia was always, in my eyes, more upstanding in its politics, but this seems to belong to the past. The same seems to happen to the values of the citizens. Again, I hope I am wrong.

Looks that I have complicated the subjects again, but my mind meanders sometimes and finds new unexpected associations. Returning to the book I liked it for its language, humour, sentimentality and life lessons. I got reminded of some life rules that I may have not paid attention too lately. Like:

“It is not necessary to tell all you know. Folks do not like to have somebody around knowing more than they do.”

OR

“One must lie under certain circumstances and at all times when one cannot do anything about them.” This one will be always difficult for me to follow.

9 out of 10 for me.to be allowed to be killed.

I stay with the question : Are any Mockingbirds still around? I mean human ones who are too beautiful inside to be killed. I am sure they are even if not in politics.