On Russia Archives - Page 37 of 44 - Los Cuadernos de Julia

Blogger Julia and the Typewriter

Some of you will instantly recognise a paraphrase of the title of Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa in the post’s title. I remember reading it in about 1998 in Moscow. I was a second year student, and my reading would often occur on the tube. At first I couldn’t get my head round the different stories that weaved together into a narrative; some of them were unfinished, and it didn’t quite make sense. Then suddenly I realised that those unfinished pieces were the extracts from scripts. Once I realised this, I became fascinated with the novel. It was there, as well, that I picked up on the expression “legion is their name“. Evidently, I didn’t read my Bible very well.

The post is about the picture; or actually about a typewriter you can see at the bottom right corner of the image (it is a collage, lovingly created by my mother – thank you!) The typewriter is quite old, should be well over 30 years, if not more. I didn’t get to use a computer until 1997; it took me until 2000 to get connected to the Internet. But I learnt the “qwerty” long before I got to use the PC’s keyboard, and in that the typewriter was indispensable. In fact, as I write this, I can smell the typewriter ribbon. The typewriter ribbon always had this strange smell: it was warm and homely but had a lead undertone to it, unequivocally reminding that it was used to type, i.e. imprint on paper.

These days I don’t look at the keyboard when I type; and I type fast, too. But with this typewriter it would sometimes be a nightmare. The keys would occasionally jam. This meant that I had to take the top off and unjam them. This meant in turn that my fingers and nails would be covered in ink. My fingers were also too small and delicate, so they would either get in between the keys, or their tips would hurt after some 15 minutes of exercise.

For some time I was impressed by the scene you are going to see in the video below. This is the first part (the second you can watch on YouTube) of a very famous and well-loved Russian cartoon – Film, Film, Film (1968). When I watch it today, I am almost sure I can see references to Sergei Eisenstein in the Director; and the scriptwriter, when he hides in the tube, brings to mind Marcello Mastroianni in La Città Delle Donne (1980). Of course, if there is any parallel to be found in this, it should mean that both Fyodor Khitruk and Federico Fellini were drawing from the same source for that tube metaphor.

But – back to typewriters – for a while I was fascinated with the opening scene of the cartoon, in which the scriptwriter tears the paper into pieces each time the Muse suddenly deserts him. I wasn’t typing all the time, mind you, but I would take the piece of paper out of the typewriter whenever I made an error. I calmed down when I realised I could keep typing and correct it later. Yet undoubtedly I fancied myself in the same kind of creative throes which were compounded by the awkward typewriter’s keys.

Russian Summer

In September it will have been six years since I came to Britain. In all this time the majority of people I met never thought I came from Russia. When we spoke, they appeared to be very knowledgeable, especially as far as the weather was concerned. They thought Russia was cold and snowy. But as you can see below this couldn’t be further from the truth. I took these photos in September 2001 with a “soapbox” camera, at the place called Dubrovsky. It could be reached by bus from where I lived, it would only take 20 minutes to get there. At the destination there were a few houses, a horticultural institute, a village, and a sanatorium for pneumonia patients, all scattered across a vast territory.

My mother and I went there often when I was a child, and one day when I was 11 or 12 I went there with a friend of mine, a girl we went to school together. I knew that my family wouldn’t be keen, so I planned everything in secret. My ideal plan would see me going “for a walk”, which my parents allowed me to do on my own. My grandma intercepted the plan at the last minute, but she couldn’t stop me, and I don’t remember now, why. My friend and I went to Dubrovsky and spent a day by the river in the sun, eating tomatoes and boiled eggs, watching other people sunbathing and swimming.

http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=71649

Dons and Students: Examination Practices

I was reading The Times, the article by Mary Beard on examining the Cambridge essays. I am aware of this fundamental difference between the Russian and British education systems (although the Russian one is currently evolving): in Russia, exams are oral; in Britain, they are written. I have rather fond memories of my student life in Moscow, so I thought I would narrate them here.

What do students do?

When I was a History student at the Lomonosov Moscow State University between 1997 and 2002, doing my BA and MA there, we had the following structure: during the year, we’d have lectures in certain subjects, some of which were accompanied by seminars. In a seminar, we discussed different topics, and wrote an essay. There were usually two-three “main” essays per year, on the topics of a seminar, marked. At the end of each semester we had ORAL exams, either with a “pass”/”no pass” mark, or “excellent/good/satisfactory/fail” mark.

My History programme at the MSU saw me attending courses in Archaeology, Ethnography, Palaeography, Latin, Modern Languages, Prehistoric Societies, World and Russian History (Ancient to Contemporary), Philosophy, Art History, Methodology of History, Source Criticism, Quantitative Methods in History, and Computing. Once I started specialising in Medieval and Early Modern History, I had to read not only in my “specialisation proper” (i.e. Tudor History), but also in Source Criticism, Methodology, Heraldry and Numismatics, Onomastics (Onomatology), and Historical (i.e. Medieval and Early Modern) European Geography. On top of that there were “special courses” of my choice: The Bible in the Medieval West; Irish Folklore; Reformation in Germany; The English Reformation.

Just to give you an example, in my 2nd year exam in Early Modern History I had to come to the oral examination with the knowledge of: a textbook (405 pages); lectures (about 50 pages of my A4 notepad); a selection of primary sources (printed in various books and collections, amounting to another 100-150 pages); and a selection of literary works (think of volumes by Rabelais and Servantes). Add to this the compulsory knowledge of Art History for the period, as well as maps…

… and the fact that each of us had to choose an exam ticket with two questions, one usually fairly generic, another more focused. We’d have about 40 minutes to prepare. The exam itself could last anything between 40 minutes and 1 hour, including questions. The duration would depend on both examiner and student. Additional questions could focus on discussing a literary work.

A wonderful writer or a terrible speaker – what to choose?

The oral exams demand that you possess the full knowledge of a subject and can “swim” in it freely. What I personally like about oral exams is that they allow the examiner and student to look each other in the eye – precisely the lack of which Mary Beard as a don seems to be struggling with, when assessing written papers. I also think that oral exams, as well as the focus on developing conversation on a topic, make the very “school of life” that the high education institutions supposedly represent. Why? Consider the following.

When I came to do an MA at the University of Manchester in 2003, in the first semester we sat through the Presentation Skills module, secretly deemed by many students as useless. We were taught “team skills” by predicting how long a paperchain we could make as a team in 10 minutes, and then trying to execute the plan. A lot of groups in that exercise actually cheated. But what stayed with me was the phrase uttered by one of the course leaders in a lecture. She said: “Our academics are known for writing wonderful texts, but when they start talking they are appalling“.

When I was asked for feedback at my department, with my usual honesty I responded that there was no opportunity for students to get involved in oral presentations and debates, other than seminars. Why not organise a student conference? Funnily enough, the conference was indeed organised, and I even took part. But, unlike at the Moscow State Uni, here it was open to MA and PhD students only, who were already involved in research to some degree.

Presentation Skills module was designed in a hope to give us, Humanities folks, the chance to survive in the business world, should we come to realise that it was too hard to get a job at the academy and that an art clerk position in a local archive didn’t pay well. I’m uttering things, but the module in question tried to teach 20-something (and older) students the skill that I was developing “naturally” in the course of seminars, conference papers and oral exams since I was 16.

It’s not just about skills…

Many fond memories of “strange” answers visit me when I think of my life as a student in Moscow. In a short preliminary exam in Archaeology in the first year I was asked why Upper and Lower Paleolithic Period (anthropology) were called so. It was the very last additional question and wouldn’t have any bearing on the mark, and yet… Before then I, a person who never camped in her entire life (this still stands true), managed to explain how to best choose a place to lay out a camp: close to the water stream, not too windy, etc. But “Upper Paleolithic” vs. “Lower Paleolithic” was so simple that it got me stuck. My examiner, himself an MA student, came to the rescue: “Well, think about how archaeologists dig..?”

Another example was with the history of the World War One in which Italy was “a defeated one among the victors“. I managed to change that into “a victor among the defeated“. This came out naturally because my actual question was about social and economic history of Italy in between the Wars, and I wanted to skip to it quickly, but the remark about Italy’s status at the end of the WWI was important. Strangely enough, as you may see yourself, my mistake wasn’t altogether wrong: Italy swapped sides shortly before the end of WWI, and thus Italy became indeed a victor among the defeated by virtue of defecting from the German alliance.

Yet it wouldn’t be wrong to say that the best exam stories happened to other people rather than me. I told you the story of Discobolus that was reportedly sculpted by Homer; and when I was once an examiner I was told that the German Reformation was begun by Martin Luther King. Oh, and I was told that some students called the Habsburg dynasty “the Hamburgers”.

Another story, exactly on Mary Beard’s subject of Ancient History, says that the Professor of Ancient Greek History asked a girl whose exam performance was far from good or satisfactory to tell him the difference between a prostitute and a hetaira (ancient Greek courtesan) in Ancient Greece. As a matter of fact, he made a point about this during his lecture on Greek culture. The girl mumbled helplessly. Eventually, Professor interrupted her and quickly recapped on the difference, concluding: “With hetaira, it was a high-cultured sex“.

And yet another story saw a student explaining the examiner how Monsieur Convent was fighting for the progress of the French Revolution… with his faithful spouse, Mme Convent, of course.

…but, actually, it is about skills

These experiences, however, only look non-sensical or funny. In hindsight, they teach many a valuable lesson. They teach resilience: OK, so I misworded something – what do I do? They teach “working under pressure”: imagine reading through all the hundreds of pages I mentioned above – and that is only for one (!) exam, there could be another three or four. They make your reaction sharp and quick: an enviable skill to make one able to work in different routines, professions, and environments. They teach you to structure your answer by making a plan, and to speak coherently. They teach you to come back to where you were interrupted without making a mess of your presentation. An oral exam can develop a wide array of qualities, provided you take your studies seriously.

And the last thing I like about oral exams is that the student stands the chance of proving the examiner that she or he knows the subject they are discussing. Likewise, the examiner stands the chance of seeing how well the student “swims” in the subject’s “sea”.

Who was the “real” Cicero?

And now I looked again at Mary Beard’s article, and I see exam questions like “Why did some Roman emperors punish Christians?” The question sounds almost school-like to me, especially because of “punish”. I would rather have it reworded altogether, so that it pointed to the “problem”. And the problem, of course, is that Christianity was a new religion that challenged the Old Order – among other things.

The question “do Cicero letters help us understand his “real” feelings and motivations?” runs strongly against Barthes’s essay. But I doubt that the examiner would take in nicely a remark from the student that, since Cicero had long been dead, we cannot use his works to “understand” the “real” Cicero.

Most importantly, though, I’m asking: why would a British examiner compare answers to questions one by one, and then student by student? The way I see it, an examiner has already read all Platos, Ciceros and Senecas, to understand their “real” feelings and motivations. They already know why emperors punished Christians. Surely, when they read an answer to the question, they can quickly spot logical flops and the lack of knowledge. Why would they compare the answer of a student A to the answer of a student B? Do they themselves have no clue about what they are marking?

Image is courtesy of CPD Test.

Publishing Photos of Dead People

When I write a “blog” here, it is about Arts and Culture, and the case of the late David Carradine fits both categories. I have seen him in a few of his B-movies before I watched his performance in Kill Bill One and Two, although I’ve never seen the Kung Fu series. He also produced and starred in Richard III (2008), so the aficionados of Shakespeare adaptations should certainly check out the film.

This is about Art. Culture comes in when we consider his death. It is widely accepted today that when someone dies we are in for a long reading of multiple stories of their lives and exits. The amount of stories depends on various factors, from their age (e.g. Rhys Jones) through their status (David Carradine, e.g.) to the circumstances of their deaths. The more details surface, the more stories published. Add to this blogs, and now Twitter, to get the idea of how much information is spitted out in no time.

And now something very different happens: a Thai tabloid publishes what is alleged to be a photo of Carradine as he was found in his hotel room. I read the following three posts –

Carradine Death Photo Published in Thai Tabloid

Sick But True: Thai Newspaper Publishes David Carradine Death Scene Forensic Photo, Family Beyond Outraged

David Carradine’s Death Photo –

and I am now wondering about the question posited in the post’s title:
Publishing photos of dead people – is it OK or not?

The first thing we must do, which will serve justice to the argument and all parties involved, is to determine why the photo needs to be published at all. As you know, I originally came from the country that was invaded during the World War Two. The Nazi atrocities across the invaded territories of the Soviet Union were commemorated in both photographs and documentaries. While Soviet photographers were taking photos of the killed citizens, Lee Miller, Vogue‘s correspondent during the war, was snapping the killed Nazis and taking a bath in Hitler’s tub.

My tone above is not very serious but reflects well my attitude to those images until 2003. I sympathised with the victims, but as I said elsewhere, this past was already quite distant. Then the Iraqi war had started. Suddenly I felt very deeply about the citizens who were inevitably going to perish. And then I saw the photographs of casualties on the Al-Jazeera website, and for the first time, looking at the picture of a dead young boy, realised that, physically, we are nothing but tissue that can be violently torn into pieces.

I wholeheartedly believe that photos of war atrocities must be published. The photos of victims of terror attacks must be published. There may be certain considerations and some sort of guidance – but the pictures of humans killed by other humans for whatever lofty goal must not be hidden behind some cowardly assumptions of appropriateness. There is nothing appropriate about mass murder.

And, of course, there may be political victims, like John Lennon, and publishing or distributing their photos at death will depend on the impact the parties involved want to achieve.

But then, sadly for today, people can simply be killed – as was the case of Rhys Jones. Or, as with Carradine, they can be found dead, chained in their closet in a hotel in a foreign land. Speculations abound, but now that the Thai tabloid has released the forensic photo, the question rises: why? Even if Carradine’s death wasn’t accidental, what does publishing the photo serve to illustrate?

I will never tire of citing the concerns BBC Manchester Blog raised amidst the Virginia Tech tragedy in 2007: how appropriate is it to encroach on one’s private life? And in case with Carradine we, after all, are talking about a private individual, however famous, who evidently had his secrets. But, by the look of things, secrets they are no more: if the published photo is authentic, then the dead actor is likely to be denied every bit of posthumous privacy. This makes sense in our gossip-driven, link-baiting world. But does it really make any sense?

Alexander Pushkin: Anniversary and Language

A brief story of my discovering Alexander Pushkin and his work, as well as critical notes on the then and now reading habits and the state of language

The role of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin in the development of the Russian language is similar to that of Dante: both men introduced vernacular to literature. The report from Russia Today gives a very quick idea of Pushkin’s life and legacy.

I wrote about Pushkin before; and on the day when literary world and its Russian-speaking part are celebrating the 210th anniversary of his birth I cannot avoid making a contribution.

Discovery of Alexander Pushkin

My discovery of Alexander Pushkin occurred, as with many a Russian, in childhood. I read “Eugene Onegin” when I was 8. It was my grandma who prompted me. We were watching a TV programme where the high-school students had to answer a question somehow related to Tatiana’s letter. They didn’t know the asnwer; my grandmother did. Although it didn’t matter much, I was amazed and proud, but she was very modest about this: “My dear girl“, she said, “this is “Eugene Onegin” by Pushkin, every educated person must know it“.

Despite my age, I took this phrase to heart. For the next couple of years “Onegin” was my table book. Suffices to say, I made my own life as a student easier by learning all the key passages long before it was mandatory, according to the curriculum. I was fascinated by language and flow of the verses (each stanza is composed in the form of a sonnet or a fourteenliner). Learning those parts by heart was unintentional: it was a direct consequence of falling in love with the novel. When years later I wrote A Poem With No End, I could certainly refer to reading “Onegin” as one of examples of this loving reading.

The Waning Interest

As I went on to discover other poets – first, Romanticists like Byron and Lermontov, then Symbolists (Blok, Rimbaud), Futurists (Mayakovski, Severyanin), Surrealists (Eluard, Prevert) – Pushkin’s glow became less radiant. I couldn’t help agreeing with Mayakovski who co-wrote the Russian Futurist Manifesto that, in order for literature to progress, it was necessary to abandon the classical authority figures. I was beginning to realise that Pushkin wasn’t enough for me, despite l the vastness of his work, the importance of his legacy, and the unquestionable influence on the development of my native language.

The final stroke was made by a critical essay on literary methods published by one Russian critic in the first half of the 20th c.; the essay was kindly lent to me by an Economics lecturer at school. Looking at several writers and analysing their methods, the critic concluded that there were two main methods: observation (narration) and experiment. Of the Russian writers then available for his critical analysis, Alexander Pushkin was an observer, while Nikolai Gogol was an experimentator. Further, observational works tended to age whereas experimental works were, by the very nature of their method, “geared” towards the future. Not only did this explain to me why, for all my love for Pushkin’s work, I had always found Gogol more captivating; but it also pointed the direction for me as a writer.

An encyclopaedia of Russian reading

Since then – 1996/1997 – I didn’t return to Pushkin much. But as my reading and thinking experience has broadened, I also began to think of things we were barely talked to at school or elsewhere. “Onegin” may be a great example here. The fascination for this work is rooted deeply in Russian conscience for a good reason: comparatively speaking, I cannot imagine an Italian who doesn’t rever Divine Comedy. Yet exactly what fascinates us? We tend to follow the critic Belinsky’s description of “Onegin” as “the encyclopaedia of Russian life“, and it is impossible to disagree with this view. However, now and again I find that we’re more captivated by the mundane side of this life, rather than intellectual. For all the adaptation’s shortcomings, Ralph Fiennes perfectly captured this romantic view of Russian life that many a reader of “Onegin” lovingly treasures: balls and parties, popular rites, romantic letters… but what about these two stanzas from the first chapter of the novel?

Latin is just now not in vogue, /
But if the truth I must relate, /
Oneguine knew enough, the rogue /
A mild quotation to translate, /
A little Juvenal to spout, /
With “vale” finish off a note; /
Two verses he could recollect /
Of the Aeneid, but incorrect. /
In history he took no pleasure, /
The dustry chronicles of earth /
For him were but of little worth, /
Yet still of anecdotes a treasure /
Within his memory there lay, /
From Romulus unto our day. /

For empty sound the rascal swore he /
Existence would not make a curse, /
Knew not an iamb from a choree, /
Although we read him heaps of verse. /
Homer, Theocritus, he jeered, /
But Adam Smith to read appeared, /
And at economy was great; /
That is, he could elucidate /
How empires store of wealth unfold, /
How flourish, why and wherefore less /
If the raw product they possess /
The medium is required of gold. /
The father scarcely understands /
His son and mortgages his lands.

Tatiana’s Story

If “Onegin” is the encyclopaedia of Russian life, then we can state, without much ado, that the above two stanzas indicate to us the Russian reading circle of Pushkin’s age. Homer and Theocritus, still read at the time of Pushkin, have been all but forgotten by today’s readers. Then how wide is today’s reading circle? Or is it all but focused on contemporary literature?

Similarly, Pushkin tells us about Tatiana:

Romances pleased her from the first, /
Her all in all did constitute; /
In love adventures she was versed, /
Rousseau and Richardson to boot.

What interests me is how this may affect the reading of Tatiana-Onegin love story. To what extent would it be infused by Tatiana’s reading experience? Rather than painting Onegin as a selfish heartthrob who rejected the young woman, perhaps we could find his behaviour mature and “responsible”, so to say. And could Tatiana’s later rejection of him, despite the mutual affection, be once again a vision of a forlorn forbidden love that had itself embedded in her imagination?

Language Today

What makes Alexander Pushkin important for me today is exactly his place in the Russian literary discourse. I am interested in how we read and understand his work – and you may cue in The Death of the Author, if you like. One point that concerns me a lot is the state of Russian language. On the one hand, thanks to the absence of the Iron Curtain and the omnipresence of the Internet, a huge influx of neologisms is obvious. This is not bad at all, if we consider how many neologisms entered the Russian language in Pushkin’s time and later, thanks to his efforts. On the other hand, there are writers who emulate the style of Alexander Pushkin and his contemporaries, as well as of poets and writers of the Russian Silver Age. So, we have a paradoxical situation of two conflicting tendencies co-existing. We have new words and possibly structures entering the language, yet we also cling to and replicate the styles and structures of the bygone times. The question that remains, however, is: what is happening to the Russian language? Is it developing? Or is it caught in between the above two tendencies?

You can read the translation of “Onegin” by Henry Spalding

First of May – Labour Day

First of May Postcard, originally uploaded by loscuadernosdejulia.

In Russia, India and a few other countries they celebrate May 1st. Some call it Labour Day, some call it the Day of Peace, as does this Soviet postcard. In Soviet times we always used to have a parade on this day, and watching these on TV is among my earliest recollections. I also witnessed the First of May parade once when I visited my grand aunt who lived in Yaroslavl, in the early 1980s. Here in the UK this day is not really celebrated, apart from the fact that the Bank Holiday on Monday follows directly after it. Still, I send my greetings to all of you who celebrate it – and to those who don’t, I send my greetings on the occasion of a long weekend… and a lot of good work we do every day.

It’s a Dog’s Life…

“Well, now you know that your cat has nine lives, baby,
Nine lives to itself.
You’ve only got one, and the dog’s life isn’t fun.
Mamma, take a look outside”

-John Lennon, Crippled Inside

Yes, dog’s life in the dog’s house can be well and truly sad – unless this is life in the care of the loving masters, or at a dog hotel. My first dog, as you may remember, was presented to me as a birthday present, and what a present it was! To this day, three years after her passing away, we still feel as if she is still here – and it doesn’t change with the fact that I’m in England, I feel her presence just as much.

I had lived with two dogs in England, too, they were siblings, Belgian Shepherds, although the brother had left us in 2008. And back in Moscow, we had a cat, too, who also departed in 2008. It was the so-called Russianblue cat – and if you’re wondering about the look, here is an example (left). The picture (by pepleo of Flickr) illustrates well the regal air persona of the Russianblues: somehow the queenly “we’re not amused” becomes them well.

These days my mother and grandmother have adopted a kitten who is about to provide a whole new experience of having a cat in the house. The new cat, by what I hear, is tenfold more mobile than the cat and the dog we’ve had before, put together. She hasn’t yet criss-crossed the ceiling, but apparently this is in the making.

Still, the dog’s life has never meant something really bad for me. In fact, as you can see on the photo on the right, it has always been more about trying to emulate the dog, rather than pity her. You see me, back when I was in Russia, most probably as a student, and my dog I told you about. I have to say, being as old as I was on that picture, I probably didn’t find sleeping in the armchair as comfortable, as my dog evidently did. But I vividly remember falling asleep in an old chair when I was about 5 years old, which was quite lovely. Shall we say that the comfort of such sleep prominently depends on one’s height??

Latte Art

Update: When I wrote this post at the end of September 2006, just over a month after I started blogging, I wouldn’t know that in nearly three years time it would have become one of the most read posts on the blog. In fact, as of now, it is just inside the Top 15 at #13, and is usually found in Google Images. I’m obviously tempted to think that the post, as well as the Coffee Art site, have been the orchestrating forces behind the surge in Latte Art in Russia, as the TV report from Russia Today channel well illustrates.

And if you’re up to trying your hand at drawing with milk and chocolate, to adorn your latte with exquisite designs, here’s something to help you get started, from Vinko @ Hong Kong and Toronto.

Original post from 26 September, 2006.

For one of my projects, I’ve been researching into coffee, its origins, sorts, etc. On the way I came across an intriguing term ‘latte art’ and went on to look for images. Well, this is a 3-page gallery of latte art images, which, despite being generally similar, sometimes are real gems.

Also, check out another fantastic website, Just Coffee Art, where art images are painted with coffee.

‘Favourite’ Artist or ‘Preferred’ Artist?

A short note about Alexander Pushkin as a favourite artist.

2009 is the 210-th anniversary of Alexander Pushkin‘s birthday. Ten years ago, therefore, Russia and the Russian-speaking world celebrated 200 years since this genuine poet’s birth in 1799. The news reports showed people in the streets being asked to read an extract from any of Pushkin’s poems, there were a plenty of films and TV and radio specials… and when they asked children “who is your favourite poet?” the kids would routinely reply: “Alexander Pushkin“. The kids were some 5-7 year old, and it was then that it struck me: what was the point of that question?

The ‘problem’ with Pushkin is that he is “the sun of the Russian poetry” and simply the best known and much loved Russian poet. Children encounter his verses at the nursery and continue reading his poems and later on, at high school – prose and plays. His works have long been ransacked into citations, and very recently I saw one of my LiveJournal contacts paraphrasing one of Pushkin’s poems. In fact, I paraphrased one of his poems myself many years ago. In short, not only Pushkin is a popular poet, he is a people’s poet.

On the one hand, this proves that art belongs to people. On another hand, this means that people can actually appropriate art to the point that the true legacy or value thereof no longer matters. The downside of the “Pushkin is everything to us” phenomenon is that other poets even posthumously find themselves in his shadow. So, when you ask a child or an adult who their favourite poet is, and they respond ‘Pushkin‘, this tells us nothing about their artistic taste, nor even about the realistic appreciation of Pushkin’s legacy in today’s society. Because his is the household name, he is always a ‘favourite‘. Not to have him as a favourite would be an insult to culture: very much the same as if you said that you didn’t give a damn about Raphael or Mozart.

Favourite vs. Preferred

Even before that pivotal moment in 1999 I was careful about singling out a ‘favourite‘ artist, poet or writer. I have been ever more careful since, and then in 2008 I read the following statement from Manuel Alvarez Bravo:

“‘Favorite’ is a word I can’t stand. Everybody says it, but I can’t stand it. I can’t stand it because it is an error of the language. It is a tremendous deprivation of the language. I think one should say ‘preferred’ instead of ‘favorite’. If I am looking at an El Greco, Picasso doesn’t matter to me. If I am looking at a painting of Clemente Orozco or at an engraving of Rembrandt – at that moment I prefer them to all others. And none of this has to do with that word ‘favorite’. Preference is the instantaneous choosing of something that attracts my seeing or hearing. And this phenomenon of instantaneous choosing is exactly the same thing that happens when I am taking photographs” (Manuel Alvarez Bravo: Photographs and Memories (Aperture)).

I thought a lot about this paragraph. In it Alvarez Bravo pins down the difference in languages: the Romanic languages use ‘preferito‘ (Italian), ‘préferé‘ (French) and ‘preferido‘ (Spanish) to designate what is called ‘favourite‘ (British English; ‘favorite‘ in American) or ‘liebling‘ (German) in Germanic languages. In Russian, we say ‘любимый‘ (‘loved’, similar to German). Interestingly, ‘favori‘ and ‘favorito‘ are used in French and Italian, respectively, in relation to sport, and Alvarez Bravo was no doubt aware of this semantic idiosyncrasy. Art is not a sport, however. It is not a ‘Picasso till I die‘ kind of thing. There is no Artist Premier League that could be organised into subdivisions, let alone rely on any valid inclusion criteria. Rather, if we hold that art serves both to unfathom the world and to create the world, then each and every artist that makes his or her way into our lives remains and exists there on equal terms with others, so that when we “look at an El Greco, Picasso doesn’t matter“.

Of course, if we look back at the use of the word ‘favourite‘ we will find the culture of favouritism blooming at the royal courts and in political circles. This culture has now found its new outlet in what can be called ‘social icon-making‘ and often unveils itself in the world of style and fashion where there are ‘style icons‘ and ‘fashion icons‘. The reverse of this medal, however, is ‘social iconoclasm‘. Both are the products of either a blind following of a trend (think of religious bigotry), or an equally blind passion or an affected habit with which we find ourselves supporting football teams, e.g. The latter point is also supported by the fact that both in German and in Russian the equivalent to ‘favourite‘ originates from the word ‘love‘. Indeed, when we speak of ‘love‘ we assume that there is only one object of our affection. It also makes sense to use it in relation to art because we often consider art to be an outlet for our emotions.

Yet in art there can be no singular object of affection; there will inevitably be a few objects or artists that ignite our emotions (and mind, too) differently and for different reasons. One can see why Alvarez Bravo thought that ‘favorite‘ in application to art is a deprivation of the language. Additionally, since ‘favourite‘ is close to ‘loved‘ but is also used in an idiom like ‘to do a favour‘, to say ‘my favourite artist‘ is to have the artistic universe evolve around the figure of yourself as a selector of ‘favourites‘ who may then be knocked off the pedestal, should it be necessary. It makes the man as the builder of his artistic universe a tyrant rather than a Creator. It is impossible not to give a preference (sic) to one artist over another; likewise, it is impossible not to be more passionate about certain men-of-arts, without calling either a “favourite artist”. However, the beauty of art is that it allows you to be a polygamist without any hurt to your conscience.

Orthodox Christmas Wishes

In the spirit of my resolutions, I wish the very happy Orthodox Christmas to my Russian readers. As you might know, the Orthodox Christmas is celebrated on January 7th, and what is interesting this year is that many people in Russia are only going back to work on Monday, 12th of January.

I looked at how Christmas is celebrated in different countries, and in Bosnia they don’t punish children on the 5th of January (the site is in Russian): it is believed that a punished child will behave badly for the year to come. And last night they apparently had the first public Christmas celebration in Moscow. For this reason the Moscow tube didn’t close until 2am. This could also accommodate those citizens who went to a service at the church or the cathedral (there are 260 churches and cathedrals in Moscow). Today, 7th January, has also seen the Moscow Students’ Parade, for which purpose many Moscow streets were once again closed for traffic. Of course, the main feature of this Christmas on my memory is that there is no officially appointed Head of the Russian Orthodox Church at the moment, following the decease of the Patriarch Alexy II (you can also read the Orthodox Wiki about Alexei II or survey the official website of the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church).

And attached is another vintage postcard from my family album. You can say that it dates back to the early 20th c. The inscription in Russian says what is equivalent to the English ‘Merry Christmas’, but without ‘merry’ (S RozhdestvOm KhristOvym – literally ‘With Christmas‘).