7 Books on Russia (…and Why It Thinks Differently)
“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
~ Alexandr Solzhenitsyn
“The next piece we will perform for you — ladies & gentlemen — is The Swan Lake by the great Russian and European composer — Petr Ilyich Tchaikovsky!”
After saying those words the English conductor bowed in front of the audience and turned to his orchestra. This happened at the legendary Royal Albert Hall in London right before the world went into a lockdown.
I closed my eyes for the next few hours and listened to the beautiful live music, but my mind kept returning to what the conductor had said. I couldn’t forget that he called Tchaikovsky not only a Russian but also a European composer.
There was an undeniable truth in what he said. Tchaikovsky is just one out of many Russian artists who belong to the European heritage. The masterpieces by Tolstoy, Tarkovsky, Kandinsky, and Dostoevsky also unarguably belong to Europe. All Russian artists, painters, writers, or thinkers belong to the European culture one way…
