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Sergei Prokofiev, a biography, by Igor Vishnevetsky (2009, NF)
Rights sold: Russia - Molodaya Gvardia, World English - GLAGOSLAV
“A classical composer is a mad person composing music, which is not clear to his own generation”, the brilliant Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev, whose 120th birth anniversary will be marked on April 23rd, used to say. However, the date itself is Prokofiev’s imagination, as the author of his biography that was published in 2009 in the Life of Remarkable People series, Igor Vishnevetsky, who is a poet, a prose-writer and a culturologist, says.
Read more..."Officially, we celebrate Prokofiev’s birthday, which is the product of his imagination, on April 23rd, while according to the official documents, it should be celebrated on April 27th. Igor Vishnevetsky said in an interview with the Voice of Russia."
One of the old myths was that Sergei Prokofiev was a person, who was seriously interested in nothing at all in his life, except music and his literary work. Let’s add chess to that list too. Meanwhile, Prokofiev kept well abreast of politics. And, which you might find surprising enough, though he was a representative of the avant-garde trend in music and a composer who was committed to radical left views regarding the art, as a politician, he was not a left-winger. Shortly after the 1917 revolution in Russia, Prokofiev left it and settled at first in the USA and then in France. Altogether, he spent 18 years abroad. True, parallel with his performances in America, Japan and Europe, he visited Russia with concerts 3 times. Saying that avangardism implies left-wing politics, Igor Vishnevetsky presents the following proofs.
"Prokofiev’s position on the 1917 to 18 events in Russia was clear-cut. He strongly disapproved of what occurred in Russia and regarded the revolutionary events in the country as a catastrophe of cosmic proportions. In an interview with an American newspaper he said that he was strongly positive about the intervention in the Russian Civil War. The knowledge of the above-mentioned destroys the customary image of Prokofiev and at the same time throws light on the circumstances he was guided by when he returned to Russia. Besides, what he said in the interview provides us food to understand why he wrote such music - that very music he wrote after his return to Russia."
The terms for the return of Sergei Prokofiev to Russia were, firstly, his expressing official regret for the interview to the foreign press during the Civil War and of course , his promise not to do anything of the kind in the future. Prokofiev was sure that he would be more in place and more popular at home. And he proved to be right. The great pianist and the brilliant performer of Prokofiev’s works, Svyatoslav Richter, describing Sergei Prokofiev who returned to Russia in 1936 to begin a new life there, says: “Once I saw him walking on the Arbat Street, and there was a challenging force in him.”
The “new life” of Sergei Prokofiev, the laureate of several Stalin prizes, was not cloudless in Russia. There’re still some blank spots in his biography. Of course, his 8 operas, including “War and Peace”, based on Leo Tolstoy’s novel, are well known. His 8 ballets, including “Romeo and Juliet” that was staged many times are well known as well. All his 7 symphonies and all his 9 instrumental concerts, and also his cantatas and numerous chamber pieces are often performed today. “And still, there’s something in Prokofiev’s biography we know nothing about”, Igor Vishnevetsky says.
(с) text: VOR
Table of contents
Part I. FACING THE EAST. 1891-1927
1. Childhood in Ukraine: the Scythian Wakes Up (1891-1905)
2. The 'enfant terrible' in St.Petersburg Conservatory of Music and After It (1905-1917)
3. Beginning of Odissey, or Road Towards the Sun (1918-1921)
4. Years of Wanderings. Art as Magic (1922-1927)
Part II. BETWEEN TWO WORLDS. 1927-1945
1. Between the Land of Bolsheviks and Eurasia (1927-1930)
2. Russian Parisian at Home and Abroad (1931-1935)
3. Experimenting within Limits: Prokofiev and Soviet Music (1936-1940)
4. The War (1941-1945)
Part III. IN CAPTIVITY. (1946-1953)
1. After-War Euphoria (1946-1947)
2. Catastrophe: 1948
3. Years of Isolation (1949-1953)
4. Epilogue: After Prokofiev
Appendix I. Chronological table of Sergei Prokofiev's life and art.
Appendix II. Bibliography. -
A CONQUISTADOR PORTRAIT GALLERY, history of the Spanish Conquest of America by Andrei Kofman
Rights sold: Russia - KRIGA
It’s doubtful there’s ever been an epoch in human history that can match the significance of the extraordinary age of great geographical discoveries: it was an event with a truly global scale that, in essence, began the process that is now called globalization. The epoch opened with the discovery of the New World in 1492 and its most important event was certainly the Spanish conquest of the Americas, which was given the name Conquista.
It’s no exaggeration to characterize the conquest, over all, as the most venturesome undertaking in human history. The defining characteristic of the conquest is the unique experience of entering an untouched expanse—this was unique because the expanse under discussion was two huge unexplored continents. The conquest blended with pioneering exploration and became intertwined with geographical discovery. Along with new knowledge of Earth came encounters with the unknown, miracles at every turn, mortal dangers, the harshest of ordeals, constant stepping over the boundaries of common sense and the limits of human possibility, unusual adventures, and plots that would be the envy of any chivalric tale.
Kofman reconstructs the history of the conquest through biographies of well-known conquistadors. Masterminds of the Conquest present a fascinating subject for analysis and reflection. There’s no denying that the conquistadors were not particularly appealing people and many of their deeds inspire revulsion. But they were undisputedly out-of-the-ordinary individuals who came into the world when the Middle Ages were ending and the Early Modern Period was beginning. A complex, multidimensional figure is created by combining various points of view of a person and his actions, including how he sees himself. The book is both based in scholarship and intended for the broadest readership, including high school students.
The process of choosing figures for the book was fairly obvious: conquistadors who made the most significant discoveries and conquests stand out in the history of the conquest. Four individual chapters are dedicated to four people who did not make any particular discoveries or conquests but were notable for other things: one for miserliness and brutality, another for betrayal, a third for carelessness, and a fourth for revolt and atrocities. It goes without saying that the book’s chapters turned out to be very uneven: some are voluminous and others are short but their lengths depend on factual material as well as significance, interest, and the abundance of events and peripeteias. The names and deeds of conquistadors of the so-called “second tier” have not been forgotten, either: they have found their places in the book and are included in thematically appropriate chapters. Certain key concepts of the ideologies and practices of the conquest that are linked to various historical moments have found places and explanations in the book, too.
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