Word: soulful
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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MIKHAIL NESTEROV, Central Exhibition Hall, Moscow. Works of art -- some never before exhibited -- by Russian master Mikhail Nesterov (1862-1942), from the Tretyakov Gallery and Moscow private collections. Included is his Russia, the Soul of the People, symbolic of Russia's historical spiritual quest, depicting the religious philosopher Vladimir Solovyov and Leo Tolstoy walking along the banks of the Volga among multitudes of Russian people of different epochs...
...repeated today. The socialist realist line, imposed by Stalin after 1929 and kept to the end of Brezhnev's reign, held that a work of art should fulfill the criteria of partinost (party spirit), ideinost (firm commitment to prescribed ideology) and narodnost (true portrayal of the life, soul and spirit of the people). It has now been undone. "Dissident" modernism became a talisman only because it was repressed; once tolerated and encouraged, it becomes politically harmless...
...punks and act as if they'd just invented adolescent angst. Vera's dad is a drunken oaf, abusing the children who hate him yet cling to him and lie to protect him. He could be the petty dictator of a pre-Gorbachev regime, and his daughter the strident soul of rebellion. In her sharp, defiant voice, you can hear the sound of breaking glasnost...
Having justified itself for two decades and more as a medium of political expression -- obliquely during the Brezhnev years, sometimes rantingly during the current thaw -- the Soviet stage sees itself as needing to rediscover its true concern, the human soul. Audiences apparently agree. While theatergoers continue to clap for lines of topical invective, they seem to respond most strongly to intimate glimpses of lost love, betrayal by friends and alcoholic desperation, whether in Chekhov's Uncle Vanya at the Moscow Art Theater or in quasi-documentary scripts about prostitutes and gravediggers performed by the city's most impressive acting troupe...
...Gorbachev is wondering how Soviet history will judge him, he will do well to remember that the country's leaders tend to die twice: once in body and soul, and later in public opinion. While Joseph Stalin and Leonid Brezhnev were accorded elaborate state funerals, their reputations since then have changed quite markedly. Stalin is viewed negatively by 62% and positively by only 7%, though that rating is almost double among people who see perestroika as a deviation from Marxism-Leninism...