Russia, because of its vast territory
and its multi-national culture and spirit, is so rich in colours.
But then you speak about risks of invaders or invading somebody's land,
VALERY GERGIEV Conductor and empire, as we all know, never lasts forever.
Looking East Looking West
Russian traditions include traditions of many,
many nations with whom Russians were in contact.
Sometimes it was war. Sometimes the contact was peaceful.
LEV LURYE Historian But still the wars give us something.
BORODIN In Central Asia
'To understand Russia you must understand our past', said Mikhail Gorbachev,
and no other country reflects its history so extensively in its music.
This film looks at Russia's fear of,
and fascination with, the cultures that surround it.
Russia is a country without natural borders.
Western and northern and southern
and eastern borders of Russia always were opened.
It's a way how nomads from the east and knights
and warriors from the west and from the north always attack Russia.
Along this road from the West to Moscow,
came one invasion after another.
BORIS BOGAYAVLENSKY Historian These three figures symbolise the people's resistance.
First to the Tartar-Mongol invasion.
Then to Napoleon in the early 19th century.
Then the hardest war against Hitler.
These victories have become part of the Russian national identity.
Our resistance to the world that surrounds us.
Has, until recently, been central to state politics.
ANDREl RUBLEV Director: Tarkovsky
In the 13th century the Mongols invaded Russia,
there was massive destruction of cities.
People were enslaved.
Culture was destroyed. Also the Prince's forces were killed.
LEONID KATSVA Historian The people that advised him were replaced by people who obeyed without question.
It formed the despotic nature of Russian state power.
The plain of Russia, with the Christians glimmering like candles
and the Tartars, black as pitch says an old Russian song.
The Russians had to pay tribute to the Mongols
and their successors in Kazan, on the Volga, for 300 years.
But 'the destruction contained the boon of unity'
wrote Russia's historian Karamzin.
'Moscow', he said, 'owes its greatness to the Khans'.
In 1552 the Russians captured the Tartar city Kazan.
To mark the victory over the Tartars.
Ivan the Terrible ordered St. Bazil's Cathedral on Red Square.
It's unusual for Russian architecture.
It has certain oriental features.
A traveller to Moscow likened the cupolas to Turkish turbans.
Oriental influences spread in Russia after the victory in Kazan.
Contacts between Russia and the Tartars got closer.
Russia's taking of Kazan could be said to mark the beginning of its multicultural empire.
The influence of the east goes way beyond St Bazil's.
There's a Russian proverb which says: 'Scratch a Russian and you find a Tartar.'
Vladimir Stassov, Russia's leading music critic of the 19th century noted,
nowhere in Europe does the oriental element play
such a prominent role as in the works of our composers.
GLINKA Ruslan and Ludmila Overture
In 'Ruslan and Lyudmila' we have Lezginka dance.
The nature of his music in his opera 'Ruslan' is very oriental, is very non Russian
and Glinka was very strong again in this oriental compositions.
We say that our music begins with Glinka
and our literature with Pushkin Pushkin's verse 'Don't sing, Pretty girl',
is best known through Rachmaninov's romance,
VARINA ILIANOVA Radio Producer less known is Glinka's version of this song. Glinka didn't actually compose it.
Pushkin gave him the melody which Griboyedov
had heard in Georgia Pushkin wrote the words to it.
GLINKA Georgian Song
Don't sing to me, pretty girl Those songs of sad Georgia
They remind me of another life and distant shore
They remind me... - your fierce melodies
They remind me... - of the moonlit steppe at night
and the features of a faraway maiden
European art in mid 19th century was influenced by orient.
So this orientalism is not something which was invented by Russians.
But Russia has it's own east and theirs east Russian's east is Caucasus,
with it paradise on the earth, which is Georgia.
These skies and these mountains and this way of life,
not with vodka but with wine and singing very beautiful songs.
It was something very exotic from the point of view of the Russians.
So I don't think that any other geographical point in the world
has inspired Russian culture more than the Caucasus.
I'm Ossetian and I was brought up in the Caucasus.
In Vladikavkaz, the capital of Ossetia.
It's very close to Chechnya. It's very close to Georgia.
Caucasus are multi-ethnical, multi-national
and it's totally different national, spirit and character.
Many, many great Russians travelled to the Caucasus.
Pushkin, Tolstoy, Lermontov who, unfortunately, was even killed there.
Of course, everyone praises his own land
but the beauty of Caucasus is nearly unbeatable.
This wild danger which you feel everywhere.
I'm not speaking about Chechens, I'm not speaking about kidnapping,
I'm speaking about the power of these rivers,
the power of these mountains,
all this unbelievable high, wild rocks and stones.
BALAKIREV Tamara
The Caucasus are serious mountains.
They're always linked to mystery.
Gorges, darkness, sunrise, sunset.
GEORGI CHIKVAIDZE Writer and Film Producer The people who live in the mountains believe in myths.
They are fatalists.
The Daryl Gorge plunges into the River Terek
Above its vapour a tower rises from the rock
In that ancient tower dwelt evil queen Tamara
A beautiful face, a demon's heart
Through the mist shone a single golden light
Luring travellers wandering through the night
Lermontov often used legends in his poetry.
In Svanetia, one of the mountainous regions. There's the Goddess of Hunting - Dali.
She was beautiful,
She had long hair.
When men went hunting Dali lured them to her castle.
Hunters climbed her hair and disappeared.
Maybe this was the basis for Lermontov's poem, Tamara.
On a soft bed, dressed in silks and jewels
Tamara waits with goblets of wine
Lips meet lips, arms embrace in delight
Sounds of revelry echo through the night
The Terek river thunders through sombre silence
Through the Daryl Gorge the waves are racing
A lifeless corpse is carried out
From the tower comes a distant cry: 'Farewell'
The longest war which was in Russian history is a war in the Caucasus.
In some sense, it isn't finished.
When Russia annexed Trans-Caucasia,
which is Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia
it immediately begins the war with the north Caucasian mountaineers,
who control the roads through Caucasus Mountains.
Stalin decided to solve this problem very easily, in such elementary way,
he expelled several nations from their motherland to Siberia, among them Chechens.
And now, Russia has just the same problem.
Krushchev returned Chechyans from their place and other nations.
And when other republics of the Soviet Union received independence,
the Chechens also want independence.
Russian music deals with history so often,
because the idea of struggle has been emphasised.
Fights, conquering. The defence of Moscow. Building Petersburg on bones in a swamp.
The invasions of the French, the Germans. Russians see history as a struggle
in terms of victory and defeat.
So history becomes a thriller.
O Russian Prince, your thunder hurtles over other domains,
you open the gates of Kiev and from your father's golden throne,
you shoot at sultans beyond your lands.
So proclaims the greatest work of medieval Russian literature,
describing the campaign of Prince lgor against the Polovtsians.
The tale was used by Borodin as the basis for his opera 'Prince lgor'
which clearly shows the seductive side of the enemy.
BORODIN Prince lgor-Polovtsian Dances
The Russians confronted the Polovtsians in the 10th and 12th centuries,
before the Mongol invasion.
Relations were like with any neighbours Wars, trade, marriages.
Endless enmity with the Polovtsians is largely a myth of Russian history.
If you take Borodin and his awe some dances,
even comparing to dances in Tchaikovsky's operas
or 'Ruslan and Lyudmila',
Borodin maybe beats them all,
because he was really able to bring it to practically impossible level of excitement.
Then bringing new element when clarinets start... -
Russia went into Central Asia in the 1860s.
Here Russia had no natural allies.
There were no Christians there.
Here an Orthodox empire controlled Muslims.
BORODIN In Central Asia
Borodin's 'ln Central Asia' was written for the jubilee of Alexander II.
Leading composers wrote music for a tableau vivant.
Historical episodes from the Tsar's reign
were depicted by composers like Rimsky Korsakov and Musorgsky.
An oriental caravan travels across the desert
accompanied by Russian troops,
Borodin depicts this directly with two themes.
An oriental one and a Russian one.
'Ln Asia, the harder you hit them, the longer they remain quiet,'
noted a Russian general as the empire expanded into Central Asia
and tapped into the lucrative Silk Road trade routes to Bukhara and Samarkand.
There was a big difference between Central Asia and Caucasus.
Central Asians didn't have a civilization.
Really eastern.
It is a country of deserts.
It has given another inspiration to the Russian art.
Very severe, authoritarian life of nomads,
a life which is based on the laws, who nobody outside can understand here.
And, you can see it specially in the pictures of Verashagin,
where these middle Asian warriors are something like devils
strange people from the Mongol past.
The majority of Russian composers were not copying the music of these nations.
It was more or less invented as something
from these Arab fairytales of 'One Thousand And One Nights'.
These pieces were more invented, more inspired by fairytales,
than by real middle Asian life.
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV Scheherazade
In 'Sheherazade' you're talking about Baghdad,
I'm not sure if he could ever travel to Iraq himself.
Musically, Rimsky-Korsakov was very successful
and he was also able to catch these motifs
which are so non-European so far from Russia.
I believe that it's a decision of Rimsky-Korsakov
to try to play with orchestral colours.
All these ornamental things, which are sometimes like a jewellery
you know, which you practically see that is not the way we dress ourselves.
Not the way they did it in St Petersburg, so he somehow managed to catch it
and his brass section and his percussion section,
his dancing, very Persian or Arabic way.
The east was an Aladdin's Cave from which Russia drew endlessly.
Love in the east is different.
Other harmonies, other melodies.
A mixture of reserve and expansiveness.
It's a land of dreams.
The acquisition of the eastern provinces was the discovery of a new world.
Our Soviet Union benefited from these places that we've now lost.
The Soviets had a colonial attitude,
it encouraged the music of the republics, but also Russified it.
Khachaturian's music belonged to a multicultural USSR.
But had its specific national features.
KHATCHACHURIAN Lezginka from Gayeneh
In European Russia Khachachurian was popular.
ALEXEl PAREN Vusic Critic Because he was a continuation of the oriental tradition of Borodin and Balakirev.
Although he lived in Moscow, he remained an Armenian composer.
His Lezhginka is real Caucasian music. But written by a sophisticated composer.
Russia's relationship with the West has also been one of love and hate,
with a series of invasions recurring like a bad dream.
Gorbachev said, It's important that
politicians rid themselves of the notion of Europe as a potential theatre of war.
In Russian history the geography had a very great role,
the borders were always open, so it formed the strong state.
The strong state Russians need the strong state,
because only the strong state, very strong state,
authoritarian state, could somehow win the war,
with the nations who sometimes are richer,
they have bigger armies and so on.
From 17th century, there were European invasions.
First were Poles who put Moscow in fire in 1611.
Then it was Swedes in the beginning of the 18th century
during the Great Northern War.
Then it was French army of Napoleon who also put Moscow in fire.
TCHAIKOVSKY 1812 Overture
Welcome to our panorama museum.
Vuseum Curator Here you feel you're on the Borodino battlefield.
You see the hill with the rider on a white horse?
That's Napoleon, the Emperor of France.
The battle ended in the evening of September 7th,
the Russian troops were in front of the French.
The French held Napoleon's command point and overlooked the whole battlefield.
What did Kutuzov decide to do? To retreat. Why?
Kutuzov had no reserves.
Annual re-enactment of Battle of Borodino
For Russia, it was a unifying event.
Re-enactment Soldier It was Napoleon's last day.
There's no other day like it in Russian history.
We thank our grandfathers for our independence.
'Very loud and noisy' is Tchaikovsky's dismissive description of the 1812,
commissioned for the consecration of Christ the Saviour cathedral in Moscow,
which was built to commemorate the victory over Napoleon.
The same battle is at the centre of Russia's most famous novel,
War and Peace, which Prokofiev,
worked into an opera at the time of the Second World War.
Tolstoy wrote his portrait of Napoleon many times.
He didn't want to caricature him. Nor make him too positive.
Prokofiev had to drop that subtlety.
PROKOFIEV War and Peace
Your Majesty, will you have breakfast? May I congratulate you on a victory?
Surely you'll have breakfast?
Go to hell!
He had to portray the enemy as a caricature.
An enemy couldn't have any admirable or attractive features.
Stalin's time demanded this approach.
So writing this patriotic canvas, Prokofiev changed the emphasis.
When he came to Russia, Napoleon led Europe.
The victory gave Russia a sense of invincibility.
This lasted until the First World War, which was lost.
The victory over Hitler has only one thing in common with that over Napoleon.
It restored that feeling of invincibility.
ALEXANDER NEVSKY Director: Eisenstein
Alexander Nevsky was made in 1938.
NINA ZHARKI Film Critic Eisenstein read the papers and knew the threat of fascism.
The Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia.
What was happening in Spain.
He wanted to make the film because it all coincided with the 13th century chronicles.
The Teutonic knights are faceless. A symbol of German's iron machine.
Heartless, mechanised, organised.
Eisenstein showed the Germans as even more dangerous than the Tartars.
PROKOFIEV Alexander Nevsky
I think, we have maybe the best ever music for film,
unless someone in Hollywood thinks differently.
The power of this music in the film is unbelievable.
Being at war with Germany in 1942 or '43 was for every Russian a huge feeling.
Shostakovich certainly knew in Leningrad what is the cost of human life.
My 7th Symphony describes the events of 1941.
Our victory against the fascist enemy.
I dedicate this composition to my native city of Leningrad.
Shostakovich's 'Leningrad Symphony' was performed
during the two-and-a-half-year siege of Leningrad in the Philharmonic Hall.
SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony NO.7 "Leningrad"
The playwright Alexander Kron said, People who no longer knew
how to shed tears of sorrow, now cried from sheer joy.
Suddenly you hear this mechanical power of big,
great symphony orchestra which serves to describe
how it was to live under Stalin, or how it is to live under attack of Hitler,
watching the war of these giants.
What this terrible music means exactly.
It's not necessary to say.
It's simply the terror of a regime that turns people into non-people.
The Second World War was probably the most terrible event in Russian history.
Now there are few left who were actually there. It was a war that affected all of us.
Although I was born long after I heard of it from my father and relatives.
From those who fought or were bombed.
Those witnesses are dying. That's why this complex was built.
We had just overcome fascism with our allies.
Now the world was re-drawn. The Americans had to be enemies again.
For Russia, America is the essence of the West.
America is admired, envied and hated.
Soviet propaganda portrayed it as a global predator.
Behind the so-called Statue of Liberty.
The American imperialists prepare atom bombs.
They try to frighten mankind into accepting the American way of life.
What is this life?
Look at their art
Look at their sport
Look at fighting American style
How millionaires pamper their dogs
See how the unemployed stand in line
This is American life
American culture was seen as rootless mass culture. But this was never believed.
The propaganda said one thing young people heard another.
See how they dance with no sense of propiety
Instead of reading they dance all evening and night
Shame on these fashion victims after this satirical sketch
Remember where this foul wind is blowing from
SCHNITTKE Symphony NO.1
Schnittke is rightly considered Shostakovich's successor in symphonic form.
Producing work which reflected all aspects of life.
The Symphony No.1 was linked to film music. The director Mikhail Romm commissioned it.
He wanted in his way to reflect the 20th century.
The evil, glory, caricature and tragedy.
For three centuries Russians haven't been able to think for themselves.
Somebody always thought and decided for them.
For many the change has been a shock.
But that's the fate of all countries and people,
at a major turning point in their history.
20th century is won finally by Americans.
21st century starts new book. It's a new chapter.
Thank you Peter the Great.
Thank you Catherine the Great.
Thank you Kutuzov.
Thank you whoever didn't destroy the city.
Thank you Communists, that you didn't build
these ugly boxes next door from the Hermitage!
Russian culture is respected, even loved in the world.
And keeping the family spirit in the Mariinsky we do the right thing for world culture.
We are the same company where Stravinsky, being a child, for the first time,
met Tchaikovsky just thirty seconds to walk from here.
That is what makes this place important.
But we can't continue, only thinking in that way
well it was Stravinsky, well it was Tchaikovsky.
They even met here that's why we are big.
We are not - they are big.
So we can be very successful if we learn how to perform their music.
We can be even more successful
if we perform their music better than anyone else.
We can find ourselves on top of success,
if we find how to continue with the line.