| |
As you read, click icons in the left margin
and answer any questions that pop up.
Your answers will be stored for
you to review and print once you have finished the article. |
|
|
|
| |
|
 |
 |
 |
| |
|
|
from
The Christian Science Monitor
June 10, 1999
Can Russia's Pushkin Survive the Ad Men?
by Judith Matloff
|
|
| |
|
|
Even Shakespeare, or a dictator, could never command such  mammoth cult worship.
|
|
| |
|
|
 The 200th anniversary of the birth of Russia's most beloved poet, Alexander Pushkin, has prompted an extraordinary outpouring of emotion, commercialism, worship, and events.
His dusky face adorns tattoos, ketchup labels, vodka bottles, billboards, shopping bags, chocolate wrappings. His verses hang in shop windows.
The occasion June 6 has been used to maximum advantage by Moscow's publicity-conscious Mayor Yuri Luzhkov. City Hall spent millions of dollars to stage theater, opera, balls, bands, plays, poetry recitals, folk songs, and art exhibits. The Russian bard's life and works have been dissected in endless articles, new books, and TV programs.
|
|
| |
|
|
Even foreign stars got into the act. Spanish tenor Placido Domingo appeared on Red Square to sing from an opera based on a Pushkin story, "The Queen of Spades." Brooding heart-throb Ralph Fiennes stars in a film version of Pushkin's masterpiece Eugene Onegin.
|
|
| |
|
|
But as the celebration continues, literary figures ponder this remarkable reaction. Was the celebration clever marketing by profiteers out to make a buck? Could another writer have prompted such mass adoration? And does poetry still hold a special place in the hearts and minds of what are some of the planet's best-educated people? "He is a pillar of Russian culture," says Andrei Pushkov, a commentator for the ORT television channel, which was saturated with Pushkinia. "This [200th celebration] is part of a quest for Russian roots and dignity."
This icon survived even 70 years of Communist repression. The Soviets realized that Pushkin was too universal to ban and made his works compulsory reading at school. Add to this institutional support a long tradition in Russia, where elite poetry was incorporated into folk songs.
From “Can Russia’s Pushkin Survive the Ad Men?” by Judith Matloff from The Christian Science Monitor (www.csmonitor.com), June 10, 1999. Copyright © 1999 by The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of the publisher.
|
|
| |
|
 |
 |
 |
|
|
