Gorbachev in Bayreuth - Alexander Kluge

View transcript: Gorbachev in Bayreuth

Text: PRIME TIME. Late edition.
Voice-over: I welcome the gentlemen responsible for the premiere of “Tristan and Isold” and from the world of film and media who have taken a seat on the podium and who will be introduced to you individually later during the press conference. Ladies and Gentlemen, in the spirit of the new era and of the mutual understanding that was given to us, we witness the visit of His Excellency President Gorbachev.
Text: On the day of the premiere of Tristan in Bayreuth /
Voice-over: Our focus is on the work of Richard Wagner as all-European heritage.
Text: M.S. Gorbachev calls for saving the Russian culture /
Voice-over: Even if European history has seen many phases that separated nations,
Text: PRIME TIME late edition interviews him: About the “Brigands of Minsk”, about the Russian soul,
Voice-over: culture is first in the list of things that bring nations together. The city of Bayreuth can count itself lucky to be the place of the international Richard Wagner Festival and with that center of his work that unites nations.
Text: about the patience and endurance of the Russian people / What did Lenin think about right before his death?
Voice-over: May this unifying cultural initiative as Declaration of Bayreuth be inspired by the cosmopolitan spirit of Richard Wagner.
Text: Gorbachev in Bayreuth / What do we know about the Russian soul?
Voice-over: The stage is now yours, Excellency, and the guests of this press conference. Welcome!
Alexander Kluge: That was a very impressive event, wasn’t it? And it’s about connecting the public in all of Europe. Michail Gorbachev (via translator): I couldn’t agree more.
Kluge: What is “public” in Russian? Gorbachev (via translator): It’s really accepted now, it’s actually part of us, that it’s public. That is something, after all, that defines the Russian nation, the intellectuality, the compassion, compassion, that is this society’s key to solving problems. As soon as the supply problem is solved in the next few years, as soon as it won’t be that important anymore to be able to buy sausage, then one can be in a position to say that there is a huge potential in the cultural sector. And all that was suppressed, will now come to the surface. It’s an explosion, I would say, and in the process some things are being destroyed and erased, sometimes even things that would actually still be necessary, not just the useless. It’s a pot, a Russian pot, in which these things brew …
Kluge: It’s, like you say, it’s the cooking pot, the Russian cooking pot…
Text: Translation: Dr. Wilhelm von Timrodt Gorbachev (via translator): A veritable pot. And things are being melted and remelted … up to wherever. Of course sometimes we have the impression that we no longer have a clear orientation, that we have lost our way, but in this society you know exactly that certain things are not acceptable,
Text: Heiner Mueller, playwright
Gorbachev (via translator): there is no turning back to the past, that’s not acceptable anymore. And just as unacceptable is that everything that was has to be destroyed, that’s not acceptable either, because the people have lived, have produced, and have lived under this regime and against this regime, and they don’t want to see all of that being erased. But it’s also unacceptable to implement patterns that come from the outside and that don’t originate from ourselves. That’s not possible in Russia. Even with a smaller nation that wouldn’t work, a smaller nation would protect itself even more, so that it wouldn’t lose its identity.
Kluge: If you think back to December 1991, right –
Text: “The Brigands of Minsk”
Kluge: Minsk, right – that is a putsch, after all, that is the second putsch. Can you say that? Gorbachev (via translator): They are putsch-ists, and I call them pusch-ists, they are pusch-ists
Text: “Those were not Putsch-ists (participants of a coup d’état), but Pusch-ists (highwaymen, brigands)” that’s a thicket, they are thicket-people, from the thicket.
Kluge: Oh, brigands. Highwaymen. Highwaymen. Yes.
Gorbachev (via translator): Schiller.
Kluge: And there’s a moment where … eh, yes, “The Robbers”, by Schiller … and president Nazarbayev comes up to you and says: The president of the Soviet Union, you, still have options, right? You haven’t played all your cards yet. Is that true?
Gorbachev (via translator): We had a conversation that evening, that night, and he didn’t go to this thicket – because that’s the name near Minsk – and the next morning we met again with Yeltsin and Nazarbayev and talked. And I used these days to prevent, through the highest Soviet and the highest Soviets, this process of the destruction of the union. And I was told that in the Russian Parliament they voted for it with a majority of only six votes. Whereupon the chairman of the parliament talked to the Russian communists, asking them to support that. And the leader of the Russian communist party called on the communists to support this treaty. That meant that they would shout: The Soviet Union is being destroyed, has been destroyed! But in the Highest Soviet they do just the opposite. And this treaty did not pass.
Kluge: But for one historical second something seemed possible, something was just as likely to go in the other direction, so that a control center would be maintained. For a second. Gorbachev (via translator): Hard to say. Difficult question, difficult process. The party structures that in August, that the putschists supported in August, even the party structures in Russia in the highest Soviet supported this [inaudible] treaty. For the people it is now like it was for the Germans when Germany was still divided. 62% of the Russians have relatives in anderen Republiken der ehemaligen Sowjetunion, and they can’t visit their relatives, they need a visa. Border control. That’s unacceptable.
Heiner Müller: One question: In the last few days, we have read in the German newspapers about a potential putsch in Russia. Of course newspapers survive by building up that kind of thing, that kind of expectation. But if something like that were possible: what are the different interest groups, what direction could something like that come from?
Text: Heiner Müller, playwright Gorbachev (via translator): In Russian society, it won’t come to a confrontation and a segregation, civil war is not going to be accepted by the Russian people. And the military, and that is very important, is opposed to that as well. Because then the army would be activated and would be divided too. Russians against Russians, the brother against the brother. That would be a second path of suffering, like Aleksey Tolstoy described it. That’s a very strong sentiment against it. Of course there are forces that call for this split, but these forces don’t have any support, not the least. These loud, noisy communists, who call for revenge, have maybe 10 percent of the people behind them, so it’s not generally accepted.
Text: “People often talk about the Russian soul - -”
Kluge: People often talk about the Russian soul, right, ducha. Could you describe, what the Russian soul is? Gorbachev (via translator): I don’t know what that is. I think Dostoyevsky is right, who said about the Russians that there’s maybe a heart, a Russian one, that shows more compassion for others, for other people, that shows more compassion for others, for other people, for other nations, than others do. They are people who really, really like their freedom, and they are not so prone to fetishize material things. Culture, history, songs, are, despite everything else, still most important: what is directly connected to human beings, with their memory, and also with their dreams. That’s all part of the Russian character, but this character has been deformed through long years of totalitarism, and the people are worn out by this freedom, and they don’t know what to do, first of all; and second, they are completely exhausted by their daily worries. Some people want to avail themselves of an enormous patience, in order to resist all the inconveniences and difficulties. Puschkin, and Bismarck, chancellor Bismarck, always spoke of that in their special way.
Kluge: What did they say? Gorbachev (via translator): Puschkin said: The worst thing is if you reach the end of this patience, said Puschkin, that would be the worst.
Kluge: That’s the worst. And then there is the countermovement. Gorbachev (via translator): And then the beatings begin. But chancellor Bismarck has got that too, this ability. You can make use of the Russians for a long, long time, but then things get quickly out of hand. That is, this persistence, this endurance, which somehow also keeps the Russian alive, who can offer resistance and endure everything. But when you cross a certain line, then their very hard character traits, merciless character traits make an appearance.
Text: One last question - -
Müller: One more question, which is also a question about the Russian soul. There is a theory put forth by the British historian Toynbee about Lenin. He says, it was about the industrialization of Russia, the initiation of the industrialization, and the only possibility to industrialize Russia was through a Western ideology. And this was the function of Marxism, to push Russia towards capitalism. Gorbachev (via translator): And very simple slogans. That came up in the early Marx as well, to overcome man’s alienation from the power, to overcome the alienation.
Kluge: What is that in Russian? Gorbachev (via translator): [отчужде́ние?]. Of the power that touches this alienation, of the property and the culture. That’s why it is the land for the farmers, the factories for the workers, the power for the Soviets. That was it, and made available …
Text: On the day of the premiere of Tristan in Bayreuth /
Kluge: Electrification as a cultural achievement, right?
Text: M.S. Gorbatchev calls for saving the Russian culture / Gorbachev (via translator): I don’t want to burn everything that was at the stake, but one should try and learn from it.
Text: Afterwards PRIME TIME late edition interviewed him: About brigands, about the Russian soul, Gorbachev (via Translator): It is something else entirely when people consciously exercise terror, destroy people …
Text: about the patience and endurance of the Russian people, what did Lenin think about right before his death?
Kluge: But you would respect Lenin. Gorbachev (via translator): Yes, what was at the very end, the end of his life, that’s a key to the understanding of Lenin.
Text: Gorbachev in Bayreuth / What do we know about the Russian soul? PRIME TIME. Late edition Gorbachev (via translator): After all, he did introduce the new political economy, entrepreneurship, banks, collectives, etcetera.