Rudolf Nureyev and the USSR
I’ll start by saying that Nureyev was not my favorite dancer, although I saw him perform in person many times and appreciated his blazing energy and the excitement he brought to the stage whenever he danced. He was Dionysian rather than Apollonian, and not a perfect technician, having gotten a late start in ballet and lacking some of the core upper body strength that many Russian dancers have. He transcended those limitations not only through his exhilarating presence, but because of the strength in his legs, his iron determination, and the extreme physical beauty of his form and face.
Nureyev had a sort of feral allure, mostly masculine with a little bit of feminine and a fair amount of some other exotic non-human creature—a panther perhaps. Something feline, with a hint of ferocity. No other male dancer thrilled people (men and women) so much.
When Nureyev defected to the west in 1961 at the age of 23 and caused a sensation, he was already a star in Russia. But after his defection he became a star of the world—everywhere except Russia and the countries it controlled, that is.
The following clip is the sixth and final part of a BBC documentary that deals only with his Soviet years and his defection. This particular part begins immediately after his defection with a description of one of the Soviet plans to harm him. The film is a reminder of how relentless the Soviets were in blighting liberty and in ruining—or threatening to ruin—innocent lives. And their retaliation against Nureyev, as described in this film, was relatively mild compared with what they regularly perpetrated on so many of those with the temerity to defy them, or even on people who merely ran foul of them. Evil empire, indeed.
Nureyev left Russia, and he probably couldn’t afford to think too much about the people he’d left behind. This is as much their story as his.
you are talking about: Mokryye Dela
The film is a reminder of how relentless the Soviets were in blighting liberty and in ruining–or threatening to ruin–innocent lives.
should be
The film is a reminder of how relentless the Soviets are in blighting liberty and in ruining–or threatening to ruin–innocent lives.
not were..
were says they stopped, or they are not soviet
that is not so (our beliefs dont make it so, either)
we really shouold not say such untruths or things that we cant tell are true… its akin to pissing inot the head of your neighbor cause you care little about it… but to claim a past tense when that is not true, is to write propaganda, or pass it on, or at best confirm the fakery…
(big lie. to combat the big lie, stop repeating it, especially when reflexively done)
there is an unbroken chain of policy going back to before stalin
and how about these ATTEMPTS
Pope John Paul II
John Wayne – An ardent anti-communist and vocal supporter of the House Un-American Activities Committee, in 1952 he made Big Jim McLain to show his support for the anti-communist cause. Recently declassified Soviet documents reveal that despite being a fan of Wayne’s movies, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin contemplated Wayne’s assassination as a result of his frequently-espoused anti-communist politics
Then there was the “Berlin Group” and Alexander Zharkov who is processing one of many lists…
and even more intersting, the recent finding in the german archives of a post hitler anti communist nazi army of over 10,000 people in germany ready to fight again!!!!! but only if russia invaded
A 1964 view of KGB methods
SOVIET USE OF ASSASSINATION AND KIDNAPING
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol19no3/html/v19i3a01p_0001.htm
in that last caregory, a few assasis have come forward and confessed, and we now know that some heart attacks and defenestrations were their work
The large numbers of former citizens of the USSR (and of Imperial Russia) living abroad in protest against the Soviet regime have been a continuing cause for concern to the Soviets since the early twenties
and so KOCH is a target of stuff being anti-communist since then… and almost all defectors, though the public eye can save people some times… just read about arcady and the facts of that relationship, but then again, recommended and not read so i wont again
Reducing and keeping to a minimum the potential threat to the regime represented by these emigrés is one of the functions of the state security service. Soviet intelligence seeks to neutralize, discredit and destroy anti-Soviet groups by luring emigrés back to the USSR, by penetrating emigré organizations, and by kidnaping or murdering individual emigrés considered to be particularly dangerous.
Nureyev fit thi. as did anyone else who the world would think would have it great but wanted to leave.
that is. its easy to see why an ex soviet peasant stuck in a run down ex gulag came in the urals cant immigrate out and if so, would not be too kind as to their memories of the prior state..
but when luminairies defect, thats a big deal. why would a perosn who is famous, celebrated, and loved want to run like hell out of their from the first chance they get?
its sadly funny that todays liberal cant learn from that.
that some of their most celebrated personalities and luminaires had to run or die… or be erased…
it shouold be noticed that some people who are a part of the movement are people who are afraid to stop. they are in over their heads, no one would believe them, and there is no way to leave
and some, are double agents. that is, people who, like nuryeve, left the soviet union to be defectors who would then have access to people and be able to be agents of infliuence. so sometimes the victim is not a victim… or the defector is not a defector.
what scares them are stories of people like the now known story of Rebet… (or that they killed someone close to them and told them they would… after that, they are quite under control)
The weapon used to assassinate Rebet was a light-weight aluminum cylinder, 15 to 18 cm. long and approximately 3 cm in diameter, weighing about 200 grams.
they basically held the thing up near the face, hit it, and the noise would make the victim gasp. they would die of a heart attack… and thats that…
this meant that if you were alone in a stair, by your door, walking down a street, in a subway, etc… someone only need walk up to you, ask for the time, and thats that.
Lisa Stein was fed candy containing scopalomine… the thing was much like abductions in the movies, where the sick person is escorted outside, and then helped into a car, and they disappear. she didnt get sick till later, and her neighbors came to her aid, foiling the plot
then there was the use of polonium on an ex KGB man… it was a statement as the only people who could get that much of it are people who could tap a nuclear power plant and not leave a record…
they used to use thalium… and radioactive stuff was used as it caused stomach cancer, something that was a lot more common before we started using paper coffeer filters.
oh. there is one other thing fouling up the waters in respect to nuryeve…
he had a habit of having sex with a lot of mens wives as he was pan sexual…
e did have sexual relationships with quite a lot of women. He obviously was primarily gay, but he was pan-sexual, and he took it where he could find it — and he clearly liked the idea of having a son to renew his line
List of Soviet and Eastern Bloc defectors
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Soviet_and_Eastern_Bloc_defectors
reads like a whose who list…
some are very very interesting
Arkady Shevchenko UN Undersecretary General Spied for the U.S. for three years before defection. His wife in Moscow died two months after his defection purportedly of suicide.
[i pointed out that the soviet state is the first to target loved ones as a rule not a last resourt]
there are chess players, choreographers, politburo secretaries, generals, authors, physicists, NKVD, KGB,SVR, GRU, MGB, ambassadors, a Cardinal, a Deputy minister of Justice, pilots, naval officers, journolists, ballet dancers, poets, writers, mathemeticians, playwrights, conductors, film direcots, linguists, and with the olympics, figure skaters, football, sprint, canoe, ice dancing, motorcycle racer, hockey players, etc
the list of reverse defections is very small comparatiely speaking and usually when someone is caught, like snowden (or seemingly caught)
Arthur Adams (spy)
Harold M. Koch
George Koval
Lee Harvey Oswald
Alfred Sarant
Joel Barr
Arnold Lockshin
Lona Cohen
Morris Cohen (spy)
Bill Haywood
Isaiah Oggins
Martin and Mitchell defection
Robert Edward Webster
Flora Wovschin
the list of US personell compromised is even more interesting…
One chief aim was the infiltration, placement, and subversion of American political life at all levels of society. Earl Browder, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA), served as an agent recruiter himself on behalf of Soviet intelligence
Browders whole family it seemed had jobs with the soviets..
Alger Hiss, John Abt, and Lee Pressman were spies under FDR… with the courier of the group being wittiker chambers who changed sides.
he oversaw Jacob Golos and his girlfriend, Elizabeth Bentley… bently eventually changed sides too… she was the blond spy who eventually got Nathan Gregory Silvermaster and Harry Dexter White of the US treasury to do things
yes… and not once will you read that any of these people and their NKVD Work had any influence on the depression, the ideas being used to push communism as a solutioln, and os on.
Art…
It has long struck me that Guderian was bumped off by the KGB.
He’d gotten ‘lost in the weeds’ and overlooked… until he published his memoirs.
Not so long after that he suddenly dies.
In his memoirs he made it plain that the Russians blamed him for an engineered campaign of starvation in front of Moscow in the Fall and Winter of 1941.
Not withstanding his rank, Guderian waltzed right past Nuremberg. His chronic fights with Adolf had become widely known in command circles.
(His last argument almost killed Hitler with a heart attack.)
Art, especially high art, as I understand it to be dance, painting, and sculpture, requires form and expertise, hence, truth and freedom. Modernity corrupts truth in the name of freedom, but of course freedom and truth are allies, not enemies.
Painting was corrupted; sculpture definitely; but dance? Not very much. And ironically,
the society which tore down truth more than any other, found in dance a heritage worth saving and preserving.
And so all the more to Nureyev’s dedication of his skill and dance to truth. If he had had no conflict with truth, why denounce with his action, the government of the USSR?
And what a dilemma, huh? To put truth above family and friends. Irony again in that it seems that that is what ideological traitors do. But truth is truth and I wouldn’t want to be the one who, as a traitor, was against it.
On lonliness
Watch the sunrise with beaded eyes
Catch the moment before it falls
Everyone captures your surprise
Though it is no surprise at all.
Beyond the sunset and sunrise
I cannot go. Though I have longed
To make them once and both my home.
My home, beloved and known, is gone.
HIGH ART!
Did you get it, Artfldgr?