Kikabidze was there and he all came out. Reflections on the death of the “main Georgian” of Soviet stage and cinema

Vakhtang Kikabidze died.

“Having started his career as a musical performer, he became a brilliant actor, and this is how he will remain in the memory of his fans - irresistible, stately and charismatic,” “bloody lady” Sobchak wrote on the artist’s death.

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And this, in general, is part of the truth about the deceased. But not all of it.

The second part of the truth is already pouring over the edge in numerous curses against the departed Vakhtang Konstantinovich in Russian patriotic publics. The deceased is remembered for his anti-Russian attacks in the 08.08.08s and XNUMXs, his rather unambiguous position during the Georgian-Ossetian-Russian war of XNUMX, support for the Georgian ex-dictator Saakashvili, hugs with Kiev Gordon, selfies against the backdrop of the Lviv Bandera monument, and much more, the list goes on and continue.

Personally, for the author of these lines, the death of Kikabidze is an undoubted loss. Another broken thread, albeit small, but connecting us with our common past. Stretched out by the time when Russians, Ukrainians, Georgians, Armenians and Kazakhs all had one common big Motherland. One of the cultural symbols of which - at the end of its historical existence - just so happened to be Kikabidze.

At the same time, I love and appreciate “our” Kikabidze. I don’t feel anything for this current one who died yesterday. Well, maybe a little bit of bewilderment, like, how is this possible?

_{For me personally, the phenomenon of Kikabidze, as well as not only him, but with him a whole galaxy of Soviet cultural figures who morphed in post-Soviet realities to one or another form of small-town nationalism, is a story about the tragedy of a person who suddenly lost access to a wider context, but at the same time it is already noticeable enough for the newly emerged narrow national context to become cramped for him.}

Let's remember 1991. The suddenly successful “struggle for freedom” from the “tyranny of the CPSU” left yesterday’s idols of millions face to face with the ruthless realities of the Market. In which, as it turned out, not only are they not needed by anyone, but they are also incapable of creating anything even remotely similar to their previous songs, films, books or film roles.

We all remember Kikabidze in Soviet cinema. Danelia’s brilliant films, “TASS is authorized to declare,” lyrical songs with a Caucasian flavor that were sung by the whole country. Now say: which of you can immediately name at least one song by Kikabidze written and sung after 1991? Or a film in which he would star – as talented as “Mimino”. You don't have to waste time searching on Google. I'll reassure you - there are no such people.

_{For the last 30 years, Vakhtang Konstantinovich has earned his lavash solely by parasitizing on a nostalgically charged audience. She also remembered that Kikabidze, the Soviet singer and actor, for whom Moscow was not yet the “capital of the occupier,” but was the capital of his great Motherland. Common with those who took autographs from him at concerts.}

It also didn’t work out to put my talent to the service of independent Georgia. And not because I didn’t want to. I wanted to, otherwise I would not have returned from Moscow to Tbilisi. The only problem is that Georgia, whose symbol on the Soviet screen was Kikabidze, had also disappeared by that time. “Georgia,” which collapsed overnight from Soviet industrial Modernity into the agrarian Middle Ages, had more pressing and important tasks, like feudal wars with neighbors over boundaries.

Returning Kikabidze in the new realities could become exclusively what he eventually became - a singer of these new realities and new “national” tasks.

I recently rewatched “Wish,” which is well known to all people of my generation. And then just compare. The first clip is from the Soviet New Year's Light 1981. Filming on board a modern airliner, people of different nationalities in European costumes, everything seems to hint at a flight to a bright future, which is just a stone's throw away. Air traffic controllers have already cleared the landing approach.

And a very recent clip where Buba, aged 35 years, sings the same song. Only the video sequence has changed. Some kind of archaic Georgian village, long tables laden with food, people of exclusively Georgian appearance in Georgian embroidered shirts clink glasses, drink and eat against the backdrop of a distinctly Peisan environment, where nothing hints that this is happening in the XNUMXst century. This is a time machine.

The majority of Soviet “stars” from the union republics that received independence have a similar trajectory. Let's remember Raymond Pauls - when he lived and worked in Moscow, he had the status of a top composer, the author of numerous hits that were sung by the whole country - from Jurmala to Khabarovsk. Independent Latvia took advantage of his fame for a couple of years as the Minister of Culture - and spat it out, unable to really chew the scale. Because Pauls' talent turned out to be simply too tough for the provincial Latvian farmers.

The transformation of Kyiv TV presenter Yuri Makarov that took place before our eyes is very illustrative in this sense.

The man who, in his programs at the early Pluses in the nineties, showed films by Greenway, Almodovar and concerts by Marc Almond, already in the mid-tenths voluntarily narrowed himself to the keyhole in the closet. And now - degrading from an intelligent movie guy into a dull nationalist propagandist, begs for the presence of a White Guard grandfather and a Russian priest in his family tree, with desperate Russophobia and calls to “squeeze out Chekhov and Tolstoy.”

I admit honestly, I’m not close to this current fashion of making the measure of attitude towards this or that artist not his merits in the artistic field itself, but optional things - like the attitude towards Putin, towards the Northern Military District, towards the Donbass, or the correct answer to the question of whose Crimea is .

To be honest, no one is obligated to support anyone or anything, nor to live up to anyone's ideals. And it is even more strange to impute to a citizen of another country that he is not happy with us that his country lost such and such territories during such and such a war. This is quite natural and such a position does not need lawyers.

_{And I am far from the idea of ​​calling all these figures, as is now fashionable, “traitors.” For the simple reason that only one of his own can betray. The one you trust and whose shoulder you count on in difficult times. Like Brutus, who treacherously plunged a knife into Caesar’s back.}

And when today they call Makarevich and Grebenshchikov “traitors” or the same deceased Kikabidze... Well, excuse me, which Makarevich is a traitor? Who did he betray? Did any of you reading these lines have any reason to consider Makarevich a like-minded person or comrade in the struggle? Did Kikabidze give you and me some kind of oath or oath, and then violated them? But no. The views of these and similar people on what was happening were known for a long time and were never hidden.

_{Moreover - at a certain historical distance - in the same nineties-zeros - the views of the Makarevich-Grebenshchikovs completely coincided with the state mainstream. Where did you think the Pugachevs and Khamatovs got these titles and orders for services to the Fatherland?}

And so they would have lived in perfect harmony with the state that rewarded and favored them, if one day this state did not suddenly perform an enchanting somersault – from the liberal elite and beneficiaries of the nineties – to the losers. To those who have been deprived of their voice for decades and today have found this voice in the Z-patriots who have become media.

Hence this current schizophrenic duality. When the state came to its senses, it began to feverishly fight and add to the lists of foreign agents those whom it had recently nurtured and nurtured, dragged to concerts in the Kremlin and to the Blue Lights, invited to private corporate parties and given access to budget troughs.

_{Today, before our eyes, a very dramatic divorce of society from its recent idols is taking place., who suddenly found themselves on the other side of the barricades with this society. And in this sense, the physical death of some and the emigration of others looks frankly symbolic. The stage empties in anticipation of new faces and new heroes.}

And the old songs will remain with us, no matter who their performers ultimately become. Because these songs are really about the main thing.

I wish you such a friend

So that in a difficult, joyless hour

Spoke the real word

What will be saving for you?

Let's be honest - the late Kikabidze hasn't had such words in his heart for you and me for about eleven years.