1 00:00:29,287 --> 00:00:33,280 HOLY MOTHER RUSSIA 2 00:00:40,287 --> 00:00:45,680 ARVO PÄRT Tabula Rasa 3 00:01:16,087 --> 00:01:24,404 My generation didn't sense that the religious culture could be so big and powerful. 4 00:01:24,807 --> 00:01:27,037 VALERY GERGIEV Conductor It was only when I was sixteen or seventeen 5 00:01:27,207 --> 00:01:35,205 I started to just learn, sense again that there was something very big. 6 00:01:38,327 --> 00:01:40,887 Something which no regime can destroy. 7 00:01:45,287 --> 00:01:49,917 They couldn't make people forget who they are. 8 00:02:10,487 --> 00:02:14,685 Most people come to the conviction 9 00:02:14,927 --> 00:02:25,565 TATIANA VIKHAILOVNA that they are moving towards God that their life is bound up with Him... 10 00:02:27,287 --> 00:02:31,803 Belief in God is the foundation of life 11 00:02:33,527 --> 00:02:38,647 It is necessary to know and feel God 12 00:02:41,047 --> 00:02:44,926 Sooner or later most people come to God 13 00:02:49,607 --> 00:02:51,996 In his notes to his novel 'The Devils', 14 00:02:52,207 --> 00:02:57,486 Dostoevsky wrote: Russia is great and wonderful because it believes 15 00:02:57,767 --> 00:02:59,564 and because it has Orthodoxy. 16 00:03:00,287 --> 00:03:04,439 If Orthodoxy is everything, then Russia, too, is everything. 17 00:03:08,647 --> 00:03:12,322 RIMSKY-KORSAKOV Easter Festival Overture 18 00:03:33,647 --> 00:03:35,444 This film is about faith 19 00:03:35,767 --> 00:03:40,363 and its survival in Russian life and culture despite every attempt to crush it. 20 00:03:49,927 --> 00:03:53,044 The most vivid evocation of a religious festival in Russian music 21 00:03:53,207 --> 00:03:55,767 is by the agnostic Rimsky Korsakov. 22 00:03:56,887 --> 00:03:59,003 Although he described his Easter Festival Overture 23 00:03:59,327 --> 00:04:03,878 as 'a reminiscence of the ancient prophesy and a general picture of the Easter service', 24 00:04:04,087 --> 00:04:09,115 it was the echoes of paganism beneath the Christian ritual which fascinated him. 25 00:04:28,887 --> 00:04:31,560 'Do not the flowing beards of the priests', Rimsky wrote 26 00:04:31,727 --> 00:04:37,085 'and the sextons in their white surplices, take one's imagination back to pagan times? ' 27 00:04:53,967 --> 00:04:58,802 Amazingly, there are certain habits and certain beliefs, 28 00:04:59,007 --> 00:05:07,085 certain thinking which has survived this two or more thousand years. 29 00:05:07,687 --> 00:05:17,756 People were thinking of fire, hunt, rain, water, thunder 30 00:05:18,247 --> 00:05:25,005 they would also think of maybe of harvest because it was crucially important. 31 00:05:28,527 --> 00:05:30,404 Then you think of different gods. 32 00:05:39,447 --> 00:05:42,917 In areas of practising Pagans 33 00:05:43,127 --> 00:05:45,118 VITALY FEDKO Folklorist when you hear these sounds 34 00:05:45,607 --> 00:05:48,167 like... 35 00:06:01,247 --> 00:06:08,164 I'd never heard such things, particularly with my cultural background. 36 00:06:08,247 --> 00:06:13,241 Naturally, as soon as you heard these songs you understood they were in some way 37 00:06:13,527 --> 00:06:18,317 connected to a very deep spiritual life to an ancient tradition 38 00:06:45,687 --> 00:06:51,045 I still think there is nothing wrong, being, even now, a pagan. 39 00:06:51,607 --> 00:06:53,563 Musically you can be, 40 00:06:53,927 --> 00:06:56,157 you can insist that you love Mozart, 41 00:06:56,327 --> 00:07:00,764 than you easily can insist that you also love Stravinsky. 42 00:07:05,087 --> 00:07:08,682 STRAVINSKY Rite of Spring - The Sacrifice 43 00:07:19,127 --> 00:07:22,085 The young Stravinsky, brought up in the Orthodox faith, 44 00:07:22,247 --> 00:07:26,843 immersed himself in pre-Christian culture when he was conceiving the 'Rite of Spring'. 45 00:07:30,007 --> 00:07:35,127 Stravinsky, of course, was Orthodox Russian, 46 00:07:35,327 --> 00:07:39,240 so he wanted to take this journey 47 00:07:39,407 --> 00:07:41,967 into the world of culture, into the world of philosophy, 48 00:07:42,167 --> 00:07:45,284 spirit and to understand. 49 00:07:57,087 --> 00:08:01,399 'I wish to express the sublime upsurge of self renewing nature,' he said, 50 00:08:01,567 --> 00:08:05,845 the total pantheistic upsurge of the universal sap 51 00:08:06,607 --> 00:08:09,246 the annual cycle of forces that are reborn 52 00:08:09,407 --> 00:08:12,240 is consummated in its fundamental rhythms. 53 00:08:23,767 --> 00:08:29,239 STRAVINSKY Rite of Spring - The Dance of the Earth 54 00:08:53,287 --> 00:08:59,999 Every culture, even in the ten thousand miles distance one from another, 55 00:09:01,047 --> 00:09:07,646 all share certain images, certain powerful, very powerful images, 56 00:09:08,007 --> 00:09:10,601 we call it 'shaman'. 57 00:09:11,327 --> 00:09:15,957 They perform a ritual, which is known to their people 58 00:09:16,287 --> 00:09:21,441 and even now it still stays in the memory of in each family, in each tribe. 59 00:09:22,367 --> 00:09:26,565 It still immediately evokes some mystical power 60 00:09:28,407 --> 00:09:29,999 not many people joke with it. 61 00:09:32,887 --> 00:09:38,280 MUSSORGSKY Khovanshchina 62 00:09:39,807 --> 00:09:45,165 In his opera 'Khovanshchina', Mussorgsky showed a Christian priestess dabbling in Shamanis. 63 00:09:46,567 --> 00:09:48,922 When Marfa tells Prince Golitsyn's fortune, 64 00:09:49,367 --> 00:09:51,164 a fellow composer described her as 65 00:09:51,247 --> 00:09:55,126 a somewhat fantastic, magic, even prophetic character, 66 00:09:55,327 --> 00:09:57,682 utterly foreign to traditional Christianity. 67 00:10:03,887 --> 00:10:06,003 'Khovanshchina' is a very mystical opera. 68 00:10:07,087 --> 00:10:10,796 When Marfa comes to Prince Golitsyn she says. 69 00:10:12,607 --> 00:10:18,398 'All secret forces. The force of mystery'. 70 00:10:20,247 --> 00:10:29,565 Mysterious forces, great powers. 71 00:10:30,007 --> 00:10:38,358 Souls departed to the unknown world 72 00:10:40,327 --> 00:10:44,400 To you I call! 73 00:10:44,647 --> 00:10:49,084 It really starts to feel like she brings it immediately into the room. 74 00:10:49,367 --> 00:10:52,564 And Golitsyn is taken and he is full of fear. 75 00:10:52,727 --> 00:11:03,365 Iost souls who know the secrets of the depths 76 00:11:03,807 --> 00:11:06,480 Are you there? 77 00:11:08,287 --> 00:11:16,922 To the noble Prince worn with fears 78 00:11:17,087 --> 00:11:25,483 the secret of his fate hidden in darkness 79 00:11:25,607 --> 00:11:28,644 will you now reveal? 80 00:11:36,567 --> 00:11:43,279 All is quiet and clear in the heavens 81 00:11:43,527 --> 00:11:49,159 In the towns, the Orthodox priests actively resisted Paganism. 82 00:11:49,327 --> 00:11:57,917 In the countryside nevertheless, people managed to find a balance 83 00:11:58,127 --> 00:12:13,566 ...between the old spirituality and Christianity. 84 00:12:35,807 --> 00:12:39,686 It was a thousand years before Christianity finally took root in Russia. 85 00:12:40,567 --> 00:12:44,640 Medieval monks from Byzantium established themselves in the caves 86 00:12:44,847 --> 00:12:46,644 beneath the ancient city of Kiev. 87 00:12:47,927 --> 00:12:49,758 As a 12th century chronicler wrote: 88 00:12:49,927 --> 00:12:55,047 Praised be our Lord Jesus Christ, who loved his new people the Kingdom of Rus 89 00:12:55,407 --> 00:12:57,841 and illuminated it with holy baptism. 90 00:13:04,207 --> 00:13:08,439 The foundation of Russian Christianity is described in the Kiev Paterikon: 91 00:13:09,847 --> 00:13:14,875 It was pleasing to God to manifest a luminary of the church and a teacher of monks. 92 00:13:15,367 --> 00:13:18,996 Father Anthony went into the hills and the desolate places 93 00:13:19,247 --> 00:13:23,479 and here he found a cave, and lived in great moderation. 94 00:13:28,567 --> 00:13:34,278 TRADITIONAL 11TH CENTURY CHANTING 95 00:13:56,687 --> 00:14:00,441 The scholar Fedotov described the impact of early Kievan Christianity 96 00:14:00,647 --> 00:14:02,205 on all Russian Culture: 97 00:14:03,967 --> 00:14:06,925 The memory of Kievan Rus has never diminished. 98 00:14:07,127 --> 00:14:10,563 In the pure fountain of her literary works and her art, 99 00:14:10,767 --> 00:14:14,362 anyone who wishes can quench his religious thirst. 100 00:14:16,527 --> 00:14:19,246 It has the same value for the Russian religious mind 101 00:14:19,407 --> 00:14:22,683 as Pushkin for the Russian artistic sensibility. 102 00:14:36,087 --> 00:14:39,557 In his operatic setting of Pushkin's drama 'Boris Godunov', 103 00:14:39,767 --> 00:14:44,682 Mussorgsky makes the monk chronicler Pimen the moral witness of Russia's tragedy. 104 00:14:48,487 --> 00:14:52,275 MUSSORGSKY Boris Godunov 105 00:14:52,487 --> 00:15:07,642 Just one more story, and my chronicle will be completed 106 00:15:08,047 --> 00:15:23,236 I shall have completed the task that God assigned to me, a sinner 107 00:15:25,047 --> 00:15:29,086 Pimen is a voice of history, the voice of conscience. 108 00:15:29,287 --> 00:15:34,407 So the role of Pimen is to give us a truth, 109 00:15:34,767 --> 00:15:39,204 to give us a document, to give us a feeling 110 00:15:39,367 --> 00:15:41,642 that nothing will be forgiven. 111 00:15:42,367 --> 00:15:45,916 A sin is a sin, the truth is the truth 112 00:15:46,087 --> 00:15:48,999 and even if you think there is no way to prove 113 00:15:49,127 --> 00:15:52,164 there is something, there is somewhere, somebody 114 00:15:52,327 --> 00:15:57,606 watching, listening, hearing, seeing it comes out. 115 00:15:59,687 --> 00:16:11,042 God did not appoint me as a witness for so many years in vain 116 00:16:11,847 --> 00:16:29,243 One day an industrious brother may discover my anonymous work 117 00:16:30,007 --> 00:16:37,880 Like myself, he will light his lamp 118 00:16:38,247 --> 00:16:52,321 and brush the dust from an old manuscript, to copy the truthful tale 119 00:16:53,527 --> 00:17:11,879 Future generations of true Christians will learn the history of their country 120 00:17:20,127 --> 00:17:25,247 By the 14th Century, Saint Sergius had brought the faith to within a hundred miles of Moscow. 121 00:17:25,727 --> 00:17:28,764 Here in what is now called Sergeyev Passad 122 00:17:28,927 --> 00:17:31,964 he founded Russia's most important monastery complex. 123 00:17:35,847 --> 00:17:40,716 Today and every day of the year, round the clock, people pray for his soul. 124 00:18:25,007 --> 00:18:27,441 With the Western church under attack from Islam, 125 00:18:27,607 --> 00:18:31,122 Russia now saw itself as the protector of the Christian spirit. 126 00:18:33,767 --> 00:18:38,477 The monk Hilarion wrote that the gracious God no longer neglects us. 127 00:18:38,767 --> 00:18:41,759 It is his desire to save us and lead us to reason 128 00:18:41,967 --> 00:18:44,356 and another scholar added: 129 00:18:44,567 --> 00:18:47,161 The doors of Byzantium the Second Rome 130 00:18:47,367 --> 00:18:48,925 were smashed open by Islam. 131 00:18:49,287 --> 00:18:52,757 But now the Holy Apostolic Church of the Third New Rome 132 00:18:52,927 --> 00:18:56,920 shines forth brighter than the sun in all the ends of the earth. 133 00:19:41,007 --> 00:19:43,840 But no sooner had the Third Rome been established in Moscow 134 00:19:44,127 --> 00:19:48,484 than the Russian monarchy shifted the centre of power five hundred miles to the North. 135 00:19:49,767 --> 00:19:56,639 BORTNYANSKY Sacred Concertos No.3 - Hail to the King 136 00:20:00,327 --> 00:20:03,319 In St Petersburg a very different city, 137 00:20:03,567 --> 00:20:07,446 a very different church and a very different Western-orientated culture 138 00:20:07,527 --> 00:20:09,597 was established by Peter the Great. 139 00:20:13,327 --> 00:20:19,197 His affection to Dutch, or British, or Austrian, or German, you know, 140 00:20:19,247 --> 00:20:21,602 whatever good was there, you know, 141 00:20:21,967 --> 00:20:25,323 was built in five hundred years before, thousand years before 142 00:20:25,527 --> 00:20:29,315 he would catch it like this and says 'hmmm, we take it! ' 143 00:20:49,287 --> 00:20:56,159 FATHER AVVROISEY Vusicologist During this period, Italian musicians were invited to Russia. 144 00:20:56,567 --> 00:21:02,164 All compositions were written in pure Italian spirit... 145 00:21:03,607 --> 00:21:09,045 They were Italian in form, intonation and harmony. 146 00:21:09,287 --> 00:21:14,839 In fact they were Italian in every aspect. 147 00:21:23,967 --> 00:21:27,198 Peter's love affair with the West affected more than the architecture. 148 00:21:27,647 --> 00:21:32,084 The whole political structure of Christianity was remoulded in Western style. 149 00:21:48,727 --> 00:21:54,120 One hard-core group of Orthodox Christians dug their heels in and resisted Peter's reforms. 150 00:21:54,967 --> 00:21:58,755 They were known as the Old Believers and they are still around today. 151 00:22:04,247 --> 00:22:13,440 In the 17th century there were reforms in the Russian Orthodox Church... 152 00:22:13,967 --> 00:22:19,724 FATHER ALEXI RIABATSEV similar to the ones in England during the Reformation. 153 00:22:19,847 --> 00:22:25,001 The dogmas of the Orthodox Church were changed. 154 00:22:25,287 --> 00:22:27,517 A Tsar became it's head. 155 00:22:28,887 --> 00:22:33,756 But there were many believers who rejected it. 156 00:22:34,167 --> 00:22:37,159 Leaders of the Old Believers like Protopop Avaakum were arrested. 157 00:22:37,607 --> 00:22:41,566 First they were exiled, then executed. 158 00:22:41,727 --> 00:22:45,242 Avaakum was burnt at the stake on Good Friday. 159 00:22:45,407 --> 00:22:53,325 After that, mass burnings were carried out all over the country. 160 00:22:59,767 --> 00:23:01,962 Peter's ruthless suppression of the Old Believers 161 00:23:02,167 --> 00:23:07,161 and their leader Dosifey is dramatised in Mussorgsky's opera 'Khovanshchina'. 162 00:23:09,647 --> 00:23:15,836 This is the most depressive fact about the grandness of Peter the Great. 163 00:23:16,607 --> 00:23:23,001 That he had to kill. Old Believers do not want Peter the Great. 164 00:23:23,127 --> 00:23:27,643 They do not want Europe. They think it's all devil, 165 00:23:28,287 --> 00:23:32,246 they don't want all these democracies, 166 00:23:32,567 --> 00:23:36,526 all this, you know, new news from Europe. 167 00:23:36,687 --> 00:23:40,362 They want to stay old fashioned way. 168 00:23:40,487 --> 00:23:45,720 MUSSORGSKY Khovanshchina 169 00:23:49,007 --> 00:24:03,843 Lord ever glorious! Grant that we may behold Thee in Thy might 170 00:24:04,247 --> 00:24:11,164 Brethren! May we be uplifted! 171 00:24:11,367 --> 00:24:26,078 We shall see the radiance of Divine truth and love 172 00:24:26,287 --> 00:24:48,564 May the carnal snares of Hell vanish before the bright face of truth and love 173 00:24:53,487 --> 00:24:58,845 They are fanatically organised, very strong and they prove it. 174 00:24:59,047 --> 00:25:02,517 They go and burn themselves in fire. 175 00:25:10,047 --> 00:25:31,277 Our faith is in the truth of God 176 00:25:32,527 --> 00:25:59,276 Nothing can deprive us of it 177 00:26:51,487 --> 00:26:57,244 In the fire, which I personally choose to end this opera with, 178 00:26:58,807 --> 00:27:03,927 you hear both end and continuation 179 00:27:46,247 --> 00:27:49,398 The Romanovs established a partnership between the might of the Tsars 180 00:27:49,647 --> 00:27:51,842 and the power of the Orthodox Church. 181 00:27:52,367 --> 00:27:54,164 As Dostoevsky said, 182 00:27:54,247 --> 00:27:59,605 'We take our religion from politics. Orthodox discipline must prevail. ' 183 00:28:47,887 --> 00:28:51,084 Russian artists were encouraged to develop an aesthetic, 184 00:28:51,287 --> 00:28:53,005 which bound art and religion together. 185 00:28:55,727 --> 00:29:00,437 Even a late-Romantic composer like Rachmaninov saw himself as part of this movement. 186 00:29:00,687 --> 00:29:04,236 RACHMANINOV Vespers - Serene Light 187 00:29:04,407 --> 00:29:08,764 Throughout the 19th century, there was a search for a national harmony, 188 00:29:08,887 --> 00:29:12,675 a search for the rebirth of a national music. 189 00:29:13,327 --> 00:29:22,042 The Rachmaninov Vespers were a development of the Russian musical 'idea'. 190 00:29:22,247 --> 00:29:30,006 The 'idea' was based on a gathering of material from a variety of sources. 191 00:29:30,487 --> 00:29:34,765 In the first place, Folklore material from the people. 192 00:29:34,887 --> 00:29:42,441 Secondly, ancient church chants, and thirdly, Folk Polyphony. 193 00:29:42,567 --> 00:30:00,680 We sing to God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost 194 00:30:01,007 --> 00:30:11,565 Thou art worthy at all times 195 00:30:11,887 --> 00:30:33,038 to be praised in joyful song 196 00:30:38,687 --> 00:31:08,565 Son of God, giver of life 197 00:31:28,207 --> 00:31:30,641 Despite seventy years of atheistic communism, 198 00:31:30,767 --> 00:31:34,442 the domestic traditions of Easter are still practised in Moscow today, 199 00:31:34,847 --> 00:31:36,758 much as Rimsky recollected them. 200 00:31:40,287 --> 00:31:42,926 The Easter service with its pagan merry-making, 201 00:31:43,047 --> 00:31:47,916 the Easter loaves and twists and all those Easter eggs and burning candles. 202 00:32:32,247 --> 00:32:35,876 The celebration of the Resurrection is at the core of Russian Christianity. 203 00:32:36,247 --> 00:32:41,879 This is how Dostoevsky's old monk Zosima describes his childhood experience of Easter: 204 00:32:42,887 --> 00:32:45,082 My mother took me alone to morning mass. 205 00:32:45,567 --> 00:32:50,641 I remember now how the incense rose from the censor and flowed slowly upwards. 206 00:32:51,287 --> 00:32:54,484 I felt deeply moved and for the first time in my life 207 00:32:54,687 --> 00:32:59,044 I consciously received the first seed of the words of God in my soul. 208 00:32:59,127 --> 00:33:06,966 Christ is risen! Is truly risen! 209 00:33:19,367 --> 00:33:25,078 RIMSKY-KORSAKOV Easter Festival Overture 210 00:35:46,287 --> 00:35:55,685 Christ is risen! Is truly risen! 211 00:35:55,847 --> 00:36:00,159 OLGA ALEXANDROVNA Not a single year went by without us celebrating Easter... 212 00:36:00,607 --> 00:36:03,679 bake an Easter cake and paint eggs 213 00:36:03,927 --> 00:36:15,122 We celebrated Easter even though it was banned 214 00:36:23,807 --> 00:36:26,844 While Moscow's Church of the Resurrection was being reborn, 215 00:36:27,127 --> 00:36:30,722 Sophia Gubaidulina was commissioned to write a St John Passion 216 00:36:31,567 --> 00:36:34,001 and Gergiev was asked to give the world premiere. 217 00:37:13,327 --> 00:37:15,443 I hear in this composition, 218 00:37:15,887 --> 00:37:21,917 a fantastic concentration and God-given power, which some of us lose. 219 00:37:22,087 --> 00:37:26,603 And I think Gubaidulina, like maybe, very, very few composers 220 00:37:26,847 --> 00:37:28,326 in the last twenty, twenty-five years, 221 00:37:28,687 --> 00:37:34,125 has the unique quality to hear her own world and to protect it. 222 00:37:35,207 --> 00:37:41,203 SOPHIA GUBAIDULINA St John Passion 223 00:39:00,367 --> 00:39:03,996 Perhaps the State might be interested in helping us restore all this! 224 00:39:04,247 --> 00:39:09,082 FATHER SERGIE LISURENKO We have some of the original frescos left. But it will take a lot of money. 225 00:39:09,247 --> 00:39:12,125 If you look over there you can see, there's a bit they're repainting. 226 00:39:12,287 --> 00:39:15,006 It's not finished but you get the general idea 227 00:39:15,127 --> 00:39:18,005 During the Soviet period the church purified itself of rubbish, 228 00:39:18,247 --> 00:39:21,364 FATHER ALEXI RIABATSEV because through this hell only true believers passed unscathed. 229 00:39:21,767 --> 00:39:25,521 But now that the doors are open once more... 230 00:39:26,247 --> 00:39:29,637 the rubbish of superficial decoration is piling up. 231 00:40:27,687 --> 00:40:33,205 SVIRIDOV Glory and Allelulia 232 00:41:07,287 --> 00:41:14,238 I don't think that the very fact that there are churches renewed or restored 233 00:41:14,647 --> 00:41:20,916 brings back the feeling that the people in Russia are settled. 234 00:41:21,127 --> 00:41:28,636 I think the values are so chaotically changed and there are monuments, 235 00:41:28,807 --> 00:41:33,278 which were there forever and they are now in ruins. 236 00:41:33,407 --> 00:41:36,285 And there are new, if not new Gods. 237 00:41:36,487 --> 00:41:42,642 I wouldn't say that but there are new characters in action, 238 00:41:43,127 --> 00:41:45,004 some of them extremely aggressive. 239 00:42:04,767 --> 00:42:09,682 One had to perceive all this positively. 240 00:42:09,767 --> 00:42:14,636 There are people who criticise the situation in the church. 241 00:42:14,767 --> 00:42:21,639 But I think the most important thing is that young people are coming to believe in God. 242 00:42:22,247 --> 00:42:31,155 I believe that this return to God is a return to the Russian spirit. 243 00:42:32,607 --> 00:42:38,637 VLADIMIR MARTYNOV The Beatitudes 244 00:42:56,487 --> 00:43:03,404 VLADIVIR VARTYNOV Composer In the 1970s I felt that Western culture had come to a dead end. 245 00:43:03,607 --> 00:43:09,637 At that point, I had the good fortune to discover early Russian music 246 00:43:09,807 --> 00:43:14,164 from well before the 17th century. 247 00:43:21,327 --> 00:43:24,842 But the most important thing I want to say is that 248 00:43:24,967 --> 00:43:30,564 ancient Russian music is a lighthouse for me and should be for all musicians. 249 00:43:53,247 --> 00:43:59,686 I think Russian culture is waiting for renaissance in a way. 250 00:44:00,687 --> 00:44:02,678 And in the last twenty years, 251 00:44:03,287 --> 00:44:12,286 the sad thing about cultural life in Russia was loss of confidence. 252 00:44:20,007 --> 00:44:24,159 I don't think we need a new Dosifey today, who would tell people 253 00:44:24,367 --> 00:44:27,325 'Let's burn ourselves since the things are not that good'. 254 00:44:27,487 --> 00:44:30,559 I don't think so, but we need Dosifeys today 255 00:44:30,847 --> 00:44:38,606 who have this kind of depth of spiritual voice. 256 00:44:40,807 --> 00:44:43,605 These kind of people are needed today in Russia.