Moscow / Modern Moscow: The History of Culture in Stories and Dialogs

Solomon Volkov - cultural historian, musicologist, writer; The author of the books "Bolshoi Theater. Culture and politics. New History ”,“ The History of the Culture of St. Petersburg from the founding to the present day ”,“ The history of Russian culture in the reign of the Romanovs. 1613-1917 ”,“ History of Russian culture of the twentieth century. From Leo Tolstoy to Alexander Solzhenitsyn ”,“ Shostakovich and Stalin: the artist and the king ”. His dialogues with famous people are invariable interest: “Dialogues with Joseph Brodsky”, “Dialogues with Evgeny Yevtushenko”, “Dialogues with Vladimir Spivakov”, “Certificate. The memoirs of Dmitry Shostakovich recorded by Solomon Volkov, "" Passion in Tchaikovsky. Conversations with George Balanchin ”and others.

Moscow / Modern Moscow - this is the experience of understanding the“ Moscow ”contribution to the domestic and world culture. In historical essays, Solomon Volkov talks about key figures and important events of the history of Moscow culture of the twentieth century: the creation of MHT in 1898 and the Chekhov-Dramaturg, Bulgakov and the changeable attitude of Stalin, the arrival of Anri Matisse and the Bubnoye Valet society, Eisenstein and the Society "Future of the sound films"; Shostakovich and Yevtushenko, Richter and Gilels, Venedikt Erofeev and Dmitry Alexandrovich Prigov. The main theme of dialogs in this book is the cultural appearance of the capital of the 21st century. Volkov’s interlocutors were: Director of the Plane named after A.S. Pushkin Marina Loshak, Literary critic Galina Yuzefovich, Director of the State Museum of History of Russian Literature named after V.I. Dalya Dmitry Bak, artistic director of the Helicon-Opera Theater Dmitry Bertman, editor-in-chief of the magazine "Cinema Art" Anton Dolin, Rector Gitis Grigory Zaslavsky.

New Moscow... What content am I put into this concept? In cultural studies, the term moodernity is widely used. Modernity is modern and relevance, it is a story that is born before our eyes, here and now. Our city life, being in dynamic development, creates a situation of constant updating: the future is born in the struggle between the past and the present. Modernity includes outwardly opposite impulses: fluidity, spontaneity, revolutionaryness, craving for collectivism - and fetishism, a tendency to individualism, recluse, the peasantry of the “underground person”. Waking up in this boiler of contradictions, we can be deeply unhappy, but we will never be bored. This is the attitude of the inhabitants of megametropolis, to which modern Moscow belongs.

Solomon Volkov