In the Memorial Church in honor of All Saints and in memory of the victims who served to save our Fatherland, a significant event was held – a round table “Traditional spiritual and moral values in the culture of Belarus and Russia as the basis for the formation of national identity, education of a moral personality and patriotism”, in within the framework of which Euthymius, Bishop of Lukhovitsky, Vicar of His Holiness the Patriarch of Moscow spoke… in the Memorial Church in honor of All Saints and in memory of the victims who served to save our Fatherland, a significant event was held – a round table “Traditional spiritual and moral values in the culture of Belarus and Russia as the basis for the formation of national identity, education of a moral personality and patriotism”, in within the framework of which Euthymius, Bishop of Lukhovitsky, Vicar of His Holiness the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, Chairman of the Synodal Missionary Department of the Russian Orthodox Church, spoke; Burlyaev N.P., People’s Artist of Russia, First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee for the Development of Civil Society, Issues of Public Organizations, Member of the Patriarchal Council for Culture, President of the International Slavic Arts Forum “Golden Knight”; Starovoitova A.V., member of the Parliamentary Assembly Commission on Culture, Science and Education; Gigin V.F., Director of the National Library of Belarus, Chairman of the Board of the Republican State-Public Association “Belarusian Society “Knowledge””; Otchik G. A., Chairman of the Belarusian Union of Artists; Karpilova A. A., head of the department of screen arts at the Center for Research of Belarusian Culture, Language and Literature of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, candidate of art history, and other distinguished guests. Upon completion, the premiere screening of Nikolai Burlyaev’s documentary film “God, I feel Your approach!” took place. about director Andrei Tarkovsky.
Film critic A. Karpilova spoke about her understanding of the spiritual principle in Belarusian cinema, which is on the eve of its 100th anniversary. It is in the process of summing up that it is important to realize the spiritual principle as the ability of art to distinguish and choose true moral values. A concept close to spirituality is morality. It is clear that today cinema is one of the strongest means of influencing people and shaping the moral vector of the state in the long term.
To be specific, the spiritual vertical in Belarusian cinema is most clearly manifested in documentary cinema, which is in a tireless search for national identification and a unique face. The multi-genre palette of films on Orthodox themes, represented by a portrait, a teaching, an investigation, an essay, reflects modern ideas about Euphrosyne of Polotsk, Kirill of Turov, Francis Skorina, Simeon of Polotsk, Ioann Grigorovich and many others, whose images have come to us in chronicles, chronicles, legends, legends These are the so-called “candle people” who carried spiritual light, developed the best moral principles, and fostered pride in their people.
But spirituality also exists in films with secular themes, for example, in the film “Choir Master” directed by Galina Adamovich, where the heroine is People’s Artist of Belarus Nina Lomanovich, chief choir master of the Bolshoi Opera and Ballet Theater. In the film, choral art is shown as a spiritual phenomenon of Slavic culture, transmitting the genetic code of the nation, sounding brightly in the operas of P. Tchaikovsky, M. Mussorgsky, N. Rimsky-Korsakov, V. Soltan. In feature films, the line of the Orthodox direction is most clearly reflected in the pentalogy “Parables”, filmed based on famous Christian parables in the Studio in the name of the holy confessor John the Warrior of the St. Elisabeth Monastery .
The documentary film “God, I Feel Your Coming!”, shown after the round table meeting, evoked a strong emotional response. Fragments of Andrei Tarkovsky’s paintings are layered with comments from the director and actor Nikolai Burlyaev, his student. Some shots are simply unique – for example, about the takes in the famous scene of the search for secret clay for the bell in the film “Andrei Rublev”. As a 15-year-old teenager, Burlyaev accepted all the director’s conditions and riskily fell from a cliff in the vicinity of Suzdal several times. The leitmotif of the picture was a spiritual internal theme, not outwardly advertised by Tarkovsky, but obvious in all his films. While in exile, he did not separate himself from his homeland, from Russia and its culture. Beautifully photographed landscapes by cameraman Dmitry Chernetsov and wonderful music by Ivan Burlyaev create an overall intonation-sublime atmosphere of reflection on the difficult spiritual path of the Master. The final shots of the snow-covered village of Zaovrazhye, in whose church Tarkovsky was baptized, are extremely expressive. A faithful follower, Nikolai Burlyaev, passes the road to the temple. This is how the fates of two outstanding directors become looped.
Before the screening of his film, People’s Artist of Russia Nikolai Burlyaev recalled the story of his participation in the film “Andrei Rublev”, when he received the almost wordless role of Thomas and lit up in a different way, reading the episode with the bell, realizing that this was his role. However, Tarkovsky was adamant: the bell should be cast by an older person, and not by an 18-year-old boy. And God did not give it away – Burlyaev played this role, which changed his whole life.
In a quick interview with SPUTNIK columnist Evgeny Ogurtsov-Krzhizhanovsky, Nikolai Petrovich Burlyaev confidently noted:
“There is no culture without religion,” Andrei Tarkovsky said. And my film about him is his awareness of God, through his prayer, in which he sees and feels the Savior! This is his Golgotha, his Way of the Cross!
… And if we want to create a real Union State, then under no circumstances should culture be left to the market. States may be different, but the Motherland is one.
The full version is in “NE” No. 10, 2023.