Thread by @akoz33

Below in this thread is my translation of a fragment of an interview with Edvard Radzinsky conducted by Andrij Pelchevski, a Ukrainian TV presenter, entrepreneur and politician (leader of a political party). The title of the interview is “From Dictatorship to Revolution”.

This fragment concerns Boris Yeltsin, and Radzinsky’s encounter with him. Earlier Radzinsky explained how he was studying Nicholas II’s diaries still deep in Soviet days, in the museum of the October revolution.

He said that the young woman who was working there and who brought him the diaries could not understand why he needed them. In order to be allowed to see the diary he wrote an application, in which he wrote that he was writing about

the fall of the Romanov dynasty and the Great October Socialist Revolution and he needs to be acquainted with the diary. He then describes his feelings while reading the diary: he could feel the dust of Ipatiev House (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipatiev_H… )

in Yekaterinburg where the Tsar and his family were murdered, in between the pages, some of which were glued by it together, since nobody had read them from the time of the Tsar’s death. At this point my translation begins. P means Pelchevski, R Radzinsky.

P. The house itself was destroy under Yeltsin?
R.Yes, and he repented of this. And I with him nearly …
P. In the role of Russian Orthodox Tsar?
R. Yes. He repented of this and he was the Orthodox Tsar (laughs).

And he was a grandiose man, that is, you know I understood him, I think, earlier than others. He was then the Secretary of the MGK (City of Moscow Committee of the Soviet Communist Party).

I had a play “Sporting scenes of 1981” (fragments, with Radzinsky’s former wife the great actress Tatiana Doronina, can be seen here ).

The performance was in the Yermolova Theatre (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yermolova… ). The cast was full of stars: Doronina, Mesnshikov, Dogileva and Pavlov. Four persons. It was impossible to get in.

It was, as it, the first spectacle of Perestroika. It was directed by Valery Fokin, then a rising director. Yermolova’s Theatre was in decline, which was I gave them this play, because I wanted to create some flare-up there. And I did.

Everywhere, as soon as Perestroika began, they prepared remarkable reviews.
And suddenly they announce that the Secretary of MGK, Comrade Yeltsin, will be present. At that time nobody knew his face.

But everyone is waiting and he is late. Finally he came. They started the play ten minutes late. The theatre is full, people are standing by the walls.

The play finished and he left. He didn’t even thank the actors, nothing. Even if you don’t like the play, at least you should thank the actors, but I decided: well nothing can be done, a provincial.

Everyone understood this. He didn’t like so OK. But suddenly all the reviews were stopped.

And Kiril Lavrov our remarkable Kiril Lavrov, came to Moscow and told us everything. It turned out that he was on the train with Yeltsin and Yeltsin said to him:

“I went to a play without the wife. A good thing, too. I disliked it so much! I was sitting there, they say such things in it, maybe that is because I am provincial, but I was sitting there with my eyes looking down”.

And there really were…, well, it was just like real life, there were those two couples...well, I won’t talk about it now.

But that was Perestoika, everyone became braver, I guess I became braver a little earlier (laughs). I telephoned to MGK and his assistant answered.

And I said: what does this mean? Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin came to my play, after all, he is just a spectator but unfortunately a powerful one. And unfortunately although we are having Perestroika servility still remains.

And because of his visit, all the reviews have been taken down. On the First Chanel there was going to be an announcement but there is nothing. What does he think he is doing?

A little time passes and all the reviews have appeared. Also on television. And they told us the following.

Boris Nikolaevich called a meeting (he began at 6 in the morning, he tormented these unfortunates as much as he could), he called them for some other reason, and then he asked:

Listen, has anyone seen ”Sporting Scenes”? They all answered “we haven’t”. “Then go and look”, he said. “Well, I saw it. And I didn’t like it at all.

But next to me, a young guy was siting, and he liked it so much he kept hitting my leg from excitement, so my leg feels all beaten up.

And now I think: maybe it was not that I just simply didn’t like it, maybe I didn’t like it because it was against us. Against this dumb bureaucracy, which we have here. Maybe it’s because inside me there is also this feeling that we have got everyone by the throat.

When they told us all this, I understood who he amazingly turned it around. Because you see, he realised that this angered the intelligentsia. He could have done it ...but he said it in this grandiose way: “And maybe because it is against us!”.

And because of that when they asked me what I though about it, I answered with a quote that was originally said about another person, but it was accurate: “this cook will make very spicy dishes”

(From me: this is what, according to Trotsky, Lenin said about Stalin at the 11th Congress of the Bolsheviks in 1921).