What made this famous pianist call for a war crime?
NewsOn Russian TV channel 1, the Tchaikovsky winning pianist Boris Berezovsky could be seen blaming the Ukraine war on the West and urging Russian generals to cut off electricity and water supplies to Kyiv – a definable war crime.
Berezovsky has not explained his statement. UPDATE: Boris regrets
Some friends have suggested he was under state pressure to speak out.
A year ago, his two children were arrested in an anti-Government Moscow demonstration. The following day they were released without having to serve the 10-15 day sentence handed down to other demonstrators. The terms of their release, which were not disclosed, might be connected to their father’s present conduct.
Be that as it may, no-one who calls for war crimes has any place on an international stage at any point in the foreseeable future.
Berezovsky, who is managed by the Paris-based Sarfati agency, was last seen with Mikhail Pletnev at the ArtDIALOG Swiss festival.
Yes, his statement is quite abominable and I’m sure he will face serious repercussions. It is interesting how the 2003 Iraq War was illegal, based on intentionally false information about WMDs, led to the deaths of about a million people in the region, was replete with war crimes ranging from white phosphorous bombs in Fallujah to Abu Ghraib, and has left the country in a far worse situation than it had before the war. And yet I haven’t seen a single comment from anyone asking that American artists be denounced unless they make a statement against the war. And criticism of the war was generally muted in all of the Western press. Now why would that be? Why do we align our media, activism, and sense of moral justice so strictly along ideological and ethnic lines? How does it affect our credibility?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypocrisy
Interesting… indeed it’s about false moral equivalences.
Whataboutery is slang for “hypocrisy”.
That’s exactly how I feel about it!
I m afraid you don t really understand what happened in Irak , nor did other people since it was a very complicated internal situation there which few understood in the west.You use some fake news to spread an idea.And so no ground for comparision.
We all do know what happened in Vietnam for example and we know most americans including artists were against it WITHOUT BEEING ASKED
BY ANYONE TO TAKE POSITION. THERE WAS NO NEED, THEY TOOK POSITION ON THEIR INITIATIVE. Just because of moral considerations. These moral consideretions are very very very rare from russian persons .
We western people do understand what happened in Ukraine since it is much nearer to us.
And yes, some specific russian artists known for their ties with Putin were asked about their moral’position concerning this invasion
It s completely legitimate.
As for the case of this specific person, whether he was a mine worker or an artist, his stand is important as a human; and as a human he speaks as a criminal. And if he is doing it because he made a deal with the actual russian regim to save his kids from prison, it s as low as one can go.
You think Iraq was in a worse situation than before? Clue; it’s a tribal nation, wracked by division, and it was being run by a savage dictator of the type the Russians endure. And there was a not-insignificant matter of 9/11. On that very day the USA was on a war footing, come what may.
The invasion of Ukraine is the same as having Australia invade New Zealand – on any premise at all.
The invasion of Iraq got rid of an unspeakable criminal, Saddam, Hussein who killed millions of Iraqis and Iranians , invaded three countries and gas his own population. This has nothing to compare with Putin aggression of Ukraine .
That is a valid point, as long as it’s not coming from a Russian trying to use it to justify the invasion of Ukraine.
However, there are several significant differences between the war in Iraq and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Ukraine is a democracy with a legitimately elected government in place. Iraq was by no means a democracy, but a bloody regime with hundreds of thousands of victims, mostly its own citizens, even if it didn’t hold weapons of mass destruction at the time of its invasion. I do believe the invasion of Iraq was a stupid thing to do, but the US-led coalition did not try to make Iraq a part of, say, the US. Not to mention the US forces are long gone from Iraq.
Now, Putin’s regime has a clear intent to overturn the democratic and legitimate government of Ukraine, under the ludicrous premise of ”denazification”, and to make Ukraine effectively a province of Russia. In fact, Putin and a significant part of the Russian population refuse to see Ukraine as an independent country. By the way, Russian army has been present in Transnistria, a safe-proclaimed separatist state backed by Russia, for about three decades, and obviously they have no intention of going away. It’s quite safe to assume that the same fate awaits Ukraine, should Putin manage to occupy it.
Another important difference is that both the US and the UK are still democracies, for all their true and perceived faults. Putin’s regime is a bloody dictatorship.
I do believe now is not the time to ponder on the credibility of the West. So ultimately, this argument does smell of whataboutism.
Something happened and changed recently maybe I don’t know what… I saw a concert of him 5 years ago and I even see him at the end of the concert for an autograph and little chat. he didn’t have this look.
To me it feels he likes to have same status as Gergjev and Matsuev, in Russia of course.
He didn’t have the same course of life during the 15 last years that’s why I’m shocked.
Most probably there were no terms of release for street protests a year ago. There were too many protesters to bother with anything like “terms”. The “hearings” lasted 5 minutes per person. He is well connected, connections are everything there, that was likely the reason his children were just released. Someone made a phone call and that was probably it.
But that works here as well. Whenever I forget to pay at the super, I make them call my boss and it’s settled on the spot. You must carefully chooose for whom you work.
Sally
To trivalise this horrendous war – killing children the age of my grandchildren – is in poor taste, Sally.
I don’t know. But I know what made me junk his Beethoven concerti. Nicely done, but I have so many. . .
In a recent ‘story’ on Mariinsky’s Instagram, Denis Matsuev looks extremely nervous and with Gergiev doing the talking next to him.
His lack of neurons. Too much vodka, too little brain.
I was going to say his career is over but did he actually have one these days in the first place…..?
Yes. He did the best Gaspard de la nuit I have ever heard
Well, that’ll fix everything!! Ravel endured war too – on the right side.
He also did the worst Gaspard ever, finally losing his way in “Scarbo” and leaving the stage with the work incomplete!
Admittedly, in his youth he was a very solid, competent pinist, somewhat perfunctory, often just sight-reading &busking thru… never very poetic. A sorry end, he should have kept silent, at least.
You mean he couldn’t have left the country with his family? Come on. I hope he has unemployment insurance.
Hmmmm. So what do we actually know here? What is the context in which this was said? To whom was he speaking? What is known about his motivations? Does he have family or friends in Ukraine? What are his known connections to government or other influential people?
I don’t appreciate the suggestions as to what his motivations were, and I’m going to withhold condemning the man until I have a clearer picture with more information. Maybe it is exactly what you suggest it is. And yet I think publishing an article suggesting a person’s character is evil and their career should be ruined based on one thing they said without knowing any context or motivation is morally irresponsible. I will resist the urge to join you in ruining this man’s life so that I can have a cheap momentary feeling of being on the side of good while I “distance” myself from evil by choosing an easy scapegoat. Thanks.
Berezovsky’s career has been in decline for 8-10 years or so. His playing became more and more sloppy and vulgar, playing piano concerto’s with the score at hand more and more often. He doesn’t seem interested in his career anymore. Until 2015 or so, he played quite a lot of concerts in Europe, especially in France and Germany. After that, he played less and less concerts. The last time I heard him play, he hammered his way through Rach 3. Bye bye Boris.