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«THE LIVING AND THE DEAD. NOBODY IS BORN A SOLDIER»
Based on the novel by Konstantin Simonov
February 2, 2023, marked the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Battle of Stalingrad. This day is no ordinary calendar date but an event of great historical importance, which predetermined millions of human destinies. The awareness of this fact is of particular importance nowadays. The production based on Konstantin Simonov’s eponymous novel The Living and the Dead was put up as part of Yuri Bashmet’s Winter International Arts Festival in Moscow to mark the Battle of Stalingrad anniversary.
The Great Patriotic War predetermined the fate and beliefs of the generation to which Simonov belonged. A war correspondent, Simonov visited all fronts and travelled through Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Poland, and Germany, where he witnessed the last battles for Berlin. The second book of Simonov’s epic novel The Living and the Dead is entitled Nobody Is Born a Soldier and is dedicated to the Battle of Stalingrad, to which Simonov was an eyewitness. As a correspondent for the newspaper “Red Star,” he worked on his essay “Soldiers’ Glory” based on the testimonies of participants in the battles. “In Stalingrad, I saw a lot up close, point-blank,” wrote Simonov in his war journal.
War subjugates humans alongside their thoughts, feelings, deeds, and destiny. It becomes a hard and exhausting labor for its participants, for whom death itself starts to seem an everyday occurrence. Our performance is an invitation to look beyond the facts and historical chronicles upon the human spirit in this terrible ordeal, the motives for human actions, and the unbreakable bonds of life and death. It dwells on the price of remaining a human in the times of war that leave no room for human logic.
“The war remained a tragedy until the last day. We had to pay the highest price imaginable for the victory and for every step towards the victory,” wrote Simonov.