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EESTI ELU reedel, 1. oktoobril 2021 — Friday, October 1, 2021
English-language supplement to the Estonian weekly “EESTI ELU” Tartu College Publications Founding Chairman: Elmar Tampõld Editor: Laas Leivat 3 Madison Avenue, Toronto, ON M5R 2S2 T: 416-733-4550 • F: 416-733-0944 • E-mail: editor@eestielu.ca Digital: www.eestielu.ca
New refugees from Russia There is no denying that the current pan-European refugee emergency has been inten sified by the millions fleeing life-threatening turmoil in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. But Russia has an even longer history of people fleeing into Europe. It was mainly the 1917 Rus sian Revolution that spawned a European refugee crisis as millions of Russians fled abroad and settled in capitals such as Paris, Vienna and London. In fact, in 1921 the League of Nations organized negotiations for the resettlement or repatriation of displaced Russians. Even a “Nansen Passport” was created which facilitated international travel and granted the fleeing Russians refugee status. After the collapse of the Soviet Union 50 years later, London was the main destination to which oligarchs and businessmen flocked while Berlin and New York became the haven for the creative community. Russia is now not suffering the dangerous chaos seen in Afghanistan or Syria, but on a smaller scale, and lacking any international attention, it’s germinating an insecure environment from which a growing number of people are seeking a safer haven. Although the Baltic states have been the preference for many of Alexei Navalny’s allies, Georgia has recently been the destination of choice for a new generation of dissidents. The coronavirus pandemic has made it difficult for many to leave for the west, and Georgia is seen as a secure sanctuary. In general, the perilous political situation has been the factor in inducing departure. But specific circumstances spurring Russians to flee their homeland for the small Cau casian nation have varied. Nongovernment groups such as business people not in step with the Kremlin, defense lawyers who have taken on high-profile Kremlin critics like Alexei Navalny, independent journalists and groups who have officially been declared as “un desirable” organizations with foreign links, these all have sensed something menacing. While these repressed groups are facing possible incarceration, students, art-
ists and activists have actually been hit with real prison time for social media postings supporting protests against the government. While most of the suppression of the opposition has been politically motivated, some strictly apolitical asylum seekers have accused Russian authorities of targeting them for rebuffing demands for bribes. A law that Putin signed in 2013, at the start of his third term, has been sharply criticized by dissidents as stigmatizing sexual minorities. It’s very telling to note that some of the persecuted lawyers have had their homes searched and documents confiscated, but not had their passports seized. This was an obvious signal for the harassed individual to leave, or else. Georgia’s visa-free entry, language, and cost of living have been some of the attractions for Russian dissidents. They’re also convinced that the Tbilisi government will never single them out for forced repatriation. Observers on the other hand say this feeling of security could slowly erode if the ruling Georgia Dream party continues to extend its seemingly growing cozy relationship with Moscow. Before the Covid-19 pande mic, the lineup of people queuing for visas at the US embassy in Moscow grew by nearly 40 percent in 2017. It was 268 percent higher than in 2012. 2017 was the fifth consecutive year for an increasing number of Russians pursuing refugee status in the US, a trend that began in 2012 when Vladimir Putin returned as president from his temporary sojourn as prime minister. Reports have indicated that over 10,000 people from Russia fled their homeland in 2020. The largest numbers have settled in the US, France and Germany. While thousands of applications have been approved, it’s known that some 83 percent have been rejected. The highest rate of approvals has come from Portugal and Mexico. Putin’s own Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration has estimated that some 100,000 Russians per year had left their homeland before that onset of the pandemic. Although the
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We’re Listening with EMW: a Retrospective istening of Neeme Järvi and Khatia Buniatishvili at Verbier Festival Vincent Teetsov The compositions of Sergei Rachmaninoff are tumul tuous. Pianist and composer Nahre Sol has described Rachmaninoff’s music with words like “agitated”, “brood ing”, “grandiose”, and “sono rous.” It’s logical, then, that his music’s appeal has found an extension in film sound tracks: for instance, Dawn of the Dead (2004) and the acclaimed romantic drama Brief Encounter (1945). Rachmaninoff’s second Piano Concerto is arguably his most well-loved composition and was used in the latter film. Classic FM in the UK has ranked Rachmaninoff’s second and third Piano Concertos among the 20 best ever piano concertos ever written. Both appear to tap into the suffering of his long battle with depression and the triumph of his recovery. But it’s his third Piano Concerto in D minor that was the composer’s own favourite, and requires the most care, due to the immense dexterity needed to play it. Luckily, in the summer of 2011, Estonian-American conductor Neeme Järvi and Georgian concert pianist Khatia Buniatishvili united for a live performance of the piece at Verbier Festival in Switzerland. Järvi glides gently into the first movement (“Allegro ma non tanto”) with lilting violins, but then the rhythm picks up within a minute with Bunia tishvili playing staccato triplets. Movement one expounds upon a frayed state of mind. The chords are choppy and mirror each other up and down the keyboard. The low register of the piano growls. In the song’s most troubled moments, trumpets signal the finality of des Academy gave an economic downturn as a basic motivator for departure, it did still acknowledge that one quarter left for “political” reasons such as the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and Russian involvement with the war in eastern Ukraine. The Academy did not broach the subject of Russians actually seeking asylum in the West. One cannot compare the massive surge in refugees seeking sanctuary from Syria, Afghanistan and elsewhere with the numbers from Russia. But the high rate of refusals surely shows the level of unconcern in the international community towards the desperation that tens of thousands Russians must have with the Kremlin’s steadily mounting repressions and its blatant d isdain for human rights. LAAS LEIVAT
Pianist Khatia Buniatishvili and conductor Neeme Järvi. Photo: anzeigervonsaanen.ch
pair. Yet, the audience is given a respite and feeling of redemption as Järvi advances the entire string section of the orchestra, or sweeps over with clarinets and oboes. Other performances of this concerto can result in a delivery that’s too tightly wound up, or alternatively something chaotic without grounding and a return to melodic origins. But here, Buniatishvili attacks with fluidity and purpose. The second movement (“Intermezzo: Adagio”) reduces the orchestra’s force quite heavily, with a focus on sorrowful voicings. The audio mixing starts to shine here: we can perceive just enough of the softest notes to enjoy their delicacy, while not being diluted with compression. Throughout this movement, violins and cellos are the most present and outspoken instruments, arriving in gusts. The third movement (“Finale: Alla breve”) rushes in without a pause, with the orchestra giving us the main message of the concerto. We hear the composer’s flair for descending chromatically. The triplets from before return with full force. In the last moments of the concerto, there is a feeling of incandescent bliss as the piano hits the high register
harmoniously with the entire orchestra, from the percussion section down to the apron of the stage. To capture the torment of this piece, disregarding its technical complexity, must involve the musical equivalent of method acting. But, as we see in all of the hardest working musicians around, Buniatishvili and Järvi make it look effortless. Engaged, but effortless. Buniatishvili is closely associated with Verbier Festival, with solo performances of hers drawing large crowds in 2011, 2012, and 2013, not to mention playing countless concert venues from the Royal Albert Hall to La Scala in Milan. Järvi has also conducted again at Verbier Festival subsequent to this concert. The Swiss festival says its mission is “to build a community of exchange between great masters and young artists from all over the world...” Bunia tishvili is already a master, but it is true that she and Järvi are strengthening the following of classical music through their gracious and charismatic style of collaboration, as titans of the genre. Watch the full performance on YouTube (https:/www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLpufG9s0QY&ab_channel=DWClassicalMusic) and medici.tv to see their attentive handling of this piece for yourself.
Geodetic Competition: How an astronomer in Estonia measured earth’s size more accurately than anyone else before him Vincent Teetsov In Simon Winchester’s 2021 book Land, the author recounts a trip to Latvia, where he was hot on the tail of a marker point for the Struve Geodetic Arc, a long line of survey markers used to measure the circumference of Earth in the mid 19th cen tury. The individual behind this scientific achievement was Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve, a professor and direc tor of the observatory of the Imperial University of Dorpat (now the University of Tartu). Winchester admires Struve’s achievements very much, outlining the scrupulous manner in which Struve, his colleagues, and student helpers trekked between the Black Sea and the
Arctic Circle in Norway to measure a quarter meridian. To begin with, he assembled a new collection of gear. Among this collection was a theodolite (what you’ll see surveyors using on construction sites), a telescope called a zenith sector, plus “a giant brass quadrant, and a set of precisely made surveyor’s chains.” Struve, a Baltic-German (and Russian later on), initiated the survey at what is now the Tartu Tähetorn (Tartu Old Observa tory) in the summer of 1816. As Winchester explains, the team first measured the latitude and longitude of the starting point with a chronometer and a sextant. A baseline was drawn and measured from this starting (Continued on page 9)
