Victory Day Special: The Fallen and The Living

Victory Day Special: The Fallen and The Living

An Evening dedicated by the Pushkin Club to Victory Day. The Evening is inspired by the play, The Fallen and The Living, which was directed by Yuri Lyubimov and performed at the Taganka Theatre in 1965, on the 20th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War.  The play was dedicated to the young poets who went to the Front straight from school and university – both to those who died and to those who survived.

For the first time in Moscow, the Eternal Flame – to commemorate the Unknown Soldier – was lit, on the stage of the Taganka Theatre, and before every performance the audience were asked to stand and observe one minute’s silence to commemorate all those soldiers who had fallen in the War.

Poems from The Fallen and The Living which were written by those poets who perished – such as Pavel Kogan, Mikhail Kulchitsky, Vsevolod Bagritsky and Semyon Gudzenko – will be read. Poems by other War poets who survived – like Konstantin Simonov, David Samoilov, Boris Slutsky, Yuliya Drunina and others– will also be read, as will poems by poets of later generations which were also dedicated to all those who fought for the Homeland in the Great Patriotic War.

The poems will be read in Russian by three outstanding readers of Russian verse: Elena McGugan, Tatiana Schofield and Alla Gelich. English translations will be provided, together with the text of the Russian originals.

The Evening will be introduced by David Brummell.

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Photo © LJ