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Mikhail Kazinik: "Art and culture are above the nation, above religion, above historical strife. Art is the only unifying principle. If culture were in first place in the budgets of countries, if culture and art were objects of worship for all rulers and systems, peoples and parties, the elite and the intelligentsia - if this were so, then many problems would be solved. Unfortunately, power and culture often have nothing in common. This is not only about Russia - we are seriously and thoroughly losing our great Greco-Roman civilization. If we try to find examples of how to deprive a person of hostility and hatred through culture, then this issue, like nowhere else, was resolved in Russia and in Russian music, in particular, and above all thanks to the Russian genius Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka…” Glinka wrote the first Russian national opera “Ivan Susanin” The Polish enemies want to bring Russia to its knees – the terrible Polish force, the Polish nobility wants to become the ruler over the Russian people. Ivan Susanin performs a feat, leads the Poles into the forest, and they die. He feels that he will now be hacked to death, destroyed when they understand what he has done. He sings his famous aria, one of the most piercing, harsh, intense, tragic arias in the history of world music – such a heartfelt Russian farewell: “You will rise, my dawn…” “They thought of me as a traitor. They do not exist and will not exist on Russian soil…” All music is humane, humane. Glinka writes Polish scenes – “Polonaise”, many people’s favorite piece from the opera. This is the beginning of professionalism in Russian dance music – polonaise, mazurka, krakowiak, waltz-krakowiak. Glinka writes music with a gigantic love for the Polish people… “Music is the soul of the people”