ANDREI MALAEV-BABEL ORAL HISTORY

DAVID SCHLITT:This is David Schlitt, and today is May 16th, 2011. I'm here at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts, with Andrei Malaev-Babel, and we are going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Andrei, do I have your permission to record this interview?

ANDREI MALAEV-BABEL: Yes.

DS:Thank you. So let's, like I said, start from the beginning. Could you tell me about your childhood?

AM:My childhood took place in Moscow. And -- I don't know if it was a regular childhood or special childhood, because, of course, my family was related to the 1:00arts, was related to literature. My grandmother was a engineer. She designed some of the greatest stations of the Moscow metro. My mother was an architect, and there was a lot of people coming to our house that were writers, artists, actors. And I think that that aura and the fact that my grandfather was an author -- I mean, all of it probably shaped my childhood in a certain way, that I think very early I discovered that I want to perform, that I would even direct adults in productions. And I think the idea also of the arts was something that 2:00was instilled with me. I mean, I think I was raised in such an aura that kind of shaped me and determined the fact that I didn't become a lawyer, didn't become a doctor, didn't become an economist. I think that a lot of my environment was really related to literature and such. But I am not sure. What were you -- what did you mean when you said, "What was your childhood like"?

DS:Oh, I'm interested to know about the -- almost the physical structures of it, to know about the neighborhood, to know about the home in which you grew up. And from there, we'll build out to the family life.

AM:Well, by the time when I was born, my family moved from the center of Moscow to the suburbs of Moscow. Because the house where my grandfather lived, Babel lived, and where my grandmother then joined him, where my mother was born -- I mean, she wasn't born in that house, but -- that house was demolished. And the 3:00family was facing, shortly before my arrival, the decision of moving. And of course, they wanted to stay in the center of Moscow. But the problem was that at that time, space -- the square footage, so to speak -- was really an issue. And they were offered a larger apartment, which had three rooms in it, three-bedroom apartment, right? Although in Russia, three-bedroom apartment is very different. That means that just three bedrooms, three rooms. 'Cause that bedroom was also your living room; it's your study; it's everything. And kitchen and bathroom, and that's about it. But the fact that they were offered this three-room apartment was a huge deal. And they decided to go to the suburbs of Moscow -- I think before the metro came there, you know, the transportation was very, very, 4:00difficult -- but they went there. So, I was born really on the outskirts, somehow. It was the so-called "khrushchyovka." Do you know what it is? Okay. It was that five-story building, very long, almost barrack-like structure that Khrushchev built in the '60s because there was a shortage. They lived in communal apartments. A lot of people were kind of crambled [sic] into those tiny flats, where the whole family might have a room and would share bathroom with three other families. So, trying to solve that problem, Khrushchev built -- very quickly built all of this kind of five-story buildings that -- they were kind of rectangular long buildings. And we were given an apartment in one of these khrushchyovka, so to speak. So obviously, the environment around was very ordinary. When it was time for me to go to school, they were looking obviously 5:00for the special school with certain -- maybe, language component -- and they found a school, School number Twenty-Six, which specialized in English language and even claimed that they were going to teach some of the subject in English -- what they never did, of course. But English was an everyday subject, much more intense concentration in English language than it was in other schools. And I think that to get me there, my father, who was an ophthalmologist, he had to go and kind of press the importance of it, and somehow they snuck me into this. Next to this building, the school, was also the music school. And after my grandmother would walk me to school and walk me back, she would wait, and after my regular school, she would take me across the hall to the music school, and then she would wait, and she would walk me back. So, it was kind of -- probably 6:00a more or less regular childhood for the Russian intelligentsia of that time, except that there were quite extraordinary people who were coming to our house because -- you know, because of their connection or relationship to Babel.

DS:Well, tell me about some of the people then that came.

AM:They were actors who recited Babel like I recite Babel now from the stage, there were actors who did it. There were still writers who knew him, be it Munblit, who was one of the Russian authors who wrote about Babel, who kind of came out of the same Odessa environment as Babel did. A historian, a very well-known author of historic novels, Georgiy Shtorm, was a kind of man who was very close friend of our family. Architects came, obviously, in affiliation with 7:00my mother. So, it was the environment that was very, very artistic. By the time that I was born and became conscious, a lot of people were gone, obviously. But I still met my grandfather's childhood friend, Isaac Livshits, who was also his publisher, who didn't leave any memoirs of Babel, although he was one of Babel's closest friend. Only some correspondence survived. But I remember him at the dacha that they rented for me, obviously, because they wouldn't go to a dacha in the summer unless a child needed fresh air. And they all believed that children needed fresh air, so whenever a child would be born, they would rent a dacha. And our dacha was rented in -- the first year of my life, the first summer of my life, they rented a dacha next to Ilya Ehrenburg's dacha. Because Ehrenburg wanted them to find a place close. And then, when Ehrenburg died the same year, 8:00his wife invited my grandmother and myself, an infant, to stay with them at their dacha. But she died very, very shortly after that. But for quite a few years, we were actually renting a dacha in that very interesting place. New Jerusalem was called the place. And this settlement was called NIL. And NIL is transcribed in Russian "Science, Art, and Literature." So, scientists, artists, and writers were kind of buying dachas or renting dachas at that place. And Ehrenburg was one of them. David Oistrakh rented -- had a dacha there, the famous violinist. And many other important kind of literary and cultural and scientific figures. So, it was kind of an exclusive place. But there was 9:00something that I was going to tell you, because I was leading -- so what were we discussing right prior to it?

DS:We were talking about the -- about your childhood and about some of the figures that passed through your house.

AM:Yes. Yes.

DS:I -- when you started about New Jerusalem, though, maybe we can swing back around to it. Was there any kind of religious connotation to that term, "New Jerusalem"?

AM:Yes. It was a religious center, certainly. There was a monastery -- the name escapes me -- the New Jerusalem Monastery right nearby. So, it was one of those kind of spaces that were close to a monastery. So, it was --

DS:But it wasn't because the people there were predominantly Jewish or anything like that?

AM:People there probably were predominantly Jewish, because you know that in Russian science, in Russian arts, and in Russian culture, of course Jews played tremendous role. So -- but what I was going to tell you is that it was probably the last summer of Isaac Livshits's life when he was at that dacha. And I 10:00remember a memoir by another colleague of my grandmother, Valentin Kataev, also very famous Russian author, came out where he portrayed Babel as French-oriented kind of author who really loved Paris and then kind of reluctantly came back to Moscow, to Russia, that his heart was in Paris. Which was, of course, complete nonsense. Babel said, "Paris is for strolling; Moscow is for writing." And of course, if he had stayed in Paris, he would have been alive. He would have survived. And I remember this man reading this memoir where Babel was nicknamed Frenchman. It was "Novy Mir" magazine that this old Jewish man had in his hands, and he would read it, and then suddenly he would take it, and he would throw it 11:00into the corner of the room. And he would steam for a while. And then, he would ask someone to go and bring it to him. And they would go, and they would bring the magazine, because it was about his friend. He had to read it. And again, he would read a couple of pages, and suddenly he would take it and throw it in that corner again. So, that is one of my memories of that man, memories of the childhood, of my grandfather's oldest friend.

DS:I want to ask also then about if -- did your family have any Jewish identity? Did you identify with the Jewish community?

AM:Well, of course all the friends were mostly Jewish, because my grandmother, although she was Russian -- and my mother, obviously, was half-Jewish, half-Russian -- being the widow of Isaac Babel immediately brought her into the Jewish environment. But you know what, my grandmother actually was -- it's 12:00interesting. She was born in Siberia. But her mother was born in Mestechko Lubavitchy. That rings the bell, right? So, you know what the Lubavitchy is famous for? So, my great-grandmother, my grandmother's mother, in her childhood for some reason wasn't friends with the Russian girls. She was friends with the Jewish girls. She was in this kind of heart of the Schneerson school because of where she was born. So, there was obviously very different relationship there towards the Jewish people that my grandmother must have kind of inherited from her mother. And when she read Isaac Babel in her youth, she got somehow strongly associated with that. She really felt -- before she ever met Babel, she really felt that this author was extraordinary, that it was some kind of fresh air in 13:00literature, and she could relate to it very strongly -- although she was born in Siberia, and she was Russian. So, throughout her life, she befriended everybody that knew Babel, and she of course kept friends with all of the people who -- that Babel was friends with throughout the years. And many of them were Jewish. 'Cause even his friends from Red Cavalry were Jewish. Babel was not the only Jew disguising himself as Russian in the Red Cavalry. Some of his, you know, fellow fighters, so to speak, were actually Jews. And then, they all found themselves in this key position in the Russian industry because in those days, it wasn't whether or not you were a specialist in this particular field; it was whether or not you were a fighter in the civil war that kind of promoted you in your career, post-civil war kind of civil career. So, he suddenly found himself very 14:00well-connected with people at the heads of all of these industrial plants and the heads of key Soviet organizations. All of them were later on arrested and killed by Stalin, but for a while, he was enjoying that life of wonderful connections. He went abroad to his mother and to his sister or to his first wife, and he would say, Oh, I will never be arrested. Can you imagine what connections I've got? Of course, all these connections evaporated very quickly. So, my grandmother, obviously, was friends with a lot of Jewish people who were friends of Babel's, the surviving widows of his friends, writers that were his colleagues. So, I was surrounded by the background -- even the closest family that we were friends with, who resettled from that very same neighborhood where 15:00Babel's house was, in Nikolovorobinsky, to the outskirts of Moscow when Babel's was demolished, was Jewish family. So, of course there was that connection. And they were just neighbors. And we kept being friends with them. So, I mean, it was a very much Jewish environment. But you know what? In the Soviet Union of that period, I wasn't aware. Because as much as the internationalism of the Soviet state and the Soviet ideology was a myth, I mean, there weren't a lot of naïve people who wore these completely colorblind kind of spectacles, if you wish, who weren't really realizing, Oh, this is a Jew, and this is a Russian, and this is a -- you know. So, I don't think that I realized it, really. But objectively speaking -- and looking at it now, looking back objectively -- I was 16:00raised in the Jewish environment. Jewish in what way? Religious? No. 'Cause we are talking about Soviet Union. So, yes, they would celebrate the Jewish paskhe [Easter], right? The Passover. So, yes, there would be this matzah, and there would be klyotski [Russian: dumplings] and -- you know. So, yes, there would be kind of -- they would keep some of the maybe culinary aspects of these Jewish holidays, but I don't think that the deep religious meaning was really ever there.

DS:So, two things. When you say "they," are you talking about your personal experience or just in terms of people that you knew?

AM:Both. Both.

DS:Okay.

AM:Our family --

DS:So, you had a --

AM:-- and people that surrounded us.

DS:-- you had a seder growing up.

AM:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

DS:Did you ever hear Yiddish growing up?

AM:No.

DS:Okay. So, in terms of the cultural specter of Yiddish -- the cultural 17:00spectrum of Jewish life -- it stopped before Yiddish --

AM:Yes.

DS:-- ever started. So how did you get interested then in Mikhoels and in the Jewish national theater?

AM:It started with encountering, obviously, Mikhoels in my grandmother's memoirs. Because she wrote about the friendship, deep friendship, that was between Babel and Mikhoels. She wrote -- she also consider-- I think after Babel, Mikhoels for her was the next kind of trusted friend. She wrote in her memoirs, or she said it -- maybe she never even wrote it -- that "if Babel was ever unfaithful to me --" which he wasn't -- "I know I would go to Mikhoels, and I would cry on his shoulder." There was something about that man that obviously created that aura of trust and wanting to confide in him and wanting to -- he 18:00obviously struck my grandmother as being a huge human being. So -- and she admired him as an actor, of course. You know, she admired his performances, be it "Benjamin the Third," be it "King Lear." But I think that first, the fact that Mikhoels was an extraordinary human being, an extraordinary artist, that sense I got, of course, from my grandmother's memoirs. Later, I tried to study the history of his theater, I tried to see whatever surviving footage was there, you know, because -- especially after perestroika, some of the books appeared -- also the one volume of Mikhoels's heritage was always in our library since the '60s, when it came out. And I read it, and I looked at the photographs. But I remember in the '80s, after perestroika, a documentary appeared, and I could actually see some of the glimpses of some of that miracle of Mikhoels the actor in the footage of "King Lear," for example. And then, I began to understand what 19:00kind of actor he was.

DS:So, you're talking about your grandmother now, and let's go back -- spell out to me the relationship. Tell me about your grandmother and her meeting Isaac Babel, and let's go from there.

AM:Well, it -- you know, as I told you, she was born in the village of Krasny Yar, in Siberia. She was educated in Tomsk, at the Tomsk Institute of Transport Engineers, which was later, I think, renamed. So, she made the choice to go into this kind of very non-female profession at that time. I think especially because she wanted to do it out of spite. She wanted to prove that a woman can. And I think also all this propaganda of the time, because they would be building these 20:00huge industrial projects, and they were saying, We need engineers. We need engineers. So, I think that's one of the reasons why. She could have been a great mathematician. When she graduated from high school her diploma said, "Extraordinary abilities in math and in the literary-humanitarian cycle." So, those two sides of the brain, two sides of the spectrum, were obviously equally developed. Because later, she wrote about Babel. She wrote one of the most moving and detailed memoirs of his life. In the last probably ten, fifteen years of her life -- she died last September at the age of 101 -- she wrote a book about her own life, which I am now publishing in Russia. So, obviously -- and Babel, even, when he heard some of her stories, he said, "Oh, if only one could write the way that she tells a story." So obviously, that kind of -- her 21:00language, her Russian language, was incredible. People would come to just listen to how she spoke. So obviously, literary talents were there as much as engineering. But she never wrote until she wrote this memoir about Babel in 1960s. She was a very talented engineer. She found herself at the Kuznetskstroi industrial plant construction as a young engineer, who was handed all of these very kind of key projects. And it's there that she met a fellow who was one of the bosses at Kuznetskstroi by the name of Ivanchenko. And when she moved to Moscow later on, by the invitation, I think, of some organization in Moscow, she was invited to stay with that guy, Ivanchenko, who was at that time a head of, I think, a huge kind of steel manufacturing -- all of the steel manufacturing 22:00plants of a particular area, of the Siberian area, I think he was in charge of it. And so, she stayed with his sister. And at one of the dinners that he put together, Babel was invited to this dinner. Because Babel was a famous author, Ivanchenko's secretary was a would-be writer, and so they secured an invitation for Babel.

DS:And around when was this?

AM:It was in 1932. And this is how at that dinner they met. And obviously, Babel noticed her immediately, because very soon after that an invitation followed from Babel for my grandmother and Ivanchenko's sister to come and visit Babel at his place for dinner. In terms of her memory of the first meeting, she just remembers that he came, and he kept trying to convince her to drink vodka, 'cause he insisted that if a woman is an engineer, she must know how to drink 23:00vodka. So -- and then there was, again, an invitation from Babel very soon. He wanted to show her Moscow, so he led her through all of those kind of places associated with famous authors in Moscow. He showed her the main synagogue of Moscow. He showed her also the -- kirkha. Kirkha, right? It is in Russian. It is a -- I think it's a Roman Catholic kind of temple, that his neighbor, who was a German specialist -- Austrian specialist -- that Russians invited or Soviet invited to consult them on certain issues. So, he showed her these kind of churches and a synagogue and historic places in Moscow. And that is how it all 24:00started. And then, when he went abroad, to visit his family abroad, he asked her to stay in his apartment, because at that time if the apartment was left empty for a while -- 'cause his neighbor Steiner was also away -- they would take it away. So, unless somebody was there to defend it. And she agreed, and she stayed there for a while. And then, I think he was courting her for a good two years before she kind of changed toward him. So, it took some time.

DS:And what was her name?

AM:Antonina. Antonina Nikolaevna Pirozhkova.

DS:So, as the grandchild of Babel, did you feel ever burdened by that relationship, or did you -- how did you understand it, growing up?

AM:I always felt that it was something out of the ordinary. It was something -- 25:00that sense of exclusivity, for lack of a better word, was always there. The sense of burden was there because of his execution. 'Cause of course, I did carry it upon my shoulders to a certain degree. The consciousness that he was murdered, that he was killed -- you know, as soon as I found that out, certainly weighed upon me.

DS:When did you find that out?

AM:Probably I was ten years old or something like that. 'Cause when I was ten years old, I also traveled to see Babel's sister in Belgium. Babel's sister lived in Belgium with her husband. Her name was Mera or Miriam or, you know -- it goes. Depends on which language you speak. Mary. Maria. Whatever. So, when we went to see Mary and her husband in Belgium, of course, she was also living with 26:00that kind of understanding that that was -- her brother was murdered. So, I think that around that time is when I became conscious. And I remember that of course I lived in the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union, you must know, was the best country in the world, right? You were led to believe that, that that was the best country. Everywhere else, there were horrible things happening -- hurricanes and floods and exploitation and injustice -- and only in the Soviet Union, it was always sunshine, and you know, we fulfilled the Five Year Plan in four years. So, that sense was there. And I think the sense of that injustice, that horrible thing that happened, was also there. And it kept clashing. So, 27:00when Babel's daughter came, Nathalie, for example, I would try to tell her about how when Sergei Eisenstein went to the United States, how he was considered to be a Red, and how he was persecuted. And she would remind me about, of course, persecution in the Soviet Union. So, I mean -- and here is this -- again, this dilemma. So yes, I certainly lived with very strong realization of it. And I remember also in high school, we had a very strange -- I had a very strange experience, because one of the teachers during the lesson -- and he was -- God knows what he taught. None of the major subjects, really. There was this very interesting kind of education called trud, labor, where you were taught to be handy, you know, to be a little handyman, and so on. And I remember he was -- instead of teaching his lesson, he suddenly told us, "I just read that book. 28:00It's a very interesting book. About a man who was --" he didn't say "executed." It was, I think, "repressed," it was called -- "repressed in the 1930s. And then, it's about his daughter, and she lives with that." And I don't remember how he put it, but I remember he was looking at me very clearly. And that theme seldom arised [sic] -- although in history lessons, our teacher of history sometimes was way too open about what was going on. Needless to say, she emigrated from the Soviet Union. And he said, "And so, she -- this daughter, she encounters that wise man who comes to her and says, 'But you do realize that 29:00this was just a mistake of these very few people who were not so good, but it's not a reflection on the country. And then, you cannot live with that, and you must forgive, and you must understand the greatness of your country, and that unfortunate thing that happened with your father should not --'" you see what I mean?

DS:And this is in the early 1980s this happened?

AM:Yes. Yes. And he was looking specifically at me. And I understood that that whole thing was for me, specifically for me. It was that -- his kind of way of telling me that, you know, "Be a good communist." (laughs)

DS:And do you think you would have gone into the arts if not for your relation to Isaac Babel?

AM:It's a very good question. I don't know. Among other things, I do almost everything affiliated with theater. I act; I direct; I teach; I write about 30:00theater. So -- I adapt works of literature for the stage. So, whatever I do, be it writing, be it composing music, it's all for the theater. So, it's theater-related. Babel was a very theatrical author, of course. I cannot tell you. Sometimes when I was heading a theater company in Washington, DC, and I was there -- predominantly as a director but also as an actor -- people told me, Ooh, you could have made a great lawyer. True. Because directors very often have to convince. So, there is that correlation between directing and law -- or being a lawyer, rather. I also realize that probably in my capacity as a theater administrator -- because I also, believe it or not, for eight years was heading a theater company as producing artistic director. So, that's both administration and art. I had to become a little bit of a negotiator, of a lawyer. So, people 31:00told me, You would have made a great lawyer. When my students come to me and sit in my office, I very often become a psychiatrist, definitely, or psychoanalyst. So, I could have probably been that. And isn't that a very popular profession nowadays? So, both professions, be it law, be it psychiatrist, certainly pay hell of a lot better than theater pays. So, maybe I could have become that. My father was a doctor, ophthalmologist. So, would I have become a doctor? Yes. When my grandmother became ill in her late years, all of her doctors just shamelessly told me that I am really her doctor and not they. 'Cause you know the amount of time a doctor today can spend with a patient?

DS:Yeah.

AM:So, of course, I was thinking about everything that was happening with her 32:00and analyzing it, far deeper sometimes than they were. And I kept telling them, Look at this. Look at that. What about that? That happened. Something they never asked. So, is that my doctor's genes speaking? Maybe it was my doctor gene speaking. Maybe I would have, actually, if I was raised in my father's family. My father left us when I was one years old. Maybe I would have become a doctor. Who knows?

DS:But it was the theater to which you ultimately felt drawn.

AM:Ultimately, yes. And like all theater people, five years old, already putting puppet performances in front of the family and exhausting the family's attention by trying to recite in front of them, and then directing the adults in performances that I myself wrote. You know, that was a tradition in the Russian intelligentsia at the time. There were some houses where they would come together, and immediately the guests were handed parts, and they would rehearse 33:00in one room while others were entertained in the other, and then after dinner, they would bring some people into the audience and some people onto the stage, and they would do these improvised, quickly rehearsed performances. So, I immediately picked up on that, and I was directing my mother's adult guests at her birthdays before, of course, I ever had any right to boss anyone around, because I was a kid. I would write these performances; I would write musical scores and arias for them and songs and -- you know. And I would direct them, and I would kind of rehearse. So, I mean, these director's kind of genes or whatever it was, or director's vein, also kind of showed itself rather early.

DS:So then, take me from that point, from -- your childhood directing, to your studies -- you said you got an MFA at the Vakhtangov?

AM:The Vakhtangov Institute.

DS:Vakhtangov.

AM:It's a very interesting situation. Because, you see, I kept trying to go on 34:00the acting track. And I tried out for the acting track at the Vakhtangov School twice. After I failed for the first time -- 'cause there are two reasons that I failed. One, I think that at certain point in my kind of teenage life, I think I froze a bit. I became a bit -- kind of stiff and wooden, which is not very good for an actor. And I think it took me quite a while to get out of that phase. Another one is if you look at me, right, you get the idea that I'm not your kind of -- Russian type. And they were looking for tall, blond men, right? They were looking for the Russian type for the Russian theater. Somebody like me had to be a genius, really, in order to infiltrate the system. Because what roles I am going to play in the Russian plays about peasants and workers or, you know, and 35:00so on. Or even in the Russian classics. What role is there for me? But in any case -- obviously there are lots of great actors who defied that, but I guess I didn't prove to them that I could defy it. And I went and enlisted in the Vakhtangov Theatre, a theater affiliated with the school, as a property master. I was carrying furniture for a while. But I felt that I must be in the theatrical environment -- while I was waiting for the next year to try again for acting track, I must be in the theatrical environment. And there, almost immediately, I was brought to the attention of another great Jewish woman. Her name was Alexandra Remizova. She was one of the leading -- Russia's leading directors -- leading director of the Vakhtangov Theatre. He was in the regional cast of Vakhtangov's "Princess Turandot" in the 1920s, his most important production -- another important production being his "Dybbuk" that gave origin 36:00to the national theater of Israel, to Habimah. So, he kind of gave birth to at least two theater companies, one named after him, another Habimah. And she was one of the leading directors there, in charge of all of the greatest classical productions of the theater. All of these productions I saw on TV. And that is the woman that I first saw in the corridors. She was in her eighties already -- a tiny, hunchbacked woman was climbing up the stairs. And I couldn't take my eyes off of her. And I didn't know why, because she was just an old woman. But the aura was so strong that I kept just following her. And I also noticed that as she walked down the corridor of the theater, everyone, including those workers who were carrying sets and so on, suddenly kind of straightened up and said, Zdrastvuyte, Alexandra Isaakovna [Russian: Greetings, Alexandra Isaakovna]. So, they would greet her in that -- and I underst-- what was it? Was 37:00it the aura of Vakhtangov that she absorbed? 'Cause he had a tremendous energy and aura, clearly. His eyes were such that he could look at you, and you would fulfill any directorial task that he gave you without ever wondering why and whether or not it had made any sense. 'Cause he could look into you and read your own deeply hidden creative intention and of course give you that intention as a task. And then, it was your own intention; it was your own task. So, you didn't ask twice. He could lead an actor by the hand. And his eyes were tremendous. How did he suddenly become a Jew when he directed "The Dybbuk"? Who knows? He was Armenian, like I am half Armenian. 'Cause my father was Armenian. But he -- it looks like he could also permeate the essence of a nation, national 38:00essence. He was amazing. So, she was directing at a small stage -- a small stage of the Vakhtangov Theatre later became a chamber stage, became very famous, because of the production of Ostrovsky that was directed there by Fomenko. And she was directing a piece there, and she wanted in that piece to be a live musician. She wanted somebody to sit at the piano and almost improvise along with that theatrical performance. And suddenly, somebody told her -- one of my colleagues in the property department told her, "Oh, we have such a guy who can improvise on the piano." She said, "Bring him to me." So, she sat me down, and she said, "At this moment, let's imagine I want such-and-such mood. Would you play something?" And I played something. "At that moment, I need a different mood. And would you play something?" And I played it. And that's how suddenly I 39:00scored that entire performance. And for two years, I was in that performance suddenly. So imagine, you know, during the day I was carrying furniture, and then suddenly I had to become a musician. There was a conflict because my fellow furniture masters were looking at me jealously and, What is he doing? And we became friends. It's amazing, because this woman was in her eighties, and I was nineteen. And we were friends. For some reason, when I dared to open my mouth and tell her and even disagree with her, she would take it as if it was okay. She was a great, wise, amazing woman. Was I aware that she was Jewish? You know, I probably was aware that she was Jewish. But again, at that point, that wasn't hugely my mentality to recognize. So, going back to how I entered the Shchukin 40:00School, the head of the Vakhtangov Theatre, Yevgeniy Rubenovich Simonov, also an Armenian, was also the head of the Shchukin School, of that theater school affiliated with the theater at that point. And my teacher just kept telling him that I need help. I went and I auditioned for acting again. And they didn't take me. And then, this man, Yevgeniy Simonov, he told me, "You see, Andrushe [dear Andrei], you are too smart. An actor should be dumb. You need to go into the directing track." Well, easier said than done. I'm nineteen. They don't accept anyone usually under thirty. 'Cause the concept there is a director should have life experience. Directors should know. Directors should have another degree, usually. And nevertheless, maybe because Remizova kept kind of knocking on his door and saying, "You must do something," they let me try out for the directing 41:00track. And they did accept me. I think I am the only case of being accepted onto the directing track of that school at the age of nineteen. And so, that's how it all began.

DS:So, Jews and Armenians have been popping up a lot.

AM:Yes, (laughs) they certainly do.

DS:Why do you think that is?

AM:I don't know. It's very difficult to tell. It's very difficult to tell. I think that Vakhtangov recognized a certain sensitivity, a certain musicality, certain receptivity and expressivity, of these nations. That's why most of his troupe -- all of his leading actors -- were Jewish, under Russian surnames, because he insisted that they change their last names. He said, "You're Russian actor, it's Russian theater, you're going to carry a Russian name." So, 42:00Lizenberg, Lizensol, would become Lvova; Yoffe would become Tolchanov; Kabakova would become Remizabel, right? So, all of them were -- you know, and so on and so forth. So, a lot of these great -- Sinelnikova was, of course, no Sinelnikova. But they were -- you know what, I actually witnessed some of Vakhtangov's original actors on stage. They were in their eighties. It was Sinelnikova and Lvova. And although Sinelnikova was a very distinguished actress, Lvova was a kind of -- never considered to be a great actress. But the energy that they carried on the stage, the sense of kind of -- the temperament, the kind of almost spiritual sense of purpose that they had, was overwhelming. Especially with Sinelnikova. I saw the first generation of Vakhtangov actors on 43:00stage, yet -- and how to be truthful and huge is something that nobody really can. It's either truthful and small, or huge and fake. And they could be truthful and huge. 'Cause you never sensed their sense of tru-- you never questioned their sense of truth. And at the same time, they could be huge onstage. And of course, that conveyed to some of the later generations, although it became extinct, gradually, kind of.

DS:But you've talked about a couple of instances of an affinity between Armenians and Jews, at least certainly one that is on a very personal level. I wonder how you might account for that, also.

AM:Uh -- it's difficult to tell. I mean, really, I don't know. The only thing that I can think of is that in the national gesture, so to speak, right? In the 44:00rhythm of the -- maybe language and the rhythm of the expression and so on, there's probably some kind of a synergy there. There is probably some correlation. I don't know what that correlation might be. But I think that whether that's a national temperament, whether it's a national rhythms -- Vakhtangov believed that every language and every nation has their own inner rhythm that belongs to that nationality, so to speak. And the gesture in Vakhtangov also was very important. Later, one of his collaborators, Michael Chekhov, created the technique of psychological gesture that is taught now in the United States widely, and I wrote about it and published about it. So, there's something about that national rhythm, national melodies, national gesture. There's something about the expressivity and probably the degree of 45:00passion, you know, that temperament, that maybe unites those two nations, to a certain degree. I think probably unites them with Russians as well.

DS:So, you graduate from Vakhtangov.

AM:Yes. With a degree in directing, yeah.

DS:With a degree in directing. And from that point until -- how many years is it until the end of the Soviet Union?

AM:I graduated in '91. That's the end of the --

DS:So, that's the end.

AM:-- Soviet Union. But I actually had a theater company in the first -- one of the first private theater companies in Russia, which I co-headed with a fellow by the name of David Schneiderov, another Jewish man, obviously. He was my theater partner. He is now in Russian TV and movie business. He's a TV producer, TV host, and so on. But we had a theater company together. So, what happened is throughout our period of training, we also were required to work practically 46:00outside of the school, and one of the ways to work practically would be to have a small theater company. And after perestroika -- because it was '85 when I entered the school. So actually, you could start a private theater company. And David Schneiderov, a genius entrepreneur, was able to break through some kind of obstacles and create a kind of a private entity of a theater company. So, it existed for about eight years. And I was staging Erdman there. I was staging Michel de Ghelderode, you know, the Belgian playwright. I was staging Russian farce, "The Death of Tarelkin." So, a lot of these kind of lesser-known classics is what I was mostly concentrating upon, while my partner was concentrating on contemporary Russian-Soviet plays. So, that's what I -- we continued working with that company after my graduation, although it wasn't for long, because we 47:00started from selling out five hundred-seat house in two hours. 'Cause the interest toward anything non-state was so huge, and those small studios that they were called were very popular in the mid-'80s. But by the early '90s, this interest actually would subside, and suddenly people stopped coming to the theater altogether. It was a dead period in Russian theater. It was amazing. And at that time, through cultural exchange, I actually found myself collaborating with American theaters. We came to the States; they came to us; we showed them around; they show us around. We co-produced two productions that were presented in Moscow and then in Los Angeles. And that is how I found myself in the United States. But a lot of it was also through my connection with my aunt, with Nathalie Babel, whose husband was friends with professor of Russian sociology, 48:00who was friends with theater people, and these theater people kind of became aware of our theater company, and that's how the exchange between our theater and two American theater companies began in the early '90s.

DS:How did you feel to be leaving Russia after all these years?

AM:Theater was so much on my mind that that was a determining factor. And when I started coming to the States to direct, teach, and act, it was the fact that I couldn't do so in Russia, and I could do it in the United States -- which is unthinkable, you know. Imagine Russian theatrical culture and the importance of theatrical culture for the nation and the nation's psyche, and America, where theater is of course much less important. But at that time I found myself kind of being more sought out and needed as a theater artist in the United States than I was in Russia. This situation very, very quickly changed. But by then, I 49:00was married. My wife is American. And I was already kind of integrated in some of the theatrical life in the United States, and I kind of made a choice to convince my family --- meaning my mother and grandmother -- to join me, which I finally succeeded in doing in '96. And since '96 -- from 1996 to around 2005, I wouldn't even go back to Russia. Because I didn't have an excuse of visiting my family. And so, for a while I kind of lost ties. And then, I rediscovered them when I started going to Russian festivals. And now, this trip that I'm about to undertake is going to bring me back to Russia. But you see, now, when I go to Russia again, it's because of theater. It's not even because I have so many friends there -- which I do have friends. But you know, the friends are leaving. Some of them are no longer. We have distant relatives there. All the wonderful 50:00people that we are close to. But at the same time, looks like it's theater that brings me back there, not even friends.

DS:How did it feel to return in 2005?

AM:It was a different country, of course. It was a very, very different country. But I understood that it is no longer my country kind of around -- in the mid-'90s. Because of course, I was traveling back and forth in between '91 and '96. I would sometimes live almost half a year in the States, half year in Russia, traveling back and forth. And I kept realizing that there's really no opportunities for me. Although I had friends. And they kept saying, Come back, 51:00come back. But they wouldn't share their professional contacts. They would not invite me to co-direct. They would not. Because everybody was holding on to their place, to their contacts. So, they would say, Come back, but they would never lift a finger to help me come back. Maybe I would. Who knows? And for me, I think theater and being able to work in theater was much more important. So, I never actually felt myself fully in -- in that theatrical world -- because remember, I didn't join an established theater company, although I was invited to. I wanted to start my own company, which was small, private, independent company, with huge emphasis in training, in research, in acting techniques, and so on. And ultimately, I did the same in Washington, DC. Instead of trying to fit into certain structures, established structures, I actually preferred to 52:00start a theater company that concentrated mainly on Russian theatrical repertoire, although on world classics as well. We staged "Don Quixote." We staged "Faust." But at the same time, it was again a conservatory. I had a very strong emphasis on training, on actor training and performing. And it was a very strange kind of company that was unlike anything else that was happening in DC at that time. And was very popular for a while. It won lots of awards, including Helen Hayes Awards and so on. It was very popular with the press for a while. But even there, I found myself a stranger. I found myself -- in the highly politicized Washington climate, I found that there were times when I was kind of welcome, and there were times when I wasn't welcome. Because it all sways with 53:00the politics, ultimately. So, that's why I left Washington, DC and found myself in Sarasota, Florida, where I am on the faculty of the Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training, again a collaboration between Florida State University and Asolo Repertory Company. And I'm teaching there, I'm directing there, and when I do professional theater now, I do -- although our productions are considered to be professional theater, they're -- but the second-year students -- but I do actually do independent projects that I very often either take on the road or take to Russia.

DS:I want to go back to DC for a second.

AM:Yeah.

DS:I was looking at your questionnaire, and it seems as though you got more involved maybe in Jewish institutional life or in the culture -- in Jewish cultural life --

AM:Yes. Yes.

DS:-- in your years in DC, when you first came to live in the US?

AM:Actually, yeah.

DS:Tell me about that.

AM:Well, the Jewish Community Center in DC was a place where I directed with 54:00Theater J. So, they were very interested in our work, and they brought me to direct, co-direct, a play by -- it was based on Anton Chekhov plays, but it's by a very famous Jewish-American playwright, Neil Simon. And it was based on short stories by Anton Chekhov. So, they brought me there; I participated in the Jewish theater conference there. A lot of documentaries on Babel were screened there, and I was invited to kind of to speak on that, or translate my grandmother speaking on that. So yes, I kind of had affiliations with that institution in different ways. That's true. Washington, DC has large Russian community living around Rockville area -- which is, of course, not Russian, but 55:00Russian Jewish, or Jewish Russian, whatever you wanted to be called. So, certainly our audiences were Russian audiences. But not in its majority. 'Cause every time you count on Russian audiences to come, right, you're usually going to be bitterly disappointed, because they're not going to come in huge numbers. Maybe because a lot of Russian immigrants who came to the United States from Russia, from Ukraine, weren't theatergoers in their Russian/Ukrainian life. They weren't really deeply cultured people. So, you know, so if they didn't attend theater back in Ukraine, they're not going to attend theater now. So, they're huge in numbers, but they're not going to be audiences. I learned it in LA, when we brought our productions in LA while I was still in Moscow. LA has a huge Russian community. We were absolutely convinced that Russian theater company 56:00coming at the time of perestroika, right, breaking through the wall, that we will have -- no one came. It was American audiences. One Russian person came. He was eighty-year-old George Shdanoff, who was a hero for all of us, because he was a close affiliate of Michael Chekhov's. And Michael Chekhov's famous book "To the Actor" is dedicated to George Shdanoff. So, his presence for me was amazing. But I think he was the only Russian who came. That's why I insisted that our theater company from day one should perform in English. Although we have Russians on the stage, we had Georgians on the stage, we have Finnish actors, we had Japanese actors -- so we could have had something very international and mixing the languages, which is something I tried when we 57:00collaborated with American actors in the beginning. We did those bilingual productions where Russian actors spoke Russian, American actors spoke English. But I insisted that it must be in English. And in hindsight, it was right. 'Cause all of the Russian classics that we've done with lots of Russian actors onstage, we've done them in English. And it was the right choice, because we had American audiences come. We didn't depend on the mercy of the Russian audiences.

DS:You've studied Habimah, you say.

AM:Yes.

DS:And I'm -- so your interests came from studying Mikhoels originally?

AM:From Vakhtangov. Vakhtangov originated Habimah. Vakhtangov was their first master.

DS:Right. And since Habimah moved to Tel Aviv before too long, and it seems as though you've been interviewed on Russian radio in Israel, have you visited Israel or --

AM:No. No, I wanted to include Israel on this trip. But I have a feeling the 58:00interest toward Babel in Israel is actually not huge. I may be wrong. But somehow, other places -- such as, you know, we will go to Paris, obviously Moscow, L'vov, and Odessa -- other places fell into place kind of very easily. And with Israel, although I was trying to connect with producers there, I was trying to connect with -- the dialogue kind of didn't happen. I don't know why.

DS:Do you want to speculate, or is --

AM:No, no. I don't know. It may be just individuals that I was involved with. But I never sensed a -- or maybe, you know what, maybe I wasn't that persistent. 'Cause maybe I'm realizing how much is on my plate. If I -- deep within, I 59:00understood that another trip to Israel in the summer is going to be really, really difficult because there's a huge organizational, logistical aspect to this whole journey, to this whole trip that we are undertaking. And with documentary crew, of all things. So, who knows? But -- I don't know. My grandmother, for some reason, always felt that Israel has this strange relationship toward Babel. Not love/hate relationship, but to a certain degree, maybe Babel doesn't entirely fit in? I think it's different, probably, because what Israel are we talking about? Are we talking about the Soviet immigrants? For them, Babel obviously is a symbolic person, in a way. And lots of them probably can recite Babel by heart. It's very difficult to say why -- Babel has 60:00never been to Israel. How could he? But I wanted to go there with a performance because that would have been going back to the roots-roots, of course. And something -- I would definitely learn a lot from that, there's no question about it. But not yet.

DS:Not yet. So, could you describe for me the process of adapting Babel's work for the stage, both as a creative process and also as a personal process?

AM:As a creative process, our main agenda was to figure out who are the narrators behind each of the five stories that I perform. 'Cause Babel says "I." "I was fourteen years old." Sometimes the narrator is more present; sometimes the narrator is less present. Who is describing the wedding of Dvoira Krik in "The King"? Who knows? Who is describing the end of Froim Grach in "Froim 61:00Grach," his execution at the hands of the Odessa chayka [Russian: gang], run by Moscow people, of course? Who is describing it? It's very difficult to say. Who is this man "with spectacles on his nose and autumn in his heart," let's say, in "How It Was Done in Odessa"? Because that story also used to be part of the performance. We kind of shortened it along the way. Interestingly enough, the title of the performance comes from that story, but that story ultimately fell out. So, to figure out who tells the story was almost more important for us than to figure out all of the characters that I encountered in the story. 'Cause Babel said, "The reason I say 'I' in all of the stories -- because of the economy. What great economy. You say 'I,' you don't have to describe the narrator to tell where he comes from or where she comes from, to describe how 62:00they are dressed, what they look like. Huge economy. So, I always say 'I.'" And that "I" is Babel and not Babel. It's some different mask that he is wearing in each five of the stories. And I think that most of the work, creative work, that the director, Sarah Kane, who is British, and myself had to contribute was really figuring out who tells the story, why they tell it. And of course, the world of the story, trying to recreate the world of the story itself. Personally, it's tricky. Because each story has certain very particular personal meaning to me. To what degree it permeates my performance, I don't know. It's very difficult to say. The "Cemetery in Kozin," the description of this Jewish cemetery in -- next to one of the Polish shtetls [small Eastern European town with a Jewish community] is personal because it was my grandmother's favorite 63:00story. It's a tiny one. It's a tiny vignette in "Red Cavalry." When Babel was rehabilitated in the '50s, and when the first edition of Babel's works was prepared -- post-rehabilitation edition of Babel works -- 'cause you couldn't print Babel, you couldn't say the word "Babel" for a while. When this edition was prepared, "Red Cavalry" was part of it. And the editor -- so it was a very interesting editor, because when Ilya Ehrenburg, who was instrumental to getting Babel published after rehabilitation, when he saw that woman enter the room, and the literary committee, headed by Ehrenburg, really, came to meet the editor, he was horrified. He said, "If that woman carried in a samovar into the room, then I would understand. But her being Babel's editor?" (laughs) So, that woman very 64:00quickly told to my grandmother, "How this 'Cemetery in Kozin,' the description of the Jewish cemetery? It's kind of not really needed in the 'Red Cavalry.' It's such a short piece. Let's throw it out; let's throw it out." And that's when my grandmother almost blew it. Although she was very well-tempered, so to speak. And she contained herself, and she said, "No, maybe we are not going to throw it (laughs) out." But you see? So, there's personal story to it, obviously. The story about execution of Froim Grach by the Odessa chayka of course has certain very personal parallels to me. You know, Babel was no gangster, but human life is human life. And to me, there are certain parallels. At the end of "Cemetery in Kozin," I say, "Oh, death, oh, covetous thief, why 65:00couldst thou not have spared us just once?" Of course, for me it's about Babel, whether I think it at the second or not. So, there's a lot of personal connections, not to mention that those are the stories that I first heard being recited from the stage when I was a child. Because of the theatrical nature. "Di Grasso" is about theater. It's about great tragedians of the past that fascinate me. I tried to uncover their technique that was lost, as so many great techniques was lost. Like bel canto was lost. So, you know, I am trying to uncover something that Stanislavsky entirely buried under the weight of his would-be systems -- that also have lots of great stuff in it but also have lots of would-be science. So, there's a lot there that connects me to it. So, these 66:00choices are personal. But I notice that personal sometimes interferes. It doesn't always help. Very often, I think I would have been better off -- or maybe I am wrong -- if I didn't have such a close personal connection. 'Cause maybe then I could do it and redesign it to do a montage of sorts. I don't. I recite the stories. I tell the stories, theatrically tell them, the way that they are written, with very minor cuts in certain cases -- most of the stories, no cuts.

DS:So, is that the burden that we talked about earlier?

AM:Yeah. Yeah.

DS:The burden of being true to the text.

AM:Absolutely. Absolutely.

DS:And when you're going around the world now with this production, do you see yourself as being a cultural activist in doing that? Or --

AM:I think so. And I also think that I will probably encounter different reception, as I encounter different reception in the States or -- or in Russia, I think that there are people who -- especially Jewish audiences, certain Jewish audiences -- who are offended at any negative portrayal of a Jewish person. Even if it's just a balanced portrayal. Because, excuse me, who is a saint? Who is only beautiful? Am I? No. I can be an idiot; I can be a wise man; I can be a son of a bitch; I can be a saint, right? I mean, everyone on a given day, in a given moment, is -- reveals a different side of their personality. But I think that it's very strange. And maybe it's a result of the Holocaust, where people believe that any negativity towards Jews is going to cause huge persecution. But 68:00a nation that loses its sense of humor and ability to laugh on oneself -- 'cause Babel was laughing at himself. He was a Jew, for Pete's sake. So, when you're losing that ability to laugh on yourself -- and of course, it's not the nation that is losing it; it's very particular individuals who are losing it. But I think that that is something. And then, next to these people who keep a straight face when I am describing Madame Bendersky, right? Or when I am describing Dvoira Krik, disfigured by her illness, with her throat swollen and her eyes bulging from their orbits -- I mean, when I am describing this monster of a woman, right, they're keeping a straight face. And next to them sit other Jewish audiences, and they laugh to their heart's content. So obviously, it's very 69:00different. So, when I actually opened this production back in 2004, I was really scared at what the Jewish press was going to write. And when I read in the article at the end of it all, when it comes to it, Babel loves these Jews; even with their kind of quirky stuff, Babel loves it. I was relieved, certainly. But I think I will encounter that. It's very difficult to imagine what else I will encounter on my way. Is it a cultural kind of mission of sorts? Yes. I think Babel was on a cultural mission. He was also on a mission to tell the truth. And that mission ultimately cost him his life. But I think that he couldn't write the untruth. It wasn't in his DNA. His DNA was to go, witness it all firsthand. 70:00Because he witnessed everything he wrote about firsthand. He touched it, he smelled it, he tasted it, and then he found the words to describe the kind of perception that only he had. Because his taste, sense of taste, his sense of smell, his vision, his hearing, were very different than anyone else's. And then, to find the words that could describe his sensations is what really accounts for these amazing metaphors, amazing images. But it's very personal. I think Babel was a poet first and foremost.

DS:Are you a poet?

AM:I don't know. I mean, sometimes I'm trying to figure out, Who is talking in all these stories? 'Cause Babel, of course, when he read his own stories, read them very neutrally. He didn't imitate any of the characters. He didn't imitate 71:00any of the accents or any of the dialects. Even when he spoke -- when he was trying to -- when he was telling that Gorky said such-and-such, "Gorky had the Volga accent. The O was there." But Babel wouldn't imitate Gorky. He would say, "He said that word stressing the O." But he would not imitate. So, he was a very different storyteller than a kind of an actor who imitates and transforms. 'Cause I think that his transformation was through the words. He probably lived it. He -- of course he lived it. But then, it all became words for him. So -- but it was very -- incredibly personal. But it was also a process of an artist. I'm going through a different process. I still don't know who is onstage. Is it 72:00Babel, who is a writer? Is it me, who is an actor? Is it one of these fictional narrators that we kind of created, but I think there are certain justification to the personas that we've come up with for five narrators? Is it all of them together? It's very difficult to say. It's probably everything merged in one. Is it personal? It is personal. Actors have to also kind of transform everything through the prism of their nerves, their blood, their heart, their imagination, right? So, it does come from the ether, ultimately, but then it goes through you. So, in that respect, every actor who works like that is a poet. 'Cause what happens with the theatrical mask, the mask that we wear onstage -- the mask of 73:00the character is not a disguise in any way. It is freedom. It is freedom for me to reveal my own personality and to reveal my own deeply hidden secrets, which I couldn't confess to you without the mask.

DS:So, I want to go back for one second, then, to this idea of cultural activism.

AM:Yes.

DS:You described Babel as being -- in his way -- as being on a cultural mission.

AM:Absolutely.

DS:And you've described --

AM:Culture in Defense of Peace was the name of congress that André Malraux organized in Paris in 1935 and insisted that Babel comes, although the Soviets were trying not to let Babel come. 'Cause it was a culture in defense of peace in the face of the Nazi threat. That's what it was about.

DS:So then, how do you see your own cultural mission, especially keeping that in mind?

AM:I think that simply allowing people who want to connect with it -- or people even who come out of curiosity -- allowing people to connect with that rich culture, the culture of the period, the culture of Babel's language, the culture of his imagination. Also almost the reporter-like, journalist-like truthfulness of what's in it. And I think the values that Babel brings in. He writes about the Italian tragedian Di Grasso, who with his every word and movement proves that there is more justice and hope in the frenzy of the noble passion than in the boring ways of the world. I'm paraphrasing. But that quest for courage, for freedom, inner freedom specifically, for the ability to live the life of a 75:00courageous and a free person -- I think that some of these ideals that are instilled in Babel's writings -- and, of course, the culture of literature, the culture of the art, the culture of the world -- 'cause very often, I'm co-- think that Babel is not writing the story. He is writing the creative process. He doesn't write about that particular character. He writes about how he creates that particular chara-- you see what I mean? It's almost an account of his creative process more than it is an account of this reality. Then it's about creativity. And if it's about creativity, creativity's one of the highest forces that we can connect with, I think, in this world. Maybe there are higher forces that we can connect with in other worlds. But in this world, when we create, 76:00when we are creative -- when our good seeds and bad seeds are at its highest, so to speak, as Vakhtangov would put it -- then we are probably most alive. And we are alive in a very special sense. And I think that Babel probably inspires that kind of life in us and by doing so, changes us and makes us different. Makes us artists. Makes us creators -- co-creators. And probably by doing that somewhat tampers with our DNA, in a good sense. I think a lot of these artists of Babel's generation, the so-called Russian avant-garde artists, really believed in the creation of a new man, only not through ideological forces but through artistic forces. Tapping into hitherto kind of unknown capacities of the human being through creativity, through inspiring them to arise to certain heights of 77:00capabilities and possibilities that were unknown up till this point, and therefore evolve, grow, become a creative human, not just mundane human.

DS:That's an extraordinary idealistic vision you're describing.

AM:True, just as it is extraordinary idealistic vision that a congress of culture can prevent fascism. But I think if more people listened to them, maybe -- you see what I mean? They said their word. Did others listen? That's the real question. Did Gorky listen when André Malraux came and spoke to Gorky about what was happening in the Soviet Union and that that cannot continue? Did Gorky listen, or did Gorky stopped his ears? You see what I mean? So, that's the real 78:00question, is, Isn't our job to say the word? And if people listened, maybe it wouldn't be so idealistic. Ultimately, I think that the humanity does progress, and the humanity does progress through culture. It may not happen as quickly so that we could measure it by some scientific devices and say, Oh, yes, yes, yes, it works; it's real. So, it is not idealistic in the long run, right? But to, of course, expect immediate results from it may be idealistic. So, when you expect immediate results, it is idealistic. When you are speaking in the perspective, in the long perspective, that's probably how -- you know, if our far relative did not pick up the stick and didn't try to do something creative (laughs) with it, we would still be monkeys.

DS:Yeah. We're nearing the end of our time now. But I want to keep on this topic 79:00for just another second and then -- and ask you what sort of advice you would give to a younger cultural activist, or a cultural activist in the future.

AM:Yeah. Well, the advice of persevera-- persevera-- what is the word I am looking for?

DS:Perseverance?

AM:Perseverance, yes. And a lot of courage and a lot of determination. I think learning how to work on it, because lots of people have great ideas. Not everyone has discipline. I think that the discipline of one of very good colleagues of Isaac Babel said, "Not a day without a line," right? "Ni dnya bez strochki [Russian: Not a day without a line]," it was. So, I think that certain kind of discipline of exercising daily, of doing something daily, of not kind of just contemplating but working on it, is one advice. Because there are lots of 80:00people who are determined. There are lots of people who are incredibly talented. And suddenly, they disappear. They fall off the face of the earth. And there are others who are maybe not as talented and don't have such great visions, but they work on themselves. And they work on themselves daily. And I think it's that daily doing, daily working, that I'm going to wish for the cultural activists of the future to develop within themselves -- to develop not just the vision and not just rely on their talent, but to develop the discipline. And to be really, really tough on themselves and incredibly persistent, because as I get -- there are many people whose ears are stopped. The example of the Yiddish Book Center 81:00is a good example because Aaron was not preaching to the choir when he started doing what he was doing. He was really meeting a lot of resistance and a lot of walls. But that didn't stop him. I think that probably is -- yes, vision. Yes, talent. But also discipline and determination.

DS:And I want to thank you so much for spending this time with us today. This has been a wonderful -- a wonderful time to spend with you.

AM:Well, thank you. It's my pleasure. Thank you for --

DS:And before I turn off the tape, is there anything else, any other topics that you want to briefly touch on?

AM:I think that I probably -- at the end of my rope, because I had a challenging and exciting and brilliant conversation with Aaron, and now we had this conversation. So, even if there are things that I would want to say or ask, this would be the famous French expression "conversation on the stairs." You know, 82:00you had a meeting, you said something, and then the meeting is over, you're going down the steps, and now you're thinking of all the brilliant things that you should have said in response to this, and you should have mentioned here and there -- so there will be probably conversation on the stairs, but at the moment, I think I said everything I could at this point.

DS:All right. So, sounds like a great place to end, then.

AM:Okay. (laughs)

DS:Thank you.

AM:Thank you.

DS:Okay.

[END OF INTERVIEW]