PAVEL LION (PSOY KOROLENKO) ORAL HISTORY

CHRISTA WHITNEY:This is Christa Whitney, and today is August 20th, 2014.  I'm here at KlezKanada.  I'm going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project.  Do I have your permission to record?

PSOY KOROLENKO: Absolutely.  [BREAK IN RECORDING]

CW:  So, I'd like to ask you first about your name.  Can you tell me -- you go by various names.  Can you tell me, first of all, the name you were given at birth?

PK:  Yeah, so basically, I'm not -- I don't go by various names.  I just have my regular art name, which I always use.  And I have my ID name.  So, I have 1:00-- let's say I have two names: Pavel Lion is my ID name, my given name, my passport name.  So, Pavel is P-A-V-E-L, which is the Russian equivalent of Paul.  Pasha, as they normally call me, is just a regular, short name for Pavel.  It's not a different name.  And Psoy is my art name.  I don't like the word "soy-donym" -- except for maybe "Psoy-donym," pseudonym -- because I don't like the word pseudonym, except for maybe "Psoy-donym," to make it a pun, because it's not a pseudo anything.  It's a very real part of me, probab-- as long as it's my art name -- my art is the most important part of me, and the name I chose, for some relevant reasons, is a name.  But it belongs to Russian 2:00literature originally, so --

CW:  Can you tell me where -- for your ID name, were you named after anyone?  Do you know the history of your name?

PK:  Yes.  Pavel Alisov was my grandma's sister's husband.  The grandma I'm talking about is my mom's mother.  She had a sister who was married to a Pavel.  He was a revolutionary from Bessarabia.  He was later exiled during a party cleansing under Stalin, but he belonged to Old Bolshevik school.  And I 3:00was initially named Mikhail, the Russian for Michael.  And my dad even wrote to my mother, to the birth hospital, "Say hi to Misha, Mikhail, my" -- but my mother's aunt, whom I'm talking about, came over and really -- she cried and asked my parents to rename me Pasha, after Pavel Alisov, her husband who died in '30s.  He was actually not Jewish, just by the way.  He's one of quite a few Russians, ethnically, in the clan, so to say.  There is a museum, or at least 4:00there was a museum, in Belgorod on Dniester, Belgorod-Dnestrovskiy, the former Akkerman, which is now Ukraine but used to be Bessarabia.  The Museum of Revolution or something like that, I was the -- I don't rem-- I don't know about its status for now.  But when I was a kid, I was visiting mother's relatives in Moldavia, in Moldova, I was taken to that museum, and it had a photo of that practically unknown uncle of me.  I only know that I was named after him.  That's --

CW:  And can you explain about your art name?

PK:  And my art name is taken from a joke that belongs to a Russian writer, 5:00Vladimir Korolenko, the writer quite important for the history of Russian-Jewish relationships in literature, because he was one of the writers and publishers who intensely supported Russian -- young writers of Jewish background in the late 19th, early 20th century, and correspond-- and had a correspondence and collaboration, also, with writers from Yiddish spectrum.  He dealt a lot with ethnic minority issues, including ethnic abuses.  One of them was blood li-- the blood libel against Jews.  And Korolenko is known, among other many things, as a -- one of civic defenders for Mendel Beilis, the Russian Dreyfus, who was 6:00accused of ritual murder in 1913.  Korolenko is a very well-known Russian -- one of the first human rights fighters.  And, as a writer, he was a stubborn realist in the era of modernism.  He wrote short stories, documental stories, narrative stories.  Dealt a lot with issues of minorities, diaspora, immigration, otherness and othering, including ethnic minorities, Jews, and many other kind of minorities.  For example, being challenged as a blind -- one of his very famous writings is "The Blind Musician," which discusses experience of being blind and of being a musician.  And probably, these two things -- as 7:00intimately connected with each other, because being creative is being challenged, and being challenged enables some alternative kinds of creative activity, describing world in sounds instead of colors and many other things he deals with in this novel.  Also, he's the author of the -- practically first novel about Russian immigrant in America, "Without Language -- Bez yazyka."  It describes a Russian immigrant in America -- by the way, with a Jew as his Virgil in America, who shows him the new world with all these good old times versus bad new times laments.  It's very interesting -- writer, in many ways.  Among other things, he has a fairy tale "Yom kipur," the "Atonement Day."  Practically, it's a parable about -- it's an ethic parable about how important 8:00it is to be -- not to blame people just because they are, for example, Jewish.  It's some kind of -- it's about Jews and Ukrainians, with a lot of jokes, with some Nikolai Gogol traditions and still very anti-anti-Semitic.  Why I love Korolenko -- mostly because my teacher in the univers-- my mentor -- one of my ultimate mentors in the university, Nikolai Ivanovich, but not Lobachevsky -- Nikolai Ivanovich Liban just opened his seminar on Korolenko when I entered the grade in the university where I was supposed to choose a theme for paper.  So, I -- when I started to be a songwriter, it came to my mind to call myself in honor of Vladimir Korolenko, partly because it just sounded cool, interesting, 9:00because Korolenko created a nice joke referring to the family custom of calling children's trait according to the calendar.  Every day had a saint, and his brother was called Illarion, their father was Galaktion, and Korolenko says that, "I could have been named Psoy if I was born at such a day.  I'm now Vladimir just by an accident."  Psoy sounds funny in Russian because of its resemblance with "pos," "dog," and we often find this name in Russian comedies, like Ostrovsky, of 19th century.  Therefore, it sounds both funny and serious, because the actual Saint Psoy is one of the very ancient figures, one of the fathers of Monasty.  He belongs to the early Christian era.  It is a Coptic 10:00saint, and "Pshoi -- Bishoi" is a Coptic name.  So, the thing is that it's both serious and funny, both ancient and modern, both eli-- othering and intimately referring to oneself, to yourself, so -- and last not least, it sounds a perfect name for a rock star or for a band.  I always wanted to be a rock band.  That's --

CW:  Great.

PK:  Does it make sense?

CW:  Yeah.  (laughter) Can you tell me a little bit about your family background?

PK:  So, both my parents were born in Moscow, though my grandparents were born, technically, in the Pale.  My dad's parents got acquainted in adolescence in Soviet Civil War time, revolutionary Yiddishist orphanage, when Yiddish was 11:00mostly spoken there.  And my grandmother was even nicknamed a Russifier, because she spoke more Russian there than other people.  She referred to the director of the orphanage as "Khaver Arn [Comrade Aaron]" and his wife was Khaver Teroza.  So, that's how my dad's parents met each other, and their --

CW:  Where was that?

PK:  It was in Poltava in Ukraine.  And their parents died -- when I was a kid, they told me that they died because of cholera.  But my cousin recently told me it was because of a pogrom.  I don't know what the truth is.  Probably both.  Both could be truth.  These things can happen together, right?  There was a cholera and there was a pogrom historically at that moment, that's --

CW:  And the other side of your family?

PK:  And the other side is -- it represents the European cosmopolitan part of me, part of my heritage, 'cause my mother's dad, who is actually my -- the grandfather, my ultimate role figure in my childhood and my best friend during my childhood.  He could have been my grand-grandfather, because both me and mom are very late children.  My grandfather was born in 1890-something.  I don't remember the precise year.  But my interest and inspiration in Silver Age, in pre-revolutionary cabaret, and fin de siècle 19th century is much explainable by the fact that I mostly communicated when -- with this grandpa when I was a 13:00kid, when I was, for example, four years old.  So, my grandpa, communicating with me, apparently, (makes air quotes) became four-year-old himself, like it is with people when they communicate with kids, with eyniklekh [grandchildren], right?  So, he, the four-year-old he, was -- when first Russian Revolution did not yet happen.  So, I was -- communicated with -- somehow, spiritually, with a boy of my age who lived before the first Russian Revolution.  This -- it strikes me when I think that he was almost hundred years older than me, eighty 14:00years older than me.  So, he was from another century, from another world.  And he warned my mom that she shouldn't enter the Communist Party, because who knows?  You must have been born in 19th century to say so.  It's very untypical, very un-Soviet.  He actually entered the Party.  She -- I mean mom.  She enter-- I mixed up gender grammatically.  She actually entered the Party.  [BREAK IN RECORDING]

CW:  You grew up in Moscow?

PK:  Yes.

CW:  And what year were you born?

PK:  What-what?

CW:  What year were you born?

PK:  Uh, 197-- sorry, sorry, 1967.  And I would say that my grandpa whom I'm talking about spent his childhood and adolescence mostly in Europe, specifically in Francophonic Switzerland and in France.  He also studied and graduated in 15:00the University of Paris, Sorbonne.  But he never -- and he was a doctor, according to his baccalaur-- but -- MA, whatever.  But he never was a doctor.  When he came back to Russia -- and he came back to Russia in 1918, after the revolution -- he was not a communist.  But he was intuitively liberal and progressive.  So, he sort of approved what happened, and he was a translator/interpreter into French throughout his whole life.  And he worked for -- in foreign bureau.  And later, my mom also worked there.  It was called Novosti Press Agency later.  So, she worked there.  It's my grandpa's and mom's occupation for years.  And I know this kind of -- the world of translation, the world of translators, they -- kind of intellectual proletariat, 16:00because my mom never read many books.  She had no time to read books.  But he just edited English translations of political texts, the -- for export purposes.  Like this agency mostly wrote for export.  And she could not not be in the Party, because it was necessary career-wise.  But my grandpa was very apolitical and very -- let's say very moderate, puristic in terms of his political views.  He hated all kinds of extremes.  He was intuitively liberal, intuitively humanistic, intuitively sober-minded, intuitively moderate.  Very 17:00un-extreme, much like Vladimir Korolenko, who is spiritually also my grandpa.

CW:  And what kind of games -- or what would he talk to you about in his four-year-old self?

PK:  Hmm?

CW:  What would he talk to you about when you were four and he was channeling his four --

PK:  Taught me lots of French.  "Donne-moi la main [French: Take my hand, lit. "give me the hand"]," this is one of the important phrases I remember from him, is "donne-moi la main" and lots of stuff in French.  And I -- sitting on his knees, I studied Yves Montand and lots of French chansonniers [French: song-books], who were, by the way, quite popular in the Brezhnevian Soviet Union, for many reasons including Soviet-French friendship with Brezhnev and Giscard d'Estaing, very intensely together.  It was Brezhnev-Nixon period.  It was détente.  It was the period of this friendship.  And TV was full of 18:00French chansons [French: songs].  And my grandpa loved it much.  And I remember French by heart without understanding it.  I was -- imprinted it.  Then, I lost my French.  But when I started songwriting, I tried to revive it from my unconsciousness.  Then, the other thing -- Yiddish came from my dad's branch.  I almost never heard it in my childhood, but my -- the grandma who happens to be my dad's mom used to say just a couple things, but really important things, such as "Ikh hob dikh lib fun der vaytns [I love you from a distance]."  I remember it from childhood.  I would ask her, "Do you love me?"  And she said, "Ya tiibe tak skazuu [Russian: I'll tell you this way]," starting in Russian.  "I'll tell you this."  And then, she says, "Ikh hob dikh 19:00lib fun der vaytns -- I love you from a distance."  And she laughed.  She's -- she was teasing me.  But this is a -- to me, it's a very important Yiddish spell that probably has programmed my lifestyle in many ways.

CW:  How so?

PK:  Traveling all the time.  Often finding yourself distant, voluntarily or involuntarily.

CW:  And what was the sort of atmosphere of your home growing up?  Can you describe your home?

PK:  Warm, anxious, chaotic, pedantic, crazy, cute, animal-loving.  One of my 20:00big friends was my cat, who lived from my childhood to my PhD.  And it was more than just a cat.  He was more than just a cat.  And then there were some dogs at home.  So -- lots of music.

CW:  What kind of music?

PK:  What was available in the Soviet Union, but -- whatever cool was available in the Soviet Union, let's put it like this.

CW:  And what was cool when you were growing up?

PK:  Lots of things.  The widest possible spectrum of things, starting with music for -- not starting with.  I just wanted to say starting with music for kids, but it's not the truth because if I say so, then I mean that it's somehow more important than other things.  But it is more important just because I was a kid, and also because the production for kids was full of playful, 21:00international, latently or openly Western and often klezmer, for many reasons, vibrations, 'cause many composers were not even necessarily of Jewish background, but culturally of -- they belonged to the spectrum which unites popular musical theater, cabaret, Broadway musical, and klezmer -- sometimes latently or indirectly, but still -- it was all part of my childhood.  And these vibrations definitely influenced me as a melody-maker and probably as a poet/songwriter, and as a person.  These are vibrations of my childhood, the Soviet land, the land of children.  We lived in a kinderland [children's land] 22:00somehow.  And the Yiddishkayt for me is much Soviet Yiddishkayt.  It's also important feature, by the way.

CW:  What did you -- what was your exposure to Jewish culture, Judaism, when you were growing up?

PK:  The perestroika brought up some Yiddish pop culture as part of previously banned or marginalized things.  I wouldn't say that Yiddishism was totally banned or marginalized in the Soviet Union.  For example, "Sovetish heymland" worked from the very beginning to the very end of the Soviet Union.

CW:  The journal.

PK:  And, yeah, apparently, it was closed just for budget reasons when the Soviet Union was closed.  So, it was very Soviet and very Yiddish and had a lot of Yiddish things in it.  But it was for experts or geeks, or at least for those who spoke the language, right?  For the wide masses, Yiddish was very 23:00much marginalized, just because -- for many reasons, for obvious reasons.  It was still promoted, as opposed to Hebrew, of course, 'cause Hebrew meant Israel and religion.  But -- as long as you speak it.  If you don't speak it, then you have nothing -- so, what I had from Yiddish in my childhood was the Barry Sisters.  And my parents actually told me it was German, because they were afraid I will speak much about being Jewish or whatever, about Jews.  It was some kind of -- something that you were not supposed to talk much about.  My parents never told me I was Jewish.  Once I discovered this in a passport, the notorious question number five: ethnic group, "Natsional'nost'" in Russian, 24:00"nationality," right?  That it was referred to as "nationality."  And it said "yevrey," "Jew."  And I asked my father, "Are we Jewish?  Are we Jews?"  Because I had a very vague, Orientalistic view of who Jews are.  They were one of those Oriental peoples.  I -- apparently Muslim.  And then, I read some tales of Soviet ethnic -- Soviet ethnic tales, a selection of little stories, parables, fairy tales from many peoples, Oriental.  Among them were Jews, Turkic Jews, Bukhari Jews, Tats -- whatever you call it in English, you know what I mean.  So -- well, I was astonished when I found out I was Jewish.  I asked dad, "Are we Jewish?"  He said, "Yes, we are."  I said, "Why -- why did you -- why didn't you ever tell me?"  And he said, "Did I tell you we were Russian?"  And actually, he didn't.  He just kept silent about it, so -- and 25:00then, my parents explained me that many people dislike Jews like many people dislike other peoples.  They never taught me it was some unique experience.  They explained to me that some people hate Jews just because there is such thing as xenophobia, not because Jews are some unique people hated by everybody.  I was never taught that way.  My parents told me, Some people hate some other people, and some peoples hate -- some people hate other ethnic groups, some people don't like Jews.  So, probably, you'll experience that.  You don't have to tell everybody that you're Jewish because the truth is we are, in fact, Russians.  We don't speak Hebrew, Yiddish, we don't know much about any Jewish tradition.  So, honestly, we are only Jewish because of anti-Semites.  So, 26:00that's why you don't have to really cry out loudly that you are Jewish.  But if you trust someone or if you just want to share this, you can say.  What makes us Jewish?  Practically nothing except for anti-Semitism.  That's what exactly -- I was indoctrinated this way.  That's what my parents told me.  And they say that the truth is that all peoples are equally good enough and all peoples are similar.  When I later discovered that some people of my parents' age believe that Jews are the smartest or something, I was like -- I laughed, "How come?"  It's -- it sound just irrelevant, unreasonable, then.  But I was still -- I had some zeal to understand what makes us a community if we are one?  I started to analyze last names.  They sounded like German, they were not 27:00declined into cases like Russian last names, stuff like that.  But it was very vague background, vague.  It was very vague background, not really that important.  I actually -- I almost never -- I don't think I ever experienced any anti-Semitism in Soviet Union.  I don't really think I -- you see, it takes effort to even remind yourself of that.  So, maybe I did experience something like that.  But my theory is that this is just a rationalization of generally aggressive impulses of people to each other.  So, that's it.  Why I'm talking about that?  (laughter) Just because you asked me about my experience of being Jewish, starting with the childhood.  That's why I remember -- from my childhood.  Then -- and this explains why my parents told me that the Barry 28:00Sisters were German.  This -- why this -- off-topic is.  That's why I'm explaining by that.

CW:  Yeah.

PK:  Okay, then I knew much more than Barry Sisters, because -- for many reasons.  First, perestroika brought some Yiddish pop music.  Then, I knew more about klezmer movement, international klezmer movement.  It was --

CW:  So, what was --

PK:  -- much later.  It was in -- already when Russia had KlezFests.  It was late '90s, early Y2K, whatever call -- the zero -- what's the good English --

CW:  Two thousands.

PK:  -- two thousands, right, so -- okay?  So, then, I was invited -- I was recommended by my friend, who could -- who was a teacher of Yiddish, Andrey Bredstein.  He's now in Texas, and -- in Austin, I think -- and he suggested, "Why don't you go to a KlezFest?"  Because I already was a songwriter by that time.  And some of my songs had references to Yiddish, or some Yiddish lines, 29:00or quotations, or some Jewish themes.  And he said, "You deal with this topic, why don't you go to KlezFest?  It's quite an interesting community, very strong and creative and very innovative.  You must be there.  You just must go there."  And I came there and I got acquainted with people.  And it's in Russia when I first met Frank London, and Michael Alpert, and Adrienne Cooper and Zalmen Mlotek and Merlin Shepherd.  It's in Russia when I first met those people and learned from them.  And it --

CW:  What did you --

PK:  -- yeah?

CW:  So, what did you -- what was your impression of the first KlezFest?

PK:  Something new, something vibrant, something optimistic.  Very international, very cosmopolitan, very universal, very diverse, very open, very free.  Both sophisticated and user-friendly.  Both deep and simple.  30:00Sophisticated, unique, but not elitist or snobbic.  We were -- the experience of being peers with your mentors, with your teachers, with your colleagues.  The experience of this exchange of information, creating teams, including -- new projects immediately were born, just in the process.  I found some personal friends and long-term colleagues with whom I now work, in many ways.  Create 31:00things.  So, it was a whole universe of people and -- which enriched my life with many new things.  It was associated with being a musician, and being a stranger, a traveler, a cosmopolitan, a trans-European universalistic wandering Jew, in general, meaning you don't have to be actually Jewish to experience this.  It's very universalist metaphor.  So, it's very -- felt much that the 32:00world is both small and big.  People are both similar and different.

CW:  So, when did you know that you wanted to be an artist?

PK:  I think more generally in my childhood, it was one of my daydreams, but it's all very vague.  It's more like daydreams of childhood.  I dreamt about being many other things, as well.  But later, in the end of '80s, when -- practically when some underground intellectual scene appeared in some profile nightclubs, which were some centers of alternative creative figures and 33:00intellectual post-bohemic milieus, right -- then, also very intense creative community was born in the Russian internet at that time.  Many writers were there, and poets and producers and scholars of some kind of internet world, which is referred to as "Runet," Russian net, and then I was part of this net and part of the nightclub net.  And all these things actually appeared in '90s, 34:00in the end of '90s.  And then, right at that point, I started traveling, 'cause I went to the United States as part of a program which was called JFDP, Junior Faculty Development Program.  I was kind of a teacher at that time.  I was teaching Russian literature and language, and my degrees are from Moscow University as a teacher of Russian language and literature.  Or in Russian, it's "filolog," philologist, right?  So then, I came to America to study how creative writing is taught in colleges and how this can be useful for Russian freshpeople courses in humanities, something like that.  And it was my project, 35:00and I spent about -- like, eight months in Lawrence, Kansas, where I took my first Yiddish classes.  Jonathan Paretsky at -- so -- and then, I met some other people who learned or taught Jewish studies and Yiddish, like -- what's his name?  Well, later, I'll come back to it, okay?  'Cause I'm just tired.

CW:  That's fine.

PK:  So, then -- it doesn't matter that much.  Or it does, but these are details.  Then, when I came back from the United States, back -- came back to Russia from the United States --

CW:  Can I ask what you thought of the United States?

PK:  Yeah, I mean, the United States were to me some kind of place where vertical hierarchies are apparently less important than in Europe, including Russia, in education as well as in everyday life, including what makes you smart in the perspective of other people.  It's not necessarily being acquainted with a canon, with a cultural canon.  Sometimes, it's like someone is an expert in -- just as an amateur.  He has read all poetry in all Scandinavian languages, and the other person is breeding a very unique breed of some kind of goat, which 37:00is very unusual.  Llama -- do we call it llama?  Such goat?  Right?

CW:  Yeah.

PK:  It's the right English word for it?  Some unique breed of llamas.  Llama -- to me, llama is Buddhist priest.  But it's homonym, right?

CW:  Yeah, yeah.

PK:  The same.  Okay, so some kind of llamas.  And some --

CW:  With the long neck.

PK:  -- other person -- yeah.  So, it -- llamas, the goat, a kind of goat.

CW:  Yeah.

PK:  And then, some other people are Ben and Jerry.  And everybody's smart in their way.  It actually fascinated me.  I felt really very positive about that, without denying what's there in Europe.  I love both things.  They go to me together like right and left hands.  Is -- it is not all I can say about America, but it's what came to my mind first, right, when you asked me --

CW:  Yeah.

PK:  -- my first experience.  Then, when I came back from America, I started 38:00to -- you asked me about how I --

CW:  Well, I --

PK:  -- hooked up with music, right?

CW:  Well, I -- we were talking about your becoming an artist, which I think we --

PK:  Yeah, when I came back from Americ-- I mean, when I came to America, I really started to work with clubs here.  I already was a little bit a singer-songwriter.  I met some people from Russian network, which dealt with urban folksong.  I mean, guitar poetry, songwriter -- song, Russian Bob Dylans, as it were.  And I went to such festivals and made close friends with such people and became part of this community.  And with this experience, I came back to Russia.  Well, and then in some point, I became a singing professor, 39:00maybe something like Tom Lehrer, because I wrote -- I played piano.  Tom Lehrer was an influence, too, when I was a kid.  My mother's colleague brought it from Canada or US, and I listened to Tom Lehrer, and Tom Lehrer was fascinating, because he was controversial in square.  He was both from America, which was controversial in Russia, and he was also controversial America-wise, because he was a political comic in America.  So, it was somehow twice subversive and twice -- therefore twice attractive.  It's off-topic but important.

CW:  Yeah.

PK:  And he was Jewish.  He was the Jewish version of -- I didn't think about him being Jewish, but now we are talking about that, we can analyze.  So, he's the Jewish version of -- he's a WASP-ified Jewish or something like that.  And 40:00he's both.  He's American, ironic in American left-wing way, and he's Jewish and international, cosmopolitan.  Rather secular, importantly.  All things that are attractive, and -- yeah.

CW:  Yeah.  So, why did you decide that you wanted to learn Yiddish?  When and why?

PK:  I mean, because that knowledge of Yiddish, not necessarily makes you great Yiddish poet.  It certainly does, but some lessons of Yiddish make no harm.  41:00I'm still on my way. 

CW:  So, I want to ask you a little bit about your specific projects.  Can you tell me about sort of the way that you use language in your work, the way you think about language?  Since you use different languages in much of your work --

PK:  Yes.

CW:  -- what is your thinking on that?

PK:  First of all, I -- when my most typical audience was Russian speakers, both in Russia and in Diaspora, most of my repertoire was my own Russian songs, with lots of references to Russian culture, and which actually implies some 42:00knowledge of it and -- or at least by language from the audience.  But interestingly, it does not necessarily imply this, because -- 'cause in this case, some -- my songs, technically, are full of quotations, references, wordplays, literature, quotations and references.  So, they are technically postmodern, because they are pastiche and sometimes they are -- they refer to high literature but, intentionally, they are very un-postmodern, because they -- in fact, they address hearts rather than minds, the nonverbal message.  The 43:00nonverbal message, the intuitive message.  The vibration, in many ways, is more important than these details.  These details are rather, for me, some kind of fuel which is supposed to be burned in the song.  For the audience, it's a bonus if they know it.  Also, they can share the experience of recognition.  Some people understand Yiddish, and I -- later, I decided to incorporate some foreign or alien or -- alien stylistically or linguistically foreign things, and then it enriched the whole show with this mode.  So, I enable the audience to share the experience of recognizing things.  Some people recognize the Yiddish nigun [tune] and some people recognize the reference to Pushkin.  Some people understand that the music is actually Schubert, "Ave Maria," and some people 44:00understand other things.  And they intuitive-- energetically, they share this -- the mood.  The mood.  So, the nonverbal message is rather important.  And speaking about foreign languages, they work much like spells.  They work much like nonverbal -- like music, we could say.  Like music, like sound art.  Like, they produce some kind of trance-like psychedelic effect of switching the audience to another mode, to another program.  And then, they enrich the whole space.  And if someone understands the language, it's a bonus.  So, I'm not demanding from the audience being educated in all these fields.  In this 45:00perspective, it's not postmodern art.  It's a different kind of practice.  And then, it's more about hearts.  It's song.  I'm songwriter, I'm a songwriter.  I address hearts rather -- and minds.  It -- it's not in opposition.  The heart and mind, they must go together like right and left hand.  They are friends.  And then, the other thing: at some point, I started to incorporate Yiddish, French more intensely, because they are spells, because they are foreign, and this emphasizing foreignness is important in this kind of art.  Musically important, poetically important, energetically important.  And then, I started to travel more, and when I entered the klezmer community, I worked more together with non-Russian-speaking musicians and songwriters, such as Daniel Kahn.  And then, my audience became less Russian, less necessarily 46:00Russian.  And then, sometimes Russian was decorative, ornamental spell-like language and English was the basic language.  Sometimes even Yiddish was the basic language, and this is a very interesting experience, of singing, performing, and sometimes even writing in a language that you are just making your first steps in.  But I've always insisted that, to me, this is -- I never pretend to speak Yiddish or even English better than I do in my song.  I -- most of my songs are translated into English by other people.  But the song that I translated from Russian to English by myself I never have proofread.  I prefer them to stay lame, probably, if they are, 'cause it's the true story about me and English, or it's a true story about me and Yiddish.  But today, I think so much for this true story -- probably why not just study Yiddish a 47:00little bit more profoundly?  I'm just -- I've just talked about that with Nikolai Borodulin here at KlezKanada.  I just asked him about, "Where can I learn more practical Yiddish online?"  And he told me about some pages in "Forverts" and, I mean, the point is that knowledge of Yiddish does not necessarily make you a good Yiddish poet.  Sometimes you feel it's time to learn more.  And KlezKanada is rather inspiring in this relation.  I -- today, here and now, I feel like studying more Yiddish, not only by singing.  Maybe by reading -- maybe by attempting some intense classes, maybe in attending some programs.  But I am so busy, it's so difficult to find time for that.

CW:  Yeah.

PK:  But it's not an excuse.  I mean, when I really feel it's a priority, you 48:00bet, I'll start and --

CW:  Yeah.

PK:  I'll do it.

CW:  What inspires you?

PK:  Three things.  I mean, where I take themes, where I take inform-- what inspires me?  Well, could you specify the thought?

CW:  Sure.  (laughs)

PK:  Yeah.

CW:  Well, maybe we can go through, but from what other artists do you draw inspiration?

PK:  From whatever moves me right now, right here, in general.  And the other answer is from my colleagues, friends, with whom I directly share the creative 49:00experience, with whom I am a -- one team.  Both.  But fortunately enough, these two groups much coincide. 

CW:  And more in speaking generally, what inspires you to keep making art?

PK:  It's -- I mean, I really love this.  I prefer it to any other job and to any other fun.  It's the best job and the best fun I could ever have, and they go together.  And it's both job and fun.  And mission, some kind of -- so, to me, it's not a question why yes, it's a question of why not?  It's -- why 50:00should I question this?  It goes without saying.  It's -- goes by default.

CW:  Yeah.

PK:  Am I answering the question --

CW:  Yeah.

PK:  -- about this, what inspires me?  So, I don't have to be inspired.  It just -- it's a flow, it's the flow of my life.

CW:  Yeah.

PK:  Yeah.

CW:  Do you have any -- or how would you -- what is different about the klezmer music scene than the other music groups, sort of communities that you've been in, if anything?

PK:  The difference.  It's a difficult question.  Each musical community has 51:00infinite amount, infinity, of features which makes it unique.  If we speak about klezmer ethno-musically, we will discuss a lot of features which make klezmer unique and which make klezmer community unique, the style of festivals, the style of education.  But we will also notice some similarities with other things, with other ethnic -- I mean, klez-- okay, some ethnic festivals, as far as I know, are more or less revivalist.  The contemporary klezmer movement, mostly, is very anti-revivalist, anti-nostalgia.  It's more about 52:00reactualization.  There is nothing to revive, nothing is dead here.  It's all act-- it's still topical.  It's still the agenda.  So, it's very good mood.  I really like this mood.  But I -- I'm not sure that other ethnic music, world music movements are not the same, 'cause I don't know much about -- for example, I heard some things about Roma-Gypsy festivals, which are very much the same.  I myself am part of -- I myself am part of a -- organizer team for the Russian American festival, which is called JetLAG, with LAG in Cyrillics for "lager," "camp," JetKamp, like KlezKamp.  But "lager" as in gulag, but this one is full of love, unlike that one.  So, the thing is that this festival is much about 53:00bringing many edges together: generation, tastes, different generation-biased tastes, Russian and international or American folk or rock music, which traditionally is -- traditionally Russian festivals in North America were very much bound to either folk or rock song.  But this festival is very open to many genres, from rock and folk to trance, psychedelic music, different kinds of cabaret, klezmer music, and world music.  So, it has many things in it.  That's why JetLAG.  That's why JetLAG.  It symbolizes this transition.  Transition, translation, sharing of meanings.  So, why I'm talking about 54:00that?  Could you please --

CW:  Yeah, we were talking about how the klezmer scene is different or not --

PK:  Yeah, so when I speak about this festival, it's very difficult to describe what it has in common with KlezKanada, for example, and what is different.  Lots of things are different and similar.  Lots of things are different and similar about festivals, about musical traditions, about people, about languages.  That's why -- about communities, which is good.  This feeling of being both similar and different is good.  That's why I feel -- hard enough to discuss peculiarities, because I don't know -- this -- it's human.  It's 55:00universal.  It's similar and different.  I'm very abstract, but this is as much as I can say about this at this point.

CW:  It's fine.

PK:  And people.  Klezmer festival is important because Frank London is here, because the -- all those people are here.  I can start talking about them and they will be the -- they will be examples.  But we can meet them at many other festivals, the same people, because it's not a ghetto music.  It's neither genre-wise nor culture-wise.  It's -- have many generations and languages and 56:00cultures, and klezmer music doesn't have to be Jewish, it doesn't have to be folk, it doesn't have to be music, maybe, and it doesn't have to be klezmer.  It -- it's many things.  (laughter)

CW:  How do you see the role of performing artists, artists in general, in transmitting culture?

PK:  Could you please repeat?  Sorry about that.

CW:  Sure.  No, it's fine.  How do you see the role of performing artists in transmitting culture?

PK:  They are agents.  They are translators.  They are transmitters of this virus, which the culture is, right?  They bring this virus.  They are the 57:00bacteria that really infect you.  We are, we are these bacteria. 

CW:  Do you consider yourself an activist?

PK:  At least I'm not a pacifist.  (laughs)

CW:  What would -- what are you an activist for?

PK:  For being sober, healthy, reasonable, creative, active, and -- I'm defining active through active -- it's a circle.  But anyway -- and being human -- I'm a humanist, I'm an activist for humanism, for contemporary -- I mean, not 58:00contemporary.  Humanism doesn't have to be contemporary.  It's -- I'm an activist for humanism, yeah.  For being people.

CW:  I'm -- just a few more questions.

PK:  Yeah.

CW:  Sorry.  (laughs)

PK:  Yeah.

CW:  How does being in this -- playing -- using -- having Jewish music be part of your art affect your own identity, if at all?

PK:  It's the metaphor of transcenden-- of transcending things.  It's a metaphor -- like the metaphors I talk about before, like JetLAG or traveling or other things like that.  It's a metaphor for otherness, but it's a metaphor for transcending all otherness, for overcoming borderlines and stereotypes and barriers and all kinds of thresholds.  It's a metaphor for being human and for 59:00being yourself.  So, even if I was not Jewish -- I mean, to me, it's not that much about my being Jewish.  Wandering Jew is much more than just being Jewish.  It means being human, being universal, being immortal.

CW:  What do -- what is the general interest in Jewish music in Russia today?

PK:  There is a huge interest, I believe.  It's one of -- it's world music.  There's a -- to start with.  There's a lot of interest in world music.  Yiddish Fest in Moscow, the festival of klezmer music and Yiddish song, is a very big event in the city.  It's probably -- it's even too pop, and it's still very sophisticated in terms of the line-up.  It's a -- line-up is the same kind 60:00as here.  Yeah.  So, it's not Jewish pop music.  It's the most interesting klezmer music what -- that is there, in Russia or in North America, or Europe -- systematically.  And there are other festivals like that, and concerts.  And normally, the music is released systematically and sold out and appreciated.  And it's -- it has a lot of traffic, all kinds of traffic. 

CW:  Yeah.  What do you like or what interests you about the Yiddish language itself?

PK:  It's a trans-European language, which embraces Germanic, Slavic, Semitic, 61:00partly Romanic roots and idiom, which is very playful, joyous, vibrant, di-- internally diverse and sexy and cool.  Attractive, inviting, so -- and Yiddish is a language where the Jew finds themselves as a universal figure, as a symbol -- as a controversial symbol of the German, as a controversial symbol of the Pole, as a controversial symbol of the Russian, of the European person.  So, as 62:00both other and the same, right?  So, it's traumatic.  But who said it shouldn't be traumatic?  It's traumatic and playful.  It's traumatic and optimistic, so -- and as in an old Jewish joke about circumcision, to begin with, it's beautiful. 

CW:  Is there anything that you want to add that I haven't asked about in terms of these topics you've been talking about?

PK:  The thing is that I remember my performance in the National Yiddish Book Center.  I even have a recording of this performance.  And it was initiated by my colleagues from both Judaic and Slavic studies, and it was very -- it was 63:00probably my best or one of my best-est English spoken performances ever, much due to the audience and to the space, to the whole vibe of the venue.  And I'd love to eventually come back.  And I love Hampshire and Amherst, and this is something that means much to me.  And I'm in synch and in touch, and that's what I feel during the interview with you.

CW:  Great.  I wonder if you have a -- any advice for someone entering the Jewish music scene?

PK:  If you are not a native Yiddish speaker or if you speak Yiddish not very 64:00good but still want to sing in Yiddish, one of the good options that I know is telling the true story about you and Yiddish.  Don't pretend to speak it better than you do.  Don't emphasize alienation, either.  Share the experience of being in love with Yiddish.  Tell the true story about you and Yiddish.  So, I'm not only speaking about singing in Yiddish, but I am also speaking about writing in Yiddish, because it's possible to write some minimalistic songwriter-style songs or poetry in Yiddish without big knowledge of it.  65:00Sometimes, it's -- makes no harm to have it proofread -- and not quitting studying it.  Keep going.  So, I mean, we have a huge heritage.  We have lots of European poets and songwriters such as Beyle Gottesman, Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman, and poets who lived throughout the whole 20th century, like Sutzkever, and lots of poets who are classics of early 20th century, of modernism, like Itzik Manger, and I am only speaking about the default names from several generations.  But this is a whole universe of uninvestigated names not yet fully translated, some not yet translated at all into some languages like Russian.  There is already a big amount of very user-friendly books, such 66:00as the big volume -- the selection of Yiddish American poetry, which is a bilingual book.  You can study Yiddish through it and study poetry.  But the best way, as I've been taught, as a kid and as a student, to study foreign language is to read poetry in the original, with dictionary, or in bilingual books.  So, now there is a lot of work of republishing and newly publishing Yiddish poetry and songs in bilingual editions.  So, this is very import-- and internet, of course.  Internet, with all its temptations and all its harms, the threat of being addicted and so on, has a lot of -- as I've been told just 67:00today, a lot of very flowy, spicy, groovy Yiddish sources, resources, where you can study playfully, comfort-ly, and enrich your outlook and enrich your Yiddishkayt, your mentshlekhkayt [humaneness], whatever.

CW:  Yeah.

PK:  Yeah.  Sorry for being that talkative.  It's just because my English fails me at this time.

CW:  No, it's perfect.  I wonder if -- (laughter) I don't -- and it's okay if you don't want to, but I wonder if you might sing something?

PK:  Oh, that's a good idea.  [BREAK IN RECORDING] (singing) "Der zeyde hot gehat aza min shtarkn kop./Er hot gevust az er vet keyn mol fun zinen nit arop./Gekent hot er gedenken,/vos er geveynen un vos tsu makhn,/un ikh hob 68:00ongehoybn tsu fargesn ale zakhn./Ikh freg zikh 'Tsi gedenkstu/epes fun a mol?' [My grandfather had a strong kind of mind./He knew he'd never go mad./He could remember what was,/and what had been and what to do,/but I have already started to forget everything./I ask you, 'Do you remember/anything from the years gone by?'], you're trying to remember but you're failing to recall.  Dokh bistu mir shoyn broygesn nokh a mol af zikh aleyn./Un dan hob ikh af dir rakhmones,/zog ikh dir, 'nit veyn.'/Du zolst gornit moyre hobn, mir zol zayn far dir./Dokh kenstu mikh derkenen, az du gist a kuk af mir./Un ven ikh dir derze, farshtey ikh oykhet ver iz hi,/un blaybn mir dokh glaykh vi 'akhtsik er un zibetsik zi.' [You are now angry at me, at yourself./I feel sorry for you,/I tell you, 'Don't cry.'/You should not be afraid, I'll be here for you./Surely you'll recognize me if you just look at me./And when I look at you, I, too, understand who is here./And we stay together like those, 'He is eighty, and she seventy.'].  U dedushki biila ochen' sil'naya golova./On gavoriil shto nikogda ne coydyot c uma./On pomniil vsyo shto biilo/e vsyo to chimu biivat./A ya prostiye veishi 69:00nachenayu zabiivat./Ya sprashivayu pomniishli [Russian: My grandfather had a strong mind./He told he will never go mad./He remembered all of what happened before/And what is about to come./But I have already started to forget simple things./I'm asking if he remembers] epes fun amol [anything from long ago].  You're trying to remember but you're failing to recall. E vot uze tii cerdiishcya mne na ciibya apyat./A ya tyebya ziileyu nachenayu utiishat./Ne boycya ne piichalcya chtob mne biilo za tyebya./Kogda tii smotresh na menya to znayesh eto ya./Kogda smatryu ya na tyebya, ya znayu et tii./E mii ctoboy kak vpecnii [Russian: And here you are angry at yourself again./And I am sorry for you and try to console you./Don't be afraid and sad,/when you look at me you know that it is me./When I look at you I know that it's you,/so we are as the two in that song], 'Akhtsik er un zibetsik zi.'  So very strong and healthy mind my dear grandfather had.  'I never gotta get insane,' that's what he always said.  He knew how to remember what was done and what was planned.  And me, I'm now forgetting what I am and where I stand.  I'm asking you if you 70:00remember this and this and this.  You're trying to recall, but it's so hard to reminisce.  Again, you're angry at yourself, you blame yourself again.  I'm trying to console you, but my efforts are in vain.  You do not have to worry, dear, mir zol zayn far dir [I am here for you], 'cause when you look and see me, then you know it's me who's here.  And when I look at you and see you, I know who's near me, like in that Yiddish song called 'akhtsik er un zebetsik zi'.  La-la-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la-la-la.  La-la-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la-la-la.  La-la-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la-la-la.  71:00La-la-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la-la-la."  It's the music -- is from a Soviet lullaby that grandmother sang to someone who's really dear to me.  That's it.

CW:  A groysn dank [Thank you very much].

PK:  Thank you very much.

CW:  Thank you.

[END OF INTERVIEW]