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Probably, each of us has experienced at least once a quiet feeling of inner disagreement, protest: what I am doing now (or what I am being offered) is wrong, does not suit me, I do not like it. Such a feeling is a sure sign that something needs to be changed, corrected, resolved. Unless, of course, this voice is not silenced. Actress Yana Sexte, yoga teacher Elena Ulmasbayeva, screenwriter and artist Leonid Barats comment on phrases that help them hear themselves.
«They won’t be sent further than Siberia!»*
Yana Sexte, theater and film actress
With these words, my teacher Oleg Pavlovich Tabakov supported me in a difficult moment of my life. After graduating from the Moscow Art Theater School, I, a Latvian, came to work at the Riga Russian Theatre, where I was obliged to sign an enslaving, from my point of view, contract. I rebelled.
And she told Oleg Pavlovich with all her maximalist vehemence that the treaty was contrary to basic human rights. Tabakov grinned and said: “Come on, Sexte, they won’t be sent further than Siberia!” The conflict, of course, did not please him, but he understood exactly why I went for it. In his words, I heard: fight for what you believe in. Don’t compromise with yourself.
Now this is my life credo. It helps to overcome fear and openly declare one’s position. On the other hand, there is a bitter irony in the phrase, because «Siberia» — if we talk about imprisonment or other measure of coercion — can be a terrible test. But I really want to believe that no external circumstances will force me to stop being myself and change my principles. I hope I never have to check it out. Only on stage. And in that battle, by the way, I won: the contract was corrected.
“Live according to your conscience and do what you want!”
Leonid Barats, actor, director, screenwriter, one of the founders of the comic theater «Quartet I»
Mikhail Mikhailovich Zhvanetsky uttered this phrase at the thirteenth birthday of his son Mitya. In me, she immediately responded, turned out to be relevant. Do what you want. Someone always lives like this, but for me it is an acquired knowledge. I realized that I do a lot not because I want to, but because it needs to be done. Or out of shyness, out of awkwardness.
Some people get married sometimes because of embarrassment. A girl came up, looked at you, and it’s already embarrassing for you not to invite her to dance. Tomorrow you are already transporting her parents to the dacha, and there you will get married. And you live like this — out of embarrassment. Not because you want it. But because some third, leftist circumstance forced me to do it.
This understanding came to me rather late, in connection with a divorce and unsuccessful attempts to take into account the interests of many close people. Parents, children, women. What is good for one, is uncomfortable for another, bad. When you do what you want yourself, everything is built by itself. It’s more honest, and most importantly, I don’t want and won’t do anything criminal or unscrupulous. I have been educated so much.
Someone may manage to lull or lose their conscience, but it is firmly implanted in me and, unfortunately, never sleeps.
«Better to die standing than to live on your knees»
Elena Ulmasbayeva, Iyengar yoga teacher
I heard this phrase as a schoolgirl: then Dolores Ibarruri** lived in the USSR, and a lot was said about this passionate woman, about her struggle for justice. But I did not consider her words in a political context. They just turned out to be consonant with my understanding of how to live.
As a child, I had the feeling that close people take me into account very little, they don’t care what I am and what I want. And I often put up with it. But in situations of choice, when I was offered to do something, in my opinion, dishonest, to speak out or to make some kind of compromise that humiliates me, I always remembered this phrase. Maybe I had a heightened sense of justice and some kind of painful honesty, but I never knew how to live by double standards.
When I started teaching yoga in 1989, which few people knew about, it was an extremely strange, impractical choice, going against the current. In the difficult 90s, dad said: your friend’s mom is the chief accountant in a bank, let her arrange you there. But it seemed to me physically impossible to do what my heart does not lie in, to give up something important for myself. I saw my mission in this lesson.
In general, I am close to people who act not for the sake of profit, but for the sake of an idea. Like Joan of Arc or the same Dolores Ibarruri. “To live on your knees” means to be like everyone else, to follow the beaten path. And independence is important to me. Therefore, if there is some pressure on me that distorts me, then I prefer to stand, not to distort. With age, the ruffiness and combativeness soften a little, and this phrase does not guide me now, but it made me who I am.
* A popular expression that reflects the realities of Russian history: starting from the XNUMXth century, criminal and political prisoners were massively exiled to Siberia.
** Dolores Ibarruri — Spanish communist, during the Spanish Civil War she opposed the nationalists and called on the world community to prevent the onset of the fascist Franco regime in Spain. A phrase from a speech by Dolores Ibarruri at a rally in Paris (September 3, 1936).