Wheelchair singer Yulia Samoilova will represent Russia at the Eurovision 2017 International Song Contest in Kyiv. Controversy erupted around her candidacy: is sending a girl in a wheelchair a noble gesture or manipulation? Teacher Tatyana Krasnova reflects on the news.
The editor of Pravmir asked me to write a column about Eurovision. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to complete this task. My hearing is arranged in such a way that I simply do not hear the music that sounds at this competition, perceiving it as a painful noise. This is neither good nor bad. This has nothing to do with snobbery, which I do not like either in myself or in others.
I listened to the representative of Russia — I confess, no more than two or three minutes. I do not want to talk about the singer’s vocal data. After all, I’m not a professional. I will not judge what kind of intrigue is (or is not) behind the trip to Eurovision for a girl with muscular dystrophy.
I want to tell you about something more important for me personally — about the Voice.
I first heard it many years ago, at night, when I went to the kitchen for a glass of water. The radio on the windowsill was broadcasting Ekho Moskvy, and there was a midnight program about classical music. «And now let’s listen to this aria performed by Thomas Quasthof.»
The glass clinked against the stone countertop, and it seemed to be the last sound from the real world. The voice pushed back the walls of a small kitchen, a small world, a small everyday life. Above me, under the echoing vaults of that same Temple, Simeon the God-Receiver sang, holding the Infant in his arms, and the prophetess Anna looked at him through the unsteady light of candles, and a very young Mary stood by the column, and a snow-white dove flew in a beam of light.
The voice sang about the fact that all hopes and prophecies had come true, and that Vladyka, whom he served all his life, is now letting him go.
My shock was so strong that, blinded by tears, I somehow wrote a name on a piece of paper.
The second and, it seems, no less shock awaited me further.
Thomas Quasthoff is one of about 60 victims of the drug Contergan, a sleeping pill that was widely prescribed to pregnant women in the early XNUMXs. Only years later it became known that the drug causes severe malformations.
The height of Thomas Quasthof is only 130 centimeters, and the palms start almost from the shoulders. Due to his disability, he was not accepted into the conservatory — he physically could not play any instrument. Thomas studied law, worked as a radio announcer — and sang. All the time without retreating or giving up. Then came success. Festivals, recordings, concerts, the highest awards in the music world.
Of course, thousands of interviews.
One of the journalists asked him a question:
— If you had a choice, what would you prefer — a healthy beautiful body or a voice?
“Voice,” Quasthoff answered without hesitation.
Of course, Voice.
He shut up a few years ago. With age, his disability began to take away his strength, and he could no longer sing the way he wanted and considered right. He couldn’t stand imperfection.
From year to year I tell my students about Thomas Quasthoff, telling them that in every person the limited possibilities of the body and the unlimited ones of the spirit coexist.
I tell them, strong, young and beautiful, that we are all people with disabilities. Nobody’s physical powers are unlimited. While their life limit lies much further than mine. By old age (may the Lord send each of them a long life!) And they will know what it means to weaken and no longer be able to do what they knew before. If they live the right life, they will find out that their soul has become stronger and can do much more than it can now.
Their task is to do what we started to do: to create for all people (however limited their opportunities) a comfortable and benevolent world.
We’ve accomplished something.
About ten years ago, my courageous friend Irina Yasina, endowed with completely limitless spiritual possibilities, organized a wheelchair ride around Moscow. We all walked together — both those who cannot walk on their own, like Ira, and those who are healthy today. We wanted to show how scary and inaccessible the world is for those who cannot stand on their own feet. Do not consider this boasting, but our efforts, in particular, have achieved the fact that more and more often you see a ramp at the exit from your entrance. Sometimes crooked, sometimes ill-suited for a clumsy wheelchair, but a ramp. Release to freedom. Road to life.
I believe my current students can build a world where people with more disabilities than most of us can NOT be heroes. Where they don’t have to applaud just for being able to get on the subway. Yes, entering into it today is as easy for them as it is for you — going into space.
I believe that my country will stop making superhumans out of these people.
It will not train their endurance day and night.
It will not force you to cling to life with all your might. We don’t have to applaud them just for surviving in a world created by healthy and inhuman people.
In my ideal world, we will live with them on an equal footing — and evaluate what they do by the very Hamburg account. And they will appreciate what we have done.
I think that would be right.
Article reprinted with the permission of the portal