I know - they weren't called the Red Army Choir any more. It seems latterly they were called the Alexandrov Ensemble - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandrov_Ensemble. But it doesn't matter what they were called. When their aircraft plunged today into the Black Sea today, killing 60 of them, the Red Army Choir was wiped out.
I am devastated by this loss, despite the fact that I only saw them perform live once, in Glasgow, and I find it hard to say why.
Okay, I studied Russian at one time and I know the Red Army Choir were seen as the front men for the USSR during the Cold War. But I grew up in a Socialist/Communist family which forgave Stalin a lot in the light of his defence of Europe against the Nazis. In my family, we admired the Red Army Choir and watched them on TV, and we respected people like Paul Robeson, a wonderful singer, who was denied recognition because of his political (Commie) views.
The Red Army Choir to me represented the ordinary people of the USSR. I'm quite sure they weren't that ordinary but they sang and danced and were recruited from all over the USSR. The crash in the Black Sea is just awful.
No comments:
Post a Comment