JRT has undergone a long-awaited restoration, and although there is no evidence of it at the moment, since the beginning of the 1990s there was also a portrait of Eduards Smilģas on the wall of the building. The management of the theater has announced that they no longer plan to restore it.
As the reason for such a decision, the artistic director of the theater Alvis Hermanis cites the activity of Smilģas during the Stalin regime. He is said to have received Stalin’s bonuses and was a “diligent collaborator”.
“If we condemn and do not allow Russian artists in Latvia (for example, Mashkova, Mikhalkova, etc.) who support [Vladimiru] Putin, then it is not really clear why we accept our own people, who once acted identically,” emphasizes Hermanis.
Theater architect Zaiga Gaile also expresses a similar opinion, although initially she planned to restore the portrait in her project.
“Then why was he given that prize – he went to Moscow for guest performances and performed there, and the board of the Soviet Union liked him so much that they gave him the Stalin prize. It is collaborationism if. (Question: But why did you initially plan to restore this portrait in your project?) No one went into it at the time, and now due to the Russian war, I think we are quite sensitive to it,” says Gaile.
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However, the Smilģa museum says that there is no documentary evidence that the director collaborated with the Soviets. According to the researchers, Smilģis was no different from other public and cultural workers of that time, who were forced to live during the occupation.
“The fact that the awards – Smilgis also has the awards of the free state… At that moment, Stalin’s award, which was later transformed when Stalin was exposed, into a state award, was for many people. The famous composer Jānis Ivanovs for his 6th symphony, the Latgale symphony, Ādolf Skults for his ballets have a freedom brooch,” explains Jānis Siliņš, head of the Eduards Smilģas Museum.
In addition, the Stalin Prize was also awarded to Smilģi for works that we currently consider to be the canon of our culture, for example, the production of Raini’s play “Fire and Night”. At the same time, they are not sad about the portrait not being restored in the museum, because it had no cultural and historical value.
“The portrait of Bind is genius as a photograph, and I don’t think she actually needs to be on the wall of the building. There is no loss, because the theater can choose what it wants, because the scenery changes – some pieces of the scenery are kept, others are not,” says Siliņš.
Whether and what kind of new painting could be done on the house on Lāčplēša street is not yet known.
2024-01-29 20:07:29
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