Georgy Sviridov’s philosophy of the national spirit

Reflections on the book by G.V. Sviridov ‘Music as destiny’

Abstract

The article considers the ideas of the national spirit expressed in a kind of literary work by the great Russian composer and thinker of the twentieth century, Georgy Vasilyevich Sviridov (1915–1998), in the book “Music as Destiny” (2nd ed., revised and expanded. M.: Molodaya Gvardiya, 2017. 795 p.). The notebooks of “Various recordings” have rightly become a revelation for his fans, the musical community and a wide readership, revealing the secrets of the soul and the mind of the thinker. The book itself has become a special document of the bygone Soviet era, its spiritual culture, the importance and rele­vance of which will only increase with time. In his “ephemeral” writings, the author man­aged to reflect something more than just his time. He looked far ahead and became an ex­ponent of the national spirit of the Russian people. In the conditions of a sharp decline in the level of culture, morality and humanity, the honest voice of a thinker in defence of the priority of moral choice and sincere human participation becomes truly prophetic. It sounds like a prophetic bell in defence of goodness, justice and life on Earth. Underes­timating culture’s role in society’s life, in forming its spiritual basis, is still having ad­verse effects today. For too long, culture has remained on the periphery. It has been seen as something secondary. Too often in recent decades, culture has been left to busi­nessmen, who have imposed on society a borrowed image of the “right” way to live. This image is alien to local traditions, historical experience and the values of multinational Russia. However, in the absence of an official ideology, culture, as the spiritual core of all peoples and social classes of the country, plays the role of the spiritual and values affir­mation of the new universal cultural identity of Russian society. It consolidates and pre­serves the spiritual community and integrity of this society, remaining as a common spiri­tual and value platform for the formation of the country’s future image. In such a si­tuation, culture is increasingly associated with the environment of the preservation and transmission of the spiritual heritage of the people. Recently, the world has been in the grip of a global instability, the adaptation to which has been a motive for the under­standing of losses and new discoveries. The world has begun to open up in a different way, and it has become clear how many mistakes have been made in the universal chaos, and how many tests still need to be passed in order to embark on the path that des­tiny has outlined for us. The thoughts of the prophet in his homeland, Georgy Vasilyevich Sviridov, became a guiding star for many people on the way to the understanding of the Motherland.