Navka's dance about the Holocaust has caused hysteria in social networks and the media. French readers' comments on the criticism of the navka dance on the Holocaust

The dance of Navka and Burkovsky about the Holocaust drew criticism in the Western media.

The dance performed by Tatiana Navka and Andrei Burkovsky in the Ice Age program caused a lot of criticism and misunderstanding. After the release of the next program, in which Navka and Burkovsky performed a number on the theme of the Holocaust, unflattering reviews about the topic and nature of the speech appeared on the network and in the Western press.

The main reason that some users and journalists began to write negative, and sometimes even offensive, reviews addressed to the participants of the "Ice Age" was banal ignorance and inattention. In this dance, it is striking that the dancers, dressed in the uniform of concentration camp prisoners with the Star of David on their chests, smile, have fun and seem to be fooling around. It may seem like a mockery of the Holocaust theme only to those who did not know that Navka and Burkovsky took the famous film, the tragicomedy of Roberto Benigni as the basis for their speech " Life is Beautiful", Which received three Oscars at once. According to the plot of the film, father and son end up in a Nazi concentration camp, where children and old people are killed in gas chambers. To save his son and protect him from all the horrors that are happening around, the father convinces the child that everything around is just a fun game. To become the winner of this game, you need to follow certain rules - do not cry, do not complain, do not ask for food, do not show yourself to the soldiers.

However, despite the fact that the film was designated in the speech as the main plot, some foreign media outlets, including CNN, BBC, The New York Times, The Guardian, published unflattering comments about the performance, without failing to say that Tatiana Navka is the wife of the press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov.

Tatiana Navka and Andrey Burkovsky dance "Life is beautiful" video

The famous figure skater Tatyana Navka, wife of the press secretary of the President Dmitry Peskov, performed a dance about the love of Nazi concentration camp prisoners as part of the Ice Age show on Channel One. Tatiana staged the number with comedian Andrei Burkovsky.

The dance was staged based on the Oscar-winning film Life is Beautiful by Roberto Benigni, which tells about the life of an Italian Jew, a prisoner of Auschwitz. Tatiana Navka wrote on her Instagram that "our children should know and remember about that terrible time."

Popular

The performance caused a wave of indignation on the Web, Russian and foreign media reacted sharply to the scandalous issue. “You’re crazy! Smiles in robes with yellow stars! The audience, bursting with applause ... No taste, no tact, no understanding ... Mediocre direction ", - writes an angry viewer (Spelling and punctuation hereinafter are copyright. - Approx. ed.). Tatiana's subscribers made a serious argument, and the majority were inclined to believe that "such a performance has no place on television."

Alla Gerber, President of the Holocaust Foundation, tried to cool the critics on the air of the Moscow Says radio and said that the issue should not be taken so unambiguously. “The topic is so sore, so bloody that how to address it, what are the criteria? First of all, it seems to me, this should not be a mockery, it should not be irony, there should not be a crooked smile. "

Tatiana Navka was surprised at the criticism and commented on Life.ru: “I am surprised, of course, by the reaction. Probably, people have not watched this wonderful film Life is Beautiful, which won awards at the Cannes Film Festival and won three Oscars. Honestly, I have nothing to say. This is not the first time that the theme of war has been raised in our project; personally, this is not the first time I skate a number in the clothes of concentration camp prisoners. This is our creativity, and before it somehow did not cause any reaction in the world. This means that we make people think. "

The head coach and producer of the Ice Age show Ilya Averbukh also spoke about the show: “This number is my idea. I have done a lot of numbers on the military and Jewish theme, of completely different characters. In the previous program, we had a stunning number of Catherine Barnabas - an Armenian lullaby, also about tragic events. But no one paid attention, apparently because it was not Tatiana Navka who performed it. And that's the whole answer. When you live away from this, you think that maybe ours are exaggerating, distorting ... But the Daily Mail in this article publishes completely unverified facts. But this is not some newspaper, but one of the first publications in the country. "

Figure skating has unexpectedly become a new stumbling block and cause for high-profile disputes between Russia and the West. And we are not talking about major sporting events, but about one issue from the television project "Ice Age".

On November 26, 2016, in the next episode of the Ice Age program, steam Tatiana Navka - Andrey Burkovsky presented the number "Beautiful That Way", in which the participants appear as Jewish prisoners of a Nazi concentration camp. The number received the highest points from the judges of the project.

In the West, this issue attracted unexpected press attention. The reason, first of all, was the partner: Tatyana Navka, the Olympic champion in sports ice dancing, is the wife press secretary of Vladimir Putin Dmitry Peskov.

In the Western media, the issue was considered "tasteless" and admitting an incorrect tone in relation to the victims of the Holocaust.

"Have sunk to such lows for the sake of glory"

“The wife of Vladimir Putin’s press secretary has been criticized for dancing on ice about the Holocaust,” is the headline given by Time.

"Tatyana Navka, the wife of Putin's aide, drew criticism with her performance on ice on the Holocaust," writes The Huffington Post.

CNN TV channel cited the words Jeremy Jones, Director of Foreign Relations, Australian Council for Israel:"The frivolity that led to the decision to stage this number is maddening ... Once they are forgotten as skaters, they will be remembered as people who have sunk to such lows for the sake of fame."

Russia Today TV channel published a commentary by the chief rabbi of Moscow, chairman of the Council of Rabbis of Europe, head of the rabbinical court in the CIS and Baltic countries Pinchas Goldschmidt:“I would like to believe that the dance directors wanted to convey the will to live and the best hopes of the concentration camp prisoners. Many people liked it, but many of them touched the dance. Because the Holocaust and everything connected with it is too big a wound. It will take a long time to heal. There are almost no Jewish families in which none of their ancestors would have suffered from Nazism, would not have worn yellow stars, as on the costumes of figure skaters. It was necessary to take care of the feelings of the victims and their families. Ask for advice. Probably, the intentions were good, but each nation has its own pain, and you need to try not to hurt the quick. I would not like to see anti-Semitism here. "

Some Russian users of social networks also reacted quite emotionally, among which, however, there were quite a few Ukrainian ones:

"Do they really think that everything is normal?"

"Ernst in the furnace"

"In Germany, they would definitely give a term"

“It's time to ask Santa Claus for a fence with Mordor. I don't see any more options "

"You can only discuss skates"

Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov said: “I don’t think this is a question that somehow concerns the Kremlin, and because of my work I am significantly limited in my ability to comment on this. I am proud of my wife. That's all I can say. "

The reaction was extremely emotional. the official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia Maria Zakharova. On her Facebook page, she wrote: “I would, but they will be banned ....

Haaretz, the Daily Mail, the Huffington Post and dozens of others have all written about the Holocaust-themed dance piece performed by Tatyana Navka.

They didn't like the room! The image of the prisoners of Auschwitz, you see, is not as embodied on the ice as it should be. Defenders of Tolerance? Nothing like this! Hypocrites and liars. Moreover, cowardly hypocrites and liars, fulfilling a political order.

Where are you all hiding when monuments to those who fought the Holocaust are being demolished in Europe? For 30 years in the Baltics they humiliated WWII veterans, denying citizenship - you, ..., where were you? It was you who mocked the victory parade in Moscow in 2015, calling it “a manifestation of militarism”. And when in Ukraine shaven guys with a swastika and torches are marching, which way do you turn away? And where do you scatter when the Waffen-SS legionnaires are parading? And when in Poland officials announced that Auschwitz was liberated by the Ukrainians, and not by the Soviet troops, thereby insulting the memory of soldiers of many nationalities, why did you not point out to them the inadmissibility of politicizing the immortal feat?

Then you were all silent. You can only discuss skates. "

What really happened

Tatiana Navka herself said in an interview with Life: “This is not the first time that the theme of war has been raised in our project; it is not the first time that I skate a performance in the clothes of prisoners of concentration camps. This is our creativity, and before it somehow did not cause any reaction in the world. This means that we make people think. I hope that many people simply have not seen this film, and when they do, they will see our wonderful number with different eyes, ”she added.

The idea of ​​the number shown by Navka and Burkovsky belonged to Ilya Averbukh, vice-champion of the Olympics and world champion in ice dancing, and now a successful producer of ice shows.

In the Ice Age project, he acts as a trainer and producer.

The number represents a reimagining of the film Roberto Benigni Life is Beautiful, which in 1998 won the Grand Prix of the Cannes Film Festival and two Oscars.

According to the plot of the film, the Italian Guido, a Jew by nationality, finds himself in a concentration camp with his son. Trying to protect the child from the horrors, Guido explains to his son that everything that happens around is a game. A boy in it needs to score 1000 points to get the main prize: a tank. Points are given with the unconditional observance of a number of rules: it is forbidden to appear in front of the soldiers, cry, complain and ask for food. The child trusts his dad, despite death, pain and blood around him.

At the end of the film, the prisoners are freed, the boy is reunited with his mother, but his father is killed by the Nazi.

For the number of Navka and Burkovsky, the music was taken from the film "Life is Beautiful". As in the film, the main character dies in the room: machine gun fires are heard, and he disappears into the darkness.

"90% of the speakers did not see the number at all"

Ilya Averbukh reacted very harshly to the criticism of the issue: “90% of the speakers did not see the number at all, they do not understand what was being discussed. For such people, I am ready to explain once again: the theme of the program was "world cinema", the number was staged entirely based on the great film "Life is Beautiful" directed by Roberto Benigni, which received three Oscars. The family ends up in a concentration camp, where, in order to save their child, they play out a story throughout the film that it's all just a big game. For those who did not watch the movie, specially for 15 seconds a text sounded, a direct quote from the film, when Tanya and Andrei really stood with faces full of grief, where it was said: "Son, this is just a game." It was for him that this number was played, in which there was everything: a dramatic story, and a struggle, and ridicule, and the severity of the loss when Andrei dies, leaving his family. This is an exceptional movie quote. An absolutely normal reaction associated with the fact that you really want to bite. There is a direct road: Navka - Peskov - Putin. That's all. A photograph has been snatched where people in concentration camp prisoners' clothes are smiling. Without thinking about anything, we can just as well snatch a frame from the movie "The Great Dictator" Charlie Chaplin, where he portrays Hitler, this level is exactly the same, just to yap. "

Borukh Gorin, Head of the Public Relations Department of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia in an interview with Interfax he said: “The turn that the discussion of this issue took - an attempt to condemn it from ideological or moral positions - seems to me completely inappropriate, since the reference to the Holocaust theme as such, especially with artistic comprehension, when performers associate themselves with victims , worthy of all respect and gratitude ... All the condemning reactions that we have witnessed are not just exaggerated, but catastrophically exaggerated ... To talk in 2016 about whether it is worth creating different kinds of works on the Holocaust is all the same, what to argue about whether the wind is needed. This is, and this is part of the cultural space ”.

Daily Mail "replaced" Navka Totmyanina

And the last thing. The British newspaper Daily Mail, which considered the smiles on the faces of Navka and Burkovsky inadmissible, because they "do not fit well with the monstrous theme" of the Holocaust, managed to make a gross mistake in the material. In the material on the website, under the photograph with the explanation "Peskov's wife is to the right of Putin", there was a photograph in which not Tatyana Navka is standing next to the president, but Tatiana Totmianina. She is also a figure skater, also an Olympic champion, but not Dmitry Peskov's wife, but figure skater Alexei Yagudin... It is clear that the Daily Mail knows little about Russian beauties and Olympic champions. But maybe then you shouldn't talk about what you don't understand?

The dance was staged on the basis of the Oscar film "Life is Beautiful" by Robert Benigni, which tells about the life of an Italian Jew, a prisoner of Auschwitz.

Photo: DR

Tatiana Navka's recent performance on the Ice Age program caused a huge wave of discussions. It's not about the skater's impeccable technique or difficult jumps, but about the topic of the performance: the number of Navka and Andrei Burkovsky was dedicated to the Holocaust. Dressed in striped robes, with the Stars of David on their chests, they depicted the prisoners of Auschwitz during an ice dance. Many considered such a performance frivolous, and journalists and public figures considered the smiles on the skaters' faces and their cheerfulness almost an outrage against the memory of the victims of the Holocaust. The British edition of the Daily Mail dedicated a whole to Navka, in which journalists quoted users' statements about the issue. “Vladimir Putin should oblige Tatyana Navka to apologize for her speech,” “Have you forgotten how people suffered during the war?” The other part concentrated on the figure skater's Instagram: Tatyana posted photos from the performance, noting that it had become one of her favorites, and advising everyone to show it to the children. “Beasts, dance and have fun in the costumes of concentration camp prisoners, you will be responsible for this, cow,” they immediately wrote to her under the picture. “You hit the ice and hit your head ?! The Holocaust is not a topic that can be used for entertainment, ”subscribers scribbled. At the same time, there were those who, in the comments, thanked Tatiana for her performance, because she "does not allow people to forget all this horror." The skater herself does not see anything offensive in the issue and assures that it is dedicated to the film by Roberto Benigni “Life is Beautiful”. In this picture, the parents trapped in a concentration camp assure the child that everything that happens is a funny game. According to Tatiana, that is why the skaters smiled while skating - it was feigned gaiety that the heroes of the film had to play.

But the point here is not even the smiles of Navka and Burkovsky: if they were sliding on the ice with mournful faces, this would hardly have changed the situation. The problem is as old as the world - we just still cannot decide which topics can be used in popular culture and which cannot. There is no one standard, so everyone speaks for himself: someone is insulted by skaters in the uniforms of prisoners of Auschwitz, and someone considers this an excellent reason to remind mankind of a terrible tragedy. What some call an outrage over values, others consider a creative act that no one has the right to prohibit, otherwise it is censorship, restriction of personal freedom and creativity, and the like. When Pussy Riot danced in the temple, many public figures fiercely defended the human right to dance anywhere and talk about anything, and if it hurts your feelings, it’s only your problem. So Tatyana Navka danced - therefore, it is absolutely unclear what claims to her may be from those who previously advocated creative freedom. It turns out that we can furiously demand our own freedom, but we have not yet learned to respect someone else's - be it freedom of thought, speech, or even ice dancing.