Brief Lives

Andrey Voznesensky

A man of courage

Michael Elcock

Andrey Vosnesensky – 1 June 2010
My friend Anya Tchernakova sent me a note today to say that Andrey Voznesensky has died. Anya is a Russian film-maker, married to the English composer Gavin Bryars. Anya and I have often spoken of Voznesensky; particularly about the brilliant rock opera he wrote in the late 1970s.
     That work, titled 'Juno and Avos', is little known in the west, although one American TV network did try unsuccessfully to film part of a Moscow performance in pre-Glasnost days. It's a story about a forbidden love affair between the son of the Russian governor of Alaska and the daughter of the Spanish governor of San Francisco. A powerful, haunting tale based loosely on the character of it the early 19th-century Russian nobleman Nikolai Rezanov, it was, like much of Voznesensky's work, highly allegorical.
     I met Andrey Voznesensky at a small party in Glasgow in 1981. He was one of the very few 'real' Russian writers who were allowed to travel outside Russia, (the other major poet who was able to travel then was Yevtushenko), and he had brought with him a tape of the opera. He was not supposed to have it; the authorities had forbidden any and all recordings of the work to be taken outside Russia.
     Someone put the cassette on a Sony sound system, and the Glasgow flat filled with the sound of rich, Russian baritones and a soft, almost Spanish-sounding, contralto. The strength of the work silenced just about everyone in the room. Except for Voznesensky none of us understood the words, but the language was clearly immense, powerful, expressive. The whole thing sent tremors down the spine. Liz Lochhead was there, and so I think were Alasdair Gray and Tom Leonard.
     I spent an extraordinary hour with Voznesensky that afternoon, just the two of us – no one else there – sitting in a room, talking. It was a time when the whole Soviet system was demonised in the west. It seemed as if the world was full of hard liners – Thatcher in Downing Street, Reagan in Washington, Brezhnev in Moscow. Voznesensky was the human face of a different Russia; one that was alive and vibrant, desperate to escape from its political carapace.
     It's a conversation I have never forgotten. For me, and I think for him, that hour was one of those rare, almost telepathic connections. I never saw Andrey again, but I thought of him often.
     I hope Andrey Voznesensky was appreciated in Russia. I think he was, but he deserves to be much better known in the west. He was a wonderful, rare poet and he possessed extraordinary abilities and perceptions. As a man he was humble about his talents – and brave in a country and at a time when it was difficult to have courage.
     The world is poorer for his passing.

Note: The musical score for the opera called 'Juno and Avos' was as powerful as the libretto – which Voznesensky explained to us, since it was written, and sung, in Russian. You are invited to download it from the website: http://rezanov.krasu.ru/eng/roses/music.php

Michael Elcock was born in Forres and grew up in Edinburgh and West Africa. He emigrated to Canada when he was 21. He was athletic director at the University of Victoria for 10 years, and then CEO of Tourism Victoria for five.