Posted on 12/24/2018 6:03:06 PM PST by CondoleezzaProtege
Many people this holiday season will experience the joy of attending a local performance of The Nutcracker ballet by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Its the most implausible American tradition imaginable, an import from fin-de-siècle Russia straight to your hometown. Its living proof of the capacity of music and the art of dance to leap the bounds of time and space and delight us forever.
Perhaps some viewers own children will perform in it, and thats part of the appeal.
What theater goers dont entirely realize is that they are watching something even more wonderful than what they see. In this one ballet, we gain a picture of a prosperous world that emerged in the late nineteenth century, was shortly shattered by war and revolution, and then was nearly killed off by the political and ideological experimentation of the twentieth century.
Think of it: This ballet debuted in 1892. The generation of Russians living in St. Petersburg that saw it for the first time were experiencing a level of prosperity never before seen in history. It was the same all over Europe, of which Russia was considered a part.
(Excerpt) Read more at tucker.liberty.me ...
I was in Moscow in December, 1981 and I attended The Nutcracker at the Bolshoi Ballet one evening. I wonder if it was the same performance that you saw.
As the Cold Warriors hoped and worked for, communism as the dominant political force is gone from Russia, but Christianity is still there.
Cathedral of Christ the Savior, Moscow. Originally built in 1881, razed on Stalin's orders in 1931, rebuilt after Communism fell.
Unfortunately a few steps away from Christ the Saviour cathedral remains Lenin’s embalmed body on open display - smack in the center of Red Square.
And even more unfortunately, because enough ‘collusion’ was the rule between key Orthodox church leaders (the ones who didn’t end up in the Gulag) and Stalinists/KGB during Soviet times - the legacy still remains. A lot of ex KGB members merely switched their badges for crosses and church garb. Not *all* are like that, but enough...
Hence why Ukrainian Christians broke from the Moscow patriarchate this year.
What were you doing with Commies in LA, working undercover for the FBI?
Working undercover for Young Americans for Freedom (YAF)
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