Galloping Gypsy
  • Home
  • Contact
  • Blog
  • About
  • Music
    • Repertoire
  • Events
  • Links
  • Gallery
  • Blog 2

25 Years since the Soviet Coup

24/8/2016

0 Comments

 
Basically, I’m taking this month off, but I couldn’t resist a comment on the anniversary. In August 1991, I was back at home in the States on a summer break between two academic years teaching in Slovak high schools. I was about to fly back there when it was announced that hardliners had seized power (to some degree) while Mikhail Gorbachev was on vacation at a Crimean dacha.

Back then, the Soviet Union bordered on the easternmost part of Czechoslovakia. A little antsy about the consequences for my stay in that former East Bloc country, I spoke with a friend on one of those scratchy trans-Atlantic phone calls of the day. She and others were a bit apprehensive about matters, she said, but, after all, the last Soviet soldiers had already departed Czechoslovakia that spring.

And I recall Christmas Day, 1991, sitting in an armchair in my Slovak landlady’s apartment, watching the Soviet flag being lowered from the Kremlin for the last time. The dissolution of the behemoth was a major consequence of the failed coup.

I’m also reminded of my first time in Russia, in St. Petersburg in the summer of 1995. As my date and I were seated, waiting for a performance of Swan Lake, she told me about the ballet’s famous “Dance of the Little Swans,” in which four ballerinas lock arms and step in unison: “Shortly after the coup, a TV channel produced a parody with faces of the four main coup leaders superimposed on the dancers. Because, you see, all they showed on TV during the coup was Swan Lake.”

As I later learned, such broadcasts were typical of the Soviet era during times of turmoil or uncertainty. I posted about a similar reference to Swan Lake a year and a half ago (it's a few "short takes," so you'll have to scroll down a bit).

Russian Life has just published a good re-hash of the events of August 1991. (I once wrote an article on medieval Russia for them, by the way, but it’s not available online.)

I’ve searched diligently for the Swan Lake parody, with no luck, but here’s a video of the “Dance des petits cygnes” from YouTube.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014

    Musical & Literary Wanderings of a Galloping Gypsy

    Mark Eliot Nuckols is a travel writer from Silver Beach Virginia who is also a musician and teacher.

    Categories

    All
    Austria
    Birthday
    Central Europe
    Czechoslovakia
    Czech Republic
    Folk Music
    Francis Ferdinand
    Grand Budapest Hotel
    Hungary
    Martin
    Mozart
    Music
    Pécs
    Prague
    Requiem
    Sarajevo
    Slovakia
    St. Cecilia
    Stefan Zweig
    The World Of Yesterday
    Vienna
    World War I

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly