Memoirs of Azarius Plisetskiy. Every new day as a gift

MOSCOW. AST publishes memoirs of Azaria Plisetskiy.

The stalls of all bookstores are littered with the recollections of stars and those who fancy themselves as such. A secret, awkward, meaningless and merciless simple-mindedly falls out in front of meticulous television interviews. PR, money, oblivion - but you never know the reasons that can inspire spiritual strip. Only in isolated cases do memoirs leave a warm feeling in the soul from contact with the amazing fate of a worthy person. "Family Chronicles of the Plisetskys and Messerers" - from among them.

Azary Plisetskiy is a famous and respected name in the ballet world. Participation in the creation of the National Ballet of Cuba, many years of work there as a leading soloist, teacher, choreographer. Collaboration with Roland Petit, Maurice Bejart, Mikhail Baryshnikov, John Neumeier, George Balanchine’s school, productions and master classes in opera houses in Tokyo, Sofia, Madrid, Montreal, Kiev, Rome, Paris, Stuttgart, Moscow, St. Petersburg. Work in films and on television.

In recent years, Plisetskiy lives in Lausanne, which has become a happy city for him. Here he met his wife, Doctor of Science, Professor of the Federal Polytechnic School (EPFL), Liubov Kiwi-Minsker. Their first fleeting meeting took place in Novosibirsk, where she then lived and taught at NSU. But the family union was formed precisely in a quiet Swiss city. Azary Mikhailovich has been working as a tutor-tutor at the famous school-studio of Maurice Bejart (Rudra Béjart School Lausanne) almost since its founding in 1992.

“Rudra” is an international school, in which future ballet stars dream of getting into. Education in it is free thanks to the support of private foundations and companies. Here they teach not only the art of dance, but the ability to adequately meet any test, to respect the rights and characteristics of other people. Sublimating your emotions and feelings not into aggression or negativity, but into a desire to work more on yourself and achieve your goals.

Azarius Plisetskiy adheres to these principles all his life, full of tragedies, sharp turns and unthinkable gifts of fate. Each new lived day he accepts as a gift. A boy who never saw his father and was born three months after his arrest in 1937. Mikhail Plisetskiy was a diplomat, consul general of the USSR on Spitsbergen. The Arktikugol Trust, led by him, has been mining black gold at the Barentsburg mine since November 1932. As part of a group of Soviet polar explorers, there was also an older sister Azaria, seven-year-old Maya. Having survived intolerable torture, he confessed to non-existent crimes only for the sake of the opportunity to find out that he had a son.

Soon, his father was shot, and his mother, a silent movie star Rachel Messerer, with a baby in her arms was sent to ALZHIR - Akmola camp for the wives of traitors to the motherland. Aunt Azaria, the famous ballerina Sulamith Messerer, managed to rescue her sister from this disastrous place and achieve transfer to a settlement in Chimkent.

And then - a big life. Red diploma of the Moscow Choreographic School, signed by Galina Ulanova, refusal to distribute to Bolshoi - “too many Plisetskys in one theater”. Duet with Lepeshinskaya, departure to Cuba, successful career abroad.

Plisetskiy’s memoirs are a story about ballet, a large family, losses and love. The life story of a worthy and very talented person, grateful to those who were near, cared, saved, taught, opened new horizons.

Elena Tanakova © Gallerix.ru