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 Anna Gerasimova, aka Umka, singer (Russia), 23/04/2010
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Also known by her nickname Umka, Anna Gerasimova is a Russian rock singer and songwriter, the leader of the band 'Umka and Bronevik'. She is also a poet, literary translator, literature researcher, traveler and a significant person in the Russian hippie movement. Songs written and sung by Umka have become well-known among the Soviet hippies since 1986. But two years later, she stopped writing songs and switched to philological work and translations. As a professional philologist, Anna published scholarly articles on history of the Russian avant-garde literature. Her most significant published translations include Jack Kerouac's 'The Dharma Bums' (1994) and 'Big Sur' (2002). |
When you cried last time and, if no secret, for what reason? I try not to do that at all. My mother taught me not to. I don't think there is any freedom in crying - on the opposite, it means that you admit that the world is so cruel to you that you are helpless and there's nothing to do but cry. There's something opposite to freedom. Freedom means to be strong and constructive, to solve the problems and not to hide your poor head and cry, oh I'm a poor little thing, have mercy on me. I'm God's creature, His beloved baby. My grandfather used to say, "the baby shouldn't cry", it meant, "we'd better give the baby (me) everything she wants to make her happy". I've got everything. I've got my freedom not to cry.
There are some events during our life, when it seems as there is no way out. That could be tragic circumstances or such assessment of them. At that time, what's the thing to do? I try to step aside. Never hit the wall. All the walls like this are imaginable. Just step aside, don't mess into it. Due to this, I don't have a home of my own - several times, I preferred to step aside and not to "fight for my rights". I lost my home, but my freedom is with me. To be honest, I used to cry these times - I loved some things I'd left behind, my teddybears and everything. But it was long ago.
Could you please choose any event of last days, weeks or months, that has distressed you? It can be any happening on a local or international scale. How could you comment on it? I'm always distressed when I get to Moscow, my hometown. People are so tense there, the atmosphere so unfriendly. So I choose to step aside, once more: just to live somewhere else.
There's always a new danger watching for humanity in its way, always a new temptation we're ready succumb to. What's the danger of our days? And what's the way to avoid this trap? The main danger is is the mass media which is paid specially to keep people distressed. I don't want to talk about the people and corporations who actually pay for this, but they succeed, indeed. The task of a normal person is not to pay attention to the "danger propaganda", and just "cultiver son jardin", as Voltaire put it.
What are the main obstructions to apply humanities principles at our today's life? Could they be solved? Everybody must solve it himself. For himself. Save yourself by your own hands. Don't believe propaganda, don't depend on society, make your own thing as well as possible, do good to people, be kind to yourself. You are unique.
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