(The video begins with Prigov’s introduction, or preduvedomlenie, to the poem. These preduvedomleniia, whose purpose was to explain the concept animating the work, were a crucial part of Prigov’s artistic practice, so we have retained them here.)
As Prigov explains, his performance piece “Mantras of Russian High Culture” consists of reciting the first stanza of Alexander Pushkin’s Evgenii Onegin in various mantric styles: Buddhist, Muslim, African, Chinese, and Russian Orthodox. Despite the differences between these cultures, they have all produced traditions of mantric recitation, with similar anthropological bases. Performed here is the Buddhist version, which is the best-known.
Prigov’s recitation of Pushkin is an ironic play on the Russian tradition of reciting the opening of Evgenii Onegin, which this piece suggests has also become a mantra, its words so familiar to Russians that their meaning is no longer considered. The piece therefore makes use of the technique of ostranenie, “defamiliarization,” which the Russian Formalist critic Viktor Shklovsky argued was the main function of art. Reciting Pushkin’s poetry as if it were a Buddhist prayer defamiliarizes Pushkin, causing the listener to perceive his text afresh.
However, the “Mantras” cycle also connects with Prigov’s grand project of identifying the mythopoetic strains within the Russian/Soviet cultural imagination. In this context, Pushkin joins the policeman as a hero of Soviet culture.
Text (by Aleksandr Pushkin, Evgenii Onegin, ch. 1, st. I)
Мой дядя самых честных правил.
Когда не в шутку занемог,
Он уважать себя заставил
И лучше выдумать не мог.
Его пример другим наука,
Но боже мой, какая скука,
С больным сидеть и день и ночь,
Не отходя ни шагу прочь!
Какое низкое коварство,
Полуживого забавлять,
Ему подушки поправлять,
Печально подносить лекарство,
Вздыхать и думать про себя:
Когда же черт возьмет тебя!
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