Pavel Kushnir | |
|---|---|
| Павел Кушнир | |
| Pavel Kushnir in 2015 | |
| Born | 19 September 1984 Tambov, USSR |
| Died | July 27, 2024 (aged 39) Detention center in Birobidzhan, Jewish Autonomous Oblast, Russia |
| Citizenship | Russia |
Pavel Mikhailovich Kushnir was a Russian political activist, pianist, and writer. He is the first political prisoner in the history of the Russian Federation to die during a hunger strike.
Biography
Early years
Pavel Kushnir was born in Tambov on September 19, 1984. His father, Mikhail Borisovich Kushnir (1945–2020), was a musician and a teacher at a children's music school, who developed his own method of teaching music to children, widely used in music schools in Russia.[1] His mother, Irina Mikhailovna Levina (born 1944), was a music teacher. His paternal grandfather was a singing teacher and a conductor of the choir,[2] his grandmother was an accompanist. Pavel started to play piano at two, and then studied at a music school in Tambov. At the age of 17, Kushnir performed the complete cycle of 24 Preludes and Fugues by Dmitry Shostakovich.[3]
True art can take place in a dorm room. At five in the morning, in the presence of two homeless guys and a room full of drunk bodies, you can brilliantly play Debussy's prelude on a keyboard doused in alcohol and set on fire, and see tears streaming from the eyes of the homeless.
In 2002, he graduated from the Tambov Music College and entered the Moscow Conservatory, studying under the People's Artist of the USSR, Victor Merzhanov. He graduated from the conservatory in 2007.[4][5]
Kushnir wanted to continue his studies in the conservatory, but refused to play a piece from a Shumann's phantasy during the trials, because "it would broke his program". He moved to Ekaterinburg and enrolled to the aspiranture of the Urals Mussorgsky State Conservatoire. According to his friend, he was on a "different level", and had conflicts with some people on the faculty. After two years of studies, he was falsely accused of theft, and left the Conservatoire.[1]
Career as a pianist
He worked as an accompanist at the Tambov State Music and Pedagogical Institute. After graduating from the conservatory, he moved to Yekaterinburg for two years, then worked for seven years in Kursk and three years in Kurgan.[3] In 2023, Kushnir became a soloist with the Birobidzhan Regional Philharmonia by invitation from the Philharmonia director.[5]
HHe made very few recordings. He recorded the cycle of 24 preludes by Rachmaninoff. Musicologist Mikhail Kazinik praised this performance, noting that "he demonstrated the development of Rachmaninoff's ideas, and he purified it from all overlays, from any pop stylings — he made it crystal clear".[6][2] For the Bira radio station, Kushnir recorded a cycle "Mazurkas on Wednesdays", for which he performed and analyzed 51 out of 58 Chopin's Mazurkas.[1]
Activism and performances
Pavel Kushnir was involved in civil activism. In 2010, together with a friend he "protested against the heat, walking around the city in winter clothes in 40-degree heat". For a poetic event, he wrote poems in the constructed language Na'vi from the Avatar. He participated in the protests on Bolotnaya Square in 2011-2013, pickets against the war in Donbass and the annexation of Crimea in 2014, and distributed anti-war leaflets in Birobidzhan in 2022, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In 2022 and 2023, he hold hunger strikes, the longest one for 100 days.[2]
Arrest and death
Kushnir had a small YouTube channel, named "Inoagent Mulder", with only five subscribers and four videos. The channel was called after FBI agent Fox Mulder, from Kushnir's favourite TV series The X-Files. He was arrested for these videos, where he called the Putin's Russia a "fascist state" and the Bucha massacre a "a disgrace to our homeland",[3] and accused on "the article on public calls for terrorist activity" (Template:Lang-ru). His case was unknown for human rights activists. He died on July 27, on the fifth day of a dry hunger strike.[2] He became the first political prisoner in modern Russia to die of hunger strike.[7]
His friends think that he was beaten in jail, but his mother insisted on a cremation without further investigation. Pavel and his mother and brother had an opposing views regarding the war and Russian politics; few years before he even had a fight with his brother and then had no contact with the family for two years. The were eleven people at the ceremony in Birobidzhan; his body was then sent to a crematorium in Khabarovsk. His mother and brother did not attend the farewell.[3]
Legacy and publications
Kushnir was almost unknown during his life. He did not seek fame as a musician, and made very few recordings. He believed that the arts should be free to the audience, and refused to advertise himself.[1] He preferred smaller cities, and wanted to stay in Birobidzhan for 12 years.[3] He though that he had more freedom outside of the capital, and hoped that there he can avoid playing on state pro-war concerts. After his death, his friends start writing about his overlooked genius.[3][1]
His first book, Russian cut-up ("Русская нарезка"), was published in 2014 as print-on-demand by small German publisher Za-Za Verlag, and was completely unknown. Made in the cut-up technique, the book consists of Kushnir's diary and pieces of multiple World War II novels. The book was written as an anti-war manifesto after the 2014 war on Donbas; Kushnir compared it with the "arrival of a giant hog" ("с пришествием гигантской свиньи"). The book was published as a paperback promptly after his death.[1][8]
In 2022, he finished his second book, Noel;[1] he described it in an interview as:[1]
This is a huge text, the form of which exactly repeats the form of Kepler's "Harmony of the World". It is a text of 117 episodes, which is divided into five parts, dedicated to the "Red Army Faction", in particular to Ulrike Meinhof. This text is written using the vocabulary of 67 languages and cuttings from 170 texts of other authors of all times and peoples. I wrote it for eight years, from 2014 to 2022.
The book wasn't published, and the location of the draft is unknown as of 2024. He sent a draft of another book, The Birobidzhan Diary, to his friend before the arrest.[1]
Bibliography
- Pavel Kushnir - Uwe Lausen, Life and Art (in Russian)
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i "«Они забывают, из-за чего я умер. А умер я из-за войны» Пианист Павел Кушнир погиб в российском СИЗО после голодовки — и теперь о нем говорит весь мир. Вот его история". Meduza (in Russian). Retrieved 20 August 2024.
- ^ a b c d ""Dear, Wonderful Don Quixote." Pianist Pavel Kushnir Became the First Political Prisoner in Russia to Die After a Hunger Strike". Takie Dela (in Russian). 2024-08-06. Retrieved 2024-08-07.
- ^ a b c d e f g ""This Cog Didn't Fit Any Machine." Who Was Pavel Kushnir, the Pianist Who Died in Detention from a Hunger Strike Against the War?". BBC News Russian Service (in Russian). 2024-08-07. Retrieved 2024-08-07.
- ^ Kushnir, P., Yegerev, D. (radio journalist) (2023-01-13). The People Want to Know: About the Pianist of the Regional Philharmonic. Broadcast Recording (YouTube). Autoradio Birobidzhan. Retrieved 2024-08-03.
- ^ a b ""Life is Something That Will Never Exist Under Fascism." Pianist Kushnir, Arrested for Anti-War Posts, Died in the Birobidzhan Detention Center". www.sibreal.org. 2024-08-04. Retrieved 2024-08-04.
- ^ Mikhail Kazinik about Pianist Pavel Kushnir on YouTube
- ^ "What Processes Can Pavel Kushnir's Death Accelerate? The Thought is Frightening". ECHO (in Russian). 2024-08-06. Retrieved 2024-08-06.
- ^ "Книгу умершего в российском СИЗО пианиста издали в Германии – DW – 09.08.2024". dw.com (in Russian). Retrieved 22 August 2024.
Category:Russian political prisoners
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