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Ori Z. Soltes illustrates how tsarist rule, revolution, and a ‘mad monk’ shaped Russian religion

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  • Afternoon Lecturer Ori Z. Soltes speaks on Tuesday, July 17, 2018 in the Hall of Philosophy. HALDAN KIRSCH/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

It was once known as “Holy Russia,” a land filled with spiritual heritage that was strongly in touch with the oldest traditions of Orthodox Christianity. But around the turn of the 20th century, this picture-perfect Russia came crashing down thanks to tsarist rule, revolution and the “mad monk” who wouldn’t die.

At 2 p.m. Tuesday, July 17, in the Hall of Philosophy, Ori Z. Soltes, a professor at Georgetown University, former director and curator of the B’nai B’rith Klutznick National Jewish Museum and lifelong scholar, discussed how this deadly concoction led to Russians losing their religion in his lecture, “The Drama of Revolutions: Spirituality and Rebirth in the Ashes,” as part of Week Four’s interfaith theme, “Russia and Its Soul.”

Soltes took two steps back in time before talking about the revolution.

The first was to discuss Peter the Great, who Soltes called “both a symbol and a symptom” of the struggle to identify what it means to be Russian.

Peter the Great was crowned the emperor of Russia in 1721. In that same year, he also organized a Holy Synod, led by a secular leader instead of a priest, to take control of the Russian Orthodox Church. However, Soltes said this had no effect on religious practices.

“The Church, in terms of its political power, has obviously been castrated,” Soltes said. “I would argue it did not do much for changing the position of religion among Russian people. The Patriarch is still going to be looked at with the same sort of awe.”

The second step involved Catherine the Great. Catherine was married to Peter III, Peter the Great’s grandson. Peter III was emperor of Russia for six months until Catherine orchestrated a coup and became empress.

She began her reign by absolving churches of their finances, giving church assets to the state. As a result, several hundred churches closed down across the country because they no longer had sufficient funds to function. Soltes believes this still had no effect on people’s spirituality.

“I would still argue that the religion that is within the people is not necessarily going to be undercut, even with the removal of all of those houses of worship,” he said. “They will find other ways, they did find other ways, because it is so (important) to them.”

After Catherine’s death, Alexander II claimed the throne. Alexander was emperor from 1855 until he was assassinated in 1881 by anarchists who called themselves “the people’s will.”

“It is an odd, but not untypical, example of what we are as a species — which is to say we can be so easily confused.”

-Ori Z. Soltes, Professor, Georgetown University

According to Soltes, the decision to kill Alexander II backfired when Alexander III took the throne. Alexander III wanted to avoid ending up like his father, so he reigned in an oppressive and conservative manner. For example, he passed a series of laws called the “May Laws,” which further restricted what opportunities were available to Jews throughout Russian territory.

Alexander III died in 1894 and was succeeded by Nicholas II. Under his rule, the Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party split into two groups in 1903: the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks.

“Socialism (was) on a gradual rise across the Russian landscape as there are more and more people, particularly working class people, who are interested in having more rights and feeling less oppressed,” Soltes said. “The rise of the working class was the beginning of the country’s shift in a secular direction.”

Another event that affected religion in 1903 was the Kishinev pogrom, an anti-Jewish riot that took place in what was then the capital of the Bessarabia Governorate. Scores of Jews were killed, large numbers of Jewish women were raped and over 2,000 homes were damaged. Kishinev then experienced a second pogrom in 1905.

The first pogrom was clearly motivated by religion because it was led by priests, whereas the second started as a protest against the government and was redirected toward the Jewish community, Soltes said.

“Part of the reason there were pogroms that the government had been somewhat sponsoring was in its efforts, in its interests (and) in its desperation to redirect the antipathy which was growing on the part of the people toward the tsarist regime,” he said.

Both the pogroms and the division of the Workers’ Party led to the beginning stages of the first Russian Revolution, a wave of mass political and social unrest, Soltes said.

The revolution began in 1905 with “Bloody Sunday” in St. Petersburg, where unarmed demonstrators led by the priest Georgy Gapon were fired upon by soldiers of the Imperial Guard as they attempted to present a petition to Tsar Nicholas II.

In the midst of the revolution’s chaos, Nicholas and his wife, Alexandra Feodorovna, were seeking help for their son, Alexei, who had hemophilia. The couple was approached by Grigori Yemovich Rasputin, a Russian mystic and self-proclaimed holy man, who claimed he could help.

In 1907, Alexei was suffering an internal hemorrhage from a bike-riding accident, and Rasputin used the situation to prove his abilities.

“The story is that Rasputin came and saw him, stroked him and prayed for him and the bleeding stopped,” Soltes said.

Five years later, Rasputin was in Siberia when Alexei suffered a second hemorrhage. When the doctors couldn’t stop the bleeding, Alexandra sent a telegram to ask Rasputin for help.

“He writes back very quickly saying, ‘God has seen your tears and heard your prayers, do not let the doctors touch him,’” Soltes said. “Within a day and a half, the bleeding has stopped, and (Alexei) is healed.”

With the second miraculous healing, Alexandra became infatuated with Rasputin. In 1914, the start of World War I, Nicholas II left to cheer on the troops, leaving Alexandra and by default, Rasputin, in charge. According to Soltes, this showed that Rasputin had an “influence over the political present and possible future of Russia.”

In July of that same year, an assassination attempt was made on Rasputin. A peasant woman in his village stabbed him in the stomach.

“As it turns out, this woman was a follower of Iliodor, a former priest who had also initially been a follower of Rasputin, but decided that he was dangerous and denounced him,” Soltes said.

After his brush with death, the way Rasputin conducted his life changed dramatically, Soltes said.

“He began to talk about being ‘being cleansed through sin,’” Soltes said. “So in order to be cleansed of my sins, I have to sin seriously enough to justify the cleansing process.”

Rasputin developed a reputation of being an alcoholic with fondness for orgies and started accepting bribes from people who wanted to gain access to the tsar and his family. Rasputin was seen as “the dark force ruining Mother Russia,” according to Soltes, so in an attempt to save the monarchy, several members of the aristocracy attempted to murder him.

The aristocrats started by giving Rasputin cake laced with cyanide. The cyanide was supposed to have an immediate effect, but nothing happened. After that, they shot him three times at close range, yet he still survived. In a final attempt, the aristocrats threw Rasputin into the river through a hole in the ice, where he died from lack of oxygen.

“It is not clear whether he intended to have political power and influence or if whether he was really interested in gaining some funds to help build a monastery near the place he grew up,” Soltes said. “It all sounds a little bit too constantly connected to have that as the limits of his ambition.”

The death of Rasputin was the last event leading up to the second revolution in 1917, in which Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin led his leftist revolutionaries in a revolt against the ineffective Russian Provisional Government.

Lenin died in 1924, and Joseph Stalin assumed power. By 1934, Stalin began to dictate what kind of art could be produced the Soviet Union. Although tens of millions of Russians were perishing due to famine, Stalin only allowed art that painted a positive picture.

“Religion, even where it can’t prevail, prevails,” Soltes said. “Only, the trinity is Marx, Lenin and Stalin and not the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.”

Under One Baton: CSO & MSFO join forces for Shostakovich’s ‘Leningrad’ symphony

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CSO on August 15, 2017. ERIN CLARK / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

STAFF WRITERS : JUSTIN KELLY & FLORA JUNHUA DENG

This week, there will be many opportunities to engage in discussion and analysis of Russian history. But there will only be one opportunity to live through it, according to Rossen Milanov, the music director of Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra.

That opportunity will occur at 8:15 p.m. Wednesday, July 18, in the Amphitheater, where the CSO and the Music School Festival Orchestra will join forces to present Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7 in C Major, op. 60, “Leningrad,” under Milanov’s baton.

Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7 is considered by many, including Milanov, to be one of the most important symbols of the Russian struggles in World War II. Explicitly, the piece depicts the Nazi assault on Russia that culminated in the nearly 900-day siege of Leningrad, one of the most destructive war events in human history.

MSFO on July 17. OLIVIA SUN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

However, many experts including renowned conductor Mark Wigglesworth, have said the real narrative behind the seventh symphony is Joseph Stalin’s destruction and repression of Russia and its culture.

Shostakovich could not publicly express such thoughts under Stalin’s regime, but he could hide them in his music.

“(You can) view it as a piece that conforms to the ideology of the ruling party at the time or a piece that reflects on the terror during the Stalin years,” Milanov said. “I think it’s a little bit of both because like all the music he wrote, at least until the death of Stalin, it was very ambiguous on purpose.”

According to Timothy Muffitt, music director of the MSFO, the ambiguity in Shostakovich’s composition was because of the conflict between the threat Shostakovich was under and his own will in representing the Soviet people.

“We are not sure which side of the story is being told because Shostakovich had to walk a certain Soviet party line to avoid imprisonment and execution,” Muffitt said. “But at the same time, he was able to be true to himself, and true to his comrades, and his fellow countrymen, which is of course the source of his great appeal — that the people of the Soviet Union knew that he was their musical voice. And he was able to, for the most part, create a body of music that said what … needed to be said and still survived the experience.”

Milanov said the ambiguity built into the score affects his interpretation of the symphony.

“I never really take a big triumphant moment without looking for something that makes that victory darker,” he said. “Someone is always going to spoil the parade.”

That “somebody” could be Hitler, Stalin, or the ominous storm clouds of evil. Whatever the answer, Milanov is bringing awareness of the tensions and stories in the score — however ambiguous — to the young musicians in the MSFO.

“It’s kind of nice for me to give them the context of what those notes actually could mean and how we could create something that really tells a story,” Milanov said. “This particular piece is a perfect example, I think, because it does have a very strong narrative that could be interpreted on so many different layers depending on your point of view.”

Milanov has a wealth of experience working with aspiring musicians. He began his career as music director of the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra and led the training orchestra, Symphony in C, for 15 years.

“I absolutely love it,” Milanov said. “Even if (the MSFO musicians are) not 100 percent sure that this is what they want to do with their lives, they are building a musical knowledge and culture that will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

Muffitt said tonight’s concert will be an invaluable opportunity for the music students. The orchestra required for Symphony No. 7 is larger than the complement of either the CSO or the MSFO individually, so a joint concert allows them to do something they wouldn’t be able to do otherwise.

“Either orchestra could play this piece (by) hiring the extra musicians to pull it off, but lining up with the theme of the week, and then putting these two institutions together, creates a remarkable feeling of an event,” Muffitt said. “And it’s on a Wednesday night. It’s not on a traditional MSFO night, it’s not on a traditional CSO night. It stands by itself as a special event.”

Nina Khrushcheva to provide personal portrait of Russia’s expansive ‘universe’

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Russia spans 11 time zones. Nina Khrushcheva has been to them all.

From eastern Europe to the Sea of Okhotsk, it was interesting to see, she said, just how big the country really is.

Nina Khrushcheva

In her recent travels across the country to research her forthcoming book, In Putin’s Footsteps: Searching for the Soul of an Empire Across Russia’s Eleven Time Zones, Khrushcheva said she was trying to explain Russia through its size. She wanted to “investigate a little bit of the psychology, not just of Russians, but of Putin, and how he looks at the world and how it defines how Russians look at the world.”

And when she came back to the United States, where she’s lived since 1991, she realized something.

“If I were Putin, I would think I was a god,” she said. “He thinks that anyways. The territory just makes you think that, and Russians have reasons to think the same. When you go through all this land and encounter all the people, history and culture, you would think that. If you’re sitting in the Kremlin, you’re the god of the universe. Russia is an entire universe.”

Khrushcheva will discuss this universe — and the unique lens through which she sees it — at 10:45 a.m. Wednesday, July 18, in the Amphitheater, as part of Week Four’s theme, “Russia and the West.” Matt Ewalt, chief of staff for the Institution, said in preparing for the lecture, Khrushcheva “expressed the importance of providing a personal portrait of Russia.”

Khruscheva is professor of international affairs at The New School, a senior fellow of the World Policy Institute, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Kreisky Forum for International Dialogue, author of two books and recipient of Great Immigrants: The Pride of America Award from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Her expertise comes from years of scholarship, but her pedigree extends beyond academia: She’s also the granddaughter of former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.

It’s a name she’s proud of; it also means that at times she can be seen as nothing more than “a professional Khrushchev.”

“It depends on who I talk to,” Khrushcheva said. “There’s a curiosity, especially since my grandfather is such a figure in American imagination. Obviously, I can be dismissed: ‘What does she know?’ It used to upset me; people either wanted my opinion because I’m a Khrushchev or wouldn’t give me the time of day because of it.”

Khrushcheva’s combination of professional and personal ties to Russia often means she’s called for speaking engagements or to provide commentary as a talking head. On Monday, for example, she appeared on MSNBC’s “AM Joy” to discuss the meeting between Putin and United States President Donald Trump.

But with news coming out of Washington, D.C., and Helsinki at a rapid pace this week, Khrushcheva isn’t sure her normal approach is going to work.

“I usually provide background for what’s happening in current affairs,” she said. “This is a broad topic, ‘Russia and the West.’ There’s so many things one can say.”

She should be writing and speaking about Trump, she said, but she’s “already written it.” She’s more interested in what comes next.

“I want to talk about (what happens) after, and when any decisions are implemented, and how it will affect the political climate,” Khrushcheva said. “Whatever comes out of it will be sabotaged politically. Trump isn’t trusted, and Russia is perceived as the enemy.”

At the top of her mind, however, are the United States’ allies’ reactions to the Helsinki meeting and what she called “unfair” concerns.

“What are you objecting against?” she said. “Everyone is trying to make a deal.”

Speci cally, Khrushcheva pointed to concerns from France and Germany — countries whose leaders have met with Putin in recent months.

“I’m interested in investigating that. It seems that, in America, political language cliches are being used, and quite frankly, they’re not in line with the reality of what’s happening,” she said. “The question of allies is an interesting thing. It would be better today to say that some European leaders aren’t happy. That would be a more honest way of looking at it, rather than pretending that the West is what it once was. That’s not the case.”

The idea that Trump came in and “all hell broke loose isn’t the case at all,” Khrushcheva said. She said America has been losing moral ground for at least 25 years, and one of the problems in current affairs is “the American hypocrisy in looking at itself as the high horse, the shining city on hill — that’s not the case.”

“That rhetoric essentially gets in the way of America moving forward, and it’s not capable of looking at itself in a somewhat objective light, and not blaming someone else for losing the moral superiority,” she said. “It’s America’s fault.”

It’s not a popular sentiment, she said.

“But I think someone has to say it, (even though) I’ll be dismissed as a former Soviet, or a Russian who’s delusional,” she said.

The United States and Russia are “similar but contradictory at the same time,” Khrushcheva said. Both, for example, are frontier nations. In the 1830s, while Alexis de Tocqueville was traveling through America, Astolphe de Custine was doing the same in Russia: “Two Frenchmen from the center of Europe, in the frontier nations, describing those nations,” Khrushcheva said.

When she was traveling Russia, seeking to describe it, she too saw those contradicting similarities.

“What struck me is how homogenous Russia is,” Khrushcheva said. “In a sense, the driving identity is the identity of Russian civilization itself, which is long. But Russia defines itself, in a remarkable way, as what the West is not — which makes it Western, despite itself.”

Former diplomat William J. Burns detangles U.S.-Russia relationship and offers insight to future and Helsinki summit

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  • Former US Ambassador to Russia William J. Burns gives the Morning Lecture on Tuesday, July 17, 2018 in the Amphitheater. HALDAN KIRSCH/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

William J. Burns offered a “recovering diplomat’s” perspective on detangling the U.S.-Russia relationship at the 10:45 a.m. morning lecture Tuesday, July 17, in the Amphitheater, continuing Week Four, “Russia and the West.”

Burns served as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation from 2005 to 2008 and as U.S. deputy secretary of state from 2011 to 2014. He is the second serving career diplomat in history to become deputy secretary of state; he holds the highest rank in the Foreign Service, career ambassador. Burns currently serves as the president for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

He provided context to the countries’ complicated history, offered observations on the Helsinki summit and prescribed a framework for a future relationship between the superpowers.

“The United States has oscillated between visions of endured partnership with Moscow and dismissing it as a sulking superpower in terminal decline,” Burns said. “Russia has moved between motions of strategic partnership with the United States in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, and a bigger, deeper desire to upend the current international world, where a dominant United States confines Russia to a subordinate role.”

This oscillation of the countries’ positions on the world stage is at the heart of their tensions, Burns said, beginning with the Cold War, which brought the U.S.-Russian relationship “to the lowest point in a quarter-century.”

“There are those that say the West did not do enough to help Russia get back on its feet, that there was too much shock and too little therapy as Russia wrestled with a market-economic reform after the Cold War,” he said, “that the expansion of NATO membership needlessly put salt in Russian wounds and that we showed too little benignity in victory. There are those that argue it was too much, and we were naive to think that Russians could ever overcome the humiliation.”

While speculation about “who lost Russia” is vast, Burns stressed that “Russia was never ours to lose,” and that the United States’ policy was not always enough — or right.

“Russians lost trust and confidence in themselves after the end of the Cold War, and they eventually had to remake their space and their economy,” he said. “As the 20th century wound to a close, Russians had been through generations of privation, loss and tragedy. None of that could be fixed in a single generation, let alone a few years — and none of that made the task of diplomacy any easier.”

Burns experienced the mammoth undertaking of policy in Russia when he served as chief political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow during the mid- 1990s. At the time, Burns described Russia as an “erratic mix of hope and uncertainty,” with a “just as erratic” leader, Boris Yeltsin.

When Burns arrived in Russia’s capital city in 1994, the country was undergoing three drastic transformations: the collapse of communism and the introduction of a market economics, the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the collapse of the Red State itself. These transitions did not fare well for Russia’s economy or society, Burns said.

Industrial production dropped by half, and agricultural production was declining;mass inflation wiped out the nation’s savings, and 30 percent of the population was living below the poverty line; the public health system collapsed, which caused the rise of contagious diseases; and unlawfulness was rising — it was not uncommon to see people roaming the Red Square in broad daylight with a rocket-propelled grenade, Burns said.

“Nothing — nothing had captured more vividly how far Russia had fallen since the collapse of the Soviet Union than the serial humiliation and suffering during the First Chechen War,” he said. “Here in winter of 1994 and 1995 were the ill-fed and ill-trained remnants of the Red Army, once reputed to be capable of reaching the English Channel in 48 hours, (who) now weren’t able to suppress a local rebellion.”

The Russian government assembled a rag-tag army made of teenagers, hardened soldiers and contract killers, and reverted to leveling most of the Chechnya region, destroying homes and killing thousands of civilians. This mass execution marked the end of the United States and Russia’s “post-Soviet honeymoon,” Burns said.

President Bill Clinton worked to manage Russia “post-traumatic stress syndrome,” while cautious of its potential return to authoritarianism. Clinton tried to bring Russia to the table — inviting it to join the G-7 and attempting to forge a new relationship with NATO, Burns said.

“From Russia’s perspective, it was getting none of the respect it deserved as a major power,” he said. “When I left Moscow in 1996, I was worried about the eventual resurgence of a Russia once cocky, cranky, aggrieved and insecure. I just had no idea it would happen so quickly or that Vladimir Putin would emerge as the embodiment of that futilely Russian combination.”

Nearing the end of his life and legacy,Yeltsin groomed Putin for the presidency. Despite being the younger, hard-faced and coldly calculating “anti-Yeltsin,” Putin’s passion for control and “unwavering mistrust” was promising for chaotic Russia — he was determined to “make Russia great again,” Burns said.

“The Russia Putin inherited was full of troubles; the economy had sunk again into turmoil,” he said. “In the August 1998 economic crisis, the stock market crashed, the government defaulted and the rule book collapsed. As a result, unemployment and inflation soared, gross domestic product contracted by nearly 5 percent, and agriculture dropped half from its Soviet-era high.”

By the end of his first term, however, Putin had restored the economy. By 2005, Russia’s economy was, at face value, impressive — GDP was growing and unemployment rates stabilized, Burns said. This boom boosted Putin’s popularity, which made way for his new political order.

“His obsession with order and control and restoring the power of the Russian state was abundantly clear and wildly popular,” Burns said. “His formula was straightforward: revive the state and get authority of politics, media and civil society, regain control of Russia’s source of national wealth — its abundant natural resources — and rebuild Russia’s prerogative as a great power and reinstill its entitlement.”

Putin’s view of the United States was one of suspicion, which he tested early on in President George W. Bush’s tenure when he approached Bush with a partnership for the war on terror — Russia would back U.S. efforts and vice versa. Putin’s ideal deal meant the United States would avoid Russian affairs completely.

“As Putin quickly learned, however, this kind of transaction was never in the cards,” Burns said. “Putin fundamentally misread American interests and politics. From Washington’s view, there was no desire and no reason to trade anything for Russian partnership.”

According to Burns, Putin also misunderstood U.S. political behavior, often misconstruing policies and connecting non-connecting dots as some conspiracy against Russia. The Orange Revolution in Ukraine and the Rose Revolution in Georgia led Putin to believe the United States was“undercutting Russia’s interest in its presumed sphere of influence” and that the United States may force a revolution upon it.

“These disappointments were piled on top of (Putin’s) anger over the Iraq War, the symbol of America’s predilection for unilateral action in a unipolar world,” Burns said. “Putin believed that President Bush’s freedom agenda included Russia near the top of the administration’s ‘to-do- list.’ Democracy promotion, in Putin’s eyes, was a Trojan horse designed to harbor American geopolitical interests at Russia’s expense.”

With the fade-out of Bush-era tactics, President Barack Obama strived for “a reset” of the U.S.-Russia relationship. His attitude was pragmatic, Burns said. Putin did not object to a reset, and during Obama’s first years in office, there were sizable “accomplishments” made by the two superpowers.

“(Obama) understood that he would be operating with what would likely be a relatively narrow band of possibilities with Russia, from the constructively competitive to the sharply adversarial,” he said. “But Obama wanted to test the proposition that a more stable relationship was possible and that it would help with other items on his political agenda.”

However, it became difficult to maintain the relationship, especially with minimal economic gains on either side. The “reset” died with Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea. With an again-tangled relationship, Putin saw an opportunity to “sow chaos in our political system” in the 2016 election.

“He succeeded beyond his wildest imagination,” Burns said. “It was all part of a pattern, in which Putin continued to demonstrate that declining powers can be at least as destructive as rising powers. He was convinced … that he could play strongly with weak cards, especially against poor players with stronger hands.”

This led Burns to his observations of Monday’s Helsinki summit between Putin and President Donald Trump; while Burns thought that the meeting between the two heads of state was “a good idea,” he thought the events of the summit were those of “poorly conceived diplomacy.”

“Diplomacy is not just about getting along — it’s about advancing tangible American interests; diplomacy is not just about dialogue, untethered to history or strategy; diplomacy is not just about winning, especially with Vladimir Putin, who rarely wins anything,” Burns said. “President Trump’s concluding press conference was the single most embarrassing performance by an American president on the world stage that I’ve ever seen.”

Based on the events of the summit and the United States’ history with Russia, Burns went on to advise a framework for the relationship moving forward — he stressed that “pageantry” is not the trajectory for change.

His framework involved five suggestions: to translate the summit into rules for the countries’ bilateral relationship; to discuss the role of nuclear weapons in the United States, Russia and across the world; to bolster security against Russian threats; to work together to resolve conflict in the Middle East; and to have systematic conversations about Asia.

“Managing relations with an adversarial Russia will be a long game,” Burns said. “We should not give into Putin, but over the longer-term we should not give up in Russia. We have a strong hand to play. … Managing great power and rivalry is what diplomacy is all about.”

After the conclusion of Burns’ lecture and a thunderous round of applause, Chautauqua Institution President Michael E. Hill opened the Q-and-A by asking if there are any tactical things the United States can do to get Putin to come to the table with a different attitude about interference in U.S. affairs, which Burns said is “unacceptable.”

“The message needs to be extremely direct … that the administration is going to rigorously enforce the sanctions that are already in place and that if this kind of interference continues … the president will work with Congress to increase those sanctions,” Burns said.

Hill then asked a question submitted via Twitter: “Do you believe Russia influenced the vote in Britain to leave the EU?”

“I strongly suspect it,” Burns said. “It would certainly be consistent with the Russian government’s behavior to look for ways in which they can sow chaos, not just in the United States, but in western Europe, and what better way to do that than to encourage a positive Brexit vote?”

An attendee asked what Burns speculates happened behind closed doors at the Helsinki summit. Burns said Putin likely played to Trump’s ego, complimenting him on his economic and political strides thus far.

Another audience member asked what advice Burns had for Congress, specifically Sen. Chris Coons, who lectured Monday, July 16.

“I’ve learned over the years that most people in Congress don’t appreciate free advice from recovering diplomats,” Burns said. “And Sen. Coons doesn’t need (advice) from me. I do think, however, that it is really important, especially for the U.S. Senate, to play a responsible role — to play the role the Constitution set out (to do).”

Ori Z. Soltes examines the evolution of religion in ‘godless Russia’

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  • Professor Ori Soltes discusses the foundations of Russia in his lecture, "Icons and Identity: The Shaping of Mother Russia" on Monday, July 16, 2018, in the Hall of Philosophy. ABIGAIL DOLLINS/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Ori Z. Soltes has never encountered a country as religiously obsessed as the United States, a country that prides itself in its separation of church and state. With one exception: Russia.

Soltes, a professor at Georgetown University, former director and curator of the B’nai B’rith Klutznick National Jewish Museum and lifelong scholar, gave his first of four speeches as part of Week Four’s theme, “Russia and Its Soul,” at 2 p.m. Monday, July 16, in the Hall of Philosophy, titled “Icons and Identity: The Shaping of Mother Russia.”

According to Soltes, throughout history and leading up to present day, Russia has always been a “bundle of contradictions.”

“It is a place where you will encounter warmth exceeded nowhere else,” he said. “You will also encounter violence exceeded nowhere else.”

This struggle within the Russian sense of identity can be symbolized by what Muscovites originally said of St. Petersburg, Soltes said.

When Peter the Great established St. Petersburg in 1703, it was because he was infatuated with Western Europe and wanted it to become his “window on the west.” However, the people of St. Petersburg said it was almost too Russian to be European and yet too European to be Russian.

“The sense of what we are is even visible, contrastively, in the way (Moscow and St. Petersberg) understand each other,” he said.

This identity struggle appears in Russian language as well.

The country’s primary, and only official, language is Russian, but a law was passed in 1997 permitting groups with different parent languages to be able to teach those other languages.

“You’ve got about 160 different ethnic groups with different languages that they might choose to juxtapose with Russian as the way to go,” Soltes said.

Soltes believes Russia’s history is tied not only to the idea of being Russian in ethnic, linguistic or cultural ways, but religiously as well.

The topic of Russian identity started being explored in the ninth century by Russian archaeologists, paleontologists, art historians and artists working together to imagine the first evidence of human life in the country. What they discovered is that these early people differed greatly from modern-day Russians.

“The problem with this is that they probably were not speaking Russian, and they are probably not Russian Orthodox,” Soltes said. “Who knows who they were; they just happened to be there.”

As it turned out, the first Russian citizens were nomadic, a community of people without fixed habitation who regularly moved to and from the same areas.

“The first viable group that seems to assume a kind of political identity in that area is a group that has come from the Crimea and beyond, known as the Khazars,” he said.

Soltes said there are two things about the Khazars that make the idea of Russian identity and soul “very interesting.”

The first is the fact that the Khazars were Turkic, so in terms of language, they had nothing to do with Slavic languages. The second is that a majority of Khazars converted to Judaism as opposed to Russian Orthodoxy.

Regardless, the Khazars were pushed out of the area by a Germanic group from the north, otherwise known as the Vikings. Their leader, Rurik, established himself in Kiev and Novgorod.

“So, in the late ninth and 10th centuries, that central area is dominated by a group that is probably not Slavic, but Germanic,” Soltes said.

The reason for Soltes’ uncertainty is that if there was an indigenous population in Russia at the time of the Germanics, they would have been “a Mediterranean or Middle Eastern sort.”

“They would be dark-skinned, (have) dark hair, dark eyes, and this group coming from the north probably has light skin, redish, blondish hair and bluer eyes,” he said. “So what is it that creates the ethnicity that we are talking about when we are talking about Russia from its beginning?”

According to Soltes, even Russian President Vladimir Putin would have to admit he does not know the answer to the question of Russia’s original ethnicity.

In addition to ethnicity, the beginning of present-day Russia can be associated with the arrival of groups sent from Constantinople to try to evangelize and civilize the Slavs, Soltes said.

These groups developed the Cyrillic script, a writing system used for various alphabets across Eurasia. It is based on the Early Cyrillic alphabet developed at the Preslav Literary School in the First Bulgarian Empire.

“The significance of this is not only that we see the presence of Christianity actively now on the scene,” Soltes said, “but we are reaching the point where we can actually find stuff to read that might tell us what is going on, as opposed to just imagining from archaeological remains, oral stories or visual arts.”

In 988, the Kievan Rus’ established the largest polity in Europe, and the people embraced Christianity as their official religion. Church and state became a unified concept. The acceptance of Christianity would mean that going forward, any definition of what it means to be Russian would have to include religion, Soltes said.

Soltes said what people need to realize is that Kiev is part of Ukraine, so the beginning of Russia was actually Ukraine.

“For those of us who insist that there is a such a thing as ethnic purity, guess what?” he said. “You’re wrong.”

As religion in Russia continued to develop in the 11th and 12th centuries, so did iconography.

“(Iconography) is all about symbolic language. It is the language of intermediation between this reality and that other reality, the Divine reality, in which these figures function as interceptors.”

-Ori Z. Soltes, Professor, Georgetown University

By the 1230s, the Mongols were invading Russia, and Kiev was destroyed by 1240.

“The center of Russian being had to shift, for defense purposes, away from where the Mongols could still continue to attack, north toward Novgorod,” he said. “Novgorod pretty much becomes the political and spiritual capital.”

In the 13th century, Novgorod developed its own school of icon making known for its rich colors and attenuated figures.

One example of an icon created during this time was “The Trinity,” by Russian painter Andrei Rublev. It is his most famous work and the most famous of all Russian icons. It is regarded as one of the highest achievements of Russian art, Soltes said. “The Trinity,” now referred to as “The Holy Trinity,” depicts the three angels who visited Abraham and Sarah to inform them that they would be having a child. The importance placed on icons and symbolism then became a way to differentiate between new and old believers of Russian Orthodoxy.

For instance, old believers only recognize a baptism where the whole body is submerged three times. New believers are “willing to sprinkle some water on you and say you’re done,” Soltes said.

Jumping to the 18th century, a time when Romantic nationalism is at its apogee across Europe, there was a group of students at the St. Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts who questioned why their senior painting was to be of the gods of Valhalla. They considered the topic to be “Norse mythology” and decided to withdraw from the school.

The students then established their own group over the course of seven years. They went to various locations in Russia to paint the landscape and the people. One of those students was Isaac Levitan, the painter of “The Silent Monastery,” Soltes’ personal favorite.

“Aside from the religious emphasis (in the painting) is the way in which, in symbolic terms, the monastery world is that intermediary between us and God,” he said.

To conclude, Soltes touched on the concept of “Holy Russia” that arose during the 19th century.

“It was all about the identity of Russia as a scared territory, understood in very distinct Christian terms, in fact, specifically Russian Orthodox Christian terms,” he said.

Ambassador William J. Burns to discuss the evolution of U.S, Russia relations

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Ambassador William J. Burns served for over three decades at the highest levels of the U.S. government, shaping foreign policy through some of history’s most monumental international affairs. As part of Week Four’s theme, “Russia and the West,” Burns will speak at 10:45 a.m. Tuesday, July 17, in the Amphitheater.

Matt Ewalt, Chautauqua Institution chief of staff, said those decades of experience are why Burns was a perfect fit for the theme.

“Ambassador Burns brings incomparable on-the-ground knowledge of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Russia,” Ewalt said. “His having served under both a Republican and Democratic administration informs a perspective on how diplomacy must react to the politics of the day while also building long-term relationships that can rise above those politics.”

Burns is currently president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the oldest international affairs think tank in the United States.

Burns retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in 2014 after a 33-year diplomatic career. He holds the highest rank in the Foreign Service, career ambassador and is only the second serving career diplomat in history to become deputy secretary of state.

“I’ve been extraordinarily fortunate over nearly 33 years in the Foreign Service, and had wonderful opportunities and terrific people to work with,” Burns said in an interview with the American Foreign Service Association. “I realize how lucky I’ve been.”

Prior to his tenure as deputy secretary, Burns served as ambassador to Russia from 2005 to 2008.

“Whatever the difficulties in our relations — and, certainly, today we have profound difficulties with the current Russian leadership — it is important to develop a sense of respect for that history, and what Russians as a people have not only endured but also achieved,” he told the AFSA.

Burns speaks Russian, Arabic and French. He told the ASFA investing in the Russian language “is an entry point to understanding that society.”

“Russians are understandably deeply proud of their history and their culture,” he told ASFA. “It’s important to understand what Russia as a society has been through in recent generations, going back to the Soviet period during which the population endured the famine, the purges and the Second World War.”

Burns told the ASFA that Russia can be a difficult place to serve at times, but that is what makes the work so gratifying.

“ … (I)t can also be a very rewarding place, especially if you keep a sense of perspective, and you understand not only the sweep of Russian history, but the continuing significance of Russia and U.S.-Russian relations,” Burns said.

In 1994, Burns was named to Time magazine’s list of the “50 Most Promising American Leaders Under Age 40” and to its “100 Young Global Leaders” list. Since then, he has been the recipient of three Presidential Distinguished Service Awards and more than eight Department of State awards.

However, no matter what advancements he has made in his career, Burns told the ASFA that the fundamentals always remain the same.

“Foreign language, curiosity, adaptability, integrity and honesty; a respect for foreign cultures and other societies; and understanding, as I said before, how to navigate them,” he said. “And then, not least, knowing where you’re from — having a clear sense of American purpose.”

In-residence dance company Pilobolus opens in the Amphitheater with “Pilobolus Maximus”

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Beginning today, Chautauqua Institution will be infused with the art of dance throughout the grounds, with the help of the dancers from Pilobolus.

Pilobolus will be performing “Pilobolus Maximus” at 8:15 p.m. Tuesday, July 17, in the Amphitheater. At 7 p.m. Tuesday, July 17, there will be a pre-performance lecture hosted by the Chautauqua Dance Circle in Smith Wilkes Hall.

Matt Kent, co-artistic director for the company, said that the type of dance being performed in “Pilobolus Maximus” cannot necessarily be classified under a label like “contemporary” or “classical,” but warrants instead its own kind of definition that includes acrobatics, creative movement and “creating an image or environment from the bodies of the dancers.”

The performance will be a mix of dances and collections of videos played intermittently.

“It is our expression of a circus that has come to town. It involves low-brow and high-brow comedy, low and high culture,” Kent said. “Some of it is built from older work. There is major variety within the piece, and it certainly has something for everyone.”

At 12:15 p.m. Wednesday, July 18, there will be a pop-up performance on Bestor Plaza that will appear as a result of the Department of Performing and Visual Arts’ initiative to involve the entire community in the arts and offer exposure to everyone on the grounds.

“We are really looking forward to offering the workshops and open rehearsals that will allow the audience to be able to have a more authentic experience of the Pilobolus process,” Kent said.

Kent said that if he were to name the show that will be performed on Wednesday on Bestor Plaza, he would title it “Pilobolus is a Fungus.”

“It’s kind of a framework in which we present our pieces and a deconstruction of the process,” he said. “We invite the audience to participate so they are able to move from spectators to participants.”

At 8:15 p.m. on Thursday, July 19, Pilobolus will be performing its second and final performance, “Come to Your Senses.” Additionally, the dance company will be hosting several master classes this week in which members of the community can learn from and dance with the dancers. There will also be two open rehearsals where the community is welcome to join Pilobolus to watch the creative process behind the performances. These will take place at 2 p.m. Tuesday, July 17, and at 4 p.m on Thursday, July 19, in the Amphitheater.

The mixture of educational courses, pre-performance lectures and open rehearsals come from the combining of the PAVA department and the Pilobolus Lab, which is interested in educating and involving the community in dance.

According to the Pilobolus website, the Pilobolus Lab “both convenes diverse artists in the development of new work and teaches its creative method to individuals and institutions.”

The company’s creative collaboration has partnered in the past with the Brooklyn Academy of Music as well as New York City and Connecticut public schools.

The word “Pilobolus” is derived from the name of a barnyard fungus that is known for its rapid and efficient reproduction and movement as well as its “extraordinary speed, accuracy and strength,” according to the Pilobolus website. Since the company’s founding in 1971 by a group of students at Dartmouth College, Pilobolus has strived to match the efficiency and reach of its namesake fungi by expanding geographically, diversifying both dancers and the pieces and creating a new form of collaboration through dance with a community.

The original company, the Pilobolus Dance Theater, has performed 115 pieces of repertory throughout 64 countries.

“We can’t always find a partner like Chautauqua,” Kent said. “We are really excited for the audience engagement.”

U.S. Sen. Chris Coons opens Week Four with a comprehensive look at U.S.-Russia relations

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  • RILEY ROBINSON/ STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

In each generation there is a moment when Americans must stand and act — for Sen. Chris Coons, now is that moment.

“We have a fight on our hands,” he said to a filled Amphitheater at the 10:45 a.m. morning lecture Monday, July 16, drawing back the Iron Curtain for Chautauqua Institution’s Week Four theme, “Russia and the West.” This was Coons’ first visit to Chautauqua.

Coons said he knew he was in “a place where people listen to one another.” In other words, a place “utterly different from the United States Senate.”

Coons knows the Senate floor all too well; he was elected in 2010 as Delaware’s Democratic junior senator. He sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as well as the Appropriations, Judiciary, Small Business and Entrepreneurship and Ethics committees.

His appearance came at a critical time in the United States’ relationship with Russia; Coons’ lecture overlapped with President Donald Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland, and days after the indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers.

“I take no joy in delivering this message,” he said. “It is deeply discouraging to have to say anything that speaks ill of our president when he is outside our nation on foreign soil, but the timing of this speech and the timing of that summit were set, perhaps by providence or accident, and I think this is a time that calls for us to speak clearly about where we are (in our relationship with Russia).”

He opened his lecture, and the week, with a “stark warning.”

“The current Russian government under Vladimir Putin is a persistent danger to our democracy, to our European allies, to democracy globally,” he said. “At a time when overseas, China and North Korea, Iran and terrorism command our attention, we ignore Russia at our peril. … Only a clear eye can truly find bipartisan strategy to confront Putin’s Russia and contain it to prevent it from further damaging our society.”

Despite its looming threat, Russia is a cultural powerhouse with a rich and vast history that should be appreciated and better understood, Coons said.

“Russia is not some recent artificial, geopolitical creation, but a proud nation with a history that stretches back a millenium. … Its writers, its composers, its scientists have influenced the course of global culture, European history for centuries,” he said. “In a place like Chautauqua, where you celebrate literature, movies, music, dance, it’s worth taking a moment to consider how much Russian has contributed to human civilization.”

But its cultural renaissance cannot mask the “dark side” of Soviet Union-era labor camps, devastating famines caused by Joseph Stalin’s misuse of power and, more recently, Putin’s interference with the 2016 U.S. election, he said.

In 1993, Coons visited post-Cold War Russia, where he met with entrepreneurs “hoping to channel innovation and creativity to bring prosperity to their country and families.” The 1990s brought great political and economic instability to Russia, marked by food shortages and job loss. The hopes of its people failed to materialize, Coons said.

At the center of this mass insecurity was former Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who fought tirelessly to demolish the Russian parliament; his efforts laid the foundation for Putin’s reign.

“The sufferings of post-Cold War Russia represent a lost opportunity,” Coons said. “Economic dislocation, widespread political corruption and Yeltsin’s consolidation of power tarnished democracy and capitalism in the eyes of many Russians and prevented their nation from fully joining and benefiting from the U.S.-led international rule-based system.”

Coons experienced the country’s “sense of lost glory” during his visit, which he said facilitated Putin’s ascension to power. Putin’s promise of “law, order and a return to prestige” restored the public’s faith in their country.

Since then, Putin has declared the fall of the Soviet Union — not the Holocaust or the World Wars — as the “greatest catastrophe of the 20th century.”

With the conclusion of the Cold War came the rise of the 16-nation alliance, NATO. Since its conception, NATO has expanded to include 29 members.

“The idea was that … Russia, having lost the Cold War, would have an incentive to join the international community, perhaps even partner with NATO in the multilateral institutions we helped build following secular order,” Coons said. “The idea was that the West, led by the United States, would offer Russia real diplomatic incentives.”

At the time, U.S. foreign policy makers thought that Russia and dozens of former Soviet regimes would slowly transition to democracies with minimal support. While most former Soviet states have done so, Coons said Russia has rejected the “overtures of the West.”

“While Putin believes the United States hasn’t honored its post-Cold War pledges, Russia, too, has broken its promises,” Coons said.

The 1994 Budapest Memorandum agreed that, in exchange for giving up its nuclear weapons, the newly independent Ukraine would be safe from Russian invasion. Coons said Putin abandoned that pledge in 2014 when Russia forcely invaded Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

At the time of Coons’ 1993 trip to Russia, almost identical numbers of Democrats and Republicans reported that Russia was the United States’ greatest threat, he said. Since then, the disparity at home has grown — the percent of Democrats who believe that statement is double that of Republicans (40 percent to 20 percent, respectively). He said in the last two years, the number of Republicans who view Putin favorably has doubled, while the number of Democrats that view Putin unfavorably has risen 20 percent between 2015 and 2017.

“For those that grew up in the post-Cold War period — where school children no longer have to participate in air raid drills (or) the sense of the United States as the free world because there is a world behind the Iron Curtain — we have attitudes much less uniform, much more reflective of our attitudes of President Trump,” Coons said.

Trump is a polarizing force — with the widespread distrust of media and the echo chambers of “fake news,” Coons encouraged the audience to read the January 2017 declassified report on “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections.”

This report, according to Coons, has been endorsed by senior cabinet officials, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense James Mattis.

“Republicans in the Senate, Democrats in the Senate, Republican senior leaders of the Trump administration have a uniform view of what is upwind. There is just one figure missing,” Coons said: Trump has refused to accept these findings.

Russia’s alleged interference in the U.S. election is not the end of its cyberattacks. The Intelligence Community assessment concluded that Russia may replicate its U.S. attack on European elections. Some European countries have already taken measures to ensure this does not happen, Coons said.

“Putin will only stop when we stop him,” he said over thunderous applause.

Coons said Congress can play a role in stopping Putin. He offered four suggestions; the first that the U.S. and European Union maintain sanctions on Russia.

Last summer, the Senate passed the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act 98-2, which is an array of mantorary sanctions to hold Russia accountable for its malicious actions, Coons said. Trump signed it into law, but has yet to impose those sanctions.

“Putin will only cease these actions when you impose costs on him and others for Russia’s misbehaviors,” Coons said. “The administration should fully utilize the tools Congress has given them to punish Russia.”

The second suggestion is that the U.S. must hold a “strong military posture” in Europe. Russia’s actions in Georgia and Ukraine demonstrate the need for American troops in Europe to ensure stability in the continent and among NATO allies, he said.

“An important part of our policy has to be convincing our NATO allies to invest more in our common defense — President Trump is right on this issue,” Coons said. “I may wish that he went about making demands of our allies in a different way, maybe a more private way, but he is absolutely right.”

Coons is referring to the president’s July 9 tweets:

“The United States is spending far more on NATO than any other Country. This is not fair, nor is it acceptable. While these countries have been increasing their contributions since I took office, they must do much more. Germany is at 1%, the U.S. is at 4%, and NATO benefits Europe far more than it does the U.S. By some accounts, the U.S. is paying for 90% of NATO, with many countries nowhere close to their 2% commitment …”

Coons acknowledged Trump’s success in encouraging allies to raise NATO’s budget, as well as increasing troops, but he chastised Trump for not fully recognizing the increases that have been made, and the 1,044 non-American troops fighting with the U.S. in Afghanistan.

“And while it is right to press our allies to invest more in their security and our common defense, it is wrong to mistake them as free-loading on our generosity,” he said.

His third suggestion requires Congress to hold social media corporations responsible for accounts run by Russian “bots.”

“We invented Facebook and Twitter and Reddit and Snapchat and all this stuff, and yet we allow it, with virtually no accountability whatsoever, to be used as a tool to mislead and undermine our own citizens as they vote,” Coons said.

Coons described his interaction with Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook. Coons asked why the company did not flag “a paid political advertisement, bought in Moscow and paid for in rubles.” Zuckerberg responded, “Senator we didn’t know those details.”

“Are you kidding me?” Coons said over a roar of laughter. “You know whether I’ve met my daily step goal.”

Coons also stressed the importance of free, independent journalism in the United States and worldwide.

“We ourselves, as citizens, have to do a better job of discerning real news from ‘fake news’ and educating our families and social circles about the difference,” he said.

Finally, he pushed the need for the U.S. to defend human rights — “Do you remember when that was the first principle of our foreign policy?” Coons asked.

In February, Coons joined Florida Sen. Marco Rubio in an effort to rename the street in front of the Russian embassy in Washington, D.C., after Boris Nemtsov. Nemtsov was a Russian physicist, liberal politician and outspoken critic of Putin until 2015, when he was assassinated.

“I took this action with Sen. Rubio to give a voice to someone Putin tried to silence,” Coons said, “and it is my hope that someday, Russian diplomats that travel in and out of their embassy in Washington, representing a future Russian government, will be proud to walk alongside a street named for Boris Nemtsov.”

Coons said the relationship between Russia and the West, while fraught with division, has the potential to be one of collaboration.

“During the Cold War, we were prepared to go to war at a moment’s notice, and nearly did on several occasions ” he said. “Yet at the same time we negotiated cultural, scientific and nuclear agreements with that enemy with who we were prepared to fight at moment’s notice — the Soviet Union. We found the areas of real and deep and meaningful cooperation, despite the tension between us. There is no reason why we cannot do the same today.”

Coons said the United States needs Russia’s collaboration in combating global warming, conflict in North Korea and Iran, and international terrorism.

“Yet if we fail to recognize the reality of strategic confrontation under Putin, if we abandon our willingness to fight for our values, we will never achieve lasting cooperation based on anything other than a Russian tactical effort to gain short-term advantage over us,” he said. “… Our democratic world is at greater risk today than at any other time in my life, and I am certain it is worth fighting for.”

After the conclusion of Coons’ lecture, Institution President Michael E. Hill opened the Q-and-A with Putin’s statement from the Helsinki summit about the alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. election.

“The Russian state has never interfered and is not going to interfere into internal American affairs including election processes,” Hill read over gasps from the audience.

Hill summarized Putin’s suggestion that Russia and the U.S. examine any issues together in a “joint working group on cybersecurity.”

As the laughs and shock died down from the crowd, Hill asked if there is a pathway of joint engagement between the United States and Russia.

“I think it is possible, if we are strong and determined and clear-eyed in joining with our allies, to say on these key issues — sanctions for invading and occupying Crimea, interference in our election — we will oppose (Russia),” Coons said. “But if (Russia is) willing to step back from those actions and honor (its) commitments … we are willing to then work with (Russia).”

Hill turned to the audience for questions. One attendee asked if there will ever be a liberal democracy in Russia.

“Given the sophistication and complexity of (Russia’s) culture, given the determination of its journalists and its human rights activists and given the possibilities of the human spirit — which Chautauqua is all about celebrating — I can believe in the dream of a democratic Russia,” Coons said. “I am not optimistic about its achievement in the short-term.”

Finally, to close the lecture, an attendee asked to how to keep high ideals and moral standards in a democracy at a time when it seems like they are lacking.

“Know who you are, know your history,” Coons said.

On day of Helsinki summit, Coons to discuss U.S.-Russia relations

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It’s a big week for U.S.-Russia relations.

On Wednesday and Thursday, July 11 and 12, President Donald Trump met with European leaders at the NATO summit in Brussels, where he accused Germany of being a “captive of Russia.” On Monday, July 16, in Helsinki, Trump is expected to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. And at 10:45 a.m. Monday, July 16, in the Amphitheater,  will open the morning lectures for Week Four, “Russia and the West.”

In his first visit to Chautauqua, the Democratic senator will lay out a “comprehensive vision for the U.S.-Russia relationship,” according to Thomas Mancinelli, Coons’ foreign policy adviser. Mancinelli said the relationship between the two countries is one that extends far beyond the events of the 2016 election.

“There’s a lot of different aspects of (that relationship) that are important to Americans,” Mancinelli said. “Part of that, though, starts with recognizing that we’re at a low point in U.S.-Russia relations as a result of President Putin’s own efforts to undermine our own democracy in an attempt to divide us as a country, to divide us from Europe and to divide European society from within.”

Mancinelli said Russia has been working to “sow discord and create chaos in democracies around the world” as early as 2007, and Coons will discuss some of the circumstances that have led the Kremlin and Putin to “wage this campaign of informational and hybrid warfare.”

Coons, the junior senator from Delaware, has been an outspoken advocate for policies that “counter Russian aggression and subversion,” he said in a February talk he gave at the Hudson Institute. Although Mancinelli said the lecture will not specifically address the ongoing investigation into Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 election, Coons has previously spoken out against the president’s relationship with Putin.

On July 8, Coons told CBS’s “Face the Nation” that he is “very concerned about things (Trump) might give away or say with Vladimir Putin” at the expected Helsinki summit today.

The president told reporters last Thursday that he will raise the subject of Russia’s alleged interference during his meeting with Putin.

Coons is the vice chair of the Senate Select Committee on Ethics and a member of the Foreign Relations, Judiciary, Appropriations and Small Business and Entrepreneurship committees. In those roles, he frequently works with Republican members of the Senate to create bipartisan legislation. In April, Coons co-sponsored a bill that would limit the president’s ability to fire any special counsel through the use of an “expedited judicial, review” to determine if the proposed termination was for a “good cause,” according to The Hill.

Most recently, Coons was part of a bipartisan delegation to northern European countries that share borders with Russia to discuss their concerns about U.S.-Russian relations.

“I’ll remind you last month in Quebec at the G7, President Trump picked a whole lot of fights, particularly with Canada,” Coons told “Morning Joe” on July 9, “and for us to be facing a trade war with China and at the same time have President Trump be picking fights with our key allies in Europe and North America, strikes me as just nonsensical, and many Republican senators feel the same.”

Mancinelli said Coons frequently works with Republicans like Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, as well as other Republican officials who see the Russian threat with “clear eyes.” Mancinelli said this approach is crucial for developing a “pragmatic analysis of how we can go forward and improve the (U.S.-Russia) relationship.”

“Whether you’re Republican, Democrat, American, European or Russian, if we all understand one another’s perspectives and backgrounds, we can use that as a basis for developing an informed, bipartisan strategy going forward,” he said.

Matt Ewalt, Chautauqua’s chief of staff, said the Institution is excited for Coons to set the stage for Week Four with suggestions for how “we as American citizens … can ultimately serve an important role in bringing this relationship to a constructive space.”

“Coons is widely praised for his pragmatism, working across the aisle and finding common ground with his Republican colleagues,” Ewalt said. “It’s this commitment to talk across differences that gives us confidence that he’ll find the Chautauqua community and experience both personally enriching and a valuable model for community discourse.”

Selected Shorts to fuse literature, arts and bringing Russian texts alive with night of ‘Love, Laughter and Vodka’

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A troika is rolling into the Amphitheater. Instead of three horses, this Russian carriage contains a different threesome: “Love, Laughter and Vodka: A Night of Russian Fiction with Selected Shorts.”

At 8:15 p.m. Monday, July 16, in the Amphitheater, the popular public radio show series, “Selected Shorts,” will present a variety of Russian texts onstage for an evening of entertainment, literature and performance arts. Established in 1985, “Selected Shorts” is now also a nationally popular podcast and is produced by New York’s Symphony Space.

Atom Atkinson, director of literary arts, said the program is an “ideal way to kick off a dynamic” week exploring the theme, “Russia and the West.”

“By bringing canonical and contemporary Russian writers to life so vibrantly, ‘Selected Shorts’ is gifting us a rich context for all of it, and the actors’ renderings will resonate again and again,” Atkinson said.

The host for Monday, July 16, will be Golden Globe-nominated actress Jane Kaczmarek, known for her role as Lois on “Malcolm in the Middle” which earned her seven consecutive Emmy nominations. She has appeared in works on-and off-Broadway, such as Our Town and Long Day’s Journey Into Night.

Kaczmarek will be joined by “Selected Shorts” regulars, Sean Cullen and Peter Francis James. Cullen is perhaps best known for appearing alongside George Clooney in the Oscar-nominated film, “Michael Clayton.” He has recently appeared in the “House of Cards,” “Suits” and “The Sound of Music Live!” on NBC.

The narrator of over 60 audiobooks, James has appeared on Broadway in multiple productions, including Present Laughter and The Merchant of Venice. James also works in film and television, having worked on shows such as “Gossip Girl” and “Royal Pains.”

The setlist for the evening performance includes four Russian texts, new and old.

First up is “Will-Power” by Teffi, the pseudonym for humorist Nadezhda Alexandrovna Lokhvitskaya born in St. Petersburg in 1872. After the October Revolution of 1917, she fled to Paris, where she continued to write. Cullen will perform “Romance with a Double Bass” by the iconic 19th-century Russian storyteller Anton Chekhov, known for The Seagull and the dramatic principle of “Chekhov’s gun.” Next is “Quadraturin” by the prolific writer, Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky.

And finally is a contemporary selection, “Salad Olivier” by Lara Vapnyar, who teaches creative writing at Columbia and New York universities. She is the author of Memoirs of a Muse and Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love.

“The evening with ‘Selected Shorts’ is a perfect Chautauqua fit as it celebrates the performing and literary arts as presented on the stage of our celebrated Amphitheater,” said Deborah Sunya Moore, vice president of performing and visual arts. “I am particularly excited that it will be recorded for national broadcast so that this Chautauqua experience will resonate across the country.”

Vasudha Narayanan examines the role of Hinduism in interfaith dialogue

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In the third edition of the Interfaith Friday series, the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, vice president of religion, moderated a number of questions for Vasudha Narayanan, a Hindu and interfaith advocate at 2 p.m. Friday, July 13, in the Hall of Philosophy.

Narayanan is a distinguished professor in the department of religion at the University of Florida and a past president of the American Academy of Religion. She was educated at the universities of Madras and Bombay in India, and at Harvard University. Her fields of interest are the Hindu traditions in India, Cambodia and America; visual and expressive cultures in the study of the Hindu traditions; and gender issues.

What follows is an abridged version of Narayanan’s conversation. Narayanan and Robinson’s remarks have been condensed for clarity.

From where you sit in your tradition, why should we be moving in an interfaith direction either here at Chautauqua or in the world?

Narayanan: I think the basis of this is understanding each other, and that can come in multiple ways. The word “faith” here itself is something I think we should flag because it is a very Protestant word, a very Catholic word, when you think about it. How we dialogue faith is the question, and most Hindus would prefer action. So when we talk about interfaith, we talk about our beliefs, our world belief, and that is primarily the Abrahamic belief system. There are multiple belief systems, so when you have interfaith dialogue, those faiths that we are dealing with, (each religion has its own perspective), and there are many theistic and nontheistic structures as well. So, the word “interfaith,” I would say, changes as to what is the content about. It is extremely important to understand each other, and some of you would understand that that’s why we are here. We need to know each other, not just you, more deeply. What is it that makes you tick? What is it that makes you? That could be in different ways, and in the Hindu tradition, we do not believe in God as a past form. Where I come from, we believe that the Supreme Being has a form that he or she takes to come to the temple to make itself accessible to us. That I think is a very nice view for us to start (from) because all of us in this day and age want to give back to this universe, (to know) that it matters, that we can’t just come here, trash the earth and move on. So we can assume that the basis for interfaith dialogue, why you are all here today, is to get to know each other. But we need a space and we have to make that space, and Chautauqua is one of those places. It is where we come together to talk without anger. When I think about a detachment, I do not think being withdrawn. I mean speaking without being angry but still with passion.

When you come to the metaphorical interfaith table, what gifts do you bring as a Hindu to that table?

Narayanan: The one thing I really want to stress here is the diversity of all of our traditions, so when I say what is mine, I am sure you can look back at yours and see it there, too. To say that these are the gifts that Hinduism brings to the table is not to say this is unique to us. It’s not, it is something we have valorized or something here that I have appreciated in my own way. One (thing Hinduism brings) is a sense of infinity that I had come to way back when. Historically speaking, it was in India that the concept of zero came up, and that means people who could talk in huge numbers. One (number) followed by 17 zeros became a number which they used to speak about the cycle for the large creation of time and then the creation of the universe would be cycles within cycles stretching the human and divine years. It makes you ask yourself what your place is in this universe. I feel that this sense of your place, which has been emphasized over and over again in the Hindu tradition, is important, but only when knowing (no matter the issue) the other side of the coin would still say your life matters. It is the only life we have right now, so give it this hugeness and vastness the universe defined in the way that every one of us is reborn over and over again. This matters. You do good now.

The thing that most reminds me of that concept is a practice that we do every day in Hindu households. We wash the outside threshold, the outside porch and make a drawing called a mandala with rice our so the little insects can eat off of it. They draw huge designs outside, but then within 10 minutes a car will drive by, a bike will go by and kids will play and there will be nothing. But they will do it all again the next day because it doesn’t matter that it lasts for 10 minutes. It is beautiful. It becomes a part of what you created and those who behold it even though it is so temporary. Oh, and the (tradition of) food. Hinduism is all about food. Forget everything I told you about Hinduism, it is only about food.

Do you have any sacred texts or holy teachings that are telling you that yours is the one true religion?

Narayanan: Every tradition says that, but whether the followers take that literally is the question. How does it function on the ground? Do people pick up the scrolls and say, “This is all there is”? No, of course not. So it depends on how you interpret it. I think by and large, people have been more metaphorical in their interpretation of these statements. Because the Lord’s form is the entire universe, everything is included in that. Places where you can understand that, like here in Chautauqua, that becomes your church. That speaks to you in levels that we can’t understand.

Do you have extremist practitioners of Hinduism?

Narayanan: The story of extremism is present in all human beings, right? We can’t blame any one group of religion for having that. That is important for all of us to remember. I think Gandhi and many others said for every finger pointing outward, three point toward you. So yes, we have extremists, but how many people in India, or the in the world, relate to them is the problem. On the whole, violence is about, but then you get historical claims (about extremists), even the more modern people are swayed. When you bring government policies to flame, this fury, it is even worse.

Something for everyone: Opera, CSO come together for Highlights concert Saturday

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Chautauqua Opera Young Artists perform in the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra Opera Highlights Concert Saturday, July 15, 2017 . ERIN CLARK / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

It’s not an everyday occurrence that an opera singer gets to perform with a live orchestra, but this weekend, Chautauqua Opera Company’s Young Artists get to do just that.

Chautauqua Opera will perform pieces from well-known composers with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra for the Opera Highlights concert at 8:15 p.m. Saturday, July 14, in the Amphitheater.

“It is a unique thing that they get here,” said Steven Osgood, general and artistic director for Chautauqua Opera.

When programming the concert, Chautauqua Opera’s music administrator and chorus master Carol Rausch took Week Three’s theme, “The Art of Play,” into consideration. Most of the pieces have some aspect of playfulness to them, whether it’s the lyrics or the characters.

Each of Chautauqua Opera’s Apprentice Artists will sing a solo and perform in an ensemble. Before the works were selected for the concert, those singing submit some songs from their repertoire that they would like to perform with the orchestra. That gives Chautauqua Opera an idea of what each artist can do and focuses the concert on pieces that fit the theme.

“We want an entertaining night for the audience, and we want pieces that showcase our Young Artists well,” Rausch said.

The concert features songs from popular composers like Beethoven and Offenbach. CSO and Chautauqua Opera will even perform a drinking song, “Vivat Bacchus!” from Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail.

Osgood said there is something for everyone in this concert. If someone doesn’t like one piece, they might not have to wait long to hear a work they do like.

The concert also gives the CSO a chance to play a different variety of selections.

“The program that we get is so unique,” Osgood said. “We would never make up this program but for the confluences and influences, and I think that that variety of repertoire is fun for the CSO players.”

The “Opera Highlights” concert will feature the premiere of Composer- in-Residence George Lam’s piece “Underwater Acoustics.” Lam set Rajiv Mohabir’s poem of the same name to music. Mohabir was Chautauqua’s Week Three poet-in-residence. The piece will be performed by mezzo-soprano Alexandra Rodrick.

“I’m really excited to feel how it’s going to feel because I think there are so many amazing, beautiful colors that are discovered in the orchestration,” Rodrick said.

Mohabir’s poem is personal, but on the surface, it’s about the ocean and its vastness, Lam said. That’s the aspect he said he tried to capture in the piece.

After learning he was to be Chautauqua Opera’s composer-in-residence, Lam visited the Institution to hear the CSO and Chautauqua Opera perform. With an outside venue like the Amp, Lam said there are a lot of ambient noises, including the night winds and conversations of people walking around.

Those sounds and the expansive nature of the Amp add to the experience of listening to “Underwater Acoustics,” Lam said.

“I lucked out in that this poem, I think, fits well with that idea (of expansiveness), which then fits really well with the idea of an outdoor concert in the Amphitheater,” Lam said.

CTC conservatory actors ready to rock the stage this weekend in ‘Airness’

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Chautauqua Theater Company’s conservatory actors are used to playing make believe, but this weekend they will take their imitation to a new, rocking level.

With one notable exception, the cast of Airness is entirely made up of CTC conservatory actors. Chelsea Marcantel’s workshop production about the radical joy of air guitar opens this weekend with performances at 6 p.m. on Saturday, July 14, and 2:15 and 8 p.m. on Sunday, July 15, in Bratton Theater.

The play follows Nina, played by conservatory actor Jerrie Johnson, who serves as the audience surrogate as she enters the world of competitive air guitar.

Instead of rebuffing a potential threat, the air guitar enthusiasts embrace Nina with open arms and teach her what it takes to rock.

Johnson said that the friendships seen on stage reflect how the conservatory actors act outside of the theater.

“You have to build those connections outside as well, to have the truest version on stage,” she said. “I think the conservatory members have been so generous since day one that you can just see it.”

The play’s authenticity extends to its rules of competition, which are identical to air guitar’s judging criteria. Much like figure skating, contestants are judged on a 4.0 to 6.0 scale based on their stage presence, technical ability and “airness” which is how well they transcend imitation and make air guitar into an art form of its own.

Naturally, Airness features numerous classic rock hits by bands like Journey and Heart. Because air guitar thrives on crowd interaction, audiences are encouraged to clap and sing along to their favorite tunes.

As for the guitar solos, the conservatory members were trained firsthand by two-time air guitar international champion Matt Burns, who cameos as different announcers throughout the play. Known on stage by his persona “Airistotle,” Burns coached the conservatory actors’ routines and taught them about air guitar culture.

Burns said he was impressed by the actors’ ability to lean into the art form and not care about what they might look like while performing.

“All these guys are incredible actors. They could all skill Shakespeare if they felt like it,” he said. “Doing air guitar is unique because you’re going to look silly doing it and you are going to look a little out there, and so to drop your guard and accept the fact that you’re going to look silly, you’re going to look like you’re having the most fun.”

Conservatory actor David Rosenberg plays Mark “Facebender” Lender, an air guitarist who wears his heart on his sleeve. He said that he admires the way air guitarists share deep friendships despite living miles apart.

“They only see each other at these competitions because they all live in different parts of the country,” he said. “The way that Matt Burns talks about it, it’s just all these people supporting each other and being happy for each other. It couldn’t be less about winning. It’s just about joy and community and support and expression, and that’s awesome.”

Outside of rehearsal, the conservatory members live together and take classes. Director Joshua Kahan Brody said that the cast, much like the air guitar community, has become a supportive family.

“I think one of the things that a conservatory, especially at a place like Chautauqua, does is it eliminates, relatively speaking, competitiveness,” Brody said. “Being an actor in New York or LA where you’re constantly auditioning, it’s a scarcity economy where it’s a zero-sum game and everyone else’s gain is somehow your loss. Here, I think that these guys have created a community that doesn’t feel like that.”

Marcantel, who sat in on the rehearsal process and answered the actors’ questions about the play, said that this bond was helpful given the short window of time CTC had to put the show together.

“I like working with a conservatory or a company or a group that’s been together before I get there because I feel like then we jump to day 10 of rehearsal in terms of how well everybody knows each other,” Marcantel said. “It just saves us a lot of time because everyone is comfortable, everybody’s friends and everybody speaks the same language by the time we get involved.”

The show also pays homage to the air guitar community’s desire for world peace through the character Gabe “Golden Thunder” Partridge, played by conservatory actor Elijah Jones. He said that having fun was vital to the rehearsal process, and he hopes audiences will sense that on stage.

“Air guitar is about having fun, and so if you’re not having fun, the show will just fall flat. That’s what the air guitar community is built on. It’s about fun. It’s about peace. It’s about bringing people together.”

-Elijah Jones, Conservatory actor, Chautauqua Theater Company

 

Finally ready for prime time: Newman closes week with laughs

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  • Laraine Newman, an original cast member of SNL and founding member of improv group The Groundlings, discusses the emotional benefits of improv, play and humor on Friday, July 13, 2018, in the Amp. ABIGAIL DOLLINS/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Laraine Newman knows play is an art.

The original “Saturday Night Live” cast member spoke to “basically how improv and humor can save the world” (and she was not kidding) at the 10:45 a.m. morning lecture Friday, July 13, in the Amphitheater as the punchline of Week Three’s theme, “The Art of Play.”

“Eve Arden, Madeline Kahn and Richard Pryor were my first major influences,” Newman said. “They led me into my life of comedy, they led me into understanding ‘The Art of Play.’ ”

Her comedy career began as a young girl in a toy store. Sweet and innocent, Newman said she would walk aimlessly through the rows of toys and then, in a flash, she would stuff rubber animal erasers down her underpants and run out of the store. Her scam worked — until she brought an unseasoned thief along.

The accomplice got caught by a salesperson. Newman, in a fit of panic, used her improvisational skills.

“We got those over at Newberry’s and if you don’t believe me, you can come with us over there and ask them,” she said.

The salesperson let them go.

“You might be saying to yourself, ‘Well that’s not improv, that’s just lying,’ ” she said over a burst of laughter. “And you’d be right, but it’s the lie of a 9-year-old pretty much feeling like she is fighting for her life. So the way I guess you say it is, ‘survival itself is an improvisation.’ ”

Newman explained the guiding principle of improv: to say “yes, and,” to any — and every — thing. This means that every response should be an affirmation, not a “no, and” or a “yes, but,” which Newman said is the same as a “no.”

“Yes, and” is not exclusive to improv; giving positive affirmations should extend into everyday life, Newman said, including for those suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Newman described her friend and fellow comedy writer, whose mother suffered from early onset Alzheimer’s.

Her friend began giving positive responses to her mother’s complaints that someone was in her house, with questions like, “Why do you think someone is there, what do they want?” rather than, “No one is in your house, Mom.” Both her and her mother’s frustrations rapidly decreased.

“Of course, it was always possible that she was actually being robbed, but that’s the risk with improv,” Newman said over an epic roar of laughter.

Improv can also be a problem solver and character builder, which she illustrated through an anecdote about being locked in a room in New Orleans with fellow “SNL” Not Ready For Prime Time Player Gilda Radner.

Too scared to leave for fear of being mobbed, the two sat in an empty room for hours waiting for a cue from the “SNL” crew that it was time to leave. Hungry, bored and cold, Radner fashioned a puppet out of the only other thing in the room — a trash can with a foot pedal.

“I remember saying something like, ‘Man, I am hungry,’ ” Newman said.

In response, Radner said, in a half-Italian, half-Oscar the Grouch accent, “I might have something for you to eat. I think I have some peanuts — oh no, sorry, there is something disgusting all over them.”

“Man, I’ve got to pee,” Newman said.

“Don’t look at me,” Radner (as the trash can puppet) said.

This banter continued throughout the day.

“It really made the four hours go by faster,” Newman said, reflecting on that fiasco. “We made the best of the fact that we were cold, bored, thirsty, hungry and had to pee.”

Later on in her career at “SNL,” Radner and Newman took part in a presentation at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. That day, Newman was ill and took medication for her symptoms. Midway through the rehearsal of their speech, Newman’s jaw clenched and her tongue dropped to the bottom of her mouth from an allergic reaction to the medication.

They scrambled to come up with a routine, eventually landing on an act where Radner did all the talking and Newman accompanied her with sound effects. Newman’s noises ranged from a possessed chicken to a crying baby to a dog whose paw had just been crushed.

Newman, unexpectedly, demonstrated the shrieking dog for the audience. The high-pitched, ear-shattering noise threw the Amp into a frenzy of admiring “oohs” and painful “ahhs.”

“These moments with Gilda felt so dire, but thank god for her,” she said. “And thank god for our improv training, that fellowship that we both belonged to. The experience of imaginative play can transport us to a reality of our own making, and sometimes that reality we create can help us manage our fear.”

Play to manage fear translates into two fascinations of the early 20th century: haunted houses and horror movies, in which simulated horror gives people a feeling of invincibility.

“There are so many scary things in this life that we cannot control — economic failure, terrorism, a host of other things I don’t know if I should mention because I don’t know who I will offend, but you know what I mean,” Newman rattled off.

Haunted houses and scary movies aside, there are other ways for adults to enjoy play, she said, like cosplay or Dungeons & Dragons — “How great is it that dress up is no longer the exclusive domain of children?” But more universal than that, play is found in just playing with children.

“I think that we can all agree and recognize that there is something so intimate about shared, fun experiences that involve listening, cooperation and laughter,” she said. “It’s a special kind of bonding that shows (children) what relationships can be like out in the world.”

Play appeared in Newman’s parenting through party planning, creating and embodying the personality of their family dog and, of course, improv. Newman stressed the distinction between stand-up, improvisational and sketch comedy.

“A lot of people assume that if you have a comedy background, you’ve done stand up,” she said, violently shaking her head and pulling her arms tight against her chest. “No. God, no. … It’s an entirely different animal.”

Newman admitted she was “never a good improviser,” but when in character, like an angry Jewish poet, a flight attendant, an eccentric chef or a British groupie, she was “free.”

“When I first performed (my characters) and the audience responded, I felt like crying,” Newman said. “I mean the idea that what I saw — what other people saw — (meant) I wasn’t so alone in my perspective. I hope this doesn’t sound too overblown, but it really did feel like a Communion.”

Those characters helped create some of “SNL’s” iconic sketches. At Lorne Michaels’ loft in New York City, the cast of “SNL,” in the beginning stages of the show, met to improvise. Prompted by the phrase “alien family,” Newman, Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin took a trip to Easter Island using a kooky voice Newman created, and “Coneheads” was born.

“Some of the greatest improvisers I’ve ever seen seem to have an open channel to their unconscious,” she said. “Their unconscious is pretty damn funny.”

And before anyone fears ridicule or humiliation for trying something new, whether it be a hairstyle or improv, Newman had a reminder: “We’re all going to die.”

“How (can play, improvisation and humor) be a bridge for communication and empathy?” she said. “How it can evolve fellowship and community? … Every time you make someone laugh, follow someone’s lead, even if it’s a stranger, … every time we accept a child’s reality, we are giving love and affirmation. And how can that not make for a better world? Now go out and play.”

After the conclusion of Newman’s lecture, Chief of Staff Matt Ewalt opened the Q-and-A with the daily reminder:

“As we enter into our Q-and-A, I know a few of you have to leave for other programs, please be as respectful as possible —”

“Yeah, I’m not taking it personally at all,” Newman said as she sarcastically cried into her hands.

After Ewalt and the crowd had a good laugh, he asked Newman if the relationship between people onstage and people in the audience is important in improv comedy.

“(The audience is) really appreciative and they know how hard it is, so if you’re even slightly funny, they really appreciate it,” she said. “And also you’re working off of their suggestions, so they’re kind of invested in your success. But I do think that they are very different from a stand-up audience because the nature of stand-up is so different, and improv really does involve the audience.”

Ewalt continued the Q-and-A by asking that while previous lecturers established that there is a play deficit among children, is there a play deficit among adults?

“I think that there is something considered slightly shameful if we behave in a way that isn’t expected of adults,” Newman said. “More and more now, actually, our culture is supporting (play) as in things like cosplay. … So I guess it has changed somewhat to where people are really given the permission to play more.”

The audience was then given a chance to ask questions; one attendee asked what type of comedy works in the country’s polarized political climate.

“Irony. … I mean, to do comedy, you have to have critical thought, you have to be a reflective person. You have to be able to see the irony of things and be very sensitive to things, and I think that’s kind of more conducive to liberals,” Newman said, cringing and incrementally lowering her voice.

To close Week Three, Ewalt asked if Newman had any tips for someone looking to break into comedy.

“Listen to everybody so that you start where they leave off, so that you’re not a derivative of anybody that’s come before because originality is absolutely key,” she said. “Also, read — read, read, read.”

ABIGAIL DOLLINS / PHOTO EDITOR

Laraine Newman, an original cast member of “Saturday Night Live” and founding member of improv group The Groundlings, discusses the emotional benefits of improv, play and humor on Friday in the Amphitheater

Week Four Column from the President

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Welcome to the fourth week of our 145th Assembly, where we move from “The Art of Play” to one of the most pressing topics facing our nation and our world today. Much has been written about the United States’ relationship with Russia, and we’ve assembled a packed week from which we can all debate, discuss and draw our own conclusions.

Our nine themes each summer are sometimes years in the making, and ironically, “Russia and the West” has been on our list for close to five years. Little did we know then that revisiting the relationship between Russia and United States would be as relevant as it is in our national narrative.

A quarter-century has passed since the collapse of the Soviet Union — and the promise of new relationship with the West — yet we find ourselves at what some consider the brink of a new Cold War. What has happened to damage relations between Russia and the West over 25 years, how have power dynamics changed in the age of digital and information warfare, and what must we understand about the recent history of Vladimir Putin’s Russia and its relationship with the West and the world?

In addition to this being a timely conversation, Chautauqua has a special relationship with Russia. If you haven’t read former Director of Religion and historian Ross Mackenzie’s book When Stars and Stripes Met Hammer and Sickle: The Chautauqua Conferences on U.S.-Soviet Relations, 1985–1989, I recommend it to you now. Just as Chautauquans in the late 1980s were exploring the ties and hurdles between the two regions then, we reaffirm our need for a deeper cultural understanding of Russia, its history and its people during this week.

Our companion Interfaith Lecture Series explores “Russia and Its Soul.” Described by the West for decades as “godless Russia,” post-Soviet Russia has revealed that it had never actually lost its soul. In what multiple ways is this resurrected religiosity being manifested, and what else is it gradually releasing? In this week, we journey into the broad heart of the Russian people.

I couldn’t be more thrilled that U.S. Sen. Chris Coons (D-Delaware), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, will open our week. Sen. Coons is known as one of the members that regularly crosses the aisle to work in cooperation with both parties to provide solutions. Not only does that underscore our desire for greater dialogue across left and right, but Sen. Coons has a front-row seat to this debate given his committee perch, and we’re honored to welcome him.

Much of our artistic offerings this week also highlight the culture of Russia, and we’ve sprinkled in some fun along the way with a live recording of the NPR program “Selected Shorts.” I think Chautauquans — whether continuing their journey with us or starting their summer experience here for the first time this week — are in for a real treat.

For those who read your Daily with your morning coffee or breakfast, I hope you’ll join us at 12:30 p.m. Saturday, July 14, in the Hall of Philosophy for the community kickoff of our diversity, equity and inclusion planning work with a keynote address by Dr. Johnnetta Betsch Cole. I hope you’ll also take part in our ongoing 3:30 p.m. Thursday community sessions on strategic planning. There is so much dreaming and planning going on about the future of Chautauqua. I’ve said this all summer, but it bears repeating: The power of Chautauqua is that we wrestle with and dream about things in the context of a dynamic and ever-changing community. As we enter into this week looking at a key part of the world order, I also hope you’ll help us create the strongest community possible here on the grounds of this sacred place.

Thank you again for the many ways you provide an animating spirit to Chautauqua.

Diana Butler Bass calls attention to the intersection of sports and spirituality

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Growing up, there were two things Diana Butler Bass was terrified of: camping and sports. While she hasn’t yet warmed up to the idea of a weekend exploring the great outdoors, she has grown to believe sports represent the way a perfect society could be run.

At 2 p.m. Thursday, July 12, in the Hall of Philosophy, Bass, an author and independent scholar, discussed the relationship between play and gratitude during her lecture, “In the Ballpark: The Arenas of Gratitude,” as the last lecture of Week Three’s interfaith theme, “The Spirituality of Play.”

“I was the awkward one. I literally would trip over my own feet playing games,” Bass said. “I was uncoordinated, and I was impatient with arcane rules that seemed silly to me. Because of this, I disliked team sports, where you had to be picked to participate.”

Instead of attempting to learn to play games herself, she learned by watching the people who did.

Through observation, she learned to “recognize talent and soak in the wonder and beauty of athletic perfection.”

“This underscores a profound dimension about sports and gratitude,” Bass said. “Sport is not just about the athlete, and it isn’t just about the team that has been chosen and fielded.”

This mentality dates back to the New Testament, where the apostle Paul also associated a mature life of faith to that of sports.

In 1 Corinthians, Paul said everyone who competes in games goes through strict training. However, some do it to get a temporary crown or temporary satisfaction, and others do it to get a crown that will last forever.

In the book of Philippians, Paul furthers this concept by urging Christians to learn how to work together instead of working for their crown on their own.

“The essential thread of New Testament theology is that Jesus’ followers are members of the same team: in training together, in running life’s remarkable race and receiving the crowning glory of gratitude from God,” Bass said.

What was unique about Paul’s definition of a team was that it was wholesome and not dedicated to false gods, national pride or personal glory.

“Paul would envision a team of love, a team that will humbly serve the entirety of world, a team of mercy, kindness, grace and gratitude, and that this team will be such that there will no longer be male nor female, Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free,” Bass said. “All barriers will come down, and the people on that team will be one. This is what winning looks like from God’s perspective.”

In the act of breaking down barriers, Bass believes teams have become one of the most important aspects of any form of play.

“In culture, even a culture that is highly individualistic like ours is, games, sports and play call us into community, and they call us into relationships,” she said. “We literally don’t play alone.”

Too often, Bass believes sports teams and their fans lose sight of the positive aspects of sports in their obsession with victory. “We live in a perpetual state of ingratitude because we are living in a perpetual state of dissatisfaction,” she said.

Ingratitude is about what people don’t have but wish they did, Bass said.

“Ingratitude and genuine civic thanksgiving are deadly enemies because if we can’t play together, we cannot be happy. We can’t be a good team,” she said. “Public ingratitude threatens rather than invites, it isolates rather than unites, and as a result, we lose communal joy.”

Bass believes games do not have to be “zero-sum” and talking about winners and losers creates a negative environment for everyone involved.

“When people use that kind of language for games, it isn’t really about winning. It is about power,” she said.

Bass believes this quest for power has resulted in sports being more about business than play.

“People are becoming economically powerful because of their huge salaries or the way they can turns games into wealth,” she said. “When you get into the concept of having power over others, you are not in sports anymore, you are not playing games. You’re involved in oppression. You are involved in dehumanization.”

According to Bass, this victory-driven mentality became amplified after the 2016 election, but she believes there is hope that Americans can turn it around and revert back to Paul’s vision for sports’ potential.

“Sports at its best should be a celebration of the gifts of our body, the gifts of surprise, the gifts of wonder, the gifts of exuberance,” she said. “This insight of the link between play and thanksgiving offers us one of the most important and hopeful possibilities for bringing people back together during a time apart.”

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