On
the acception of Liberty Prize.
December
3, 2000, Merkin Concert Hall, New York City
Mikhail
Epstein
AMERUSSIA
I
am deeply grateful to the esteemed jury and to the founders and sponsors of the
Liberty Prize. It is indeed a distinct honor to be granted an award whose name,
"Liberty," exemplifies the strivings of our bi-cultural community and
the reason why all of us have gathered here: not only in this concert hall, but
in this truly polyphonic and symphonic country.
I
am happy to belong to the Russian-American culture which embraces polarities
that have divided and agonized the world for several generations: collectivism
and individualism, equality and freedom, communality and privacy... It is the
breadth of internal tensions and contradictions that makes the Russian-American
culture so vigorous and engaging. It can be properly located within neither
American nor Russian tradition but rather places itself between and above them,
as a rough draft of one of those fantastic cultures of the future for which
Nabokov coins the hybrid term "Amerussia." An Amerussian is happily
conditioned to combine analytical and practical dispositions of the American
mind and synthetical and mystical gifts of the Russian soul. An
"Amerussian" as a bi-cultural figure may even better accommodate
Dostoevsky's universal vision of a Russian all-responsive "omni-human,
"vsechelovek."
The
customary notions of "emigration" or "diaspora" do not convey adequately the thrill and
danger of existence on the threshold of two cultures. Fyodor Tyutchev's lines
come to my mind:
"O
heart filled with disquiet, How you flutter on the threshold, As it were, of
two realities!... Yes, you are a denizen of two worlds..."
This
is the precise formula. To be a denizen of two worlds means to perceive each
one of them more sharply and vividly through the eyes of the other. The
contrasting meanings of the two cultures are constantly at play when one layer
of perception, Russian, which has not yet completely faded, is superimposed
upon the other, American, which has notyet taken final shape. Our existence is divided between these
two cultural spheres - and multiplied and intensified by dint of this duality.
That
is, then, what Liberty has come to mean for us, Amerussians: the partaking of
both cultures grants us an opportunity to liberate outselves from ideological
precepts, mythological superstitions, and linguistic limitations of any culture
by landing ourselves on their borders, taking advantage of being beyond them.
If political freedom includes the right to cross state borders, then cultural
freedom includes the ability to cross the borders of one's language and to
become a stranger to one's own culture, as well as to become native to an
alien culture. Bilingualism, or at
least one and a half lingualism is
a minimal condition of cultural freedom, as it allows stereoscopic,
multidimensional vision of the world.
In
conclusion, it may be useful to recall that the statue of Liberty stands not in
the middle of America, nor in the woods of New England or on the plains of the
Mid-West, but on the border, on an island in the New York harbor, facing those
who arrive in America from overseas. Newcomers, outsiders, strangers have the
historical privilege of
seeing the face of Liberty.
Atlanta
Journal/Constitution, November 23, 2000
Emory
Professor Receives Liberty Prize
http://www.cc.emory.edu/WELCOME/journcontents/releases/epstein.html
Mikhail Epstein, Emory University's Samuel Candler Dobbs
Professor of
Cultural Theory and Russian Literature, has been awarded the
Liberty
Prize for his contributions to Russian-American culture. This is
the second year
of
the prize, which will be presented annually to two outstanding Russian
cultural figures living in America. In addition to Epstein,
this year's prize
has been awarded to Vagrich Bakhchanyan, an artist and book
illustrator who
is considered one of the founders of Russian conceptualist art.
"This is an extraordinary award for an extraordinary
intellectual, whose
presence adds tremendously to Emory College and the
university," says
Emory
College Dean Steven Sanderson. "We are fortunate to have one of
the
leading contemporary figures in Russian culture among us as a friend
and
colleague."
Epstein, who has been a member of the Emory faculty for more
than 10
years, specializes in 19th- and 20th-century Russian
literature and
philosophy. Epstein has been the recipient of numerous
research awards,
grants, and fellowships, and he has published
books, articles and research
papers. Epstein currently is a member of the
executive board of the
International School of Theory in the Humanities (Spain), chairman of the
National Society for the Study of
Russian Religious Thought (U.S.), and a member
of
The Academy of Contemporary Russian Literature (Moscow). He will
travel to New York in December for the award ceremony and
related
events, including a reception at the Russian Consulate and an
evening of
classical music honoring the prize-winners.
The
Liberty Prize is juried by four authoritative Russian-American
Cultural figures, and is sponsored financially by Continent
U.S.A., a major organizer
of
Russian cultural events in the United States.
Epstein is a resident of Decatur, Ga. (30033).
The Liberty prize-2002 for an outstanding
contribution to the development of Russian-U.S. cultural relations was
presented at a formal ceremony in Washington to director of the library of Congress and honorary member
of the Russian Academy of Sciences
James Billington and to director of the Solomon Gugenheim Foundation
Thomas Krens. The prize which is
awarded by an independent jury sponsored by the American media group Continent USA is the only
award specially designed for those who actively help interaction of the USA and
Russia in the cultural sphere.