On the “Ice Age” program on Channel One, Tatyana Navka and Andrei Burkovsky showed a number about concentration camp prisoners. The performance of the artists caused a mixed reaction from users of social networks: some were outraged by it, while others did not see anything offensive in it.
In the episode of the Ice Age show on November 26, Tatyana Navka and Andrei Burkovsky performed a number called “Beautiful That Way” based on the film “Life is Beautiful.” The film, set during World War II, is about an Italian woman who voluntarily followed her husband and son to a concentration camp. During the performance, Navka and Burkovsky were dressed in prison uniforms with yellow Stars of David on the chest.
The number caused mixed reactions among social media users. In particular, blogger @Lndcalling stated that Channel One has gone crazy.
The post received more than 500 retweets and many replies. Users mainly condemned the artists and the editors of the TV channel.
But there were also those who defended the production.
The Ice Age judges responded positively to the performance - they rated the artistry and technique of the performance with a maximum of six points.
Earlier, users of social networks celebrated the 75th anniversary of the founding of one of the most terrible correctional institutions in the USSR - Usollag. The correspondent, talking about the history of Usollag, described it as a place where the management harvested almost 100 million cubic meters of wood.
And this fall, the administrator of the public about St. Petersburg wanted to wish his subscribers an original beautiful night, but overdid it and accidentally wished for a repeat of the pogroms against Jews in Nazi Germany in 1938 than .
On November 26 in Russia, Channel One, as part of the “Ice Age” program, showed a performance by Tatyana Navka and Andrei Burkovsky “Beautiful That Way” based on the Italian film “Life is Beautiful.” Navka and Burkovsky took to the ice in the uniforms of concentration camp prisoners and with yellow stars.
The number caused, to put it mildly, mixed reactions.
There are also more loyal opinions, for example, the opinion of the editor-in-chief of the N+1 website Andrei Konyaev.
About the fuss that arose around the speech of the wife of Putin’s press secretary, for example, The Huffington Post. One of the Russian commentators wrote that Navka and Burkovsky should be “sent to where such pajamas are issued.” In particular, blogger @Lndcalling said that Channel One has gone crazy. IN Daily Mail that the Russian president should force the show's creators to apologize for making a mockery of the Holocaust. A note about the disgraced program and The New York Times.
A photo posted by Tatiana Navka (@tatiana_navka) on Nov 26, 2016 at 11:22am PST
Vladimir Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov also responded to criticism from his wife. In a conversation with Life, he said: “I don’t think this is an issue that concerns the Kremlin. And due to my work, I am limited to comment in any way,” Peskov noted. “I’m proud of my wife, that’s all I can say.”
“Life is Beautiful” is an Italian tragicomedy, released in 1997, directed by Roberto Benigni. The film tells the story of how, during World War II, a father tries to save his son from the Nazis by convincing him that the horrors taking place are just a game.
A new stumbling block and a reason for loud disputes between Russia and the West suddenly became figure skating. Moreover we're talking about not about the big ones sports competitions, and about one number from television project"Glacial period".
On November 26, 2016, in the next episode of the Ice Age program, the couple Tatyana Navka - Andrey Burkovsky presented the number “Beautiful That Way”, in which the participants appear as Jewish prisoners Nazi concentration camp. The performance received the highest scores from the project judges.
In the West, this issue attracted unexpected attention from the press. The reason was primarily due to her partner: Tatyana Navka, Olympic champion in sports dancing on ice, is the wife press secretary of Vladimir Putin Dmitry Peskov.
The Western media considered the issue “tasteless” and taking an incorrect tone towards the victims of the Holocaust.
“They sunk to such lows for the sake of fame”
“Vladimir Putin's Spokesman's Wife Under Fire for Ice Dance About the Holocaust,” Time headlines.
“Tatyana Navka, the wife of Putin’s aide, drew criticism with her Holocaust-themed ice performance,” The Huffington Post writes.
CNN quoted the words director of international relations Australian Israel Council Jeremy Jones:“The frivolity that led to the decision to stage this number is maddening... After they are forgotten as skaters, they will remain in memory as people who sunk to such baseness for the sake of fame.”
The Russia Today TV channel published a commentary by the chief rabbi of Moscow, chairman of the Council of Rabbis of Europe, head of the rabbinical court in the CIS and Baltic countries Pinchas Goldschmidt:“I would like to believe that the dance directors wanted to convey the will to live and best hopes concentration camp prisoners. Many people liked it, but many were offended by the dance. Because the Holocaust and everything connected with it is too big a wound. She won't live any time soon. Almost not Jewish families, in which none of the ancestors would have suffered from Nazism, would not wear yellow stars, like on the costumes of figure skaters. The feelings of the victims and their families had to be taken into account. Consult. Probably, the intentions were good, but every nation has its own pain, and we must try not to touch a nerve. I wouldn’t like to see anti-Semitism here.”
Some Russian users of social networks also reacted quite emotionally, among whom, however, there were many Ukrainian ones:
“Do they really think that everything is fine?”
"Ernst in the furnace"
“In Germany they would definitely give a deadline”
“It’s time to ask Santa Claus for a fence with Mordor. I don’t see any more options"
“You can only discuss skates”
Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov noted: “I don’t think that this is an issue that in any way concerns the Kremlin, and due to my work, I am significantly limited in my ability to comment on this. I'm proud of my wife. That's all I can say."
The reaction was extremely emotional official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova. On her Facebook page she wrote: “I would name it, but they’ll ban me....
Haaretz, Daily Mail, Huffington Post and dozens of others all wrote about Tatyana Navka’s Holocaust-themed dance number.
They didn't like the number! The image of the prisoners of Auschwitz, you see, is not embodied on ice as it should be. Defenders of tolerance? Nothing like this! Hypocrites and liars. Moreover, they are cowardly hypocrites and liars fulfilling a political order.
Where are you all hiding when monuments to those who fought the Holocaust are being demolished in Europe? For 30 years in the Baltics they humiliated World War II veterans by denying them citizenship - where have you been? It was you who mocked the victory parade in Moscow in 2015, calling it a “manifestation of militarism.” And when shaved guys with swastikas and torches march in Ukraine, which way do you turn? And where do you run when the Waffen-SS legionnaires organize parades? And when officials in Poland said that Auschwitz was liberated by Ukrainians, not Soviet troops, thereby insulting the memory of soldiers of many nationalities, why didn’t you point out to them the inadmissibility of politicizing an immortal feat?
Then you were all silent. You can only discuss skates.”
What really happened
Tatyana Navka herself said in an interview with Life: “This is not the first time that the themes of war have been raised in our project; personally, this is not the first time I have performed a performance in the clothes of concentration camp prisoners. This is our creativity, and before it somehow did not cause any reaction in the world. And this means that we make people think. I hope that many simply have not seen this film, and when they do, they will look at our wonderful act with different eyes,” she added.
The idea of the act that Navka and Burkovsky showed belonged to Ilya Averbukh, Vice-champion of the Olympics and world champion in ice dancing, and now a successful producer of ice shows.
In the Ice Age project he acts as a coach and producer.
The number is a reimagining of the film Roberto Benigni"Life is Beautiful", which in 1998 was awarded the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival and two Oscars.
According to the plot of the film, the Italian Guido, a Jew by nationality, ends up in a concentration camp with his son. Trying to protect the child from horrors, Guido explains to his son that everything that happens around him is a game. The boy in it needs to score 1000 points to get Grand Prize: tank. Points are given upon unconditional compliance with a number of rules: it is forbidden to show your face to the soldiers, cry, complain or ask for food. The child believes his dad, despite death, pain and blood around him.
At the end of the film, the prisoners are freed, the boy is reunited with his mother, but his father dies at the hands of a Nazi.
For Navka and Burkovsky’s number, music was taken from the film “Life is Beautiful.” Just like in the movie, in the room main character dies: machine gun fire is heard, and he disappears into the darkness.
“90% of speakers did not see the number at all”
Ilya Averbukh reacted very harshly to criticism of the number: “90% of the speakers did not see the number at all, they don’t understand what was being discussed. For such people, I am ready to explain once again: the theme of the program was “world cinema,” the performance was based entirely on the great film “Life is Beautiful,” directed by Roberto Benigni, which received three Oscars. A family ends up in a concentration camp, where in order to save their child, they act out the story throughout the film that it's all simple big game. For those who haven’t watched the movie, there was a special text for 15 seconds, a direct quote from the film, when Tanya and Andrey really stood with faces full of sorrow, where it was said: “Son, it’s just a game.” It was for him that this number was played, which had everything: and dramatic story, and struggle, and ridicule, and the severity of loss when Andrei passes away, leaving his family. This is an exceptional quote from the film. An absolutely normal reaction associated with the fact that you really want to bite. There is a direct road: Navka - Peskov - Putin. That's all. A photograph was taken of people dressed as concentration camp prisoners smiling. Without thinking about anything, we might as well grab a still from the movie “The Great Dictator.” Charlie Chaplin, where he depicts Hitler, this level is exactly the same, just to yap.”
Head of the Public Relations Department of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia Borukh Gorin in an interview with Interfax, he said: “The turn that the discussion of this act has taken - an attempt to condemn it from ideological or moral positions - seems to me completely inappropriate, since addressing the topic of the Holocaust as such, especially with artistic interpretation, when performers associate themselves with the victims , worthy of all respect and gratitude... All the condemning reactions that we have witnessed are not just exaggerated, but catastrophically exaggerated... To talk in 2016 about whether it is worth creating on the topic of the Holocaust various kinds works, it’s the same as arguing whether wind is needed. It exists, and it is part of the cultural space.”
Daily Mail “replaced” Navka Totmyanina
And one last thing. The British newspaper Daily Mail, which considered the smiles on the faces of Navka and Burkovsky unacceptable, since they “do not fit well with the monstrous theme” of the Holocaust, managed to make a gross mistake in the material. In the material on the website, under a photograph with the explanation “Peskov’s wife is to the right of Putin,” they posted a photograph in which it is not Tatyana Navka standing next to the president, but Tatiana Totmyanina. She is also a figure skater, also an Olympic champion, but not Dmitry Peskov’s wife, but figure skater Alexei Yagudin. It is clear that the Daily Mail knows little about Russian beauties and Olympic champions. But maybe then you shouldn’t talk about what you don’t understand?
Published 11/29/16 10:29The performance of Tatyana Navka and Andrei Burkovsky in the show “Ice Age” with a number about the Holocaust caused a mixed reaction in society and the media. Peskov expressed pride in his wife who danced in the clothes of a concentration camp prisoner. And Averbukh accused Western media in inciting hysteria around Navka’s dance.
Navka was surprised by the media reaction to the dance about the Holocaust
Olympic champion Tatyana Navka commented on the controversial reaction to her ice dance number with actor Andrei Burkovsky, writes MK.
Earlier, as Topnews wrote, Western media criticized Navka and Burkovsky, who danced in prison clothes. However, the dance was based on Roberto Benigni’s tragicomedy “Life is Beautiful” about the Holocaust.
Navka said she was surprised by the strange reaction of the media. She suggested that the critics did not see the picture, the music from which was used in the issue intkbbee about prisoners of Auschwitz.
Navka and Burkovsky. Speech on the Holocaust. VIDEO
Figure skater Tatyana Navka and actor Andrei Burkovsky performed an ice dance in the show “Ice Age” on Channel One, dedicated to the Holocaust. The athletes took to the ice dressed as Jewish prisoners of a concentration camp during World War II and danced to the song “Beautiful That Way” from the famous Italian film “Life is Beautiful.”
“Be sure to check it out! Based on one of my favorite films, Life is Beautiful! — Tatyana Navka wrote on on your Instagram page. “Show this film to your children, for sure. Our children must know and remember that terrible time, which I hope, God willing, they will never know!” - she emphasized.
Peskov commented on the performance of Navka and Burkovsky
Press Secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov commented on the performance of his wife Tatyana Navka and Andrei Burkovsky in the image of Auschwitz prisoners, RT reports.
“I don’t think this is an issue that somehow concerns the Kremlin. Due to my work, I am significantly limited in my ability to comment on this. I’m proud of my wife, that’s what I can say,” Peskov said in response to a request to comment on the reaction of the world media to the speech of Navka and Burkovsky.
The Jewish community approved scandalous dance Navka about the Holocaust, and the chief rabbi of Moscow expressed doubts
In the speech of Tatyana Navka and Andrei Burkovsky with a number about the Holocaust at television show There is nothing offensive about “Ice Age,” Mark Grubarg, chairman of the Jewish community of St. Petersburg, told Baltika FM.
According to him, some bloggers and journalists artificially “inflated the story” on the topic of insulting feelings after watching ice show. The speech of Navka and Burkovsky gave another reason to remember the Holocaust and comprehend the lessons of the past, the head of the community is sure.
“Many people are outraged that they are trying to talk about the Holocaust in the language of the show. But there are a lot of topics devoted to the Holocaust wonderful films. Why is a film possible, but a show is not? Is it worth labeling any genre?” Grubarg was indignant.
All works of art without mockery and deliberate humiliation of this or that community, they have the right to exist, says the chairman of the Jewish community. In his opinion, whether Navka and Burkovsky’s show meets the criteria of good taste will become clear after some time.
As the organization explained, the scandalous dance was conceived as a work about love, faith and victory over difficult reality. “And I advise everyone who is concerned about insulting Jews to come to the synagogue to engage in a serious study of Judaism and the history of the Holocaust,” Grubarg added.
In turn, the Chief Rabbi of Moscow, President of the Council of Rabbis of Europe Pinchas Goldschmidt did not approve of the performance of the wife of press secretary Dmitry Peskov in the show “Ice Age” in the image of an Auschwitz prisoner.
In his opinion, Tatyana Navka and her dance partner Andrei Burkovsky should have consulted with the relatives of Nazi concentration camp prisoners before staging a dance about the Holocaust.
“Many people liked it, but many were offended by the dance. The Holocaust and everything connected with it is too big a wound. She won't live for a long time. There are almost no Jewish families in which none of the ancestors suffered from Nazism or yellow stars, like on the costumes of figure skaters,” TASS quotes the rabbi.
According to Goldschmidt, the creators of the dance number needed to take care of the feelings of the victims' family members and consult with them in advance. The Chief Rabbi of Moscow expressed the hope that the directors wanted to convey the will to live and the best hopes of the concentration camp prisoners.
“Probably, the intentions were good, but every nation has its own pain, and we must try not to touch a nerve. I wouldn’t like to see anti-Semitism here,” Goldschmidt said.
Ilya Averbukh accused Western media of inciting hysteria: they confused Navka with Tatmyanina
Meanwhile, figure skater and producer Ilya Averbukh called it savagery how foreign media reported news about the dance of Tatyana Navka and actor Andrei Burkovsky in the images of Auschwitz prisoners in the show “Ice Age,” writes Lenta.ru.
“It’s crazy that this can be discussed at all. Wildness in everything - in presentation, in hysteria, in unprofessionalism, which can be seen in the articles foreign media", says Averbukh.
As an example, he cited an article in the British Daily Mail, which confused Navka with another Olympic figure skating champion, Tatyana Totmyanina. In the published photo, Totmyanina stands next to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the caption to the photo talks about Navka. Averbukh called it a “big blunder.”
On Saturday, November 26, the next episode of “Ice Age” was broadcast on Channel One, which caused heated debate not only among fellow skaters, but also overseas. The fact is that 41-year-old Tatyana Navka and 33-year-old Andrei Burkovsky performed a dance based on the film “Life is Beautiful”, addressing the theme of the Holocaust.
In "Ice Age" entertainment show on the First, there are many fans who enjoy watching their favorite celebrities conquer the ice in pairs with professional athletes. Despite the format, the program occasionally touches on very serious topics. So, in the next episode, Tatyana Navka and Andrei Burkovsky performed a dance based on the film “Life is Beautiful,” choreographed for them by Ilya Averbukh. Tatyana and Andrey took to the ice in striped overalls with yellow stars of David on their chests (remember, according to the plot of the work, parents who ended up in a concentration camp are trying to convince their son that everything that is happening is just a game). For this number, Navka completely abandoned makeup.
On her Instagram, the Olympic champion published footage of her performance and wrote: “Our children should know and remember that terrible time, which I hope, God willing, they will never know! (hereinafter, the authors’ spelling and punctuation have been preserved - website note).”
Some viewers were delighted with the production - strong, touching the soul, while others were hostile to it. Some Internet users criticized the couple and their mentor Ilya Averbukh: “We should talk about the Holocaust, not dance!”, “They made a show from Auschwitz. And aren’t you ashamed?”
The British portal The Daily Mail collected comments from Western bloggers condemning the issue: “Have you forgotten how your people suffered during the war?”, “You should be ashamed!” - they said.
Ilya Averbukh came to the defense of his players. The mentor explained to Komsomolskaya Pravda correspondents: “My grandfather went through the whole war. He served in a tank corps as a surgeon. Took part in the battle on Kursk Bulge and in the battle for Koenigsberg (Kaliningrad). The topic of war is a very difficult one, but I have often addressed it, so that people do not forget.
The story, when parents try to protect their child by depicting a completely different world for him, makes us feel the tragedy even more. And we are talking about this pain. This number is my idea. In the previous program we had an amazing performance by Ekaterina Varnava - “Armenian Lullaby”, also about tragic events. But no one paid attention, apparently because Tatyana Navka was not the performer. And that's the whole answer. I get the feeling that people didn’t watch either the act or the film. We saw photos of smiling people in robes and made some ridiculous conclusions - from bad taste, illiteracy, lack of education.”
Averbukh’s position was supported by many: “I hope that at least now people will start watching the film “Life is Beautiful” and will understand what this dance is about,” “Averbukh was right when he said that there is nothing even to discuss here, just watch carefully so as not to write anything later rave".
