Farewell to home
Автор: Aydar Zabbarov
The duration of the performance is 2 hours and 15 minutes.
Premiered on December 4, 2020.
The performance is provided with simultaneous translation into Russian
Documentary performance
For a long time, the countryside has been a constant topic of artistic research of Tatar literature, drama, and theatre. Each historical era has its own countryside and the layer of problems covered related to it, conflicts and vicissitudes, heroes and antiheroes, questions and doubts, unambiguous and open endings…
Aidar Zabbarov: "Like many of my generation, I used to spend my holidays in the countryside where my grandparents lived. And then one day, when my grandparents passed away from this world, and I grew up and came to our countryside house, then suddenly at some point it clicked on my mind: soon this village will not exist, it will simply disappear. And then an unbearable longing came over me, which, like Chekhov's, "seems to have flooded the whole world." And then that evening I thought that people were living here, building their future, and life was boiling here. And it used to be joyful here. And now there is longing…
And during the pandemic and self-isolation, I got a video on WhatsApp showing a village uncle playing the accordion. And again, I suddenly remembered that long-ago evening, those feelings, and a desire was clearly formed in my mind to find out how things go on in our villages today, how people live, how human destinies develop. In addition, I have long wanted to work in the verbatim technique. Explore this way of communicating with the audience, understanding both the theatre and oneself. My idea was accepted at the theatre, and in June the actors and I went to the villages of Tatarstan in search of live, real stories.
Wе visited more than 20 sparsely populated "dying" villages and took about 50-60 interviews. The stories turned out to be very different. We also met people who willingly shared their stories, and those who absolutely forbade even using their stories. There are those among them who are not burdened by loneliness, and those who are trapped by circumstances and forced to live out their lives among abandoned houses. There are people among our heroes who know a lot about their roots and tell in detail about their gens, the history of the village. And all together, these stories about the past and present of the Tatar countryside give rise to a very interesting context, which in turn helps to find answers to important questions not only of the present, but, perhaps, of the future…
We will also use the texts of fiction in our documentary performance. The monologues of our heroes will sometimes be reflected in the images of the classics. The action of the play takes place in a village club, where the village becomes still alive in the evenings… There will be an accordion, songs, and dances, and, most importantly, the real life of people who still believe in a better future, bringing it closer with all their might.
Our performance will inevitably include reflections on the Tatars, our native language, our homeland, our roots, our past, present and future… What will it be like if we are deprived of the Tatar countryside — a place of strength, freedom and thirst for life?!"
We express our gratitude for the help in organising meetings with villagers to Rail Sadriev (Buinsk), Lenur Zainullin (Atnya), Dinar Khusnutdinov, Enje Sayfutdinova (Almetyevsk), Dina Sattarova, Leah Kotelnikova (Kazan).
The performance uses excerpts from the works of T.Minnullin "Everyone has their own collective farm", "The Invitation card", of M.Magdiev "Victims of art", of R.Galiullin "Glory", G.Sabitov "Aybash".
The video series uses photographs from the collections of the State Archive of the Republic of Tatarstan, the National Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan.
