Composer Dashkevich suspected in connection with Ukraine

For some reason, the witch hunt began in Chuvashia

The week for the famous Russian composer Vladimir Dashkevich began with a shock. He learned that he and the International Association of Composers’ Organizations (IACO), headed by him, are suspected of financial ties with Ukraine. For a person who will celebrate his 90th birthday next year and who does not live by the merits of the past, but continues to work actively, this is certainly a stress that is dangerous to health. What’s happening? Why did the respected composer come under suspicion? Is the witch hunt on the rise? We are dealing with this with Vladimir Dashkevich.

– It all started with the fact that in the morning the president of the Chuvash composer organization, Svetlana Tyakhmusova, called the secretary of our association, Inga Shubina, and said that she had been summoned to the Ministry of Culture of Chuvashia. She was informed about a letter from Moscow, from which it follows that Vladimir Dashkevich and his international organization IACS are involved in almost financial ties with Ukraine. After that, they demanded to withdraw from the IACS on this basis,” says Dashkevich. – When I found out about this, I immediately called Svetlana Vyacheslavovna. And she confirmed that they really called her, such a conversation took place, and she does not understand what is happening, but the pressure on her is strong.

— What are you going to do?

– I have already sent a letter to the Association of Chuvashia. He wrote there that in connection with the current situation, IAKO, as the legal successor of the Union of Composers of the USSR, was established in 1993, that the founders of the association include the Union of Composers of Ukraine, Belarus and Chuvashia. But since 2013, we have not had any relations with representatives of the Union of Composers of Ukraine – neither financial, nor creative, nor any other. We held many concerts around the country a year, before Ukraine also participated in them, but after 2013, ties with Ukraine ceased, and from two sides: they stopped sending us notes, and our musicians stopped performing them.

– How do you think, where could such wild suspicions of your organization’s involvement in ties with Ukraine come from?

“I can only guess. The fact is that in 2021 the Union of Composers of Russia filed a lawsuit with Rosreestr to be recognized as the owners of the premises that our association now occupies on the ground floor of the House of Composers in Bryusov Lane. It passed to us at MAKO from the former secretariat of the Union of Composers of the USSR, of which, as I said, we are the legal successor. And I think that’s the whole point.

We called in Chuvashia, the local association of composers, Svetlana Tyakhmusova. And she confirmed that the Ministry of Culture of Chuvashia really demanded that she leave the MAKO, referring to some important letter. And leave in five days. When she asked to see this letter to her, she was refused. But an essential detail: three days before the call to the ministerial carpet, Svetlana Vyacheslavovna received a call from Moscow, but already from the Union of Composers of Russia, and she was offered, quite unexpectedly for her, to leave the MAKO and join the Union of Composers of Russia.

“Even then I was surprised by this call,” explains Svetlana Vyacheslavovna. – I cannot make such decisions on my own, this is the prerogative of the congress of composers. It will take place on June 6 and then it will decide whether we should be in the Union of Composers of Russia or not. Or stay in MAKO.

Agree, a strange combination is being played out: the International Association headed by Vladimir Dashkevich is suspected of some kind of connection with Ukraine, the respected composer Dashkevich is a foreign agent without five minutes. And it is possible that the basis of calls and letters is just the same banal “housing problem” that spoiled not only Muscovites, but also creative workers. In the end, let it remain on the conscience of those who started such a game, but the question is for officials: why are they so easily led to knowingly false information.

Published in the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets” No. 29042 dated June 2, 2023

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Composer Dashkevich suspected in connection with Ukraine