LPR militia received an award for best play

The prizes were presented by the head of the Union of Theater Workers, Alexander Kalyagin.

In Moscow, three playwrights were awarded who, in their works, addressed the topic of Donbass and, more broadly, special operations. It is noteworthy that three plays were chosen from more than two hundred, which confirms the wide response of writers to the demands of the time, which requires new themes and new characters. True, on the long-suffering land of Donetsk, of the three winners of the competition since 2014, there has been only one – Yegor Cherlak, but he turned out to be a militia of the “first wave”.

Winners of the competition “New Time. New Heroes”, held by the Union of Theater Workers of the Russian Federation since November last year, was personally awarded on October 12 by the star of the Soviet screen (and head of the Theater Union) Alexander Kalyagin. A total of 185 authors took part in the competition, including residents of new regions of the federation, but the best texts, according to the jury, were created by a Muscovite, a Muscovite, and a writer from Chelyabinsk.

After the ceremony, the MK correspondent spoke briefly with each of the winners, asking several workers and one “provocative” question: “Have you ever been to territories where shells have been exploding for nine years.”

Third place winner Valeria Yanysheva (Moscow) said that she had been “for a long time and was just passing through,” but relatives and friends had lived there since birth:

– They found themselves at the epicenter of events. I know very well what happened there. I wrote the play “Hourglass” based on their stories.

– What is she talking about?

– That nationalism is terrible in all its manifestations, regardless of who was appointed as the “main nation.” The play is a kind of polyphony of human feelings against the backdrop of the events taking place in Donbass. This is the story of several different national families: Gypsies, Jews, Poles and Ukrainians.

– Representatives of over 100 nationalities live in the Donetsk region. Why did you focus on these?

– It so happened historically that Gypsies and Jews always turn out to be “extreme”. It is customary to offend them in places where armed conflicts occur.

– Which theater do you see as the ideal venue for staging your play?

– I am a very conservative person, and since I myself serve in the Romany Gypsy Theater, this theater will have the right to the “wedding night.”

Playwright Egor Cherlak from Chelyabinsk, in turn, said that his play “Before, After and Now,” which took 2nd place, is a parable about Russian women waiting for sons and fathers from the battlefield in different eras.

“In 2014, I fought in Lugansk as part of the militia. I saw everything with my own eyes. And they were waiting for me at home just like they are waiting for my heroes,” said Yegor.

Finally, awarded “gold” for the play “Call Sign “Light” Mikhail Umnov (a resident of the capital) said that he was trying to find a “hero of our time,” but a hero literally, without the “Pechorin shadow”: skepticism and disappointment in life.

– Ninety percent of the action takes place in Moscow, where graduates of the art academy work together. One of them is not only a watercolorist, but also a volunteer. Together with a friend, every month they send humanitarian aid to Donbass: books, things, stoves for winter heating. Why is this person, acting on the call of his heart, a hero for me? Because he has a heightened sense of justice. He is not “Rambo”, but a person seemingly removed from military operations by his profession. But in the end he becomes a soldier, taking the place of a deceased teenager from Gorlovka, whose portrait he once painted.

Umnov never once found himself in the area where the SVO was held – he had to create pictures of modern life in Donetsk, Gorlovka, and so on, not from life, but using the writer’s imagination. However, this is also a tool proven over centuries.