Valery Todorovsky: "The situation today is close to what we earlier called the stagnation"

“I was never offered (to engage in state propaganda - editor's note)... It somehow passed me by. Well, maybe. People somehow know me and understand that this is not mine.

I have never faced this temptation.

I don't like propaganda.

I do not like to engage in propaganda - I have never tried it, but I am not interested in this creatively.

And I do not like propaganda when it falls on me from the outside.

I am an independent enough person to think independently and make my own decisions. To draw my own conclusions from what I see and hear around, and I do not need to try to drag me to someone's side. Especially crude methods of propaganda. No.

I don’t like to be a victim of propaganda and, moreover, I don’t want to be its producer.

… Now what is called stagnation is happening. How else to call this time?

This is also called stability.

For example, I lived most of my Soviet life in stagnation.

It was exactly the same. Well, very similar.

Although now, of course, there is a thousand times more freedom than there was then.

... I once signed a letter against the return of the Soviet anthem.

It seems to me that a new country has emerged, it should have a new anthem. It was many years ago.

I still think so.

We had Glinka. I think we also have Glinka and Tchaikovsky, and not only Aleksandrov. We have better composers in Russia, including for the anthem.

But I understand why they returned the anthem. We wanted to unite people to remove this split ...

I remember these arguments that a huge number of Soviet people live in the country, who perceive it as their anthem, and it was taken away from them.

That is, it was necessary to unite them somehow, but in the end they were united for some reason under this anthem, and not under some other.

I signed it then, and I am signing it now.

I think that we probably need to live this too. That's all I can say. "

The entire interview with Valery Todorovsky can be viewed here .