The Historic Significance of Russia’s Concert in Palmyra

Gilbert Doctorow, the European Coordinator of the American Committee for East-West Accord, develops the historic significance of the Mariinsky Theater Orchestra of St. Petersburg’s trip to Palmyra in a May 8 Consortium News article titled, “A Gift of Culture to Battered Palmyra.”

Palmyra has been considered a “twin city” of St. Petersburg for centuries. One reason is that Catherine the Great of St. Petersburg, was likened to Palmyra’s Third Century Queen Zenobia, a powerful ruler of the Palmyran Empire, who conquered Egypt and a large part of Anatolia. In the time of Pushkin, says Doctorow, Russian writers further developed the allusion, drawing upon the widely known beauty and cultural richness of Roman Palmyra.

In the 19th Century, St. Petersburg archaeologists were among the Europeans taking part in digs in Palmyra, and reporting them.

Says Doctorow, “It is not so surprising with that awareness in the Russian intelligentsia, that St. Petersburg conductor Valery Gergiev thought up the grand gesture, an act of great imagination.”

The concert took place little more than a month after Palmyra was liberated from the Islamic State, and just days after the archaeological sites were cleared of mines. In these circumstances, the Russian military moved Maestro Gergiev, the soloists, hundreds of national and international dignitaries, and 100 tons of telecommunications gear into the war zone.

In an extraordinary gesture, the Russians did not rush to evacuate their broadcasters and gear; they stayed to broadcast a follow-on concert featuring a Syrian orchestra and chorus that was held the next day in the same Roman amphitheater. The Russians stayed and telecast the Syrian concert to Russian viewers.

Doctorow reports that Valery Gergiev and his orchestra have performed at the front before. In 2008, he brought his orchestra to Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, just after its liberation from Georgian attackers. In Russia, he and his orchestra regularly do grueling tours of the North and Far East of Russia.

Doctorow called the Palmyra concert Russia’s most successful exercise in “soft power” in many years. The “Pray for Palmyra” Concert was dedicated to the memory of two heroes: Dr. Khaled Asaad, former Director of the Palmyra museum complex for 40 years, who was beheaded by ISIS because he refused to reveal where its treasures were hidden. The presence of the Director of the Hermitage Museum, Mikhail Piotrovsky, Doctorow says, was “a direct counterpoint” to the missing Syrian director, and his presence also symbolized the commitment of Russian art restorers to return Palmyra to its pre-war status as a center for research.

The concert was dedicated to twin heroes: on the opposite side of Dr. Asaad’s portrait, was a photograph of Russian hero Lt. Alexander Prokhorenko, who, surrounded behind ISIS lines, called for a Russian air strike on his position, giving his life to take out an enemy detachment.

The concert’s date also introduced the May 9 V-E Day celebrations in Russia, and served as “a gift to the Russian nation as well for its popular support of the military intervention in Syria.”

Gergiev is now the principal conductor of the Munich Symphony, as well as Artistic and General Director of the Mariinsky Orchestra.

After reviewing the “sour grapes” and outright hostile coverage of the Palmyra concert in much of the Western media, Doctorow concludes his article: “It is an unpardonable error of judgment to speak of a new Cold War as something that lies ahead, just around the corner. We are in the midst of it, and it will take enormous luck or a change of leaders for the better if we are to avoid a hot war.”