|
|
Dramatic Link of Times
Annotation
In 2014, in the UK: Russia Year of Culture, the 200th birth anniversary of the great Russian poet M.Yu. Lermontov is celebrated.
The Lermontov noble family is of Scottish descent, with the bard Thomas Learmonth mentioned among the ancestors. While a youth, when studying his genealogical tree, the poet Lermontov wondered what trick of fate had led his grandfathers to Russia. The question haunted his mind for long, he dreamt to visit his ancestors’ native land. “The personal qualities of the poet and the idiosyncrasies of his poetry, even the love for the mountainous Caucasus, are due to the genetic heritage of Scottish highlanders” (from the book by V. Bondarenko Lermontov. Mystical Genius. Molodaya Gvardiya Publishing House, 2013). In 1831, aged 16, Lermontov wrote the poem Yearning. Panting for the ancestral motherland he knows not, the poet soul chants:
To the west, to the west, I’d be gone in an hour!
Where the fields of my sires are in flower,
Where in a bare keep ‘neath the swirling of mists,
Their oblivious bones are lying at rest.
Where on ancient walls ancestral shields hang
Above a broad sword rusty and lang.
…Grazing the mute Scottish harp strings
As, once again, through the chamber it rings
And is heard by the one who awakes –
And as it reverberates… so the spell breaks.
Our project idea was conceived when we recollected the poem George Learmonth written in 2003 by the brilliant Russian journalist and poet A.N. Kryukov (1933–2012) who vastly contributed to the poet’s commemoration in the Kostroma Region. There, in the village of Izmaylovo of the Galich County, the Russian tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich Romanov granted a landplot to George Learmonth, the patriarch of the Russian branch of the family.
We endeavoured to illustrate the Learmonth family history through landscaping means both spatially and temporally. From the 13th and through the 17th – into the 19 h century, from Scotland – to Russia.
The project represents the Universe pierced by the flow of time, shaped as the Global Cosmic Egg wherefrom the World in born. The beginning and end of time are lost in the eternity depths. Along the temporal flow, life evolves spiral-wise. River of time and times, river of life and fate, river of inspiration and insight.
The whole composition is divided in two parts, each presenting plants characteristic of Scotland and Russia respectively.
The milestones along this way are the four oaks symbolizing the ancestral tree of longevity, nobleness and firmness. Attached to them are portraits of our protagonists.
The spiral and our symbolic time travel begin in the Scotland of the 13th century. We see the mysterious and legendary Thomas Learmonth of Erceldoune, a clairvoyant, a poet and the originator of Scottish literature who is reported (according to the legend) to have received his marvellous gift from the Elven Queen whose heart he had won.
The river of time carries us forth and we find ourselves in the 17th century. We see the portrait of a descendant of Thomas the Rhymer – George Learmonth. Destiny makes curious twists, the same as the flow of its river, with its turns changing fates of people, nations and states. The Scottish warrior begins a champion of the Russian State, serving it with good faith and fidelity. He “takes root” in this country acquiring a Russian soul. His portrait is placed on two oaks standing on opposite banks of the river of time, as if bringing the two countries and the two cultures together.
Time marches on, the river of time flows – and we are already in the 19th century Russia.
…Amidst moss-fleeced boulders,
A stream of crystal water
Runs, filled with verse,
In the sadness of the silent forest.
From the earth’s living stream
Those who gave Russia
The great poet
Used to drink in the course of years.
George Learmonth, your descendant
Was named Mikhail
In honour of the tsar…
From A.N. Kryukov’s poem George Learmonth
We see the portrait of M.Yu. Lermontov, an offspring of the Learmonth glorious family. His fate was to flash brightly across the sky as a shooting star. The poet’s life was short but his invaluable poetic gift earned him immortality.
The river of life brought together the two poets, being a vivifying source of inspiration. It spanned a bridge that connected Scotland and Russia, the past and the future. Talent and insight know no boundaries the same as birds and winds know no obstacles.