|
)
.
:
-

World

soviet’s humour likened to Monty Python

Andrey Knishev has a sense of humour
that got the Soviet journalist and producer
banned from television broadcast in the
Brezhnev era.

But the broadcaster, now riding high on
the airwaves with his brand of irreverence
that has been compared to Monty Python
and Saturday Night Live, has some serious
things to say about both Soviet TV and that
of the United States of America.

Soviet TV can be educational but boring
and lacking in professionalism, while the far
Slicker U.S. offering can be compared to a
light pastry, Knishev, in Seattle to participate
in a public television broadcast, remarks.

“The first impression is that American
TV is bright, technically sophisticated and
full of energy,” the Soviet visitor says in
English during a telephone conversion from
the U.S. city.

“But you find that many programs are
copies of each other, all the same, like
McDonald’s hamburgers and Wendy’s.

“I'm not saying it’s good or bad. It’s
fluffy, but when you press your finger down
on it, you find it has little substance,” says
the co-host of a special on KCTS, Seattle’s
public television station.

Knishev, who has previously visited the
United States, was invited to participate in a
90-minute special on the art and cultural
displays that comprise the Goodwill Arts
Festival currently under way as part of the
Goodwill Games. Festival and games fea-
ture several acclaimed acts from the USSR,
including the Bolshoi Ballet.

(The Art of Goodwill, also featuring local
host Pat Finley, was scheduled to be broad-
cast on KCTS on Saturday, July 14 at 7 p.m.,
and repeated Sunday at 11 a.m.)

Knishev, a graduate of the USSR’s pres-
tigious High School of Playwrights, Screen-
writers and Film Directors, is director of
television programs anda journalist for Sov-
iet Central Television. But he is renowned
for Jolly Boys, a satiric show on Soviet life
and politics that combines several elements
familiar to Western viewers. The show’s
name is an ironic tribute to an old, famous
Soviet musical.

He describes it as “TV collage using all
genres: documentary, interviews, people-in-
the-street, music, gags, parodies, sketches,
video effects and computer animation.”

“Tt’s an ironical approach to serious sub-
jects — topics such as love and family life,
human relations, environmental problems
....” The show has used such innovative
techniques — in the USSR — as camera-
panning the audience when the opening cre-
dits rolled, Knishev relates.

Jolly Boys’ style and content have made
it one of the most popular shows in the
USSR. But not with the authorities during
the tenure of the late Soviet leader Leonid
Brezhnev, according to Knishev.

“T was invited to meet with the chairman
of Central Soviet TV. He was a famous
person, an old man who ran TV for maybe
15 years or so.

“He was a very clever man, and that is
why he was so dangerous ... Everyone was
afraid of him.”

During the meeting, “I was told: “We
don’t need this kind of program.’ He asked
me questions like, ‘What is youreducation?’
‘Who gave you the right to do this sort of
thing?’” Knishev relates.

“He told me it would be better if 1 would
read newspapers, do documentary inter-
views with nice people: workers, farmers,
soldiers. The key word was ‘people,’ in ac-
cordance with the party doctrines of what
the people are.

“So we don’t need your program,’ I was
told.”

Knishev says he walked around for hours
afterward: “I didn’t know what else to do
with my life.”

The show was subsequently cancelled,
for about 1 14 years through 1984 and 1985.
Knishey meanwhile went on to the High

ANDREY KNISHEV ..
Brezhnev era.

School of directors and writers, but con-
tinued working on the same program, which
was subsequently shown on another chan-
nel.

“My bosses closed their eyes, as if I was
not making them.”

Knishev says the show persevered des-
pite hindrances: it was frequently not an-
nounced in the schedules, and when it was
the title was often omitted: “They would
state simply, ‘Program for young people,””
he laughs.

Soviet television under Gorbachev now
features many performers who were virtual-
ly underground previously, including rock
musicians and artists, Knishev relates.
“Now they are not rebels any more. The
public has different expectations of what
they need now.”

And Soviet people are becoming “more
involved in today’s life; the nation is becom-
ing more dynamic and contemporary,” Kni-
shev says.

Still, the concentrated examination of the
Stalin period has robbed Soviet citizens of a
perspective, in Knishev’s opinion. He calls
for a deeper look into the Russian identity
by analyzing the last 400-500 years of his-
tory.

“J_et us speak about eternal essences, hu-
man values, the future of mankind,” he
urges.

Soviet television is frequently education-

. popular satirist once banned from broadcasting during

al, Knishev relates, “but sometimes it’s real-
ly boring.”

“You (must) find that your goal is the TV
viewer. You realize that they won’t watch
your program just because you’ve spent all
this time making it.

“On our TV, we have an idealistic view.
We have to educate a nation, to tell the truth

”

But it suffers from a lack of profes-
sionalism and money. The ruble is not a good
stimulus to work, Knishev says, noting:
“The whole system is at fault, not the people
(involved).”

Knishev will be filming segments in
Seattle to take back to the USSR. He may
yet get to Vancouver, in late July or early
August, he says. (Knishev says he was pre-
vented from visiting the city for press inter-
views due to problems with visa require-
ments.)

How does he view working with KCTS,
part of the U.S. Public Television Network,
as distinct from commercial television?

“I feel it’s more like Soviet TV than
anything else (in the U.S.). I would say it’s
the ideal form of Soviet TV.”

As for the future of Soviet television:
“Tdeally, our TV must be both entertainment
and educational.

“I would like to see more interesting
forms of (Soviet) TV. It is an art, and it has
its own language.”

Layoffs, pay
spark GDR
iob actions

e advent of monetary union be-
tween the two Germanys touched off
a wave of strikes in the German
Democratic Republic as workers
sought to offset the economic insec-
urity and price increases that have
followed the first step towards uni-
fication.

The largest union in the GDR, the
1.6-million member IG Metall,
brought out some 10,000 of its mem-
bers in half-hour warning strikes in
the Berlin-Brandenburg region and in
several plants around Leipzig, while
truck assembly workers in Ludwigs-
felte and steel workers in Hennigsdorf
walked off the job July 2.

The strikes were held to back the
union’s demand for a 40-hour work
week and a $240 a month wage in-
crease.

Der Spiegel, the West German
newsmagazine, quoted leaders of
GDR unions of airline, civil service,
sanitation, transportation and other
workers who also declared their inten-
tion to launch strikes to back pay
demands.

The strikes have a political as well
as an economic dimension, echoing
the resistance by East German work-
ers to the growing West German capi-
talist takeover, now officially under-
way following the completion of
monetary union. IG Metall’s involve-
ment is also of considerable impor-
tance since the union is affiliated to
the three-million member IG Metall
of West Germany.

Under the terms of the monetary
union, people in the GDR had one
week to exchange up to 4,000 East
German marks for West German
Deutschemarks at a 1:1 ratio.
Amounts above that ceiling were paid
at a discounted 2:1 ratio.

Although the exchange opened the
door for East Germans to the vast
array of West German products, it also
touched off a spiral of rising prices, on
everything from potatoes to postage
stamps. “We are going through the
trials of Job,” said GDR engineer Joa-
chim Alter. “Every day there is a new
affliction.”

But the economic blitzkrieg is re-
lentless. West German Economic
Minister Helmut Haussmann said
July 1 in Bonn: “We are not talking
about a medium term restructuring of
East German companies. They must
be privatized at once, even if that
means that they bring in less money.”

In charge of privatizing the GDR’s
8,000 companies is Detlev Rohwed-
der, head of the huge Hoesch con-
glomerate in West Germany.

The West German Communist
Party (DKP), at its recent conference
warmed that what is happening is
another “drive to the east.” But unlike
the Nazi’s “Drang nach Osten,” it is
not military assault but political and
economic aggression.

With their huge accumulations of
capital gathered over the past 10 to 15
years, West German corporations
need to expand and grow, to seize new
markets and dominate them political-
ly, the DKP said.

Pacific Tribune, July 16, 1990 «3