“If Russian painters were condemned to become the pupils of the West they were, I think, rather unfaithful ones by their very nature. The best Russian realist conflicts with the realism of Courbet. The most authentic Russian Impressionism leaves on perplexed if one compares it with Monet and Pissaro. Here, in the Louvre, before the canvases of Manet, Millet and others, I understood why my alliance with Russia and Russian art did not take root. Why my language itself is foreign to them. Why people do not place confidence in me. Why the artistic circles fail to recognize me. Why in Russia I am entirely useless... In Paris, it seemed to me that I was discovering everything, above all a mastery of technique... It was not in technique alone that I sought the meaning of art then. It was as if the gods had stood before me... I had the impression that we are still only roaming on the surface of matter, that we are afraid to plunge into chaos, to shatter and overthrow beneath our feet the familiar surface.”

— Marc Chagall

reaction on his first arrival in Paris, 1910
Quote of Chagall in: Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 262, (translation Daphne Woodward)
1910's

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Marc Chagall35

French artist and painter 1887–1985

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“Only the great distance that separates Paris from my native town prevented me from going back… It was the Louvre that put end to all these hesitations. When I walked around the circular Veronese room and the rooms that the works of Manet, Delacroix and Courbet are in, I desired nothing more. In my imagination Russia [where Chagall was born] took the form of a basket suspended from a parachute. The deflated pear of the balloon was hanging down, growing cold and descending slowly in the course of the years. This was how Russian art appeared to me, or something of the sort… It was as if Russian art had been fatally condemned to remain in the wake of the West.”

Marc Chagall (1887–1985) French artist and painter

a later quote on his first arrival in Paris, 1910
Quote in Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock -, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 261, (translation Daphne Woodward)
1920's, My life (1922)

“Every artist works within a tradition. I am a native of Russia. My Russian soul has always been close to the art of old Russia, the Russian icons, Byzantine art, the mosaics in Ravenna, Venice, Rome, and to Romanesque art. All these artworks produced a religious vibration in my soul, as I sensed in them a deep spiritual language. This art was my tradition.”

Alexej von Jawlensky (1864–1941) Russian painter

quote from his letter to the National Socialist State Cultural administration, 1939; Jawlensky asked permission to exhibit his painting art, which was turned down by the Nazi regime
Source: 1936 - 1941, Life Memories' (1938), p. 24

“We in Russia have always considered Russians and Ukrainians to be one people. I still think so.””

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

Speech at a Moscow concert on the first anniversary of the annexation of the Crimea by the Russian Federation, March 18, 2015.
18 March 2015 speech at a Moscow concert on the first anniversary of the annexation of the Crimea by the Russian Federation
Original: (ru) Мы всегда в России считали, что русские и украинцы – это один народ. Я так думаю и сейчас.

“I write and leave behind me this letter at St. Petersburg. I feel that I shall leave life before January 1st. I wish to make known to the Russian people, to Papa, to the Russian Mother and to the children, to the land of Russia, what they must understand. If I am killed by common assassins, and especially by my brothers the Russian peasants, you, Tsar of Russia, have nothing to fear, remain on your throne and govern, and you, Russian Tsar, will have nothing to fear for your children, they will reign for hundreds of years in Russia. But if I am murdered by boyars, nobles, and if they shed my blood, their hands will remain soiled with my blood, for twenty-five years they will not wash their hands from my blood. They will leave Russia. Brothers will kill brothers, and they will kill each other and hate each other, and for twenty-five years there will be no noblers in the country. Tsar of the land of Russia, if you hear the sound of the bell which will tell you that Grigory has been killed, you must know this: if it was your relations who have wrought my death then no one of your family, that is to say, none of your children or relations will remain alive for more than two years. They will be killed by the Russian people…I shall be killed. I am no longer among the living. Pray, pray, be strong, think of your blessed family.”

Grigori Rasputin (1869–1916) Russian mystic

Grigory Rasputin in a letter to the Tsarina Alexandra, 7 Dec 1916

“Mediocrity is a constant, as one Russian writer put it. Russians have a way with aphorisms. They probably spend all winter thinking them up.”

Haruki Murakami book A Wild Sheep Chase

Source: A Wild Sheep Chase: A Novel (1982)

“The best thing we can do if we want the Russians to let us be Americans is to let the Russians be Russian.”

George F. Kennan (1904–2005) American advisor, diplomat, political scientist and historian

Source: As quoted in US-Soviet Relations : The First 50 Years WNET TV {17 April 1984)

“I realise that 2008 will be an important test for Russia, and not an easy one. At the same time, the Constitution of the Russian Federation states that the President, the head of state, is elected for four years through direct secret ballot and cannot stay in office for more than two consecutive terms.
I am not indifferent of course to the question of who will take in their hands the destiny of the country I have devoted my life to serving. But if each successive head of state were to change the Constitution to suit them, we would soon find ourselves without a state at all. I think that Russia's different political forces are sufficiently mature to realise their responsibility to the people of the Russian Federation. In any case, the person who receives the votes of the majority of Russian citizens will become the President of the country.”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

Answering the question of Dutch TV station "Nederland 1" and Dutch newspaper "NRC Handelsblad", "Can you imagine a situation in which you would decide to remain in office for a third term?", Putin said: http://web.archive.org/web/20061013003243/http://www.kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2005/10/31/1955_type82914type82916_96455.shtml <br class="br">2006- 2010

“We might have a quick word with each other but that is natural as we both speak Russian. Maybe I shouldn't speak Russian!”

Andriy Shevchenko (1976) Ukrainian association football player

About his friend Roman Abramovich.http://news2.thdo.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/funny_old_game/6275535.stm

“I am naturally anti-Russian just as most Germans are. I admire their achievements in industrial fields. I was in Moscow personally. I would not be in favor of the Russian system in the western nations. I don't condemn the system — I recognize the good results that it has produced in its proper setting. But in order to be Communist, one must be a fanatic. I am very suspicious of all systems requiring fanaticism. I am convinced that the world would be a better place if people were satisfied with enough to eat and a job to keep them occupied.”

Paul Schmidt (1899–1970) German translator, Nazi

To Leon Goldensohn (13 March 1946). Quoted in "The Nuremberg Interviews" - by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004

“[The Albanians] seem to be rather backward and primitive people… they can be as faithful as a dog; that is one of the traits of the primitive. Our Chuvash were the same. The Russian tsars always used them for their bodyguards.”

Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Said to Edvard Kardelj (1947), as quoted in Vladimir Dedijer (1954), Tito Speaks, page 312
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Marc Chagall35

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