New generation is not exactly politicized (February 23 2013)
Yuri Yulianovich Shevchuk the 55 year old Russian singer and songwriter who leads the rock band DDT, and is highly critical of the undemocratic society that has developed in Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Shevchuk is the subject of an interview in an article published by Katrina vanden Heuvel and Alec Luhn in The Nation magazine titled ‘The Russian Optimist: An Interview With Opposition Rocker Yuri Shevchuk – “What will become of our country and of us?”. Shevchuk states “…The new generation is not exactly politicized. The point is that every generation lives in a given time period, but all people are different. …Everywhere I’ve spent time after concerts talking to young people. Active young people, the ones with a youthful glint in their eye. They are of course more politicized than the generation of the early 2000s and 2010s. That was a very cynical time, and young people were mostly interested in themselves. Now, in the 2010s, I think we’ve reached kind of a breaking point with the charismatic part of the young generation, progressive young people. …In the past two or three years, a lot has changed. Young people have started to ask more profound questions. They don’t want to leave the country. The slogan of the 2000s was “Get rich.” Now this has become secondary and the main question is, “What will become of our country and of us?” Overall in Russia, things are going well, in my view. Because there’s this dialogue going on, this struggle for civil liberties. Russia is emerging as a state. Well, yes, there are reactionary forces, that’s happening, too. You can look at the world through dark glasses, thinking that everything is bad, terrible. But if you do this, you’ll lose everything, the future. These progressive young people are afraid of nothing.”
Inspired by Katrina vanden Heuvel & Alec Luhn, The Nation ow.ly/hLSkD Image source Yuri Shevchuk ow.ly/hLShI
