Pride dines on Vanity, sups on Contempt.
Nothing brings more pain than too much pleasure: nothing more bondage than too much liberty.
Benjamin Franklin
Do not weep. Do not wax indignant. Understand.
Baruch Spinoza
Poets are spiritual elites of humankind.
Good almost never likes better. Better is the enemy of good.
How awkward that we can look at things only with our own eyes.
Mikhail Stakhovich
Aphorisms have always been about intensifying the universal truths, spraying sunbeams of intellect on a myriad of its hues. Needless to say that there is nothing new under the Sun, but sometimes we are blessed with galvanizing aide memoires. We wake up and remember what humankind is about. Life as I see it is a beautifully assembled beads of wisdom by Mikhail Stakhovich – a little book with magnificent content. His thoughts remind fallen leaves collected in the peak of autumnal splendor one brings home to contemplate over and over before hibernating in a black-and-white lair of monotony, where poetry and philosophy find no white paper to leave footprints on.
The book is about to get translated into English and flow back to the United States, which used to be Michail Stakhovich home for twenty years. Originally it was written in German language and later on was published in Russian (2010) – and it is not surprising. The author is a polyglot, speaking fluently five languages.
Two remarkable Russian names -- Joseph Brodsky and Alexander Solzhenitsin -- contributed to American literature two Nobel prizes. Vladimir Nabokov donated to this country not only his famous Lolita, but also the genus Nabokovia – a rare kind of butterfly -- as a reputed entomologist.
Mikhail Stakhovich laid out his own unique trail in the United States as a top Austrian tennis player, coaching Americans, and as a father of a talented avant-garde American artist, Nadia Utto. And now the book is being drifted overseas from the “Nest of Gentlefolks” in the region of Lipetsk . His outstanding ancestors set their own gems on the crown of Russian culture and politics, being closely entwined with such great figures of Russia’s golden era as Lev Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov, Stanislavsky, Nemirovich-Danchenko, etc.
Mr. Stakhovich's literary talent flourishes vibrantly. At the age of 90, he gives numerous interviews, skis, writes books and essays. Since the author had moved there, Palna-Michailovka in a few years ago -- a family estate of Stakhovich lineage -- in a way became a bridge between the old and new Russia.
Among other ideas, Mikhail Stakhovich reflects on the nature of American civilization. American readers may find interesting to see how a Russian nobleman from Austria and Russia perceives the United States. He highlights such appealing traits of the American democracy as a strong, efficient economy, providing great opportunities its people; a new flexible political system with no bureaucratic barriers and, of course, technological breakthroughs that make the old continent both jealous and nervous. But there is always the other side of the coin: cult of consumerism with its longing for a glamorous and comfortable lifestyle results in hedonistic outlook and meaningless values. Unfortunately, these swift and shallow shortcuts have tremendous impact on the world and threaten to substitute deep and sophisticated cultures with primitive surrogates. “Guardians of European cultures have to resist to the pressure of triviality and lack of spirituality, simplicity and superficiality”. At the same the author emphasizes that nowadays we are all in the same boat and it really does not matter from who influences whom. That’s the objective reality to be reckoned with. “It really does not matter whether we call this lifestyle American or simply modern". As expressed in one his latest interviews, evolution continues, our mind evolves and humankind is supposed to go with a flow. Besides, it always contains seeds for improvement. Instead of complaining, we should seize the opportunity, move forward and better our planet.
Reflections and aphorisms in this book float like swirling clouds of marvelous patterns, prompting that there is no such thing as the ultimate truth. Thoughts only capture a continuous movement and keep gliding.
Mikhail Stakhovich belongs to that number intellectual elite, thousand cultural chosen ones, that Dostoevsky in one is novels, A Raw Youth, defined as a worldwide wanderer. One of the main characters, Versilov, travels to Europe to revere “the old stones” on which Western civilization is founded on. So did Benjamin Franklin and subsequently many of his noted successors. America needs its cultural epicenter – the old continent – from where it derived indispensable ideas in all walks of life, and, above all, a word – democracy. Also, let’s remember that such essential concept for the United States as checks and balances was developed by a genius of the French Enlightenment -- Montesquieu -- in 1748 in his book “On the Spirit of the Laws”. Self-sufficiency in this respect is a road to nowhere.
http://http://www.examiner.com/american-literature-in-national/an-insightful-trinangle-of-memory
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