“The world is in a state of restlessness and really needs a voice to guide it towards goodness – the voice of Leo Tolstoy,” Vladimir Tolstoy, a member of the jury of the award, the writer’s great-great-grandson and general director of the State Museum named after Leo Tolstoy, told reporters. Tolstoy – He wrote about how love for peace should cease to be a timid aspiration of peoples, and become a demand of an honest conscience.
According to the statutes of the award, the jury members must remain anonymous until the organizers decide to reveal their names, and viewers were able to see the composition of the jury for the first time in the evening’s program. Among them were Maria Victoria Alcaraz, a public figure and professor at the University of Buenos Aires, Oleg Gaidukevich, a deputy of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of the Republic of Belarus, Lindiwe Susulu, a member of the national executive committee of the African National Congress, Pierre de Gaulle, grandson of the former President of France and founder of the Foundation for Peace and Friendship among Peoples, and other public and political figures – in total 9 people, citizens of countries included in BRICS, SCO and the G20. The jury chairman was the artistic director and general director of the Mariinsky Theatre and the general director of the Bolshoi Theatre Valery Gergiev.
The entire Bolshoi Hall – and the guests of the ceremony included diplomats, politicians, members of the State Duma, heads of ministries and the media – applauded when they learned that the first laureate of the Leo Tolstoy International Peace Prize was the African Union – an intergovernmental organization that includes 55 countries on the African continent. It replaced the Organization of African Unity, designed to promote the development of political and economic ties between African states, the protection of human rights and the fight against crime and terrorism.
“September 9 is an important day in Africa,” said African Union Commission Chairman Musa Faki Mahamat after receiving a unique personalized medal made of pure gold with a portrait of Leo Tolstoy and his autograph from Valery Gergiev. “On that day, the Organization of African Unity decisively passed the torch to the African Union. Today, on the same day, but already in 2024, we are illuminated by the splendor of the Leo Tolstoy Prize celebration. It is gratifying that the first prize goes to Africa. We accept it with great gratitude.”
And then, behind the open curtain, the audience in the hall saw the orchestra and chorus of the Bolshoi Theatre with Maestro Gergiev at the helm. This evening Tchaikovsky sounded from the stage of the theatre. The concert began with the solemn overture “1812”, written in memory of Russia’s victory in the Patriotic War of 1812. And the evening was rounded off by the orchestra, chorus and soloists of the Bolshoi Theatre Alina Chertash and Elchin Azizov with the cantata “Moscow”.
– The great Stravinsky gained worldwide recognition in Paris. The great Frenchman Petipa glorified Russian ballet in Moscow. These intersections, this framework, held the world together, and may it continue to do so. – Valery Gergiev spoke from the stage of the Bolshoi. – We have someone to follow: the great Tolstoy.
The Leo Tolstoy International Peace Prize will be awarded annually on 9 September.
