The world-famous art director Robert Sturua has recently been dismissed as the artistic director of the Shota Rustaveli Theatre. The Minister of Culture, Nika Rurua, said he had made such a decision because of Sturua’s inappropriate comments about other ethnic and racial groups.
Sturua has always been President Saakashvili’s opponent. He even directed a play titled “The Soldier, the President and the Security Boy”, aimed at satirising Mikheil Saakashvili, in those times Georgia’s newly elected president. However, neither the public nor the country’s authorities paid attention to the play, which was not (to be fair) a good one.
Evidently, that was not enough for Sturua. So he started to criticize the President over his ethnicity. Answering a question put to him by doesn’t pay attention to Georgia’s problems because he is an Armenian the Gruzinform news agency, Robert Sturua said Mikheil Saakashvili himself. Continuing the theme, he even said that it’s quite natural not to like black people, not because they are black, but because they have a different culture. After such remarks, several public figures condemned the famous artistic director, others said that he is a creative man, one who always has a "storm in his head." Our VK correspondent asked Armenian diaspora leader Van Bayburt, head of the ‘Multinational Georgia’ public organization Arnold Stepanyan and independent political analyst Nika Imnaishvili to comment on the situation.
Van Bayburt
I wouldn’t say that Robert Sturua’s expressions are a display of a medieval xenophobia. Still, I’m surprised that practically no one blamed him. Georgian intellectuals say: “He is a genius! How can one criticize a genius?” Who cares whether he is a genius or not?! Such expressions are inappropriate and dangerous for such multiethnic countries as Georgia. More than 300 thousand Azerbaijanis and 300 thousand Armenians live in this country. Any kind of ethnic conflict is extremely dangerous for social security. As for me, I think Robert Sturua is simply jealous of President Saakashvili’s popularity.
Arnold Stepanyan
Not only me but a lot of people, for whom such expressions seem outrageous, have waited quite long for Sturua’s dismissal. Maybe the measure that was taken isn’t popular in society, but it was necessary. Sturua was openly expressing xenophobia, he offended black people, for instance. I believe, the minister of culture has made the right decision.
Nika Imnaishvili
For me the whole situation is a tragicomedy. Of course Robert Sturua, a great art director, cannot be a xenophobe. No xenophobic ideas are represented in his plays. The problem is that Georgian intellectuals remain childish in social and political matters. If someone has nothing to say, he should keep quiet. In politics every word is important.
Interview by Georgy Kalatozishvili, Tbilisi. Exclusively to VK
