Шесть Эпштейнов

[tijd]

Эпштейн - распространенная еврейская фамилия. В 19-ом веке она ассоциировалась с хасидскими талмудистами вроде раввина по имени Йехиэль Михаль Эпштейн (1829-1908), который родился в Бобруйске и возглавлял общину Новогрудка, оставив после себя многочисленные сочинения.

В Википедии Эпштейнов около сотни - почти столько же, сколько Шапир. Рассказ о произвольно выбранных шести однофамильцах будет вариантом истории про "Два мира - два Шапиро".



1. Шахно Эпштейн родился в 1883 в семье раввина из местечка Ивье недалеко от Вильно. Вливается в революционное движение, в 1909 приезжает в США, где участвует в разных изданиях на идиш, в 1917 возвращается в Россию после февральской революции, в 1919 после развала Бунда записывается в большевики, в 1921 вновь приезжает в США, чтобы помочь организовать компартию и соответствующие издания на идиш. Возвращается в 1930, продолжая сотрудничество с советскими спецслужбами и зарубежные командировки.

В 1937 пропадает без вести Джульет Пойнц, одна из основательниц компартии США, которая разочаровалась в коммунизме после сталинских чисток и собиралась выступить с разоблачениями. Шахно Эпштейна подозревают в участие в заговоре по ее ликвидации, но концы уходят в воду.

One evening in early June 1937, Juliet Stuart Poyntz walked out of her room at the American Woman’s Association Clubhouse at 353 West 57th Street. She was never seen or heard from again. The New York Times, which ran a few stories several months later related to her disappearance, reported that her room looked as if she had expected to return that same night; she had not taken any extra clothing with her, and all her luggage remained in the room.
It is virtually certain that Poyntz was murdered by the OGPU. The Soviet secret police was prompt in eliminating anyone who knew too much about its workings, especially if that person had shown signs of disillusionment or intended to reveal its activities to the public. Several rather comprehensive accounts exist of Poyntz’s death, all of them based on the story told by Gitlow. According to his version, the OGPU used Poyntz’s former lover, a man named Shachno Epstein, the associate editor of the Yiddish daily newspaper Freiheit and an OGPU agent himself, to lure Poyntz out for a walk in Central Park. “They met at Columbus Circle and proceeded to walk through Central Park,” Gitlow writes. “Shachno took her by the arm and led her up a side path, where a large black limousine hugged the edge of the walk. … Two men jumped out, grabbed Miss Poyntz, shoved her into the car, and sped away.” As the assassins supposedly reported later, they took Poyntz to the woods near the Roosevelt estate in Dutchess County, and killed and buried her there: “The body was covered with lime and dirt. On top were placed dead leaves and branches which the three killers trampled down with their feet.” <...>
New York Times articles from the years immediately following Poyntz’s disappearance at least support Gitlow’s claim that Poyntz was murdered by OGPU agents. According to the articles, Carlo Tresca, an anarchist and leader of New York’s anti-fascists, voluntarily appeared before Francis A. Mahony, acting chief of the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney General’s office, then before a federal grand jury, in order to provide information in support of his claim that Poyntz “was ‘lured or kidnapped’ to Soviet Russia because she broke with her associates and ‘knew too much.'” The Times never revealed the name of Poyntz’s abductor, which Tresca gave to the legal authorities, but the description which Tresca shared with the correspondents sounds similar to that of Shachno Epstein: The agent is described as having “been an editor of a Communist foreign-language newspaper in this city,” “an intimate friend of Miss Poyntz,” in “the service of the [Russian] secret police,” and a person in whom Poyntz “had absolute confidence.” Tresca knew Poyntz well and had connections with other OGPU agents in the U.S., and therefore was likely to know or suspect the truth about her disappearance, or at least about the identity of the person used as a lure in her abduction. Therefore, it is grimly unsurprising to read in the Times that Tresca himself was murdered in January 1943. It seems plausible that, when Poyntz was about to give compromising information about them, the OGPU got rid of her, and when Tresca, in turn, exposed the OGPU murderers and the details of their plot, the OGPU eliminated him as well.
https://barnardarchives.wordpress.com/2002/08/13/juliet-stuart-poyntz-class-of-1907-2/

Упомянутый разоблачитель Бенджамин Гитлов был также одним из основателей американской компартии, но позже раскаялся, перекинулся в ярый антикоммунизм и способствовал, чем только мог, маккартизму и более поздней паранойе 1960ых.



Судьбоносную роль Шахно Эпштейну было призвано сыграть в качестве ответственного секретаря ЕАК (Еврейского Антифашисткого Комитета). На фотографии с радиомитинга с обращением к евреям всего мира Эпштейн стоит во втором ряду крайним справа. Вместе с обязанностями секретаря он работал главным редактором печатного органа ЕАК, газеты "Эйникайт".

Формально Еврейский антифашистский комитет был образован в апреле 1942 года, но еще раньше, 24 августа 1941 года, в московском Парке Горького состоялся «митинг представителей еврейского народа». На нем выступили Соломон Михоэлс, еврейский поэт Перец Маркиш, боец Красной Армии Ероним Кузнецов, еврейский писатель Давид Бергельсон, профессор Петр Капица, кинорежиссер Сергей Эйзенштейн, архитектор Борис Иофан, немецкий писатель Теодор Пливье, писатель Самуил Маршак, писатель и журналист Илья Эренбург, журналист Шахно Эпштейн. «Они призывали евреев всего мира к священной борьбе против фашистских убийц и насильников, заливающих города и села Европы кровью народов» («Правда» от 25.08.1941).
Эти люди наряду с другими известными евреями страны, представителями науки и культуры, впоследствии вошли в ЕАК. Всего же к концу войны в Комитет входили 70 человек, из них 18 были штатными сотрудниками, а еще 15 - членами Президиума. Второй митинг, устроенный ЕАК, который также транслировался по радио, состоялся 24 мая 1942 года, третий - в апреле 1944 года. Официальным печатным органом Комитета была газета «Эйникайт» («Единство»). Она выходила на идиш с периодичность от трех раз в неделю до трех раз в месяц тиражом в 10 тысяч экземпляров. В Москве ее редакция располагалась также в доме 10 на Пречистенке.
Пиком внешнеполитической деятельности ЕАК стало зарубежное турне Соломона Михоэлса и Ицика Фефера. С началом войны в других странах также создавались антигитлеровские организации помощи евреям и СССР, например, в США такую организацию возглавлял известный ученый Альберт Эйнштейн. При его содействии в 1943 году и состоялась поездка двух представителей ЕАК в США.
За время турне, которое длилось более 7 месяцев, Михоэлс и Фефер также побывали в Мексике, Канаде, Англии - и всюду собирали многотысячные митинги в поддержку СССР. Самым известным стал митинг в Нью Йорке на стадионе “Поло Граундс” (снесен в 1963 году), на котором собралось около 50 тысяч человек.
В Карнеги-холле от количества людей, которые хотели поговорить с Михоэлсом, рухнула сцена (в результате чего Михоэлс сломал ногу). В США у представителей комитета были встречи также с Чарли Чаплином, Марком Шагалом, Эдди Кантором и другими звездами.
В результате деятельности ЕАК были собраны десятки миллионов долларов, огромное количество военного, технического, санитарного оборудования, медикаментов, продовольствия, одежды. Сложно переоценить его вклад в победу СССР в войне, - не только в материальном плане, но в плане улучшения имиджа страны на международной сцене.
http://moh.moscow/komitet/



Вместе с другими руководителями ЕАК - Соломоном Михоэлсом и Ициком Фефером - в феврале 1944 Эпштейн подписывает письмо к Молотову (в черновом варианте - к Сталину) с предложением о создании еврейской республики в Крыму.

"В ходе войны обострились некоторые капиталистические пережитки в психике отдельных прослоек различных народностей, включая и часть их интеллигенции. Одним из наиболее ярких выражений этих пережитков являются новые вспышки антисемитизма. Эти вспышки всячески разжигаются фашистскими агентами и притаившимися вражескими элементами с целью подрыва важнейшего достижения советской власти - дружбы народов.
Эти нездоровые явления воспринимаются крайне болезненно всеми слоями еврейского населения СССР, которые показали себя подлинными патриотами родины героизмом своих лучших сынов и дочерей на фронтах Отечественной войны и в тылу. Проявление антисемитизма вызывает острую реакцию в душе каждого советского еврея без исключения еще и потому, что весь еврейский народ переживает величайшую трагедию в своей истории, потеряв от фашистских зверств в Европе около 4 млн. человек, т.е. около своего состава. Советский Союз - единственная же страна, которая сохранила жизнь почти половине еврейского населения Европы. С другой стороны, факты антисемитизма в сочетании с фашистскими зверствами способствуют росту националистических и шовинистических настроений среди некоторых слоев еврейского населения.
С целью нормализации экономического положения всех слоев еврейского населения и дальнейшего роста и развития еврейской советской культуры, с целью максимальной мобилизации всех сил еврейского населения на благо советской родины, с целью полного уравнения положения еврейских масс среди братских народов мы считаем своевременной и целесообразной в порядке решения послевоенных проблем постановку вопроса о создании Еврейской Советской Социалистической Республики.
В свое время была создана Еврейская автономная область в Биробиджане с перспективой превращения ее в Еврейскую Советскую Республику, чтобы таким образом разрешить государственно-правовую проблему и для еврейского народа. Необходимо признать, что опыт Биробиджана вследствие ряда причин, в первую очередь вследствие недостаточной мобилизованности всех возможностей, а также ввиду крайней его отдаленности от места нахождения основных еврейских трудовых масс, не дал должного эффекта. Но невзирая на все трудности, еврейская автономная область стала одной из самых передовых областей в Дальневосточном крае, что доказывает способность еврейских масс строить свою советскую государственность. Еще более эта способность проявлена в развитии созданных еврейских национальных районов в Крыму.
В силу всего вышеизложенного мы бы считали целесообразным создание еврейской советской республики в одной из областей, где это по политическим соображениям возможно. Нам кажется, что одной из наиболее подходящих областей явилась бы территория Крыма, которая в наибольшей степени соответствует требованиям как в отношении вместительности для переселения, так и вследствие успешного опыта развития там еврейских национальных районов."
https://www.alexanderyakovlev.org/fond/issues-doc/68391

Шахно Эпштейн внезапно скончался в июле 1945. Точно неизвестно, была ли его смерть тайным убийством, но таким образом он не дожил до громкого убийства Михоэлса и расстрела Фефера и других членов ЕАК.

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2-3. Братья-близнецы Филип и Джулиус Эпштейн родились в Нью-Йорке в 1909 в семье владельца конюшни. Филип умер от рака в 42 года, Джулиусу повезло больше и он прожил до 91.

Работая одной командой сценаристов на студии Warner Bros, братья в 1944 получили Оскар за сценарий фильма Casablanca, одного из лучших в истории Голливуда. Фильм давно разошелся на цитаты. По мнению Умберто Эко, эпическая глубина достигается не тем, что фильм избегает штампов и клише, а тем, что он нагромождает их друг на друга таким образом, что они начинают жить своей жизнью.

Thus Casablanca is not just one film. It is many films, an anthology. Made haphazardly, it probably made itself, if not actually against the will of its authors and actors, then at least beyond their control. And this is the reason it works, in spite of aesthetic theories and theories of film making. For in it there unfolds with almost telluric force the power of Narrative in its natural state, without Art intervening to discipline it. And so we can accept it when characters change mood, morality, and psychology from one moment to the next, when conspirators cough to interrupt the conversation if a spy is approaching, when whores weep at the sound of "La Marseillaise." When all the archtypes burst in shamelessly, we reach Homeric depths. Two cliches make us laugh. A hundred cliches move us. For we sense dimly that the cliches are talking among themselves, and celebrating a reunion. Just as the height of pain may encounter sensual pleasure, and the height of perversion border on mystical energy, so too the height of banality allows us to catch a glimpse of the sublime. Something has spoken in place of the director. If nothing else, it is a phenomenon worthy of awe.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~DRBR/eco.html

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Братья Эпштейны подступили к работе над "Касабланкой" с задержкой, потому что были заняты работой над серией пропагандистских документальных фильмов "Why We Fight", которые знаменитый режиссер Фрэнк Капра снимал по заказу Джорджа Маршалла. Капра пытался тем самым сделать достойный ответ на пропаганду Лени Рифеншталь.

Сценарий весьма прямолинейный - фильмы предназначались в первую очередь для солдат, которые отправлялись на фронт, и призваны были закрепить в них убежденность в необходимости войны. Первый фильм из серии "Prelude to War", выпущенный 27 мая 1942, заканчивается внятным призывом:

Two worlds stand against each other - one must die, one must live. One hundred and seventy years of freedom decrees our answer. "...victory of the democracies can only be
complete with the utter defeat of the war machines of Germany and Japan."
https://amara.org/en/videos/92GcoJUW76A6/en/2075176/

До этого объясняется про "свободный мир":

Our world. How did it become free? Only through a long and unceasing struggle inspired by men of vision. Moses. Mohamed. Confucius. Christ. All believe that in the sight of God all men were created equal.
And from that there developed a spirit among men and nations, which is best expressed in our own declaration of freedom. "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."
It is the cornerstone upon which our nation was built, and the ideal of all the great liberators. Washington. Jefferson. Garibaldi. Lafayette. Kościuszko. Bolívar. Lincoln.
Lighthouses, lighting up a dark and foggy world. "The government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
Fighting! Living! Dying! For what? For Freedom! That for which men have fought since time began: to be free!

Свободному миру противопоставляется мир рабов, начиная с фашизма Муссолини:

But what of this other world? Here man insisted that progress lay in killing freedom.
Here, they were putting out the lighthouses, one by one. Here the march of history was reversing itself.
In Italy it began when an ambitious rabble rouser set his followers marching on Rome. The country, like every other country after the last war, was torn by political unrest, hard times, unemployment. Two courses were available to the Italian people: they could solve their problems in a free, democratic way, or they could let someone else do the solving for them.
They made the tragic mistake of choosing the second course. They put their trust and faith in this one man. They believed he represented them. Actually he planned to betray them for the selfish interests of himself, and the group back of him. Just as he had earlier betrayed those who first supported him.

Кадры поклонения вождям в тоталитарных странах призваны вызвать отвращения, подобно кадрам из фильма " Обыкновенный фашизм" Михаила Ромма. Тоталитарным Германии, Италии и Японии противопоставляется Америка Рузвельта, в которой проблемы решаются демократическим путем.

We let our hopes for peace become so strong that they grew into a determination not to fight unless directly attacked. We let ourselves be influenced by those that said that we could find security through isolation. <...>
We simply did not want to understand that our individual and national problems were, and always will be, dependent upon the problems of the whole world. And we had individual and national problems to worry about - plenty of them. Just as Germany, Italy and Japan had; but we faced them in the democratic way.
We passed laws to give working men a chance to improve their lot. We established the insurance program for those without jobs. We began to give old folks protection against want and hunger. We organized the CCC to provide our young men with healthy and useful employment. A federal works program came into being and changed the face of our nation with new roads, bridges, schools. They built great new dams which brought the miracle of electricity to millions of our people.
These were some of our accomplishments, but there were others not so creditable. We turned our backs on the League of Nations. We passed the Tariff Act to set a higher wall of isolation around us. We encouraged lawlessness with the farce of prohibition.
In spite of these mistakes, we never had a thought of losing our free institutions. John Q Public still ran the country, he had his choice of voting for Dewey, Willkie, Roosevelt, or anybody else. In Germany they had the choice of voting for Hitler, Hitler, or Hitler.

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Фильм "Касабланка" вышел на широкий экран 23 января 1943. Через неделю фельдмаршал Паулюс сдастся в плен под Сталинградом, и ход войны на восточном фронте будет переломлен. Из поздравительной телеграммы Рузвельта Сталину:

"The commanders and fighters of your armies at the front and the men and women who have supported them in factory and field have combined not only to cover with glory their country's arms, but to inspire by their example fresh determination among all the United Nations to bend every energy to bring about the final defeat and unconditional surrender of the common enemy."
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/congratulations-marshal-stalin-the-russian-victory-stalingrad

Паулюса брал в плен подполковник Леонид Винокур из Одессы. Как говорил Хрущев, "факт, конечно, неопубликованный, неизвестный, естественно, но факт".
https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3533786

Кадрами разгрома немцев под Сталинградом и пленного Паулюса заканчивается пятый фильм из серии "Why We Fight" под названием "Battle for Russia". Фильм тщательно избегает упоминания коммунизма и вместо этого обращается к истории борьбы россиян с захватчиками. Пригождаются кадры из "Александра Невского" и других советских фильмов, вместе с текущей кинохроникой. Звучит музыка Чайковского и голливудского композитора Дмитрия Темкина. Главная цель - вселить сочувствие к союзникам и оптимизм о неизбежном поражении Германии. Фильм вышел на экран 13 ноября 1943. В этот день завершается Киевская наступательная операция РККА, в результате которой были отвоеваны Киев и Житомир.



4. Израэль Эпштейн родился в 1915 в Варшаве и прожил до 90 лет. В двухлетнем возрасте родители привезли его в Китай. Во второй половине века Китай станет его новой родиной, а сам Израэль Эпштейн со временем превратится в одного из главных англоязычных пропагандистов на службе у китайских коммунистов.

Сообщение агентства Синьхуа в 2005:

Chinese President Hu Jintao on Sunday paid a visit to veteran journalist and writer Israel Epstein, who interviewed Chairman Mao Zedong in the 1930s when working for US news organizations, to extend greetings on the eve of his 90th birthday.
Hu praised Epstein for his "outstanding contributions" to China's progress and his "sincere affection for China and the Chinese people" in the past dozens of years during which he witnessed all the stages of the country's revolution, construction and reform under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC).
Epstein thanked Hu for the call and thanked the CPC Central Committee and State Council for attaching great importance to and taking good care of veteran foreign experts who have worked and lived in China for long.
He said his work concerns only one side of China's international influence. China's growing international influence is the result of China's tremendous progress, and this is just a beginning, Epstein added.
He presented to Hu his autobiography which was issued last year.
Hu praised Epstein for his abundant writings many of which give an objective and live introduction of China to the outside world.
http://www.china.org.cn/english/2005/Apr/126063.htm



На фотографии о встрече с Мао Дзедуном в январе 1964 в центре - Анна Луиза Стронг. Израэль Эпштейн - крайний слева. В этом году он, уже семь лет как гражданин Китая и создатель журнала "China Reconstructs" (позже "China Today"), официально вступил в китайскую компартию. В 1968 его посадят в тюрьму, но после пяти лет заключения извинятся, и он забудет обиду.

Mr. Epstein edited China Today, an English-language Chinese newsmagazine, translated the sayings and writings of Mao and Deng Xiaoping and advised the Chinese government on how to polish its overseas image. He became a Chinese citizen, joined the Communist Party and served on official government and party committees.
He and perhaps a dozen other aging foreign-born residents of Beijing were sometimes seen as the last true believers in a revolution that has sometimes seemed blurred by time's passage and China's embrace of free markets and consumerism.
In 1996, The Observer, the London newspaper, said, "Perhaps the most loyal Communists in the country today are foreigners, veteran fellow travelers from a vanished era of idealism."
Mr. Epstein hung Mao's portrait on his bedroom wall; knew the American journalist Edgar Snow well enough to help edit his books; was a protégé of the widow of Sun Yat-sen, the founder of China's first republic; and was able to say the five years he spent in prison on false charges during the Cultural Revolution had helped improve him by shrinking his ego. For decades China's top leaders visited him on his birthdays.
"My basic ideas have not changed," he told The Observer. "I see no reason to change them." <...>
Mr. Epstein became acquainted with Mr. Snow after his editor assigned him to review one of Mr. Snow's books, and Mr. Snow showed him his classic "Red Star Over China" before it was published. Mr. Snow reciprocated by reading Mr. Epstein's unpublished works.
In Hong Kong, Mr. Epstein worked with Soong Ching Ling, Sun Yat-sen's widow, whom he had met in left-wing political activities in the 1930's. She arranged for him to visit Mao, Zhou Enlai and their revolutionary comrades at their base in China's northwest in 1944, and Mr. Epstein said his conversations in a cave with Mao had changed his life.
In 1944, Mr. Epstein visited Britain, then spent the next five years in the United States, where he published "The Unfinished Revolution in China" to good reviews. Other books he wrote were first published in Chinese and included "From Opium War to Liberation" in 1954, "Tibet Transformed" in 1983 and "Woman in World History: Soong Ching Ling" in 1993.
In 1951, Ms. Soong invited him to return to China to edit China Reconstructs, later renamed China Today. He was editor in chief until his retirement at 70, and then editor emeritus.
His five years in prison during the Cultural Revolution, on charges of plotting against Zhou, ended in 1973 with a personal apology from Zhou and a restoration of his exalted position.
His prominence in China was suggested by the annual talks Mao had with him. Deng attended Mr. Epstein's retirement reception in 1985. On April 17, the Chinese president, Hu Jintao, visited him and praised his "special contributions" to China.
https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/02/world/asia/israel-epstein-prominent-chinese-communist-dies-at-90.html



5. Брайан Эпштейн родился в Ливерпуле в 1934 и умер в возрасте 32 года от передозы наркотиков. Как менеджер известной рок-группы, он по праву считается "пятым из Битлз".

His prospective clients were little known beyond Liverpool and Hamburg, West Germany, where they also performed, and they were flattered that Epstein, the local scion, whom Harrison called a “very posh, rich feller,” would take an interest in them. As quoted in Mark Lewisohn’s 2013 history of the early Beatles, “Tune In,” Lennon later said, “We were always waiting for the big man with a cigar.”
In 1962, the Beatles, now with Ringo Starr as drummer, signed contracts that put Epstein, 28 that year, in command. Unlike today’s top entertainment managers, who often have training in business and law, Epstein was a neophyte who relied on his own strong instincts to shape the group’s image. He told them to stop smoking, eating and swearing during performances, made them bow together onstage and got them similar haircuts, mohair suits and neckties. Leather jackets and jeans were prohibited.
Lennon said, “I’ll wear a bloody balloon if somebody’s going to pay me.” Epstein had put the Beatles on the ladder to world renown. Using his relationships with higher-ups at London record labels - his family’s stores were important customers - he got the Beatles a deal with EMI’s Parlophone Records.
Epstein was also a shrewd marketer. In late 1963, he flew to New York and told Ed Sullivan, who had seen the Beatles being mobbed in London, that when they began their first American tour that winter, he would allow them to appear on Sullivan’s enormously popular Sunday-night television show on CBS (in exchange for expenses and a relatively modest fee) only if they received top billing. Epstein’s vision of what the Beatles could achieve helped move their concerts from theaters and auditoriums to sports arenas like Shea Stadium in New York, paving the way for other groups to do the same.
In other areas of Beatles management, however, Epstein was out of his depth. Eschewing the kind of legal help a modern manager would secure, he unwisely allowed majority control of copyrights and royalties to pass to others, causing Mr. McCartney and Mr. Lennon to lose ownership of their classic songs.
Some of Epstein’s missteps also cost the Beatles merchandising arrangements for commercial use of their names and images that might have earned them millions of dollars. As Debbie Geller reported in her 2000 book, “In My Life: The Brian Epstein Story,” Mr. McCartney gave Epstein the benefit of the doubt, explaining, “British people didn’t know that stuff at that time.” Mr. McCartney added, “I think he looked to his dad for business advice, and his dad really knew how to run a furniture store in Liverpool.”
After an August 1966 performance at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, the Beatles said goodbye to the public spectacles that Epstein had staged with such skill, deciding instead to concentrate on studio work. By 1967, the Beatles’ world had expanded far beyond Brian Epstein - or any one impresario - and he knew it.
An expert at planning events that encouraged mob scenes and screaming fans, he was not as valuable in the studio and was less at home with the otherworldly strains of the group’s 1967 “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and its new infatuation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
By then, an anxious Epstein was predicting to friends that the Beatles would not renew his management contract. He took refuge in gambling and drugs and is said to have scrawled suicide notes. In August 1967, at age 32, he was found dead in his bed in London. A coroner ruled that he had died of an “incautious self-overdosage.” The New York Times reported that in the future, the Beatles would “manage themselves.” Three years later, they broke up.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/upshot/the-fifth-man-brian-epstein-and-the-beatles.html

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Фильм BBC "How The Beatles Rocked The Kremlin" рассказывает про битломанию в СССР и роль "Битлз" в развале совка. Поучительно видеть рядом с постаревшими битломанами из народа как Андрея Макаревича, кумира 1980ых, так и путинских функционеров вроде Сергея Иванова.

From Russia to Ukraine and Belarus the Beatles played an important part in the lives of millions behind the Iron Curtain.
Although the band were never permitted to play in the Soviet Union, where they were officially denounced as "capitalist pollution", the "four lads who shook the world" unwittingly helped shake the Soviet system to its knees, according to many of those who spent their 1960s east of the Iron Curtain.
"They destroyed Communism - more than Gorbachev," says Vova Katzman, in Kiev.
A music producer in St Petersburg says The Beatles "produced a cultural revolution, the cultural revolution destroyed the Soviet Union".
To Yuri Pelyushonok, a doctor in Minsk, they "made a quiet revolution in our brains. We had it in our hearts."
In Moscow, leading journalist Vladimir Pozner is emphatic about the significance of the Fab Four.
"The Beatles did more to undermine the system than the most anti-Soviet literature for which people went to jail," he says.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8232235.stm

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Особая ирония состоит в том, что если советские власти считали битлов проникновением буржуазной заразы, то параноидальные правые в США, вроде евангелиста Билла Джеймся Харгиса, считали их заразой коммунистической.

"The Communists, through their scientists, educators and entertainers, have contrived an elaborate, calculating and scientific technique directed at rendering a generation of American youth useless through nerve-jamming, mental deterioration and retardation. The plan involves conditioned reflexes, hypnotism and certain kinds of music. The results, destined to destroy our nation, are precise and exacting. Little wonder the Kremlin maintains it will not raise the Red flag over America-the Americans will raise it themselves. If the following scientific program destined to make our children mentally sick is not exposed, mentally degenerated Americans will indeed raise the Communist flag over their own nation… <...>
Throw your Beatle and rock and roll records in the city dump. We have been unashamed of being labelled a Christian nation; let’s make sure four mop-headed anti-Christ beatniks don’t destroy our children’s emotional and mental stability and ultimately destroy our nation as Plato warned in his Republic."
https://alphahistory.com/coldwar/communism-hypnotism-beatles-1965/

Позже Никсон безуспешно попытается депортировать Джона Леннона.



6. Ну и конечно нельзя обойтись без Джефри Эпштейна, рожденного в Бруклине в 1953 в семье садовника и погибшего в тюрьме в возрасте 66 лет, предположительно от самоубийства.

Остается много тумана вокруг финансовых дел Джефа Эпштейна. Но из тех деталей его жизни, которые уже прояснились, поражает легкость, с которой он проник в среду ученых, будучи при этом явным болваном в том, что касалось науки. Напоминает легкость, с которой Мария Бутина втерлась в доверие к NRA.

#scifoo, July 12, 2009. Name 3 people we should invite to scifoo. John Brockman of https://t.co/oEYOr4QjJI chose “Jeffrey Epstein, science philanthropist.” The event was held at the Googleplex. Related, I noticed @google’s Larry, Sergei, Eric in Brockman’s scene over the years. pic.twitter.com/zvgCBrk8b1
- Xeni Jardin (@xeni) August 25, 2019

Ключевым контактом для Эпштейна стал Джон Брокман. Брокман работал литературным агентом для ученых, которые писали популярные книжки, и одновременно руководил некоммерческой организацией Edge Foundation, которая вовлекала в сеть его контактов технологических миллиардеров. Он пропагандировал "третью культуру" - поросль технологических интеллектуалов (его клиентов), которые были призваны заменить "физиков и лириков" прошлого.

Известный автор Евгений Морозов рассказывает, как Брокман переслал ему емайл, предназначенный для Эпштейна, а потом пытался вкратце объяснить, кто такой Эпштейн:

"Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire science philanthropist showed up at this weekend’s event by helicopter (with his beautiful young assistant from Belarus). He’ll be in Cambridge in a couple of weeks asked me who he should meet. You are one of the people I suggested and I told him I would send some links.
He’s the guy who gave Harvard #30m to set up Martin Nowak. He’s been extremely generous in funding projects of many of our friends and clients. He also got into trouble and spent a year in jail in Florida.
If he contacts you it’s probably worth your time to meet him as he’s extremely bright and interesting.
Last time I visited his house (the largest private residence in NYC), I walked in to find him in a sweatsuit and a British guy in a suit with suspenders, getting foot massages from two young well-dressed Russian women. After grilling me for a while about cyber-security, the Brit, named Andy, was commenting on the Swedish authorities and the charges against Julian Assange.
“We think they’re liberal in Sweden, but its more like Northern England as opposed to Southern Europe,” he said. “In Monaco, Albert works 12 hours a day but at 9pm, when he goes out, he does whatever he wants, and nobody cares. But, if I do it, I’m in big trouble.” At that point I realized that the recipient of Irina’s foot massage was his Royal Highness, Prince Andrew, the Duke of York.
Indeed, a week later, on a slow news day, the cover of the NYpost had a full-page photo of Jeffrey and Andrew walking in Central Park under the headline: “The Prince and the Perv.” (That was the end of Andrew’s role at the UK trade ambassador.)"
https://newrepublic.com/article/154826/jeffrey-epsteins-intellectual-enabler

reminder that both steven pinker and lawrence krauss were hanging out with epstein *years after his conviction for child sex trafficking in 2008* pic.twitter.com/b5hTOd5qgH
- ☀️👀 (@zei_squirrel) July 31, 2020

В блоге 2010 года Эпштейн объясняет, почему его интересуют ученые:

"I am interested in people who are not averse to risk taking, and I may choose to support some original and powerful mavericks and others who may work outside of the conventional scientific mainstream. I have also supported those on the cutting edge, who have already achieved the highest possible scientific recognition by receiving a Nobel Prize. I wanted to gain insight and understanding in their latest thoughts and paths. I want to know what mystifies them, and what intrigues them, and perhaps, most of all, I wanted to know where they think the most daring possibilities lie. What is left to discover?"
https://web.archive.org/web/20101112131004/http://www.jeffreyepsteinscience.com/2010/10/why-jeffrey-epstein-supports-science/

Пример научно-философского разговора за ужином у Эпштейна приводит один из участников:

Jeffrey didn’t know anything about science. Nevertheless, in his peculiarly inquiring mind, let’s say, like a child who is fresh to the world-because he has no compunction about approaching people-he brought together the most important scientists like Stephen Gould, like Pinker, like all of those people, and myself even, at dinners, and would propose interesting, naive ideas. Steve Pinker describes that. He would say, “Oh, what is gravity?” Which of course is an unanswerable thing to present at a dinner to a bunch of scientists. And because he was Jeffrey, why, they would-and as the founder of the feast-they would listen to him and try to give [answers]. He was attempting, somehow, in his ignorant and scientifically naive state, to do something scientifically important. He had no compunctions about inviting people, and since he had money, they would listen. He would promise money to people and, of course, never come across, by the way. That’s what’s called a dangler. Didn’t he promise $15 million to Harvard? I don’t know if they got two cents.
So people would come to his dinners, including myself. I even had them. Take a look at Steven Pinker’s essay. Jeffrey brought these people together and thought that he was causing basic thought processes to happen, which he sort of was, even though they were sort of irrelevant. I mean, to bring together a bunch of scientists and say, what is gravity? Which is ridiculous in a way, even though it’s a question nobody can answer. But he would do that kind of stuff. Just for the sake of, I don’t know what. And Jaron Lanier and all that group, the greatest thinkers that they were, he brought together with a purpose of thinking, rightfully or wrongfully, that he was going to introduce some kind of logic or something-some special kind of a thought process, which others hadn’t thought of, which of course is absurd.
While everybody was watching, we began to realize he didn’t know what he was talking about. Then after a couple of minutes-Jeffrey had no attention span whatsoever-he would interrupt the conversation and change it and say things like, “What does that got to do with pussy?!”
https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2019/08/jeffrey-epstein-my-very-very-sick-pal/