The forum «Russia and Norway — at the Crossroads of Epochs and Cultures» opens in Murmansk
- 19.04.2021
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The grand opening of the Forum «Russia and Norway — at the Crossroads of Epochs and Cultures» took place in Murmansk on April 18. The Forum lasted three days.
The opening of the forum was held offline at the Meridian Congress Hotel and livestreamed in Troms? and Kirkenes (Norway) and on culture.ru website.
«Although Norwegian participants are connected via the web and we are separated by hundreds of kilometers, we are still together at this forum. I wish everyone to find new creative ideas and development prospects that we can implement in offline formats when the restrictions are lifted,» Elena Diaghileva, Deputy Governor of the Murmansk Region, greeted the forum participants.
Natalia Vedishcheva, Deputy Chairman of the Murmansk Regional Duma, thanked the forum organizers — MASU and the production center «Northern Character» — for their great work on the development of cultural cooperation between Russia and Norway. Principal of Murmansk Arctic State University Irina Shadrina wished the forum participants to come up with more creative initiatives.
«All the initiatives announced at this forum will be supported by MASU and will form the basis for the development of Russian-Norwegian relations,» Irina Shadrina added.
Consul of the Norwegian Consulate General in Murmansk Astrid Narum described her first acquaintance with Dostoevsky — at the age of twelve, she’d read the Russian books from her grandparents' library. The Consul would closely follow the program of the forum and wished good luck to speakers and organizers.
Director of «Northern Character» producing center Svetlana Soldatova thanked the staff of MASU for contributing to implementation of this project, and announced the forum program.
At the opening ceremony, soloists of the Murmansk Regional Philharmonic Evgeny Popov, Ekaterina Okhraminskaya, and Pyotr Makarov performed compositions of great musicians Edvard Grieg and Pyotr Tchaikovsky.
In addition, the animated film «The Dream of a Ridiculous Man» (directed by Aleksandr Petrov, 1992), based on the eponymous story of Fyodor Dostoevsky.
Ref.: the forum is organized to mark the 200th birthday anniversary of Fyodor Dostoevsky whose work had a huge impact on world culture and on Norwegian literature in particular. The Forum has a multi-element program of intertwined events, including an international scientific and practical conference, open lectures, film screenings, meetings, exhibitions and a guided tour. Some parts of the programme are live-streamed via social media with simultaneous translation into Russian and Norwegian. As a result of the forum, two collections of scientific articles and literary pieces will be published.
The forum is organized by «Northern Character» producing center and MASU and supported by Presidential Grants Foundation.
Translated by Gleb Ryabov, MASU student