On New Year’s Eve many people have a custom to remember the past, to sum up the results, to reflect — with nostalgia or without it — and to think of the future cautiously because they do not want to ‘jinx’ it.
Dear readers, let us not dwell on ‘our golden youth’ and blame ourselves for ‘wasted years’. -Memories are always confused and mixed. There are true words in the Gipsy song: ‘it happened but now it’s gone’.
‘Time flies’ is just a stock phrase. For some people time flies, but for others it crawls by tormentingly. We pity ourselves too often. And we feel nostalgic for the things that never were, for the things which were not as we remember them. Joseph Brodsky, who never experienced nostalgia, used to say that he would not come back to Russia because there was no point in returning to the place of his old love. But Andrei Tarkovsky, who had a strong feeling of nostalgia, also said that ‘dead or alive’ he would not return. So you see, absolutely different approaches and attitudes lead to the same result.
The passing year has a personal meaning for each one of us. Yet all of us have a common sense of the ‘joy of life’. Yes, everyone wishes for something that they don’t have… Wishes, and usually soon forgets. And then, he finally receives something he has never dreamed of. Especially these days, I do not think of bad things but only of good things. After all, this is our custom on New Year’s Eve.
In this issue of our magazine I write about what I regard as the major events of 2016. They are different in nature and in their characteristics. But I see something personal in each of them. For we are all a part of the world, and the world is a part of each of us.
Let us bid farewell to the old year 2016, dear readers!
My New Year wishes for 2017 are to follow!