He has honed a career in the make-believe world of the stage but renowned Russian theatre director Lev Dodin has all-too-real fears about the danger his country could be facing.
"In Russia, we don`t know how to learn the lessons of history, we`re afraid of our past," said Dodin, a sprightly 63-year-old, in an interview with AFP at his Maly Theatre in Saint Petersburg.
By ignoring the horrors of the Soviet Union, Dodin believes that Russia is condemned to repeating its history, and he points to rising nationalism as just the latest symptom of collective amnesia.
"We don`t recognise our own mistakes.... That`s why nationalism is becoming the soul of our era. It`s easier to accuse others, to blame your neighbour," Dodin said.
Testiness about Soviet history is everywhere and Dodin`s most recent production, an adaptation of "Life and Fate" by Vasily Grossman (1905-1964) has broken taboos for comparing Stalinism to Nazism.
The play traces the story of a family during World War II from the battle of Stalingrad to the Gulag and puts the victims of Soviet prisons and Nazi concentration camps side by side on the stage.
The original novel, which was banned in the Soviet Union until 1988, also points to the similarities between anti-Semitism in Hitler`s Germany and in the Soviet Union.
More than 15 years after the Soviet collapse, many Russians are still nostalgic for the certainties of Soviet times and there is little public debate over the trauma of those years.
For Dodin, this kind of collective amnesia can only store up problems for the future and he has vowed to stage plays that will encourage Russians to engage more with their history.
In his office there is a portrait of Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, a symbol of domestic resistance to the regime. "If he had become president, Russia`s fate would have been different," Dodin said.
Despite the controversy, "Life and Fate," which was premiered in France in February, has been playing to full houses at the Maly off Saint Petersburg`s historic Nevsky Prospekt, where Dodin has worked as a director since 1975.
Dodin toured the world with his first major success -- "Brothers and Sisters" -- a no-holds-barred portrayal of Soviet rural life staged in 1985, a time when culture was still heavily restricted.
Other critical successes followed, including "Gaudeamus," which contained vitriolic condemnation of the arbitrary behaviour and corruption of a Red Army battalion.
When he is not touring, Dodin spends his time at the theatre until the end of rehearsals late at night. His assistant, Yelena Alexandrova, calls her boss "a workhorse."
Along with the Odeon in Paris and the Piccolo in Milan, the Maly is a member of the prestigious Union of European Theatres, a point of great pride for Dodin and his artistic team.
Dodin explained that the theatre`s European Union links bring no financial rewards but they are significant in another way: "It`s important for us at a time when many people want Russia to oppose Europe."
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