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ABOUT ME

Hello everybody; my name is Daria; I live in Vienna, Austria since 1993. I’m student of Philosophy and Slavic studies in the University of Vienna since October 2006 and I’m interested in Queen and Freddie Mercury since winter 2001 or spring 2002.

My story

I was born in Kiev, Ukraine in 1988 which was then a part of the USSR. Even if the people weren’t allowed to ‘participate’ at the ‘Western culture’ by the regime, life was still very interesting for me and of course a few years earlier for my parentsJ.

My father was a teenager in the 70s and it seemed that the interest for the Western world among the Soviet youth started to increase; but as music from the West was prohibited until the fall of Soviet Union in 1991 – except for some ultra famous bands and/or musicians as The Beatles who were extra pressed on a Soviet label, often on blue flexi discs, and a little bit later Boney M. and ABBA – there was circulating an illegal market with a selection of Queen, Yes, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd & Co. tapes (! – not even LP’s). My father regularly listened at his friend’s home to the music from the above mentioned artists; his band even played “Love Of My Life” at their school concerts.

When the Soviet Union fell in 1991 everything had changed; my parents – meanwhile opera singers – were earning enough money to ‘keep us alive’ but life was getting harder and perspectives for a life time work in Ukraine as an artist were deteriorating. In the winter of 1993, my mother received a contract from the Viennese “Staatsoper” and consequently we settled down in Austria.

At the beginning it was very difficult to integrate and especially to learn the language, but now I’m quite familiar with this new life. If you should ask me whether I feel as an Austrian or Ukrainian I’d honestly say it is hard to tell – though in my heart I’m certainly a Ukrainian, I feel like a citizen of the worldJ.

You may ask now how I got introduced to Queen… that was indeed very exciting… My father bought the “A Night At The Opera” album just when it was released on CD in winter/spring 1994; when I have heard it for the first time, I thought it was opera, because it said ‘opera’ on the cover. I was so amused by the funny pieces, especially “Seaside Rendezvous”, “Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon” and “Good Company” and I immediately liked “Love Of My Life”. When I’ve heard “Bohemian Rhapsody” for the first time I really had a strange feeling, especially when my father told me then that the man who wrote this song sadly died in 1991. Although I could not understand English then I turned really sad as ‘the man’ started to sing ‘Mama…’.

My parents and I often listened to this album but as school and life was getting complicated with the time, I soon forgot it and rediscovered it just some time after I turned into a teenager, in 2001 or 2002. My interest for Queen and especially for Freddie Mercury started at this point.

I tried to learn something about the people behind this wonderful music – but doing this, I discovered a lot of controversial and indiscreet information about Freddie Mercury; I learned that there were and still are many rumours about him and so I began to scrutinize the information I received.

But even if there are still things to be discovered, it is sure that Freddie Mercury was an outstanding artist and a warm-hearted human being, unlike sadly many of tabloid papers and books are trying to make you believe.

***

Something about me…

I am a very curious human being; I’m interested in many aspects of life and I always like exploring new ideas and views.

I’m fascinated by philosophy, music, classic literature, art, visual expression and foreign cultures and traditions.

In my spare time I like singing and making music, reading, watching movies, being with my family, going out into the nature and travelling.

Favourite writers/ philosophers:

Hermann Hesse, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Plato, Martin Heidegger, Max Scheler, Aristotle, Alexander Men, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Rainer Maria Rilke and Hans Christian Andersen

Favourite film directors:

Andrei Tarkovski, Federico Fellini and Milos Forman

Some of my favourite movies:

“Solaris” by Andrei Tarkovski, “The Elephant Man” by David Lynch, “The Idiot” by Ivan Pyryev, “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” by Milos Forman, “East Of Eden” by Elia Kazan, “Rebel Without A Cause” by Nicholas Ray, “Forrest Gump” by Robert Zemeckis, “La Strada” and “Dolce Vita” by Federico Fellini, “The Women” by Ken Russell, “Corrina Corrina” by Jessie Nelson (with Whoopi Goldberg), “The Last Unicorn” by Arthur Rankin Jr., classic soviet movies…

Some of my favourite albums in popular music:

from top right to bottom left: “Queen II”, “Barcelona”, “Dark Side Of The Moon” by Pink Floyd, “Queen”, “H To He Who Am The Only One” by Van der Graaf Generator, “Fragile” by Yes, “A Night At The Opera”, “Selling England By The Pound” by Genesis, “Innuendo”, “The Yes Album” by Yes, “Abbey Road” by The Beatles, “Tommy” by The Who, “Led Zeppelin I”, “Where Have I Known You Before” by Chick Corea, “The Wall” by Pink Floyd, “The Best Of Bread” by Bread, “Days Of Future Past” by The Moody Blues, “Pyramid” by The Alan Parsons Project, “Focus III” by Focus, “Classic Yes” by Yes, “Led Zeppelin II”):

I also do listen a little bit to ELP, PFM, Jeff Beck, Vangelis, Mike Oldfield, King Crimson, Gentle Giant, Spooky Tooth, Cream, Aretha Franklin, Tina Turner, Michael Jackson, ABBA, Prince, Elton John, David Bowie… I always try to discover new bands and artists; at the time, I am very interested in Prog Rock, Jazz/Fusion and Soul.

I love classical music as well (Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Richard Strauss, Mahler, Chopin, Verdi, but also Great Russian composers like Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev) and the modern composer Schnittke.

Art corner:

Here is one of my drawings of Freddie Mercury (made in the summer 2005):

This is an oil-painting of Freddie – finished on the 17^th October 2006:

Here is one of the earliest I made of him from approximately winter 2002 or spring 2003: