Business Class Magazine (Ukraine) №5-2007

Man and Horse. Advanced School of  Love

Lemuel Gulliver, the main character of the famous novel by the English-Irish writer Jonathan Swift finds himself in a marvellous country during his extraordinary voyages. A very interesting race lives there called the Houyhnhnms. They possess all the virtues and best qualities – they are noble, just, generous, sincere and sympathetic. There is no violence or lawlessness in their society. They in Swift’s novel are nothing else but… horses. It is to these creatures that the writer gives the noblest role in his novel about Gulliver’s travels.

Along with the Houyhnhnms, there is another race living in their country, which constitutes the lowest rung of societal ladder, – the Yahoos. The Yahoos are a great contrast to the Houyhnhms – they are treacherous, cruel and wretched.

The Yahoos are nothing else but... people. The internal and external beauty of the Houyhnhnm-horses amazes the main hero of the novel so much that after returning to his native Britain he can no longer look at people, that is, the disgusting Yahoos, who use horses for their mean  purposes and humiliate them in a rather cruel way – by bridling them and forcing them to work hard.

It is unknown if Oleksandr Nevzorov was inspired by Jonathan Swift, when he was creating his famous Russian Haute Ecole. This name that goes back to the Late Renaissance meant an Advanced system of man-horse relationship, a different level of understanding a horse: the one of love and respect.

Oleksandr Nevzorov has brought Haute Ecole to perfection – he trains horses without using a bridle, a whip or any punishments, which makes him fundamentally different from traditional
way of training of horses. Oleksandr Nevzorov is convinced that a horse must be free. So, he has established a new Haute Ecole – Nevzorov’s Haute Ecole, which has no match in the world so far.

Lidiya Nevzorova, a well-known horsebreeder, a journalist and professional photographer, while making photographs of horses, not only tried to depict the beauty and grace of these animals but also to explain to people the main principle of the School: man and horse can be TRUE friends.

Vladyslav Zhurba