Alexander Arkhangelsky: A writer is a profession, a writer is a vocation. Alexander Arkhangelsky: “I am not from an intellectual family

Basya GRINBERG

In the TV show “Meanwhile,” he reflects on lofty things, that is, on culture and enlightenment. On “Echo of Moscow” he descends to the sinful earth, analyzing political events. He is a learned man, as evidenced by his degree, and the father of four children.

In the TV show “Meanwhile,” he reflects on lofty things, that is, on culture and enlightenment. On “Echo of Moscow” he descends to the sinful earth, analyzing political events. He is a learned man, as evidenced by his degree, and the father of four children. - Alexander, how old are you? - Forty four. - At forty-four, you are engaged in science, writing textbooks and books, hosting radio and television programs... How do you manage to keep up with everything? - Strictly speaking, I am no longer involved in science. You either need to do it constantly or not do it at all. I have certain academic skills that are useful in life, that's all. But you are right, I defended my dissertation at the philology department at the Lenin Pedagogical Institute and taught for quite a long time, almost twenty years. First at the same Leninsky, then at the conservatory in the humanities department... But I never made money by teaching. Except, of course, for the period when he lectured in the West, at the University of Geneva. I taught the history of Russian civilization there. - It turns out that you sacrificed science for the sake of journalism? - No no. There are scientists by vocation. I've never been like that, though. Even when he was engaged in scientific activities, it could rather be called enlightenment. And today I have a column in Izvestia, in the Profile magazine, in RIA-Novosti, a weekly TV show “Meanwhile” on the Culture channel and once a week broadcast on the Ekho Moskvy radio station. If I didn’t need money at all, I would probably give up something extra, but not public lectures; I would continue to do this even for free. Although I get paid quite well for my lectures in the regions. -Do the regions really value science so much that they are willing to pay decently for it? - Firstly, there is money in the regions, and secondly, intellectual interest is not satisfied. At least for young businessmen. Both social and cultural topics are in demand. - Your program on the “Culture” channel (“Meanwhile”) is intended for what kind of viewer? - The viewer changed with us. I think today our audience is the traditional intelligentsia, and over forty. Also, young businessmen. Students also started watching us. That is, we work for educated people. Serious people working in the financial sector are also our audience. - But still in to a greater extent Are people of advanced age watching the show? - I think two-thirds for sure. But this is the channel. You know, Mikhail Shvydkoy once said: “The Culture channel is watched by old communists and young rightists.” - Why then are almost all invited guests, as a rule, over sixty? - Firstly, not everyone; most of them are from forty to fifty - you can count it yourself. Secondly, imagine that a young expert comes to the studio. In two cases out of three, he simply has nothing to say yet. By the way, we live in a country where even the program of such a narrowly focused TV channel as “Culture” has an audience of a million viewers. What is a million viewers? This is ten stadiums. And in general, judging transmission based on age is not entirely correct. Chat with Yuri Petrovich Lyubimov, who was born on September 30, 1917. The October revolution has not yet occurred, but it has already appeared! A clear, bright mind, and who cares how old he is? - On TV you have a program about culture, and on the radio about politics. Do you have such diverse knowledge? - Can you imagine how it is possible to engage in culture and not engage in politics? You can be involved in politics and not be involved in culture, but not vice versa. - Well, what is closer to you? - Life itself is closer to me, that is, everything that surrounds us: culture and politics. * * * - Alexander, you are a happy father of four children. In our time, this is akin to a feat. - In my opinion, children are very good. They not only take, but also give. In addition, I earn enough, and my problems with money cannot be compared with what the average Russian experiences in this regard. I am raising two boys and two girls: Timofey is 19 years old this year, Lisa is 16, Sophia is 7, and Tikhon is 4 years old. Two in each marriage. - Do you manage to spend enough time with them? - Just don’t expect parental groans from me: they say, I would like to pay as much attention to the children as possible, and so on. You know, there was such a wonderful Soviet teacher Simon Soloveichik. So he had the following formula: the light breaking through under the door of his father’s office educates better than all the notations in the world. Therefore, I believe that my lifestyle raises my children better than if I lectured them. I have trustworthy good relationship with all the children. - The leading TV channel “Culture” probably also has cultural leisure time? - Nothing elitist, everything is like everyone else’s. Sometimes I go to the cinema with my children. Tomorrow, for example, I will go to the dacha with my middle daughter, and tomorrow my eldest son will take an exam at the institute and join us. We'll take a walk, eat okroshka, and go back at night. -Are you a strict father? - Rather, yes. I believe that parents should feel authority in the eyes of their children. When I performed at graduation party eldest son, I thanked the teachers for not stopping me from doing my job. I checked the diary no more than three times during all 11 years of my son’s education. I think children should have a demand for information and education. If children see their parents reading books, and family guests quote quotes from good works, - this is deposited in the subcortex and forms a life attitude. My son is studying at the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics, and, I tell you, there are no drugs at all. Children from ordinary families study there, which is good. After all, where there is extra money, nothing good happens. And the school where Timofey studied was the most ordinary. After all, what is the most important thing in school? Good atmosphere, children must adapt to society. They have to live here in Russia, so the habitat should be normal - one in which they will later have to exist, and not an elitist one. Well, of course, in the tenth and eleventh grades, education needs to be increased through private teachers... - Alexander, you live not far from Old Arbat. Did you spend your childhood there? - Not really. I bought this apartment not so long ago, and was born in Sokolniki. I lived in Matveevka, then near the Planernaya, Oktyabrskoe Pole, Barrikadnaya metro stations... It’s good to live in the center. I work late, and when I have to get home, I don't have to worry about spending a lot of time on the road. -Who are your parents? - My mother’s name is Lyudmila Tikhonovna, she raised me alone. I separated from my father when I was very young. Mom worked as a radio typist in the very building where the Kultura TV channel is now located. By the way, this place is also memorable to me because the editorial office of the Soviet “Pionerskaya Dawn” was located there. children's radio , where I began my career. It was terrible. - Why is this also? - I am always ready to compromise, but there is a limit to everything. I was simply sick of the very way the program was produced, of some false drum-pioneer enthusiasm, of the fact that people had been working in the editorial office since the 50s, and no one could remove them. Imagine, on the editor-in-chief’s desk there was a list of writers, opposite each name there was an epithet that could only be used in relation to him. For example, Pushkin Alexander Sergeevich is a genius, Tolstoy Lev Nikolaevich is great, and so on. I only worked there for nine months, couldn’t stand it and quit. But, as you can see, he didn’t completely leave the radio... * * * - Alexander, and in your friendly family some traditions have been preserved - for example, celebrating the New Year together or celebrating birthdays. - The New Year is not always successful. After all, my two older children meet him with their mother, that is, with my first wife. And as for birthdays... You know, I’ve been celebrating mine on business trips for about five years now. - Okay, but what about national Jewish traditions? - I’ll disappoint you: I’m not a Jew. My appearance is of Greek descent from my mother’s side. True, I have only one-eighth Greek blood. But my second wife, yes, has Jewish roots. Her grandfather's last name is Bronstein... True, I also managed to suffer for the great Jewish people. I remember when I came to enroll in graduate school at the Lenin Pedagogical University, the head of the department looked at me carefully and said: “It’s better for you not to enroll.” I was surprised: “Why?” She thought and answered: “And therefore...” - But, judging by the program “Meanwhile”, in your work you have to communicate with representatives, as you say, of the great Jewish people. - Of course, this is an intellectual transfer. Jews throughout history have defined their identity through intellect. Intelligence cannot be lost, it is something that always stays with you. In the intellectual spheres, almost all representatives of this particular nationality. On the one hand, they have an analytical mind, and on the other, emotionality. -Have you been to Israel? - Yes. Well, what can I say - a great, fantastic country. By the way, I studied a little about the history of Palestine, read descriptions of travelers of the 19th century. Of course, what you can see today in Israel is not at all similar to the pictures from the life of the past. Nowadays it is a green, settled country... Jewish quarters are easily distinguished from Arab ones by the presence of greenery and the absence of dirt. Strange, they seem to be the same historical roots and natural-geographical conditions, but life is completely different. As for politics, I think stubbornness ruins Jews. The last twenty years on the political scene have simply been a continuous series of mistakes. It was necessary to come to an agreement with the Arabs earlier: to give even more autonomy than they wanted in the 70s, or then not to give anything. We can't show weakness in history. And what is happening now is a very big mistake. I'm afraid this may end in the loss of East Jerusalem. But this may be followed by the death of Israel. I hope it doesn’t come to that... * * * - Are there any taboo topics in your TV show? - Certainly. I will never discuss the corporation where I work, nor will I talk about the television activities of my colleagues. When I finish doing television, then please. You cannot be a judge of those with whom you work in the same field. - What about taboo topics in politics? - I think I will not discuss the personality of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. I still work on a state channel, and I have certain restrictions. And in general, his personality is not very interesting to me - it’s different from his activities. As for politics in general, I consider everything that happens after October 25, 2003 a mistake. On that day, Khodorkovsky was detained, and no matter how anyone treated this businessman, it was his arrest that entailed a chain of consequences that, from my point of view, lead us to a dead end. You see, when Putin talks about adoption in his address to the Federal Assembly, I support him, but when he uses the word “democracy” only twice, and then with a negative connotation, I am strongly against it. And I am sure that this is not the future for the country where my children live.

INTERVIEW TO THE NEWSPAPER “TATYANA’S DAY”

In one of your speeches, you said that when you invite clergy to your program, you always keep in mind: the audience of the “Meanwhile” program - the intelligentsia - as a rule, does not trust the Church. What is this connected with?
- I'll start a little from far away. When I was studying - and this was from 1979 to 1984 - the situation in the environment to which I belonged was the opposite. The intelligentsia walked in orderly rows inside the church fence. Most were looking for faith there, and some were looking for liberation from the suffocating atmosphere of the System, which did not consider a person to be a person. People sought not only the divine, but also the human. Any person who thinks at all has solved this problem for himself in the Church or outside of it.

- Precisely in the Orthodox Church?
- Yes. Those who went to Judaism went there, already internally breaking with Russia, trying to find their way to Israel through Hebrew study groups. Among people of a humanitarian nature there were also such people; I didn't know them, but the impact they had was enormous. This is, for example, Boris Berman - a man who wrote about Tolstoy, being a devout Jew. I didn’t come into contact with Muslims - it was probably about the same thing there. Many came through Europeanized Eastern cults.

What is the Church that I remember in my youth? This is the Church of illiterate grandmothers and more than educated intellectuals - and they somehow got along within the Church. The first lived their lives there, and the second came there and found a second homeland there (and maybe their first). There was almost no middle stratum - roughly speaking, the philistine, the bourgeois - in the Church.

When their old life collapsed, a huge number of people went to the Church not for the search for truth, not for the search for inner freedom, but simply out of fear. All the previous realities that suited them, unlike the intellectuals, disappeared. The majority were content while they paid the money, and then they got scared because everything that seemed familiar to them disappeared. I’m not a judge and I’m not saying that this is bad: everyone goes their own way, and, in the end, why shouldn’t a person come to Church out of fear, and there he will find not only fear, but also freedom and joy?

And in the Church in the 90s a middle layer appeared, which did not exist in the 70s-80s. This layer brought with it the horror of its social existence: the old has ended, the new has not begun, how to live? Then it turned out that there was a catastrophic shortage of priests, and they often began to appoint anyone they wanted; recruited new priests, who often acted with all the fury of converts. In addition, the atmosphere changed: she became more intimidated. I understand that the most important thing in the Church is not the atmosphere, but this is also important, especially for people who have not grown deeply.

In addition, many buildings were returned to the Church in such a state that many sane priests turned out to be simply superintendents: they had no time for the subtle spiritual matters with which the intellectuals came to the Church. An intellectual is a broken, subtle creature. Where it is thin, it breaks, and it is necessary for someone to endlessly tie up what is torn. With the aunt, everything is simple: the aunt wrote a note, listing what she had sinned, the priest tore the note, the aunt was happy - she lived her religious life. Intellectuals can’t do this: they need everything explained, so they can get into their problems. But the priest has no time for that: he suddenly acquired a huge flock. When you say it, it’s funny, but we don’t have any other intellectuals. And it turned out that some of the newly arrived intellectuals felt that they were not very comfortable in the Church, another part felt that they could not realize themselves here, and still others, out of the intellectual habit, began to pay attention to the external and saw that the Church was increasingly merging not with society, but with the state. But an intellectual always trusts the state less, that’s his plan. He did not like this at all, and he again became in opposition to the state, and at the same time to the Church, which he perceives as part of the state machine.

This is if we talk about what was not done for intellectuals. But it is clear that the intellectuals themselves are to blame for this: it was easy to come to church in the 70s and 80s, there was no humility in it. You could come to Church and thereby feed your pride, the main intellectual feeling - you are not like everyone else. And here you come to Church and find yourself “like everyone else” - the intellectual becomes despondent. He stopped feeling the Church as a place where you went away from the outside world, where you confront it. Irritation grew at the nonsense that began to be presented under the guise of church truth both from the screen and from newspapers. In general, what happened is what happened.

Today I see a new generation of smart guys, for whom the Church is neither an enemy nor a friend. I’m afraid to say it, but I will say: it’s better for the Church to be an enemy than to be nobody. Of course, you can look for who is to blame, but this question worries me last: the church hierarchy, the priests, the intellectuals themselves, the newly arrived ordinary people - what's the difference? The main thing is that there is a problem. This means that we need to re-build connections, re-find the language of communication. And who is to blame will someday figure it out.

The problem is not only in the current times: it stretches back to the 19th century, if not earlier. The intelligentsia with liberal, Westernist views has long viewed the Church with great distrust. How did you personally solve this problem, and how does it apply to your friends?
- I don’t see a good solution, because in addition to mystical experiences, church life is always also a meeting with the community. And if you white crow, then sooner or later, whether you like it or not, you will leave the community. And this is already some kind of lack of churchliness.

From my point of view, both sides are to blame: not only the liberal part of the intelligentsia treated the Church with skepticism, but the Church also treats such intelligentsia with hostility, sometimes correctly, and sometimes out of stubbornness: “We are more accustomed to this, we are patriarchal.”

I don’t see any patriarchal ideal in the Gospel, just as I don’t see any anti-patriarchal ideal. This means that I proceed from the fact that this is within our jurisdiction: there is neither righteousness nor sin in this. You can be patriarchal, you can be modernizing. The main thing is to remember that Christ is ahead. You cannot be a consistent conservative or a consistent liberal and not come into conflict with your faith in Christ. Christ is above patriarchy and modernization. At some point, we must take a step in a direction where there is no division between modernization and patriarchy, but there is Something Else.

People with liberal views It’s harder to find the way to the Church: you can have patriarchal views, recognize the Church, but not need it. Attributes - yes: the temples are beautiful, our ancestors went there - but when this is your internal connection with this world, you don’t have to answer these questions. It’s easier for a liberal to leave, and he goes where his people are. And our own people - as it happened historically - are, as a rule, non-believers. They are more rational, more pragmatic, but they are often more conscientious. Their moral views do not have such a spiritual background, which is necessary for a believer, but they have a clear morality, a clear choice, and there is no tendency to compromise.

Every person, whether liberal or anti-liberal, deserves leniency and sympathy for his weaknesses, including social and ideological weaknesses. If we take the Church as a community - not as the Body of Christ, but as a community of people - then if it were more tolerant and forgiving, it would be much better both for liberals and for the Church itself.

Personally, I haven’t completely solved this problem for myself. I can't call myself good Orthodox Christian not only in the form of self-flagellation, but also in essence. I only hope that this decision will gradually mature within me - I myself am not able to formulate it.

- In your opinion, there are now significantly fewer intelligentsia in the Church than there could be?
- Yes. Although I know very well that in many parishes the conservative part of the intelligentsia still forms the core of the community. An intellectual makes his choice with difficulty, suffers, avoids the final answer, but if he has made a choice, then he stands by it. But the average person often comes and goes. We see that there has been an outflow: there are fewer people in churches than in the second half of the 90s. And who left? The same man in the street who came earlier. I am not their judge: I don’t want to judge either intellectuals or ordinary people.

- How do you, a father and teacher, see the problem of attracting young people to the Church?
- For children, the Church should be a joy, not a torment. It is good for the parish to be joyful, even a little fun, although, of course, this should not become an endless game.

And with grown children... They themselves must determine their own destiny. There is a moment - this applies to both religious and non-religious upbringing - when children need to start letting go. We are obliged to hold them tightly until a certain age, and then screw by screw, nut by nut must be unscrewed. Risky? Yes. A child can leave the Church, he can fall into something I don’t understand, but if he doesn’t go on his own, he won’t live his life; this will be much worse than if he leaves the Church, and then, perhaps, returns to it, but does it himself. I try to raise my children this way.

As a teacher, I cannot directly influence students. I can only not hide my views, which is what I do. I cannot push students to questions of faith, because this is not my task of teaching: education is carried out at school, in the family, first of all. But if a student comes to me with this, he gets an answer.

There are quite contradictory reviews about today's youth. A few months ago, the article “Generation of Losers” by your namesake, Andrei Arkhangelsky, made a splash, where he called the “generation of 20-year-olds” brought up on the magazine “Afisha” and directly said that these are apolitical people, deprived of any responsibility for their actions and as citizens of society they are practically useless. Do you, as a teacher who works with people of this age, agree with this assessment, or is it not so bad? And how has the situation changed in ten to fifteen years?
- Nowadays students are much less cynical than in the mid-90s. These are people who would like to have ideals - they don’t always have them, but they would like to (despite the fact that I teach at a university that focuses people on success, on social and financial modernization!) I am with full responsibility I declare that in this environment a core of people has matured who understand perfectly well that there will be no success without morality, without value guidelines. They may have emptiness in their heads and souls, but they feel this emptiness, and this is the first step. And they realize that success itself is only an opportunity, just the first step in order to do something more important. Money is a means, social recognition is also a means. Why do I need success? Just to present it? It's better to use it as leverage to move on.

As for apoliticality - yes, of course, they are less civic-minded than their peers in the early 90s. But I can say about myself: while studying at the institute, I was also an almost apolitical person. Moreover: I was not very interested in history. I studied Pushkin and managed not to know how history is connected with him. There was knowledge at the level required, but there was no depth of understanding. I didn’t understand how the story worked, I didn’t feel it.

Then we were released from the tin can, and we became too political and too civic-minded, because you immediately dive so deep that you can suffocate. And I began to study seriously the history of the same Pushkin era, because I had experience in contact with real story through modernity. After all, in order to understand how history differs from a textbook, you need to feel that it is completely unpredictable. The textbook writes about what has already happened, but history is what has not yet happened. People in history are always responsible for the future, always take risks, never know in advance what will come of their deeds and words. And when you understand this, you look at the past differently. This is a very important realization. We were given an inoculation of citizenship, we even received some drug addiction from political cataclysms.

So are these guys. While there was imaginary stabilization, you could console yourself with the illusion that you would live well, go to cafes, hang out with friends. That this does not require any principles, or even, at a minimum, any political views, that we don’t have to go to elections, don’t make decisions about supporting someone - everything will happen by itself. But now you have to understand that it won’t happen by itself. There will be a period - not an era, but at least a period - of testing. This period will force young people to be more civic-minded.

Whether they will become more religious, I don’t know. At this point you either have to hit him in the head properly, or it has to be some kind of insight. Tolstoy’s Arzamas horror is memorable to many of us, but the Lord can’t come to everyone like that. This question is not for me, but rather for the priest: I can only talk to people that without ideals, without faith there will be no life - this is not life, and don’t understand what. But I cannot give a recipe for spiritual correction.

Chapter from the novel MUSEUM OF THE REVOLUTION

...Early in the morning, not yet eight, Theodore received a call from the hospital. Duty female voice reported the death of the patient Vodolazova V.M., age 69 years old, pensioner, and warned by rote: if the relatives are against the autopsy, a statement must be drawn up and signed by the deputy head physician, today, before 15:00. No, you can't transfer it. No, this is your business, not ours. No, I said no.

He had no illusions; I understood everything immediately, in the first second, as soon as I saw Valya in a hospital bed in a helplessly pulled up yellow nightie. And yet his heart began to beat feverishly, his cheeks flushed, Theodore began to fuss, for some reason began to look for Valya’s passport, although he knew perfectly well that all the documents were in the hospital, he rushed to the kitchen, made himself some black chifir tea, took a sip and put it aside, ran to the post office mailbox, checked unnecessary mail. Well then. This means Vali is no more. They took me out like a fish from an aquarium. The net was lowered, and it was gone.

So. The application is due before three. But in half an hour a plane with a commission from the ministry will arrive, and only by twelve will they reach the estate. The director is required to meet them. Whatever happens. Personally. But he cannot allow an autopsy. No matter how their life turned out, he loved young Valentina, and he would not allow the doctors to disembowel this dense native body. I had to step over myself and call her sister, with whom Shomer had not spoken since the 90s, and Valentina had not met either. At least he didn't know anything about it. And his sister had sons, therefore, his nephews, whom he practically never saw, and his nephews have wives, children... everything threatened to turn into whining and tears, hated empty conversations at the abundant farewell table. Well, as expected, without clinking glasses. May God grant her the Kingdom of Heaven. Do you remember how the deceased... No, I don’t remember anything. And I don’t want to remember - together with you.

Galina? This is Theodore. Yes, yes. Well done, you found out. Galina, I have bad news. Yes. Yes. She. What are you saying? There was a stroke. Yes. Well, sorry. I thought it would work out somehow - here he had to lie - but you see... You're right, I should have told you. Yes. It's my fault. Don't cry, please.

Having cried her due, Galina agreed to take over the hospital. But then she calculated something in her head and gasped.

And it won’t be possible to bury him on the third day. We'll have to move it to the fourth.

To the legitimate question why, the sister-in-law answered briefly:

Because it's Friday, Good Friday.

So what?

And the fact that Sunday is Easter.

AND? You explain in human terms.

Galina told Theodore in a proud voice that the Holy Church does not hold funeral services for anyone on Easter Holy Sunday. Can't we do without this? Valya didn’t go to church, except to paint eggs, bake Easter cakes, couldn’t she have done it without additional rituals?

Theodore, no, listen to me, you can’t do that, you’re wrong. She was baptized... so what if you're a Jew? First to church, and from there we’ll go straight to our place, I’ll call my neighbor, and we’ll cook together...

In the end, they made a deal: the funeral service would take place in his estate and Valya would be buried here, right in the church fence - is he a director, after all, or not a director? But no home gatherings; the funeral table will be set in the restaurant at his hotel.

So you have a hotel now?!

Not exactly for me, but in general there is.

Four days flew by in an instant. In the first half of Friday he watered, fed and looked after the commission, in the second he ran out a piece of paper with permission to bury his wife in the museum area (he had to disturb the governor personally); Saturday was spent pleasing the head of the sanitary and epidemiological station, without whom you would not be able to bury not only a dead wife, but also a deceased dog; on Sunday, together with the hotel cook, he went to the collective farm market, personally selected fat turkeys and ducks, all sorts of pickles, urines and other funeral joys. The saleswomen were sleepy and half-drunk; They looked at the buyers with displeasure: they could have stocked up in advance, but no, on a bright day they were busy with the earthly economy, and you stand there like a fool and sell.

Returning from the market, he went to see Father Boris. He, sleepy and seemingly slightly swollen, sat in the church garden, quietly melting in the warm sun. The winter was unfairly long, on Holy Thursday it got colder again, the sky shook out the last snow, like shaking out change down to the penny, but on Saturday morning the sun came out and a stormy spring immediately came.

Father Boris was embarrassed, as if he had been caught in an inappropriate manner:

Theodor Kazimirovich, hello.

And, hesitating for a moment, he concluded:

Happy holiday!

“Nothing, nothing,” the director showed authoritative condescension. - I have nothing to do with your Easter, but you have the right to congratulate me, as expected. What is called, Christ is Risen!

Well, as they say, truly! - answered the surprised priest.

I, Boris Mikhailovich, why did you come? Tomorrow there will be a funeral service. As you know, I don’t believe it. And in general I was against it, but I had to. And since I had to, I’m not used to participating in something I don’t understand. Please describe the process to me. First, second... - He faltered.

And compote,” Father Boris joked unsuccessfully and again became embarrassed. - Theodor Kazimirovich, forgive me, it just slipped my tongue, I’m wrong.

Okay, as you say, God will forgive. So what's our scenario tomorrow?

Theodore listened carefully to the lecture, in the right places nodded, and finally asked:

Just give me the text. The general outline is clear, but too difficult words, I want with my eyes.

All evening and most of the night, Theodore crammed prayers, stumbling over clumsy words. Early in the morning, without sleeping a wink, he went to inspect the grave. Local gravediggers were lying low, so they had to hire short Uzbeks. Their short-cropped heads protruded from the grave pit, and a clay mound grew nearby. Theodore scared the Uzbeks, jumped into the hole like a master (the Uzbeks froze sculpturally at the edge; the Uzbeks are small, the shovels are large, the handles rested on their chins), scolded the grave diggers for not pumping out the water; They began to unanimously deny it: they say, director, we do everything according to the rules, as soon as we strengthen the walls, we will pump it out; he habitually yelled at them, they habitually obeyed him, and it became a little easier.

At eleven a rickety old bus arrived. The Kirghiz pulled out the coffin and the heavy lid, sparkling with varnish. And it was not so much the dull coffin itself, but this heavy lid that made a terrifying impression on Theodore; he was no longer just nervous and twitching, but, as his mother used to say in childhood, “he was trembling like crazy,” his heart was shaking unevenly in his chest. But no one noticed anything because he kept himself under control. He warmly, like a family, kissed Galya, who had become incredibly plump and resembled a dwarf hippopotamus with a magnificent goiter, hugged (but without kissing) her gray-haired twins from his first marriage and an ugly daughter from his second, shook hands with his grandchildren and granddaughters, complete strangers to him. and uninteresting. He was the first to enter the vestibule, decorated with cheerful white lace (our work, a factory one, Theodore thought proudly; we’ll need to give a tour later), and mournfully stood at attention next to the coffin, in which lay a woman unlike Valentina, whitewashed and shrunken. It was even strange to look at her. He lit a large yellow candle and froze, waiting for the memorized exclamation:

Blessed be our God...

But for some reason the priest was in no hurry; He was quietly fidgeting in the altar, rearranging and wiping something there. And Shomer was getting worse; his legs became weak, he felt cold and hot. He didn’t feel at all that it was Valya, but he felt with his skin that death was nearby. You can't show it. No way. He must maintain his dignity. When will this priest start...

There were more and more people. Next to Valina’s sad relatives, Pasha, Syoma and Vitaly stood shoulder to shoulder, like obedient big boys. Dressed in black, Tamara Timofevna cheerfully climbed onto the soleya and demonstrated complete readiness to sing, read, serve: whatever the priest ordered. In the dark corners crawled aunties-tour guides, aunties-caretakers, aunties-factories. The hotel maids arrived; the chef, an oversized, shaggy Georgian, was kneading a woolen cap in his hands like a peasant; behind the cook, as if behind a wall, the embarrassed Kirghiz were hiding, and at a distance from the Kirghiz, as if disdaining them, the old women from the village huddled gloomily. In the open doorway, he saw those same round-headed Uzbeks who had dug a hole and now wanted to say goodbye to the owner’s mistress, but did not dare enter the church...

When Boris Mikhailovich matured and proclaimed his “Blessed...”, the small temple was packed to capacity. Almost everyone crossed themselves decorously, even some Uzbek little boy tried to imitate those praying and funny ran his hand over his body, as if scratching it crosswise. Shomer should also cross himself, that’s the ritual here, but it’s impossible, it would be theatrical... He raised the thick candle higher, firmly grasped it with both hands, like a shaft, and demonstrated to everyone that his hands were busy.

Father Boris served solemnly, but simply, clanking the censer evenly, and pronouncing the words clearly and distinctly. “He says to the Lord: My refuge and my strength... will not come near you.” Tamara Timofeevna tried her best, sang sincerely and well. Her voice, of course, is not so great, but it is honest and even, without that old woman’s rattling. “Blessed art thou, O Lord, teach me by thy justification.” Shutting himself off from thoughts of death, Theodore tried to think. After all, churchmen are psychologists; they know what a person experiences when he stands at the edge of a coffin that looks so much like a small boat. Loved, didn’t love, didn’t help, wasn’t pure, but nothing else can be changed, this boat is sailing forever; he clings to the edge, doesn’t want to let go, and will let go anyway. Very soon. But if he quietly hums the same thing, God have mercy on me, God have mercy on me, God have mercy on me, it acts like a lullaby, I sing bayushki, bayu bayu bayu, bayu bayu bayu. The baby will calm down and stop crying, and will fall asleep, and he will dream about that happy unreal world, where there is no illness, no sadness, no sighing, but endless life.

My legs were completely weak. And a tight lump formed in my throat.

And yet Theodore restrained himself.

Father Boris collected the Gospel, missal, and memorial notes into a student pile and went to the altar. The temple became painfully quiet, the loose candles brought from the house by the villagers clicked, spitting out clumps of wax. The priest slowly returned, stood at Valya’s head, propped his chin on the cross, like the Uzbeks propped him up with the handles of shovels, and spoke.

From the very first minute a person prepares to leave. You can avoid illnesses and failures in life, but no one can avoid death. We hide from this thought, fuss, make plans, but still one day the time comes. And no grandiose deeds, no exploits will help us. There is no more past, the present ended before it began, and we still know nothing about eternity...

In the chandelier, polished like a samovar, the windows were displayed in a rounded and stretched manner; sunbeams they ran on hard, worn phelonion, from which the ends of gold embroidery protruded like wires. Theodore found himself listening without listening; he felt the solemnity of the moment, smelled the funeral smell of pine needles, carnations, and something else icy and dangerous, and at the same time all sorts of stupid thoughts crept into his head. He turned off the iron, or he didn’t turn it off. No, it seems to have been turned off. What if not? Yesterday Ivan Sarkisovich didn’t answer all day, he’s probably angry about Ivantsov. Damn iron, and the devil pulled it precisely in the morning to iron his trousers, not in the evening...

Through this nonsense, like spring water through clay, the sermon of Father Boris flowed with difficulty.

When a baby is born, he screams in horror. Because he doesn’t know how to live outside the womb. Nurses rush to him, wipe him off, wrap him in something warm, and place him on the mother’s chest. He feels that it is his mother and is immediately comforted. So is the soul. In the first minutes she is lonely, scared, and only our love can help her.

(Isn’t the house on fire? But what are you going to do...)

We now remind her that she is not alone, that we love her and remember her, we ask her to forgive all insults and we ourselves forgive her everything. Do not be afraid, soul, wait, God is merciful, you will be with Him. We didn’t give you enough love during your life, let it be with you after death.

(So. Remind Sam about the fire hydrant. The inventory has been checked. The doors are carpentry, folding, with copper locks. The tables are wall-mounted, wooden, the legs are covered with gold, and the lids are varnished. The canapea is leather, large. A cabinet with three shelves...)

Shomer approached his wife, kissed her glassy forehead, stroked her lifeless hair, and walked away so as not to disturb others.

Suddenly, behind the open doors of the temple, a car roar was heard, the engine snored like a horse and fell silent; someone imperiously pushed the Uzbeks apart and walked inside.

Master, bless! - That was all the amazed priest could say.

The bishop hugged Theodore tightly, patted him on the back, and whispered: why didn’t you call me, I found out by chance, I might not have made it in time! And he ordered out loud: Podsevakin, glasses! Although why does he need glasses? There was a time when he baptized more often than he performed funerals; he could repeat the rite of baptism in a row without shortening it; loved to joke when some tiny little thing would make her mother stand up with a shout: they will write in the life later, she was pious from infancy, she never sat down in church, even in her mother’s arms; I always told young dads: remember that the apple tree doesn’t fall far from the apple. And he smiled piously. But bishops are not invited to christenings, foolishly considering them unworthy of the title of bishop; but for the funeral - please, your Highness. So he remembers the rite of baptism poorly, in all sorts of jerks and fragments. But he knows the farewell prayer by heart, in his gut. And yet he puts on his glasses, looks sternly at the parishioners, and lowers his eyes to his favorite tiny missal.

He habitually put his hand through the slot into his pocket - the pocket was impeccably empty. I rummaged through something else - nothing. The people waited unquestioningly, and the bishop frightenedly rummaged in his pockets, like a third grader who had lost his keys. Because I realized with horror that the prayer was gone and forgotten. The words that were ingrained and ingrained in him peeled away from his senile memory. Continuing to radiate greatness, Peter looked sternly at Podsevakin, and the reliable secretary not so much understood as felt what was happening. It takes a long time to run to the altar and look for the prayer book; people will start whispering and the correct attitude will disappear; A thought flashed in Podsevakin’s head: he pulled out a shiny phone, a gift from the governor for his anniversary (the bishop himself didn’t know how to use a phone, so he gave it to the secretary in trust), and in one motion typed a request into the search engine. The screen was covered with letters that looked like acne. Yaroslav handed the phone to Vershigora.

What else is this? - Vershigora asked silently, with just his lips

Breviary,” Podsevakin rustled, and made a strange movement with his fingers; the letters gradually increased, and Peter thought that he had finally understood the expression “with a wave of his hand.”

He lowered his eyes to the screen and exclaimed embarrassedly:

“Our Lord Jesus Christ, by His Divine grace, and by the gift and power given by His holy disciple and apostle, to bind and solve the sins of men, said to them: receive the Holy Spirit...”

The screen is a little glare, but in general, oddly enough, the letters still flock into words, the words are drawn out into sentences, and a prayer is woven from them. Only Podsevakin’s finger gets in the way; He moves the text every now and then. Every year, Peter brings closer to his heart the words about human weakness and about that happy oblivion to which all this was “given over” in heaven; it would be necessary to serve more coolly, like a monk, but Bishop Peter cannot be colder.

Well, it's done.

Vladyka took a small bag from the hands of Father Boris and sprinkled sand from the bag onto Valentina’s body, placed in her hands a piece of paper with red and black carved letters and a faded printed picture, similar to an old pass to a government office, and invited her family and friends to say goodbye to the deceased. Tamara Timofeevna, straight as an arrow, began to talk about eternal memory. The hammers began to knock quickly. The shackled clanking of the censer, the hot, sweet-smelling fog, and living voices flow through it...

And here Theodore couldn’t control himself. He started crying like a little boy: y (What a humiliation! How shameful!) And again yyyyyyy. Galina and his nephews ran up to him, began to hug and stroke him, he no longer wanted to despise them, they were not so bad.

Valenka, forgive me, forgive me, and eternal memory to you!

RUSSIAN CULTURE: THE COMPLEX PERSON AS A GOAL

If we approach culture from a high position, then, of course, it is intended for talking about the eternal. But without receiving an answer from it to a simpler question - what is it responsible for here and now as an integral system - it seems to me that it is impossible to build a modern cultural policy.

It is quite obvious that if today Russia wants to be competitive and develop in the world on an equal basis with advanced civilized countries, then it must be a complexly organized society for complex people.

AND main strength, which is responsible for the formation of such time-appropriate complexity, is called culture. By it in this case we mean not only a set of arts, but also the entire network of social institutions that generate, preserve, restore, modernize, and often destroy - all possible meanings and values.

Art walks in the political park

Now let's remember what the enlightened community dreamed of at the end of perestroika, when Russia was entering a new period of its development. It thought that culture would finally cease to be the center of social existence. This thesis was repeated from article to article, and everyone who read the newspapers at that time understood what was being said. About what's in Soviet era culture in general and literature in particular replaced parliament, the Church, the university platform and other institutions. Therefore, the enlightened public thought, when we finally live as people, the status of culture should return to the place it occupies in others, normal developed countries. That is, the return to “normality” was associated with a decrease in the role of culture in society in such a way that the role of the same parliament, the Church, and the university would automatically rise. Well, frisky literature will stop meddling in other people’s affairs and will naturally return to the state that Vladimir Ilyich Lenin elegantly outlined: the writer will write, and the reader will read.

This topic has been actively discussed for about five years. And then another 20 years passed, and a new political ferment began in Russia. So what are we seeing? What we see is that at the current marches, rallies, and “walks along the boulevards,” there are more writers than politicians. Moreover, following the example of writers, artists, musicians and other humanists have already joined the process.

And who became the main and first opponent of the writers’ walk, followed by thousands of Muscovites? Some law enforcement official? No, no. The enemy also turned out to be a writer. Eduard Limonov. Moreover, he acted as a supporter of tougher opposition tactics.

As a result, it turns out that, having described the historical circle, we returned to the same point. There is no normal parliament. There are big problems with the Church, which was the authority for all Russians. Universities have not become autonomous, which means they cannot be a source of ideas transforming society and a hotbed of free thought. But literature, writers - these are again charged with energy. One can evaluate in different ways what current writers create. But in their sense of time, in their understanding of what was happening, they again found themselves superior to many.

This advantage can be viewed with sadness. Or it can be done with hope - it means that those perestroika models turned out to be so viable that they are being reproduced again, despite the transition of eras and the change of nomenklatura elites.

Some may like the writer Boris Akunin, others may not. Some people love the poems of Lev Rubinstein, while others have not read him at all. It doesn't matter in the slightest. The authority of the writer as such is important.

Here we must remember the era when the center of Russian history was, on the one hand, the peasantry, and on the other, the Russian aristocracy. At the center of that conflict, it was the writers of the popular and aristocratic movements who were the first to come together in disputes.

And now, when the middle class is at the center of the protest events, the writer for this part of society (as he positions himself) - Boris Akunin - appeared before his readers on the square.

Such a past and present suggests that it is cultural policy (or the lack thereof) that contains many explanations for what does not suit us in the life around us.

Our past is in our hands

If we take a broader look at the culture present here and now, we will find in it several complex, contradictory, but coexisting phenomena.

We will suddenly discover that today's state policy in this area is a diligent work with the wreckage of alien cultural paradigms.

The first point in this activity is historical heritage, what we inherited from the pre-revolutionary, aristocratic period. These are estates, regional museum complexes, monuments, etc.

The second is the wreckage of the Soviet cultural era. Mainly cultural centers, cinema halls in small towns, incomparable with the capital’s multiplexes, regional theatres, philharmonic societies, etc.

This fascination with the past suggests one thing; Whether we like it or not, the conclusion follows: in imperial Russia, as in the Soviet Union, there was a cultural policy. The old models may or may not be accepted today, but they had integrity, logic, and were absolutely understandable from an infrastructure point of view.

This clarity is explained by the fact that those cultural constructions began with a common big idea and only then turned to a private management system to create infrastructure.

This is extremely important - they did not go from infrastructure to idea, but exactly the opposite.

The construction of the House of Culture as the center of district life was not a meaningful idea. This was only a consequence of Soviet cultural policy, which did not clarify whether a person wanted or did not want to be cultivated to a general level. The policy worked according to the famous Soviet formula “if he doesn’t want to, we’ll force him, if he doesn’t know how, we’ll teach him.”

I repeat, you can treat her differently, but that’s how it was.

And from this energetic past, the current government received only fragments. Therefore, the post-Soviet leadership found its cultural strategy to preserve this heritage to the best of its ability. How could it be otherwise if no other cultural policy has appeared so far?

Sometimes the lack of a new strategy is due to a lack of funds. This version doesn't look very convincing. According to the federal target program “Culture of Russia”, designed for seven years, from different sources about 200 billion rubles will be allocated. (of which 186.6 are from the federal budget). By world standards, this is not very much money. But in comparison with what was written about this matter before, the growth is noticeable. But there is no modernization of cultural policy in sight.

And if so, then it is easier to use the allocated money for sacred and noble preservation cultural heritage. And since our glorious past was everywhere, the allocated funds are “spread” in an even layer throughout the country. And therefore there is no movement into an unclear future. Whatever libraries and museums there are, let them be like that. This logic is reminiscent of a favorite image of teenage girls: “Love is a suitcase without a handle, which is difficult to carry, but a pity to throw away.”

Mom, I went to play in the museum

Here, it’s probably worth thinking about - what, exactly, should be the task of state policy in the field of culture? I think this is not at all what the cultural administration has been trying to do all these years - maintaining the former cultural economy in order.

The effectiveness of the state in this delicate area is revealed in another way. In what rules and opportunities it defines for culture, what directions it sets for it, so that then the corresponding non-state institutions begin to work on this.

It seems to me that such a scheme is caused today by the complication of human consciousness and the change in the picture of the world, which we in Russia still barely notice, as director Kirill Serebrennikov and cultural sociologist Daniil Dondurei never tire of repeating.

These processes we let's understand better, if we look at the way of existence of a culture that has almost no support programs in the most liberal, but strictly market country.

So the Americans have formulated a simple principle for themselves: we do not support culture, but the business that supports it. And this clearly constructed model has led to the fact that today there are about 25 thousand operating in the United States. charitable foundations support cultural projects. That is, it is not the state that sets goals, it only determines the framework, the conditions in which cultural processes freely develop.

What does the money go to? Not to preserve old cultural paradigms with all our might, but to enter modernity. And this in no way means the destruction of what was. The past must breathe, come to life and enter today along with new projects.

This also applies to such archaic institutions, which by definition are museums and libraries. Now funds support only those structures that have freed themselves from the idea that a museum is a temple, and a library is a repository of wisdom.

To paraphrase Bazarov's formula, we can say that restless Americans modern museum- not a temple, but a workshop. A place where you can not tiptoe around, but interact with the exhibits in such a way as to touch them, move them, and experience them. In other words, a museum is now a space in which modern man, while playing, masters the past live.

There are other, for example European, models of cultural policy in which the state plays a more significant role. But even there, if you look closely, the so-called rule applies long arm- when the government has the right to set certain program objectives. But it has nothing to do with what criteria and to whom support should be provided.

You may not be French

An example is the story of the revival of French cinema, which suddenly felt that its triumphant era of being at the center European culture ends.

Here it must be said that we later experienced something similar.

It must be admitted that the Soviet model of cinema - with all its costs and ideological barriers - worked. Soviet cinema was both elite and mass at the same time. Many of his films were distinguished by humanistic content, and they enjoyed success, as they say, on a global scale.

Thus, we are dealing with two models - Russian and French. Both were in crisis.

What was done in this situation in Russia? A national film support program was created. On its basis, assistance began to be provided to those artists whose works seemed the most promising.

But who and what is preferred?

For example, we see that biographical films have a special place. It is possible that the Soviet experience of supporting heroic biographical films by Stalin is taken into account here.

Of course, this topic is patriotic and popular, but now we are talking about something else. The fact that money for support is invested according to state program straight into production.

The French have a slightly different model. It was developed by the famous Minister of Culture Jacques Lang. It consisted of a simple and surprising rule for us: “Any film made with the money of the French taxpayer in the interests of the French audience is French.”

This automatically introduces into the national cinema any director from any country who is ready to make films for the French with their money.

This is how Otar Ioseliani becomes French artist, just like young Pavel Lungin did in his time. The Romanians are getting a lucky chance in France, and their domestic cinema is making a strong leap forward due to this.

Of course, everyone who went to work in French cinema from the countries of the former socialist camp was, among other things, attracted by the freedom of creativity, which is still so difficult to achieve in the conditions of the post-Soviet consciousness.

Creative freedom in the French version is defined as follows: the state allocates funds for the project and has nothing to do with the adoption creative solutions. There are no criteria by which the government could decide who to give money to. This is the long arm rule.

And the third principle is that artists can determine for themselves what to support. But they cannot distribute the money. This is what the official does. But he, in turn, does not set or set criteria. The authorities only set the frame and move away.

Now imagine our state-bureaucratic wishes in the context of support for French cinema. “Patriotic content”, “relevance of the chosen topic”...

All! As they say, “there will be no kin.”

If you look at the French crisis as a whole, the main means of support did not even go to production. And above all, for total advertising and promotion of domestic films into the category of cultural values ​​of compatriots. Therefore, long-running screenings of French films in French cinemas also required serious funds. The rapid collections of Hollywood films in France were countered by long-term demonstrations of domestic film products. Therefore, the films paid for themselves within a few months, which was an indirect confirmation of the growth of audience interest and patriotism.

All these efforts led to the fact that French cinema began to breathe freely, no longer needing an oxygen cushion from the state.

About books - readable and revered

In our country, the desire of the state to manage everything directly remains inescapable. Although it is not very clear why, how and in the name of what this is being done.

However, in the first of Vladimir Putin’s pre-election articles, as far as I understood it, there is an answer to this question. Today's power elite needs culture in order to maintain the status quo.

One of the ideas in that article was discussed quite widely. It was about a list of 100 books that every Russian should read.

It would seem, what's wrong?

At one time in England there was a “Big Reading” project. There, too, 100 books beloved by the nation were selected. And Vladimir Vladimirovich proposed the same amount.

But the English project had some differences. There the society itself selected the books that it liked on at the moment. It turned out that today these are some books, tomorrow they will be different. That is, society’s love of reading is simply supported. And what to read to whom is already a choice of people. And this is a dynamic choice of people.

We offer 100 books that should become a canon that formats consciousness. That is, the dominant idea is not reading as a choice, but reading as a norm. Of course, this norm will most likely be determined not by the authorities, but by the expert community. Then the list will be approved, and this will become a kind of canon. Read 100 necessary books - and you are already a correct Russian.

I repeat, there will not be and cannot be anything terrible on that list: our great literature enough for hundreds of lists. This story is not about books at all, but about the relationship between government and society.

And if the state is so concerned about the problem of reading, then it is much more important not to draw up reading standards, but to promote modernization, perhaps the most archaic cultural sphere, which is compiled by Russian libraries.

True, when trying to talk about this topic, cultural officials, as a rule, indulge in explanations. They say, you can’t even imagine what a dense country we, the unfortunate ones, have to deal with. And without breaking these archaic institutions, we will not be able to do anything. And if we start to destroy the old, we will immediately get a crisis of confidence.

But the paradox is that the most a shining example how an archaic institution faced with a choice between modernization and extinction is precisely libraries.

Few people know that one of the most vibrant and modern libraries in the country is located in the city of Oktyabrsk, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Circle. And this happened not because Gazprom helped. But because there were people who managed to get these funds, their efforts need to be talked about separately.

How does this library differ from the usual Soviet one? You enter the Soviet one and find yourself in a series of doors and narrow corridors. You are entering modern library and you find yourself in a bright space with practically no doors. Glass partitions create silence for every visitor. And the absence of walls creates a sense of community. This interaction creates a special relationship with books and reading.

And this was all done thanks to private initiative, which makes me personally moderately optimistic.

By the way, about the archaic nature of libraries. Yes, its typical staff are middle-aged women responsible for the functioning of the book depository, whose needs used to be expressed in one thing: give us money and don’t interfere with us living the way we are used to. But, having suddenly found themselves drawn into a project that had arisen out of nowhere, they completely fit into the new format, which cannot even be called a library. Book depositories suddenly turned into centers of intellectual discussions, where multimedia rooms, Internet cafes and much more inevitably appeared, awakening new interests in people. And women who find themselves in this new space become more complex themselves and complicate the practice around them. Now they are beginning to ask that interesting, complex people come to them in the outback for lectures, debates, and meetings with readers.

Other institutions that are or could be responsible for entering modernity are, undoubtedly, educational institutions, and not only school, but also university.

As for the latter, so far everything looks alarming and sad.

There is neither the autonomy of the university, nor the self-respect of the university community, nor its openness to the world. The only thing that exists is a narrow-mindedness on ratings, which for some purposes may be important, but do not affect the underlying processes in any way. What happens if someone is in 12th place and you are in 13th? Perhaps this is important for the natural sciences. For the humanities - hardly.

But for some reason it is very important to us whether our homeland is included in the list of three hundred best universities or whether it lacks only three points.

It is obvious to me that Russia will never be included in any decent rankings if it does not have university autonomy. If the university community does not build its own educational policy on the basis of expert opinion, and not according to bureaucratic orders.

And this need for freedom is actually a need for a complex person and a complex, thinking society.

Alas, complex things are always difficult to both implement and understand. The authorities, it seems to me, are constantly reaching for unheard-of simplicity, considering culture a kind of economy, without, in fact, knowing it.

I was once present at a dispute between several quite intelligible people who knew the matter and for short term officials who managed to change a lot in Moscow. We found out how many theaters there are in Moscow. According to one version it was 312. And according to another - 80.

Moreover, the discussion concerned only the capital.

An interesting figure also surfaced there. It turns out that the state subsidy to the cost of one theater ticket is 8 thousand rubles in the capital. There is, of course, less in the country, but how much?

Who else could tell me how many theaters there are in the country...

A well-known TV presenter, he believes that television cannot talk about God directly, because in essence it is entertainment; that the modern world is too disconnected, that’s why the Internet appeared - to keep connections; he writes textbooks on literature for high school, because I am sure that our nation is united by nothing except the Russian language. Alexander ARKHANGELSKY is a representative of modern intellectuals who are not associated only with “kitchen riots” in individual apartments, but must be able to think and defend their point of view in any, even the harshest conditions.

So that life is not deprived of power

— You wrote the book “1962. Epistle to Timothy,” where, in the form of an address to your son, you talk about the roots and intertwining of personal and world history. Today, more and more people are trying to recreate their ancestry, hanging yellowed photographs of their ancestors on the wall... Where does this desire to find roots come from?

— When young children lack vitamins, they begin to instinctively eat chalk, ash, and leaves. Today at the same time huge amount people felt a sense of broken ties. For some, these are connections from their immediate circle, and in order to restore them, people go to Odnoklassniki, and for others, these are connections in , when they acutely feel their own disconnection in time. And our social body urgently needs vitamins.

— Why didn’t our parents, say, feel the “disconnection in time”?

“They lived more closely, participated together in everything: from everyday life to some political actions. I'm not saying whether it's good or bad, but that's how it was. We live separately. In addition, historical time has accelerated. Everything around us is changing rapidly: technology, language norms, social experience. The rapid changes in reality are tearing us apart, tearing us apart. Between different generations now there is not a lack of connections, but a lack of connections.

Conflict is a normal thing when, within the same space, people collide - shoulders, foreheads, and then either reconcile or declare war on each other. It’s scary to slide around each other without being able to catch on. We have entered a world where the most difficult thing is to prove the reality of the existence of the simplest things: such as memory, continuity, they have turned into an abstraction. And, apparently, this is why a huge number of people have an almost physiological feeling that without restoring at least an imaginary root system, we will be blown apart and completely torn apart.

— Is everything you are talking about happening precisely because of technological progress?

— Technological discoveries follow our internal problems. Today we live in a world that is losing its sense of boundaries, geographical and political, and at the same time historical. If our parents were more like farmers, then our children and we are more like nomads.

Having become nomads, we have not lost the instinct of farmers and want us to have a ancestral memory. We want to return to our homeland all the time, and not just move from one point to another. We want to change our habitats, but constantly maintain connections. From my point of view, the Internet appeared because the world began to change.

In our overly divided world, everything that connects is in demand. And this applies equally to technical discoveries and literary works. Everyone suddenly started writing about the historical code, because they feel: the wires have been torn out of the wall and the ends are not connected, and they need to be closed again, otherwise life will be cut off.

— Rather, he didn’t lead, but let him down. He posed questions to them, the answers to which were not found in his works. And so people came to the Church for answers. But I tried to lead. And in those works where he led, he lost. He won - in novels in which he opened up a world to readers with access to eternal spheres.

The writer generally poses questions better than he gives answers. Although the answers also have the right to be. But not directly: this is not a recipe, not a road map. When a writer gives answers, he should be a little ironic towards himself. As soon as he loses this irony, he becomes an impostor, putting himself in best case scenario in the place of a priest, or, at worst, in the place of the Lord God.

Weaving words

— You once said that your profession is a writer. Does this type of activity exist today?

- A writer is a person who makes a living by weaving words, who knows how to arrange words into statements that have meaning. It is generally accepted that a writer is a writer who writes fictional books, thinks about lofty things, and does not waste time on trifles. Although in the history of Russian literature I hardly know such personalities. Each of our writers had to do the same magazine work. A writer is a profession, and a writer is a calling. The main thing is to clearly understand what you are doing at the moment, and not to confuse it: journalism, that is, convincing people of something, imposing your opinion on them, or journalism, telling about the opinions of others. Or - you write about other people from inside their consciousness, like a writer.

— And the further path - from literary criticism to journalism - how logical was it for you?

— To begin with, I presented myself in the academic world. Very early he published his first philological book about “ Bronze Horseman", she was even well received. But I knew that I had hit my own ceiling here. That’s why it was interesting to try myself in a new capacity. I started studying literary criticism. At the same time, in the nineties, I went to Geneva every two years to give courses of lectures. In 1998, I had to look for work again. And I went to the Izvestia newspaper. In two years, he went from correspondent to deputy editor-in-chief, without missing a single step.

Then the opportunity arose to try myself again on television. (I already had some experience before this: in 1992-1993 I hosted a program about contemporary writers - “Against the Tide”). And then came an offer from the “Culture” channel - to save someone else’s project, the TV magazine “Meanwhile”. If I had known then what it was like to remake other people's projects, I would not have gone. For a year and a half I had a feeling of indelible shame. Well, here the zealous spirit began to rise, it became interesting to replay the situation. Now the question is: what next? A person cannot work on television all his life and shine on camera, this is wrong. But I don’t know the answer to this question yet.

— Your video blog on the RIA Novosti website is also called “Against the Current”...

— At RIA Novosti I can talk about political topics that are inappropriate on the Culture channel. In addition, I’m interested in trying not only myself, but the emerging genre of multimedia speakers right before our eyes. And here it is clear that you will not be the best, but you will be the first, and this is very interesting.

— Why do the guests argue in the “Meanwhile” program, discussing issues that concern everyone, because in their disputes the truth is still not born?

— Our task is not to present the truth, but to show the complexity of the world in which we live and act, so that there are no illusions that there is simple solutions. And we must also teach people to responsibly make meaningful choices. The guests I invite are the people who made it. We see that each position has its own logic, but you still have to choose. Moreover, I believe that there are problems in our society that are currently insoluble. But then it is necessary to demonstrate their undecidability. Sometimes it is useful to show the potential danger of some kind of social ideological clash. It is better that we see how opinions disagree within the framework of the program, as on a small experimental site, than that we then experience this in real life.

— It’s difficult for an Orthodox person to work on television, isn’t publicity a hindrance?

— That is, were you seduced by fame? I hope not. And you can “work off” your fame by meeting people, giving lectures. Yes, television is a rather difficult environment. Who told us that, say, the army is light? Is it easy to be Orthodox and an officer? As for responsibility, it is the same everywhere.

— Have you ever had to defend your Orthodox views on television?

— On television, my views are third-rate. I am a presenter, not a publicist. Another thing is that a certain part of the audience does not like the fact that I always invite priests to the program. But I want to show the world that there are smart, thinking priests involved in the process modern life. I, as an Orthodox person, believe that this is important, and I will do it, no matter what anyone tells me. As for my position as a publicist, I am afraid of substituting theses. It scares me when secular people begin to read religious sermons in secular public places. I can’t give sermons, no one blessed me for this. And I cannot hide the fact that I am Orthodox and my hierarchy of values ​​is exactly like this. But, I repeat, I hope that I am not reading sermons.

— You once said that television cannot talk about God...

— It may not speak about God, but about people in whom God lives. Most religious programs, as a rule, are no good. And not only on Russian television. After all, everywhere it is, to a greater extent, entertainment. I don’t really understand how to talk about God through entertainment. Although everything in this life is possible, but as an exception, and not as a rule. In principle, preaching from a screen is possible, but, as a rule, it is frighteningly boring. And that's why I'm afraid of religious television.
— Previously, a lot was said about the fact that at least television unites the nation. Today TV has become multi-channel, which means we have absolutely nothing unifying?

- It seems so. This is very clearly seen in the false holidays. Under Soviet rule, there were holidays that were deeply alien to me, but internally motivated. Why is November 7th a holiday of the Soviet state? Because, whether real or mythological, on this day a state of workers and peasants was formed, with the Bolsheviks at its head. And then you can write whatever you want about November 7, hire strong directors who, like Romm, will make high-quality propaganda films. A myth works when the average person has an answer to the question: how is this myth connected with his own destiny. But today such myths are impossible.

November 4 is a holiday for the Church, but not for society as a whole, although what could be wrong with the Day of Civil Unity, which refers us to Minin and Pozharsky? But this holiday does not answer our question: how is it connected with our lives today, with the fate of our children, with the state within which we live. Khotinenko can make at least 25 films "1612", they will not turn into the myth that Romm's films about November 7 became, although Khotinenko - good director. The problem cannot be solved. Nothing unites us mythologically, informationally, politically, or culturally. Except for the Russian language, which is still our common language.

- Can the situation be changed?

- From my point of view, it is still possible. And there is an institution that is more important than television - school. Almost everyone goes through it. There it is possible to form a general civic consciousness, an all-Russian consciousness, in the broad sense of the word. But all attempts to solve this problem through the education of patriotism are dangerous. The modern world generally does not use the word “patriotism”, but the word “civicness”.

Patriotism is a state feeling, not a national one. In relation to the state, I am a citizen, this is my state, I live in it and act as a citizen, therefore, I am a patriot too. National feeling is not connected with the state, but with my cultural self-determination in today's world. And today this is largely a person’s choice, not genes.

There is no single understanding of the national principle for all times. Let’s say that blood kinship was possible before the Horde yoke, but not after. If the Church had not said then, when mixing with the occupiers began, that now the main thing is language and faith, then perhaps the Russian ethnos would not have existed, it would have dissolved and disappeared into history. Today - kinship by cultural affiliation, by language, by whose history is more important to you. For example: I'm not ashamed Hitler's Germany because I have nothing to do with her. And Stalin's Soviet Union I’m ashamed, because this is the history of my Motherland.

So “Russian” for me in this case is an adjective, not a noun. And in this sense, it doesn’t matter whether you are Chinese, Jewish, Tatar or Uzbek, the only important thing is that you speak Russian and consider the history of Russia to be yours. And either we will somehow, like Munchausen, pull ourselves out of the swamp by the hair, understand that we have little historical time left, and set ourselves (and the school) the task of the historical, civil unification of the Russian lands. Or - no one guaranteed us eternal existence in history.

REFERENCE

Alexander Nikolaevich ARKHANGELSKY - writer, literary critic, TV presenter, publicist. Born in 1962 in Moscow. In 1982 he graduated from Moscow State Pedagogical Institute. Lenin, Faculty of Russian Language and Literature. Candidate philological sciences. Since 2002 - author, presenter and director of the information and analytical program of the TV channel "Culture" "Meanwhile". Author and presenter of the series documentaries"Memory Factories: Libraries of the World." Finalist of the TEFI television award (2005, 2006, 2009), laureate of the Moscow Union of Journalists award (2006). Author of many books, including: “1962. Epistle to Timothy”, “The Price of Cutting Off”, etc.

Oksana GOLOVKO

Arkhangelsky Alexander Nikolaevich - Russian writer and poet, literary critic, publicist, representative of the modern intelligentsia, candidate of philological sciences, famous TV presenter, familiar to viewers from the information and analytical program “Meanwhile,” dedicated to economic and political topics, as well as the main cultural events of the week.

Alexander Arkhangelsky: biography

A native Muscovite was born on April 27, 1962, and grew up in an ordinary family with his mother and great-grandmother. They lived on the outskirts of the capital, not rich; Mom worked as a radio typist. At school I studied brilliantly in all subjects related to literature. I very quickly gave up doing mathematics, not because of lack of ability, but because I did not like to waste time on things that did not arouse interest.

At some point in his life, he was fabulously lucky: the boy went to the Palace of Pioneers to enroll in a drawing club and by chance, in company with some guys, became a member of a literary circle. It was there that the young psychologist and teacher Zinaida Nikolaevna Novlyanskaya had a huge influence on him. For this young woman, who worked for a meager salary, the profession was something more - a calling; she made literary savvy people out of her charges, giving Soviet schoolchildren many bright and good examples. And today Alexander Arkhangelsky communicates closely with the now grown children - participants in the circle back in 1976.

Life goal set

After school, Alexander, who clearly understood what he wanted from life, made up his mind right away and entered the Pedagogical Institute at the Faculty of Russian Language and Literature. His student years coincided with work at the Palace of Pioneers, where Alexander got a job as the head of a literary circle. Since teaching did not interest Alexander, and he had absolutely no intention of realizing himself in this direction, he forged a medical certificate stating that he could not teach due to asthma.

The next step in the fate of the young writer was work on the radio, where his colleagues were women of retirement age. Alexander could not tolerate such a neighborhood for a long time: after 9 months he ran away from there. Then he got a job as a senior editor of the magazine “Friendship of Peoples”; Moreover, at that time it seemed to Arkhangelsky that this was the ceiling of his career - there was nowhere to grow further. He liked the work at the magazine: it was interesting, with a lot of business trips. During that period, Alexander visited Armenia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, where for the first time he witnessed youth performances with national slogans and felt like a participant historical process aimed at changing the situation in the country.

Author's achievements

In the 90s, the writer worked in Switzerland and fell in love with this country very much. There he lectured at the University of Geneva, and the money he earned in three months was enough for him to live for a year in Moscow without poverty. In the capital, Arkhangelsky taught at the humanities department of the Moscow Conservatory.

Alexander Arkhangelsky went through all the stages at the Izvestia newspaper: first he worked as a columnist, then as deputy editor-in-chief and columnist. From 1992 to 1993 he hosted the “Against the Current” program on RTR, in 2002 - “Chronograph”, is a member of the Union Russian writers, Member of the jury for 1995. Founding academician and president of the Academy of Russian Contemporary Literature.

In his family life, Alexander was married twice and has four children from two marriages. Current wife Maria works as a journalist.

Arkhangelsky's television experience

“Heat” evokes a large number of different opinions - a reflective film that tells about a unique period in the history of the country and the Church, a tragic, meaningful and deep period.

Watching a film authored by Arkhangelsky evokes very conflicting feelings. On the one hand, the author introduces the audience to the religious searches of the 70-80s of the 20th century, on the other hand, the film shows only a small part of what was happening around in those years Orthodox Church, and tries to convince the viewer that in the USSR the real church existed secretly, and the true Christians were scientists and intellectuals. The rest of the inhabitants of the country of the Soviets simply survived in the created conditions.

Literature in the life of Alexander Arkhangelsky

Arkhangelsky, as a writer, grew up reading the works of many authors, but he was greatly influenced by Pasternak, into whose work the future writer plunged headlong. The writer strongly remembers his meeting with Dmitry Nikolaevich Zhuravlev, who had manuscripts of this great writer, donated by the author himself. Later, at the institute, Pushkin opened up to Arkhangelsky, and then all world literature. Alexander Arkhangelsky has a luxurious library with more than 3,000 books. This is all world classic, and the books are ranked according to the principle of chronology (from ancient oriental and ancient to modern) and according to the principle of having a desire to re-read each one again.

Alexander Arkhangelsky: books by the author

What is literature for Alexander Arkhangelsky? This is the only subject that allows you to rise from a cognitive and practical level to an emotional one.

After all, literature is about the heart, the mind, the mystery of life and death, trials, the past and what surrounds people. It is in it that everything comes to life: from household items to animals. Literature is an important school subject, so Arkhangelsky wrote a textbook on this subject for the tenth grade. The purpose of teaching this school subject is to teach children to look for and find the human in a person. Arkhangelsky is also the author and presenter of the series of documentary films “Memory Factories: Libraries of the World.” He has published such works as “The Epistle to Timothy”, “The Price of Cutting Off” and others.

Alexander Arkhangelsky

- When do you last time Was it really scary?

When my eldest son called me and said that my mother had a stroke. My brother was there, but I was not close and could not do anything. It was scary then, but everything else cannot be called fear. Anxiety, fear, but not fear. Fear can only be for life, I can’t imagine any other fear.

- What do you miss in life?

Time.

- How are you coping?

No way. I work all the time, which is wrong. But how do I “work constantly”? I have no such concept as a day off, a vacation, but I also have no such concept as working in an office from start to finish.

I work - I can fly away for 10 days to write, but when I write, this does not mean that I sit from early morning until late evening. I check out, drink, and can walk for a long time, while at the same time thinking about what I will do tomorrow. I can afford to watch the series. But there is no such thing that I have at least one day without work.

- Are you tired?

I'm getting tired. I’m tired of being scattered, of not being able to focus on one thing with my head. It’s like you’re swimming, you want to dive, but you can’t dive. You must stay on the surface at all times. It's hard.

The second thing that depresses me is the endless unfulfilled obligations. You owe someone something all the time, but you want to do what you want at the moment. Moreover, so that you can afford not to know in advance what you want to do in an hour.

- The main thrill in your profession?

I have several professions. There is one common denominator - I am a writer, I sell combinations of words. The high is when you finish a big job. I emphasize the big one. Because great job, for example, a book that is not collected from articles, but written from beginning to end, is a completely different level of depth. But not in the sense of a statement, but in the depth of life. It was something that took you, demanded service from you. These are not lofty words, this is not service to society or truth, but service to the book that you have been writing for many years.

The book gradually eats you up.

Bosch has a painting where authors stick out from their books, and the book gradually, slurping, swallows them. But at some point you break it. And every next page is a liberation, you break out, you hit the bottom and come out. This, of course, is happiness incomparable.

- When swallowing occurs, do you ever have the desire to quit the book?

Many times.

- How are you coping?

No way. This is a form of mania: if you are not a maniac, you will never big book you won't write.

- How big is the dissonance between your public image and your internal state?

I'm probably the wrong person. A public person must choose a mask in advance and display it. I don’t have a mask and never have. I never thought about how I would like to appear to other people. Moreover, to be honest, I never had a life plan to be in the public eye.

I came to television when I was 40. I will leave it as easily as I came. I have no addiction, no illusions that my presence in public space has any significance. This is a method that is as convenient as it is inconvenient. It’s convenient because it’s easier for a famous person to achieve something, it’s easier to be realized. If you come to a publishing house, they talk to you differently if you famous person. These are all advantages. But there are also a lot of disadvantages.

For example, they begin to expect from you that you should. You owe something to society, you owe something to the reader.

I don't owe anyone anything.

I don't owe anyone anything.

I want to do something, and to the extent that I want to do it. I do it.

- What are you most ashamed of in life?

I don't want to answer.

-What was your most difficult life choice?

Leaving work for the first time.

Then there was a completely different system, there was Soviet power. It was more difficult to get a position in any noticeable position; there was a system of cronyism and a system of party quotas. It was hard to make the decision that I was leaving Soviet radio. There was no experience. You're going nowhere. A Soviet man going nowhere is a lost man, a man who has fallen out of the system of familiar connections.

I was lucky in this sense. Still, radio was not my first job. My first place of work was the Palace of Pioneers, where I started working in 1980, in my 2nd year at the institute. But the first media place of work is radio. My mother got me a job there through connections. I worked for nine-odd months and realized that I was just going to die. I physically began to fall apart. I have sunk below the point of my compromise, everyone has their own compromise. That's where I crossed mine.

- What is a compromise for you?

Then or at all?

- And then, and in general.

Look, I was a believer, I worked at Pioneer Dawn. I despised the Soviet regime, but I worked, in general, in an ideological system. I hated pro-Soviet children's literature: pioneer stories, this cheerful spirit.

I worked in the very center of the invigorating spirit, I produced and broadcast it.

I wrote a dissertation on Pushkin and thought about censorship, and at the same time interacted with censors every day. Until the censor at Ostankino signed the folder with the transfer for tomorrow, I could not leave work. All this began to destroy me.

Fortunately, I was accepted into the magazine “Friendship of Peoples” without any cronyism, from the street. I just brought the texts. It was a completely different story. It was not an anti-Soviet organ, it was a completely Soviet institution, there was censorship there too. The Press Committee was furious with all the texts, but this was the measure of my compromise. I was asked to play a pretend role, which I was ready for. The role of the liberal, loyal, Soviet intellectual.

I'm not saying now whether this is good or bad. I’m just saying that I at that time could have matched this role. I didn't feel any catastrophic discomfort at all. And on the radio there was discomfort every day - it was painful.

I remember exactly the moment when Gorbachev arrived. On March 11, the fight against alcoholism and drunkenness began. On May 9, we cut out the line “Come on, comrade, one at a time” from the legendary song performed by Shulzhenko “Blue Handkerchief”(in the original “Let’s smoke one at a time, comrade” - I.S.). Or it’s completely a crime - I’m writing a dissertation about Pushkin and in the editorial office where I work, they cut out Pushkin’s poem “October 19, 1825” on the grounds that it contains a healthy toast.

You either become an absolutely dead cynic, or go crazy, or run away. It was impossible not to run away from there. But the light, cheerful cynicism of the Soviet writer, the liberal writer did not disgust me then.

Without compromise, the profession I am in is generally impossible. You just decide each time where the limit is.

- The last compromise you made that was on the verge of this limit?

Every time we broadcast “Meanwhile,” it’s a sharp compromise.

- Why?

Because this is a state channel.

There is no politics as such on the Culture channel. But guests are not required to follow this rule. They say something that violates the unwritten convention, and we drill it out. Every time we decide where we compromise our conscience and where not.

This decision is always informal. You go for it or you don’t, and somewhere you start to say to yourself: “Stop!”, and somewhere you don’t.

I have no complaints. This doesn't mean that someone is forcing me to do something bad. When I go to a certain channel, I sign up in advance that I am loyal to the corporation.

If a corporation has such rules, then I cannot say that the corporation is bad and I am good, I myself chose this corporation.

If we go back to 1986, when “Friendship of Peoples” just started publishing Rybakov with “Children of the Arbat,” this is a completely different level of freedom. And it fought back, we nibbled it off piece by piece, each next issue we competed to see what else we could try to print that couldn’t be printed in the previous issue.

- You live on Arbat. What is it like to live there?

Very good. I lived in many places in Moscow and realized that it is best to live either on the very outskirts or in the very center, because both are villages. Very quiet and peaceful. The worst thing is to live in the industrial gap between the outskirts and the center. We lived on Begovaya - it was very noisy, dirty and hard to breathe.

It’s inconvenient from a domestic point of view - there are no shops. There was one unfortunate “7th Continent”, but it was closed.

- “Crossroads” is also nearby.

Well, “Crossroads” - I have to drag myself across the road. “Azbuka Vkusa” is also nearby, but it is still expensive. Plus the price there does not correspond to the quality. And it will end clearly - “7th Continent” began as an expensive store, but in Russia there is no middle layer, either it’s cheap, like “Magnit” or “Magnolia”, or it’s expensive, like “ABC of Taste”. "7th Continent" was average. As soon as he disappeared, “ABC of Taste” will descend into this niche.

In the meantime, I drag myself to the Crossroads across the street.

- What are your rules for raising children?

First you need to be tough, and then more and more soft. From authoritarian to democratic. And then to the anarchic.

You still need to trust. I have a lot of children, and I can no longer jump beyond automated habits. I’m always asking for advice, I’m always trying to manage something. From washing dishes to crossing the road. Although the eldest is already 30.

There's nothing you can do about it. I understand that they are laughing at me, but I cannot change myself. This is already such a social instinct - to control something all the time. But I don't interfere with fate. They must choose for themselves.

- When was the last time you cried?

I don't know, I don't remember.

If you could be given carte blanche right now by fate to master absolutely any new field, what would you master?

I wouldn't try to explore any new field. I would have excelled in the areas I pursued because I was tired of quantitative accumulation. I would like depth. I simply don’t have the time, energy or talent to go deeper.

You see, at some point the body begins to send us signals: “Dear friend, you are living wrong.” It is clear that there are diseases, illnesses, but there is poor health, which is always associated with the way you live. You need to listen to the body, it is a barometer.

- What have you thought about most often over the past week?

About the fact that I have to remove previous teeth and insert an implant. It's unpleasant, hectic and dreary. You have to take tests, come at 10 am, sit for several hours, then everything will swell, you will have to keep ice. In general, I’m not much of a fan of these activities, but there’s nowhere to go.

- Which writer do you associate yourself with?

Not with anyone. This is wrong, it is impossible. There are writers whom you love very much and who have played a very important role in your personal life. In my youth it was Pasternak, then Pushkin. Do I associate myself with them? No. I haven't gone crazy yet, I hope.

As for what you write yourself, it’s better to be a very small yourself than a big someone else. You cannot associate yourself with anyone.

- “And we must leave gaps in fate, and not among papers.” It turns out?

Well, there’s also “no need to start an archive.” Pasternak did not like the idea of ​​life-building. But there is no ready-made recipe. Pasternak did not like, but there was a conventional Brodsky, who was engaged in life-building. And there was Venedikt Erofeev, who was simultaneously engaged in building life and destroying his own life. No prescription.

I keep repeating the same Prishvin formula: “You need to find a clamp for your neck,” your own clamp for your own neck. You can't do it without a clamp.

No one should be given any ready-made recipes.

- What does a collar mean to you?

I have several role positions: on the one hand, I am a professional, on the other hand, I have my own plans, which do not necessarily have to bring money, I have a family, towards which I have responsibilities, I have a social duty, which connected with the fact that I can do something. I must endlessly choose what I do at the moment: I earn money, I fulfill myself, I fulfill my obligations to my family, I serve society.

I would like to engage only in self-realization.

- Self-realization - what is it?

I really love writing books, this is the sweet flour that interests me the most. But I can’t afford to do just that. I was unable to build a life model in which this brings income. Well, that's how it happened. I have no connection between what I want to do and what I live off of. So, I'm endlessly maneuvering.

- Is tacking exhausting?

It’s exhausting, but on the other hand, who knows, if I could sit locked up like I would like, would it make me crazy?

- Your speech at the Presidential Council on Culture and Art. How did you feel when you spoke?

I didn’t feel anything, the rule is simple - you must pull yourself together, you must maintain the right tone, this tone cannot be either ingratiating or rude. This should be the tone free man, respecting the institution of the presidency, but valuing freedom above all else. It's a difficult combination. You must, as an actor, take the top tone. If you take it, you must hold it until the end.

I know what not to do. Just from my experience with this person. I know that you shouldn’t look at him, you have to look past him, because he is a master of his craft, he knows how to knock you down, give such a signal that you start to get nervous, but you can’t be nervous. Your job is to say, which means speak. The text must be written, you cannot improvise. You cannot think about the consequences, either good or bad.

- You and Tatyana Smirnova wrote a new textbook on literature. Can you name its disadvantages?

The first disadvantage is that we must focus on the insufficiently flexible canon of school literature; not everything from this canon makes sense to leave, from my point of view, but there is nowhere to go.

The second disadvantage is the textbook quality mandatory condition presupposes the presence of a talented teacher. Without a talented teacher it is difficult. There must be a teacher who will take the student by the hand and lead him through the labyrinth.

The third disadvantage is that we do not have a primary school. The best thing to do, of course, is to start building buildings from the foundation. But we didn't primary school. I don't know if we will do it. I don't understand the government's policy - this textbook cannot be a private matter, because there are no private schools in Russia. 700 schools per country is a joke.

This is a matter for the state. I had a lot of dealings with the state - it's a difficult story. It all depends on what policy it will pursue. Will there be updated textbooks or will there be an unshakable monolith of two? What will be the requirements for struggling textbooks? Will the requirements be ideological or only methodological? If it’s ideological, then it’s generally a mess.

Let's face it, I couldn't become the author of a history textbook. There my measure of compromise would have been exceeded from the very beginning. Even the most best textbook, which meets the cultural-historical standard, does not meet my standard. The question is not which of us is good - me or him - but the question is that I would not be me if I agreed to do this.

Such demands have not yet been made to literature, but they may be made not ideologically, but senilely. For example, so that all classes in the country study the same works. Not just a list, but broken down by class. This is insanity! And it will end with half the teachers in the country putting the textbook on the edge of the table and saying: “Guys, write down what I tell you.” And in the report or journal it will be written: “We studied the textbook of such and such, page such and such, paragraph such and such.”

- Doublethink?

Yes, we write two, three in our minds, just like under Soviet rule. Under Soviet rule there was a monolithic textbook. Who read it? Well, except for those boring, club-headed Soviet teachers. I have seen and caught such people. Fortunately, the majority were still different.

I now notice from myself, and from some of my fellow students, that people come to the university with a very low knowledge of history and geography. How do you feel about this?

I don’t see this as a tragedy, it’s fixable. The criterion is still different. School cannot give great knowledge, it can give the habit of acquiring it yourself, it can teach creative activity, it can teach how to produce knowledge. Even when we receive someone else’s knowledge, we must produce it within ourselves, otherwise nothing will work.

School is a factory for the production of knowledge, not acquisition or absorption.

A school is not an esophagus, but a factory.

If a person didn’t get enough at school, the question is: can he produce knowledge? I'm afraid not. The root of the drama is here.

The model has been built that a bachelor's degree is the completion of secondary education. And a master's degree is an initial higher education. Then the person writes a PhD or dissertation and becomes a scientist. An inconvenient model, but it happened.

Moreover, when they say that Soviet school They studied better in high school, listen, friends, but in Soviet schools more than half left after the 8th grade. It was a tough, extremely tough screening. In percentage terms. Out of 5 classes, I have 2 left. Accordingly, more than 50% were spent. Those who remained were more motivated. And these were not specialized schools. And the specialized ones were even more motivated. Today we have received an extended model of social maturation. There are probably some advantages to it.

- Which?

Fast labor is worse than slow labor. Only the very slow ones are terrible, because it’s torture. If they are accelerated, then it ends in injury.

Social maturation throughout the world comes later, but this can change in a second if history changes its objectives. As long as it does not require the young man to mature socially early. It was assumed that we would not grow up early, and then the revolution happened and that’s it - people changed instantly. In Soviet times, conventionally, a playwright, for example, up to the age of 50 was considered young. He went through the sections of the young playwright.

About history and geography. This is a sign that these two subjects at school have safely died. Geography is quantitative because there are absolutely no hours left for it, and history is because it cannot be taught that way. Even before any historical and cultural standard, it was taught as a discipline discipline: “Children, here historical event, here is his assessment, please remember. Have you recorded it? Questions? That's it, do you understand?" In short, no connection at all. In the world of timelines, how is it possible without these connections?

The student must himself answer the question of what position he takes. He must understand that there is different estimates, different positions. We need to know the facts in order to understand how we interpret them. We must consciously take a position following some scientist in order to then learn to develop our own position. But this doesn’t exist, so it’s boring.

People don’t need to take the Unified State Exam in history as an entrance exam, so why the hell will they remember everything?

The myth is still spreading around. From Soviet cinema, new commissioned cinema to the extremely popular exhibitions of Bishop Tikhon (Shevkunov). And from those pseudo-museum centers of Russian history that are now open in almost all major cities.

History is always changing. The question is whether we provide an alternative. There are times when we give.

Soviet historical mythology was total; the propaganda machine, the school, the university, and the system of professional academic selection worked for this. If a person is disloyal, then, as a rule, he could not engage historical science. In parallel with this, there was a massive adjustment of real historical knowledge. There were niches where historians who did not want to engage in ideology could go - from archeology to source studies. These were entire schools that carved out a niche within the total ideological. At some point, it suddenly worked, intermediary figures appeared: Nathan Yakovlevich Eidelman - on the one hand, a really important historian, on the other hand, a gifted writer.

Today we do not oppose anything to mythological matrices, which is why they work successfully. Myth is always beautiful and gives answers to questions right away. But history only asks questions and can’t do anything else.

-What trait do you dislike most about yourself?

Probably, we can already tell you about this: I worked in the magazine “Friendship of Peoples”, including in the criticism department. Georgia was one of the areas that I was involved in: I went to all kinds of meetings on Georgian literature at the Writers' Union. And now, a meeting is taking place at the Writers' Union. He is led by Evgeny Aleksandrovich Yevtushenko in some kind of bright checkered jacket, in a neckerchief - like a parrot.

I look - all the time he is not just showing off, but as if, while giving a speech, he is rehearsing and at the same time looking somewhere into the distance. I look around and see that in front of him there is a long table, writers and invited journalists are sitting. Evgeny Aleksandrovich from the end, and on the opposite side there is a huge mirror. Evgeniy Aleksandrovich does not speak to us, but speaks to himself, to his reflection, and observes how successfully or unsuccessfully at that second he turned his head or threw out his hand. This is not possible. This is not possible under any circumstances.

I am obliged, in principle, to look, in an amicable way, three times: the first time, when you record how Evgeniy Aleksandrovich Yevtushenko needs to imagine a mirror: how you will look in the frame, because then you look at yourself as an object. The second time is during editing, the third time is before delivery, and the fourth time you have to look at yourself on the air. I can't do it anymore. But at the same time, I soberly understand that it worked out, it didn’t work out.

I can’t tell you which ones were unsuccessful, I’m just throwing it out, fortunately, I have a memory... There are people with a good memory, they have their advantages, but they have one drawback - these are people with a difficult psyche. They remember everything they did, what they wrote, what they said. I don’t remember, I have a bad memory - a huge RAM and a very small hard drive.

At every moment, if I am involved in the process, I know a lot, but I remember very little, and essentially I know very little. This applies to both the knowledge of scientists and knowledge about oneself, about successes and failures. I don’t know my failures, I just try to forget them. There is only one conclusion: we need to do it differently next time.

I may or may not be satisfied with my books, but there is not a single one that, from my point of view, was written in vain. Even if I consider it a failure, it was a step for the next one. I wouldn’t have written the next one if I hadn’t worked through this experience in the previous one.

- Why are you on television if you say that this is torture?

If this had been torture, I probably would have run away completely. There were different motives. The first is to try.

Throughout my life, I have been trying to go to a place where no one knows me, where no one recognizes me. From academic literary criticism, I went into literary journalism and criticism. When it started to work out there, I went into political journalism, text, and newspaper quite late. I was 36 when I joined the newspaper. Then I went to watch TV.

Every time I came to the site, I was not recognized. Every time it started with skepticism, it was extremely interesting, but will I take this barrier? Japanese writers of the old school had a rule: after 40 they had to take a pseudonym and win the audience again.

The second motive is interesting. I understood quite quickly how the newspaper works , having gone from correspondent to deputy editor-in-chief. The television was incomprehensible.

The third motive is that it has become a profession, you know how to do it, people have been working with you for many years, you continue to do it, because you are already responsible to them for the future.

- But you say that you don’t owe anyone anything?

I don't owe society. I owe it to my family, I owe it to the people who work with me. I owe it to myself. This duty is my choice. There is no abstract debt.

Roughly speaking, I did not sign an obligation to engage in any social activities. If I didn't study, it would be my damn business. I personally believe that this should be done, not because I am obliged, but because it is my choice.

Of course, you have to think about the people you work with. My situation is much easier than that of any theater or publishing director. There are not many people, if necessary, they can be assigned to other projects.

The fourth motive is that this is important for a certain number of people.

I have viewers, as a rule, in the regions much more than in Moscow. These people need a conversation that I can have that others cannot have. I don’t know how many there are, because ratings, when applied to niche channels, are an incomprehensible thing.

My viewers, whom I personally see, with whom I meet, are either second-hand intellectuals: teachers, doctors, pedagogues, university lecturers, museum lecturers, librarians, or they are the wives of new Russians.

The wives of new Russians, as a rule, are educated women who lack self-realization. Being a wife is boring, they didn’t go into business because it wasn’t theirs, they were pulled out of their profession because they had to take care of the house. A good, big, expensive house, even if you have a lot of servants, requires management. This is a separate profession and not all wives of new Russians signed up for this profession, but everyone is forced to engage in it, so they are looking for a way out in the intellectual space.