Still, I will interrupt my story about the third company to talk about Vladyka Viktor Ostrovidov. I have already talked about his extraordinary simplicity and gentleness, but he was also a scientist: the author of theological works. He was either from Vyatka or from Vologda. He did not recognize the Sergian Church and therefore did not go to the monastic Onu-Frievsky Church (a group of monks who remained on Solovki recognized the head of the then church - Metropolitan Sergius, who collaborated with the authorities). And there was a ruler “Josephite”, i.e. belonged to that persecuted group of clergy led by Metropolitan Joseph, which condemned the Soviet government for persecuting the church.
When in the summer of 1929 the camp authorities issued an order not to wear long clothes and to shave their beards, Vladyka Victor refused to comply. He referred, among other things, to the fact that the “free” themselves wore “Chekist” cavalry overcoats that were long to their toes (remember the monument to F. Dzerzhinsky on Lubyanka Square in Moscow wearing just such an overcoat). The “Vladyka” was forcibly cut off, shaved and at the same time his face was wounded, his long clothes were somehow cut off, causing rags to hang from below. I met him on the square immediately after the execution (he was leaving the 11th punishment cell company) - cheerful, smiling and joyful as always. He did not spend much time telling the story of how the execution was carried out. His face was tied with a white rag, and it looked like a beard. So he walked until he grew a small beard (in fact, it was neither thick nor long). I thought: why does he look so happy? And I understood... But to understand, you have to be Orthodox yourself. Precisely Orthodox, because when the Catholic priests on Anzer carried water for themselves in a barrel on a sled, they all had the appearance of martyrs, but they lived on Anzer, not forced to work. Habakkuk rejoiced at the torment and called the tormentors “fools.”
Subsequently, when the sick and old were freed en masse, Vladyka Victor was taken to the mainland into exile, and there he suffered terribly: he starved, slept on the street (it was forbidden to enter houses). Besides, he was sick. He died in agony.
I return to the story about the third company. I rarely saw Fedya in the cell. He left for work very early and came late, and I tried to save myself by going to bed as early as possible: besides, my ulcer hurt. At ten o'clock, after several warning flashes, the light in the ceiling went out. Fedya groped his way to bed. He was, like a German, very neat. A shelf appeared above his trestle bed, on which stood a mug for boiling water and everything else. We communicated through notes that we left for each other. At the same time, he turned everything into a joke. He wrote good poetry. I remember the beginning of one such poem addressed to me:
Having grown completely thin in the belly,
One day he brought sour cream and green onions for himself and me from Selkhoz. How delicious it was! I still love sour cream green onions. And I, in turn, brought mushrooms to the cell twice - red mushrooms in the fall of 1929. Taking advantage of the fact that I had a permanent pass and permission from “daddy,” I went into the forest and collected an incredible amount of mushrooms. I only took red ones and boletus mushrooms. And then only the young. One day I didn't have enough bag. I took off my shirt, tied the sleeves in a knot and turned the shirt into a bag. In the evening we had a feast, although we had no seasonings except salt. I ate so much that my stomach hurt (still the same damned, but “native” ulcer). Afterwards, Fedya constantly made fun of my “gluttony.”
This is how we ate. There was a watchman on duty in the company: the Estonian smuggler Jason. We paid him, and he brought us a copper jug of boiling water in the morning and evening. He, Jason, went to the civilian canteen and brought lunches, which were given to us from the back porch by the head of the prisoners, Boyar. We received bread in the usual order. For the winter, I also bought smoked Astrakhan herring and vegetable oil from the stall of St. Herman. I cleaned the herrings, cut them, put them in a glass jar and filled them with vegetable oil. In addition, I had a supply of dried compote fruits, which I poured boiling water over in the evening. In the morning the compote was ready. The same large enamel mug helped out. Although I rinsed it, it was covered from the inside with a brownish coating from tea. One day I saw an inscription scratched on it: “Washable only in tea.” Only then did I realize that the mug needed not only to be rinsed, but also thoroughly wiped. However, it’s not clear to me - what does tea have to do with it if we only drank boiling water? Maybe we called boiling water tea? But then where does the plaque that actually comes from tea come from?
My memory left me with many mysteries. Sometimes I clearly see the smallest details in front of me, like pictures, but sometimes I don’t remember the main thing.
In the third company there were roll checks in the mornings. Only “dad” was freed from them. We lined up in the corridor in two or three lines and when the camp duty officer arrived, we shouted “hey,” counted ourselves, listened to the constant lectures of the company commander Egorov (before Egorov there was the former commandant of the Peter and Paul Fortress, Baron Pritvits, but he did not teach us order). Egorov was a combat officer and demanded that the trestle beds be neatly tucked in and the cells kept clean. Overshadowed by a mattress with straw and a pillow with hay, which Fedya got for me from Selkhoz, hung a silver folding bag, which my parents gave me on their farewell meeting. My folding bag quickly disappeared: Egorov took it (“not allowed”). I couldn’t get it back (“not supposed to, not supposed to!”).
In his own way, Egorov took care of the company. I once organized a lecture by A. A. Meyer, organized a “red corner”, but the moral teachings at inspection were long and tedious.
On Sundays, general verifications were held on the square in front of the Transfiguration Cathedral on the northern side. They took a painfully long time. Huge Solovetsky gulls flew overhead in the summer, sometimes “taking revenge with droppings” for destroyed nests, i.e. accurately defecating on people, trying to get them in the face.
Now I would like to talk about the Criminological Office (“Crimcabe”), where I ended up from the bunk of the 13th company thanks to Father Nikolai Piskanovsky, who recommended me to Bakhrushin and Alexander Nikolaevich Kolosov. We were housed in the building of a former monastery hotel, located on the pier in Blagopoluchiya Bay. The steamer "Gleb Bokiy" approached and departed from this pier, on board of which there were still remains of the inscription "Solovetsky". Now, instead of pilgrims, he brought in his hold those doomed to grief and death, and in the deck cabins - such truly prosperous people as Maxim Gorky and his daughter-in-law or high-ranking members of various commissions - future victims of the executioners themselves raised by them. On the third floor of this hotel, where the institutions of the Office of the Solovetsky Special Purpose Camps (USLON) were located, I found a room and a Criminology office - along with the living room of the Solovetsky Museum - one of the attractive centers of the entire Solovetsky intelligentsia.
At first it was located in a corner room (if you walk along the hotel corridor, up the stairs towards the sea, it was the last room on the right, facing the direction opposite the pier). A young man from Rostov-on-Don, Vladimir Sergeevich Razdolsky, and another young man, Alexander Arturovich Peshkovsky (a relative of a famous linguist and specialist in Russian syntax), were already working there. Both were intelligent people, lovers of poetry, who knew many poems by heart. Thanks to them, in Krimkaba we constantly heard not only poetry, but also literary conversations. The names of Pasternak, Blok, Mandelstam, Vsevolod Rozhdestvensky (in those years he was “on the level” with Pasternak and Mandelstam) never left their lips; Yurka Kazarnovsky, Lada (Lidiya Mikhailovna Mogilyanskaya), Shipchinsky, Boris Brik, Volodya Sveshnikov (he was published) came under the name of his mother, a Polish woman, Kemetsky, since, living in exile, he hated his father, a colonel of the White Army, who forbade him to return to Russia). Of all these young poets, the most talented, amazingly talented, was undoubtedly Volodya Sveshnikov. Under other conditions, he would have had a great future. He worked in the Solovetsky Library in the Kremlin (from the entrance to the second gate to the right - in the same place as the Soltheater) together with three dashing librarians: Koch, B. Brik and Grech and another prisoner - Novak. The first was a member of the German Communist Party (all his teeth were knocked out during interrogations), the second was a poet from Leningrad, the third (a descendant of the famous Grech of Pushkin's time) was a member of the local history society "Old Estate", and Novak was a member of the Hungarian Communist Party. All these people helped Volodya Sveshnikov, who was distinguished not only by his complete inability to adapt to life, but also by dangerous outbursts of rage - sometimes over trifles.
It was a young company. The older company was headed by “daddy” Kolosov, who usually sat in the farthest corner of the room, but constantly went out on business to the camp authorities, and during breaks from this hard (indeed) work, he read Turgenev, sometimes French books, holding them on his elbow right hand a pencil, in case the camp authorities who suddenly opened the door would see him as if writing, and not “idlely” reading. Half of his time was given to Krimkab by Ivan Mikhailovich Andreevsky, who worked in the infirmary. When Andreevsky was taken away from Solovki on the call of investigator Stromin, who dreamed of creating a big, “beautiful” academic case that would allow the authorities to have an excuse to dissolve the old Academy of Sciences and create a new one, Andreevsky was replaced by lawyer and massage therapist Alexander Aleksandrovich Bedriaga (Bedriaga combined his massage practice in the wild with legal profession to earn money).
At some point in 1929, the old revolutionary and philosopher Alexander Alexandrovich Meyer, the head of the famous Petrograd circle “Resurrection” (about this circle, see the memoirs of N.P. Antsiferov and many others), appeared within the walls of Krimkab. He was not only a man of extraordinary education, but an original thinker who constantly preached his views. With his appearance, his first wife, Ksenia Anatolyevna Polovtseva, began to come to us at Krimkab, bringing him food in some small saucepans. There should be a special section in my memories about A. A. Meyer and K. A. Polovtseva. Meyer's life was not about external events(he, of course, as an old revolutionary, had a lot of them), but in the struggle with himself, in the changes of his views, in the growth of these views, in constant philosophical disputes with others, and there were them in our office and with those who came there is plenty for us: Alexander Petrovich Sukhov - professor of the Pedagogical Institute named after. Herzen, Gabriel Osipovich Gordon, Pavel Smotritsky (artist), sculptor Anosov, and most importantly, Yulia Nikolaevna Danzas, doctor of the Sorbonne, lady-in-waiting of Empress Alexandra Fedorovna, Ural Cossack during the First World War, scientific secretary of Gorky’s House of Scientists, author many books - both before Solovki, and after her liberation by Gorky and departure to a Catholic monastery in the south of France. But there should be a special essay about it, although there is something in emigrant literature. Yulia Nikolaevna Danzas and I worked in the same room for at least two years, but she worked on her own, compiling newspaper clippings on various topics for the camp authorities. Thanks to this, we were able to read, albeit belatedly, various newspapers (I don’t remember which ones).
Shirinskaya-Shikhmatova (a small talk with her was very interested in A.N. Kolosov), the editor of the House of Books in Leningrad Shchurova, the already mentioned Lada Mogilyanskaya (Lidiya Mikhailovna, a poetess from Kotsyubinsky’s entourage in Chernigov), who perished in the camps, came into Krimkab; Dmitry Yanchevetsky, who wrote gossip columns in Paris and St. Petersburg newspapers before the revolution. He was our only employee on Anzer. He was old, and working at Crimcab simply prolonged his life.
After reading all this about the Criminological Office, some will say: “The lazy ones have settled down!” No, Krimkab did a lot of good things. Of course, it was created by the authorities as a screen: to show that here on Solovki they do not punish, but re-educate. In camp terms, the idea of Krimkab was “bullshit.” However, if it were not for Krimkab, it would not have been possible to save very, very many: both “louses” and intelligent people for future life outside Solovki. And work in Krimkaba was sometimes very hard.
I will tell my leisurely story about what Krimkab did under the leadership of A. N. Kolosov. When Melnikov assigned me to the third company in the cell of A.N. Kolosov, I was still barely dragging my feet, and I had a two-week release from work. But at the end of the first week, A. N. Kolosov asked me to start helping the rapidly developing activities of Krimkaba.
My first big trip outside the Kremlin walls was in strong winds and frost. Fresh air after the musty cell I was intoxicated. I felt very weak. As soon as I left from under the Nikolskaya Tower, heading to U SLON, I was almost blown into the ditch. There were two paths. The dangerous path ran outside the ditch, it was very icy, and it was very difficult to stand in my cloaks with leather soles. Burkas were sewn for me back in the hungry years in Petrograd from beaver (I don’t know why our family had such a name for a large green carpet without any designs that lay in our living room) with a leather “back” and a leather, always slippery sole. Another path, still monastic, ran between the wall and the moat and ended with a pedestrian bridge with railings, which is no longer there. Then I only used this internal path. The bridge has disappeared, and they have no idea how to restore it. On this path near the wall with red-orange, very beautiful lichen, I was filmed in the film “Likhachev. I remember". There I stand, thoughtful. And in fact, could I have thought at that time that I would return there more than 60 years later? In a word, I finally reached Krimkab, where work was really in full swing. By spring, it was necessary to organize the office so that it looked like a serious scientific institution, and a Children's Labor Colony for 200-300 teenagers of both sexes, where they would be “re-educated.” Why there was a need for this was explained later. In the meantime, decent barracks were being built, a school was being erected, and we were inventing uniforms for labor colonists. All of these buildings, with the exception of one or two, still stand south of the Kremlin. There were also good carpenters from among the prisoners...
Hip roofs were erected on the Kvasovarnaya and Povarennaya towers of the Kremlin. Iron weather vanes with the date “1929” still rotate on them.
The Volga German Lindener took an active part in the construction work and arrangement of uniforms. Prisoners' peacoats and trousers, sewn from soldiers' cloth, were brought to Krimkab's service from the storerooms of the royal penal servitude. But round prisoner hats were not at all suitable. These hats really gave their owners a “convict” look. Lindener suggested altering them - making visors and headphones. Pomof did the job. Since then, these hats began to be called “Lindener hats.”
In Lindener jackets, teenagers, dressed in high-quality pea jackets of convicts from the tsarist era, looked quite decent.
In the office I was immediately put to work. I wrote some memos (I remember one - to the head of the Cultural and Educational Department D.V. Uspensky), but A.N. Kolosov did not like the drafts of my memos: they were written simply and, as it seemed to me, understandable, but they were needed was to write in clerical language, which I did not speak at all (“as is clear from the following,” even “because” and “as long as”). Then I was put in charge of helping the counterfeiter Dubotolkov (he was free to counterfeit chervonets, drawing them with a simple pencil - the real ones were exactly the “pencil” color). Dubotolkov (he fully justified his last name) copied large tables of tests from the atlas of professor of psychiatry Rossolimo (I think that’s how his last name was spelled) to hang them on the walls of Krimkab. This job was going better for me. Atlas of Rossolimo and some other books, as well as equipment for measuring lung capacity, hand strength, height, etc. were discharged on the advice of I.M. Andreevsky and quickly taken to Krimkab.
The work was in full swing. Why it had to boil, none of the prisoners knew. When I became stronger, I was given an assignment (and it then remained with me for a long time - at least a year): to collect teenagers for the Children's Colony, which in the end was ordered to be called the Labor Colony. This selection of teenagers was motivated by the fact that they needed to be isolated from the influence of professional thieves and adults and educated - to give them an education and a profession.
I am proud of my work in saving hundreds of teenagers from the clutches of death. I went around the back streets of common companies, wrote down personal data on teenagers and even their short autobiographical stories. However, some stories were long: entire novels. One of the teenagers asked me: “Why are you recording, because we’re always lying to you.” I answered him: “I know, but I’m interested.” I was really interested in how thieves justify their theft. There is no criminal who does not have self-justification in his soul. Basically, the psychology of criminals is pessimistic. Since then, I have been wary of pessimists, even in everyday life. A pessimist can be a potential criminal, he can be a sexist informer, he can do anything: “Oh, what’s up: everyone is like that!”
Once again a wave of pity overwhelmed me, just like in the 13th company. I went there, to that damned company, all the time. Then I went on “business trips” - to peat and timber harvesting. I was in Savvatiev, on Sekirnaya, in Filimonov, and traveled around Anzer. The only thing I haven’t been to is the Bunnies.
I had hundreds of questionnaires, according to which the Administrative Unit summoned me to the Labor Colony. The conditions in which the teenagers lived in the forest and in the 13th company were terrible. They wouldn't have lived there for even a few months. And a person’s life is an absolute value, no matter how insignificant and bad he may be.
I repeat again: I am proud that I have saved many. Some teenagers, especially in 1930, from dispossessed families (parents sought to send their children to friends, and these children were sentenced to imprisonment in a concentration camp), I managed to save directly from the Transit Point, which was built near Bathhouse No. 2 (I wrote about it higher).
During this short period of “re-educational fever” the magazine “Solovetsky Islands” was also revived. Not all the issues were published, but we still managed to publish some under the heading “From the Work of the Criminological Office.”
Before the departure of the camp administration to Kem, Boris Glubokovsky played a huge (I’m not afraid of this word) role in the life of Solovki. According to rumors, he was the son of a famous theologian who emigrated after the revolution and lectured at the Faculty of Theology of the Sofia University named after Kliment Ohridski. In the past, he was an actor at the Chamber (Tairovsky) Theater in Moscow. Tall, relatively young, active, easily communicating with different people - from thieves and camp authorities to high-ranking intelligentsia, he actually stood at the head of the Solovetsky Theater and all sorts of “bullshit” that was simmering in the depths of the theater. cultural life camps.
The Solovki Theater was created to create an illusion educational work. Created for bullshit, but served as a very important psychological distraction for the mass of prisoners. It was very difficult to get to his performances, but there were stories about his performances and performances - often funny. Jokes, laughter, and anecdotes helped to endure the severity and rudeness of the regime. Rudeness from above was neutralized by laughter from below, unless, of course, the rudeness was simple physical violence - then only the infirmary or ... “16th company” helped!
Glubokovsky brought the spontaneity of the Chamber Theater to the activities of the Soltheater. He was responsible for the wonderful production “Solovetsky Review”, where camp life with all its fantastic contrasts was illuminated with humor, and with lyrical sadness, and notes of tragedy. “Review,” composed and staged by Glubokovsky, was greatly liked by the prisoners and even by the authorities. It’s strange that the review contained something for which they would have been imprisoned in the wild. When the “unloading commission” (Bokiy, Katanyan, Bul, etc.) came to Solovki in the spring, “Review” was shown to her along with the local authorities. They said that Glubokovsky once came on stage in the middle of a performance and, shaking his fist at the audience, told the actors: “Sing so that these bastards will feel sick.” And he had nothing to do with it: Glubokovsky was clearly drunk, and the drunkards on Solovki enjoyed the “understanding” and sympathy of their superiors.
Let me give you another example of how to treat drunks. Alexander Aleksandrovich Bedriaga, who replaced A.N. Kolosov as head of Krimka-bom, after I left for Bear Mountain, got drunk with his friends in the Fire Brigade, put on a fireman’s helmet and other equipment, came to the Theater during intermission and shouted: “Fire!” Panic arose, which was extinguished in time. When the authorities found out that Bedriaga was drunk, no case was opened: “I was joking, well done, a shirtless guy.” Another time, Bedriaga climbed (over the fence) into the royal bell tower and rang the bell. Again, nothing arose. True, in my presence he also went to a punishment cell for drunkenness, and this imprisonment brought Krimkab some benefits, but Bedriaga was quickly released. And it brought such benefits. In front of all the criminals, they began to demand an answer from Bedriaga: “Where did you get the vodka from?” Bedryaga stubbornly refused to answer, and later, when Bedryaga was released, the thieves began to willingly tell both him and me about themselves.
I return to the Solovetsky Review. It consisted of several numbers and was also called differently - “Solovetsky Lights” - after the song with which it ended. The plot of the song was a future farewell to Solovki. The song spread outside the camp. The scenery depicting a monastery plunged into darkness, and lights flashed in the darkness - candles burning in paper lanterns.
From frosty snowstorms and blizzards
We, like seagulls, will fly south,
And lights flash in the distance:
Solovki, Solovki, Solovki!
After Glubokovsky’s departure with USLON to the mainland - to Kem, the magazine “Solovetsky Islands” was also interrupted. He didn't come out for a year or two. Then Glubokovsky came to Solovki from Kem. I met him on the street near the Watchtower. He asked me to give another article for the magazine (one - “Card Games of Criminals” - was already in the editors and was then published in No. 1 for 1930), but I could not. Something with the theme of “self-justification of thieves” didn’t work out for me.
In spring white night I managed to watch the Solovetsky Review. The impression was huge. Why do I say on the “white” night? I remember how we all came out of the theater, which was plunged into darkness (the lights were not turned on for a long time after the last scene of lights flickering in the distance) and we were greeted by an amazing sky - light and at the same time somehow “father-like”, paper-blue. Combined with the white buildings, the still air, the hushed cries of the seagulls (the seagulls were still sleeping on the white night) - all this was extraordinary, it seemed unreal, some kind of dream.
The atmosphere of unreality, the impossibility of what was happening, was diffused in everything, in the white nights in summer and black days in winter, in the impossibility of everything that happened, in the mass of mentally abnormal people, in the abnormality of the authorities, in the fantastic nature of Gorky’s arrival and the events that followed.
There were other productions at the Salt Theatre. I remember Lermontov's "Masquerade". Arbenin was played by Kalugin, an artist of the Alexandria Theater in Petrograd, on the level of Yuryev. Kalugin was dubbed by Ivan Yakovlevich Komissarov - the king of all lessons on the islands. In the past, he was a bandit who went “on business” at the head of a gang with his own machine gun, robbed underground currency exchanges, a student and associate of Lenka Panteleev. His Arbenin was a real gentleman.
I don’t remember what else was on at the Salt Theatre. There were also film shows. I remember a film based on the script by Viktor Shklovsky, where armored cars were moving across the Trinity Bridge in Petrograd. The wind was carrying some papers. There were also concerts at which the actors from the lesson deftly tap-danced and showed acrobatic performances (the couple Savchenko and Engelfeld enjoyed particular success). The orchestra was conducted by Wahlgardt, a short-sighted conductor from the Germans, who later conducted an orchestra in Odessa and somewhere else, and even received some kind of state prize. There was an actress who read Blok’s “The Twelve” in a hysterical voice. There was a pretty singer Perevedentseva, who sang romances to the words of Yesenin (I remember - “I have never been to the Bosphorus”) and mercilessly cheated on her husband, who worked in the Kremlin and tried to commit suicide in one of his mouths. In the foyer of the theater, lectures on the history of music were given by the Armenian professor Ananov. Before his arrest, he worked at the Rustaveli Theater and collaborated with “Dawn of the East.” Lectures on psychology were given by A.P. Sukhov. And someone else is talking about something.
But the theater lived like this only during the winters of 1930-1931. Then an epidemic of Asian typhus began, the theater was turned into an infirmary, where people lay side by side almost without help. Asian typhus was accompanied by the appearance of some black spots on the body, and some whispered that this was a real plague brought from Central Asia by the so-called “Basmachi”. They didn’t know how to treat the epidemic. When a sick person appeared in the cell, they simply locked the cell and waited until it all died out. This is how a young writer I knew died. He wrote the novel "South and North" (or maybe "North and South"). Later, after my release, I looked for this novel, but did not find it. He slipped a teaspoon under my door and asked me to give it to his wife. To my surprise, in the spring my wife came (with permission!) to the grave, but, of course, she didn’t find the grave, nor did she find the pit into which he was thrown, for there were many such pits, but I gave her the silver spoon.
I have jumped ahead, partly on purpose, to show that the “Solovetsky happiness” was a deliberate deception. For in the spring Gorky came to us in Solovki. He stayed with us for three days (I don’t remember more precisely - all this is easy to determine from his collected works, but I don’t want to do that).
The fact is that from the Solovetsky fugitives (they fled over the ice to Finland and on ships carrying timber) rumors spread in the West about extreme cruelty in our logging operations, and a number of governments refused to buy timber from us. The camps became unprofitable, and it was necessary to assure the West that we had no cruelties, that we were correcting, not punishing, prisoners. This is why all those ostentatious enterprises were needed, in which all of us in the Kremlin found ourselves involved in one way or another.
Someone from the West came to Kem, but did not make it to Solovki. We were given conditions: foreign journalists must travel and watch freely. On the mainland they “cleaned up” as best they could. Journalists and parliamentarians arrived, visited logging sites and took a lot of photographs, especially when their car broke down on the Kem-Ukhta highway. It was necessary to deprive them of “evidence”. Pickpockets volunteered, staged a stampede at the “representatives of the West”, as a result of which their pockets were robbed and their notebooks and cut off the cameras.
It was then that our venerable writer Alexei Maksimovich Gorky agreed to calm public opinion in the West. Some say that with his lies he wanted to beg for relief from the fate of the prisoners, and some to beg for the arrival of Budberg-Zakrevskaya, who refused to return with him to Russia. I don't know which version is correct. Maybe both. We waited impatiently.
Finally, rumors spread from the radio station: Gorky was going to Solovki. At this point, not only the commanders began to prepare, but also those prisoners who had some kind of connections with Gorky, and simply those who hoped to pity Gorky and get released.
One fine day I approached the Gleb Bokiy pier with Gorky on board. From the windows of Krimkab all that was visible was a hillock on which Gorky stood for a long time with some very strange person. A monastery carriage came for Gorky with a horse obtained from God knows where. And the person was in leather jacket, leather riding breeches tucked into high boots, and a leather cap. She turned out to be Gorky's daughter-in-law (the wife of his son Maxim). She was dressed, obviously, in his opinion, like a real security officer. The outfit was well thought out. Gorky was wearing a cap pulled back in the proletarian fashion of the time.
We were all happy, all the prisoners. Gorky will see everything, know everything. He is experienced, and about logging, and about torture on tree stumps, and about the Axe, and about hunger, disease, three-tier bunks, about naked people and about “no conviction terms”... About everything, everything! We began to wait. Already a day or two before Gorky’s arrival, Christmas trees were erected on both sides of the aisle in the Labor Colony. For decoration. Every night, stages left the Kremlin into the darkness of the Solovetsky forests to unload the Kremlin and the bunks. We were given clean gowns in the infirmary.
Gorky traveled around the island with his “leather” companion for a while. On the first day, it seems, I came to the infirmary. On both sides of the entrance and the stairs leading to the second floor, “staff” in clean coats were lined up. Gorky did not go upstairs. He said “I don’t like parades” and turned to the exit. He was also in the Labor Colony. I went into the last barrack on the right in front of the school building. Now this porch has been demolished and the door is blocked. I stood in the crowd in front of the barracks because I had a pass and was directly related to the Labor Colony. After Gorky entered, ten or fifteen minutes later the head of the Labor Colony, Army Commander Innokenty Serafimovich Kozhevnikov, came out of the barracks with his assistant Shipchinsky (the son of a white general). Then some of the colonists left. At his request, Gorky was left alone with a boy of about fourteen, who volunteered to tell Gorky “the whole truth” - about all the torture that prisoners were subjected to during physical labor. Gorky stayed with the boy for at least forty minutes (I already had a silver pocket watch, given to me by my father just before the First World War and secretly brought to the island on our first date). Finally, Gorky left the barracks, began to wait for the carriage and cried in front of everyone, without hiding at all. I saw this myself. The crowd of prisoners rejoiced: “Gorky found out about everything. The boy told him everything!”
Then Gorky was on Sekirka. There the punishment cell was transformed: the perches were taken out, a table was placed in the middle and newspapers were placed. The prisoners remaining in the punishment cell (those who looked more or less healthy) were forced to read. Gorky went up to the punishment cell and, going up to one of those who were reading, turned the newspaper over (he was defiantly holding it upside down). After this, Gorky quickly left. He also went to Biosad - obviously to have lunch or drink tea. The biogarden was, as it were, outside the scope of the camp (as was the Fox Nursery). There, very few specialists lived relatively comfortably.
As far as I remember, Gorky never visited Solovki anywhere else. He and his daughter-in-law went up to “Gleb Bokiy” and there he was already entertained by a specially drunk nun from those about whom it was known that they “could” drink.
And the boy was gone immediately. Perhaps - even Gorky has not yet left. There was a lot of talk about the boy. Oh, so many. “Was there a boy?” After all, if he was, then why didn’t Gorky think of taking him with him? After all, they would have given it...
But other consequences of Gorky’s arrival in Solovki were even more terrible. And Gorky should have foreseen them.
Gorky should have foreseen that an attempt would be made to blame all the “disorders” in the camp on the prisoners themselves. This is a classic way to avoid responsibility. Immediately after Gorky's departure, arrests began and an investigation began.
But before moving on to the tragic circumstances of the new (but not the last) “case,” I’ll tell you about what happened on the pier of Popov Island (Workers’ Island), which Gorky unexpectedly approached before the expected period of his stay on Solovki
"Gleb Bokiy". There was a group of imprisoned loaders working in the wind wearing only their underwear. There was absolutely nowhere to hide naked people on this bare pier. The orderly commanding the prisoners ordered them to close together as closely as possible and squat down. Then he covered everyone with a tarpaulin - as if it were a load sheltered from the rain. So they sat there. However, some say that this incident was not on the way “from there”, but on the way “there” and the ship did not leave for quite a long time.
The summer of 1929 was warm and beautiful. There were stages for which we had to be prepared. I learned a long time ago to keep things ready for a challenge: “Fly like a bullet with things!” By autumn, arrests began to increase. Sievers, Goteron de La Fossa were arrested, and a friend of mine from the Variety Testing Station (now an airfield in its place) was arrested, but the main arrests took place in October. Georgy Mikhailovich Osorgin, the clerk of the medical unit, who freed many intellectuals from hard work, was arrested. I remember him very well. A dashing blond man of average height with a round hat slightly on one side (“two fingers above the right ear - three above the left”). He often walked in the cold with his head open. Everyone who was arrested was not released; they were doomed. Unexpectedly, Georgy Mikhailovich’s wife, Golitsyna, came to see him on a date. On parole (there were such times!) he was released from the punishment cell. Then they ordered him to persuade his wife to leave two or three days earlier. He did it. He did not tell his wife that he would be shot. On the day of the execution, Bagratuni, Gatsuk and Grabovsky were arrested (added to the list) - all three at the Sports Station. I have listed a few of my acquaintances - those whom I remember.
On October 28, it was announced throughout the camp: everyone should be in their companies from such and such an hour in the evening. No one should stay at work. We get it. We sat in silence in our cell in the third company. The window was opened. Suddenly the dog Black howled at the Sports Station. This was the first batch being taken out to be shot through the Fire Gate. Black howled, accompanying each game. They say there were cases of hysterics in the convoy. They shot two dapper (dapper in the camp) from the mainland: the chief of the troops of the Solovetsky archipelago, Degtyarev, and our chief of the Cultural and Educational Unit, D. V. Uspensky. They said about Uspensky that he was forced to work for Solovki in order to hide from people’s eyes: he killed his father (according to some sources, a deacon, according to others, a priest). He did not receive any time. He excused himself by saying that he “killed a class enemy.” He was offered to “help” during the execution. After all, 300 or 400 people had to be shot. Some were shot at Sekirka.
There was a hitch with one of the games at the Fire Gate. The tall and strong one-legged professor of ballistics Pokrovsky (who is said to have lectured at Oxford) began beating the guards with his wooden leg. He was knocked down and shot at the Fire Gate. The rest walked silently, as if spellbound. They shot right in front of the women's barracks. There they heard and understood - hysterics began. The graves were dug the day before the execution. Drunk executioners shot. One bullet - one person. Many were buried alive, lightly covered with earth. In the morning the earth above the pit was moving.
In the cell, we counted the number of parties sent for execution - by Black's howl and by the flashing shooting from revolvers.
In the morning we went to work. By this time, our Krimkab had already been transferred to another room - the room to the left of the entrance next to the restroom. Someone saw Uspensky in the restroom in front of the washbasin, washing blood from the tops of his boots. They say he had a decent wife...
Osorgin, as I already wrote, also had a wife. I remember her, we met at the Watchtower, Georgy Mikhailovich introduced me - a brunette, taller than him. What kind of restraint did you have to have not to tell your wife about your doom, about what was being prepared!
And Black ran into the forest. He did not want to live with people. They were looking for him. Uspensky and the head of the troops of the Solovetsky Archipelago, Latvian Degtyarev, nicknamed “chief surgeon” (he usually shot singles under the bell tower), were especially looking for. Once I saw him running in a long overcoat in a crowd of prisoners with a Montecrist and shooting at dogs. The wounded dogs ran away screaming. The tails of a long Chekist overcoat flapped against the tops. After that night with Black howling, Degtyarev began to hate dogs. And for throwing a stone at a seagull, the prisoner was almost shot.
Our Contemporary
"We must live life with dignity,
so as not to be ashamed to remember"
D.S. Likhachev
Likhachev Dmitry Sergeevich (b. 1906, St. Petersburg) - historian of ancient Russian history. liters.
Genus. in the family of an engineer. In 1923 he graduated from the Soviet Union. labor school and entered
Petrograd University, Department of Linguistics and Literature, Faculty of Social Sciences.
In 1928 he graduated from the university, defending two diplomas - in Romano-Germanic and Slavic
Russian, philology. In 1928, for participation in a scientific student circle, Likhachev was
arrested and imprisoned in the Solovetsky camp. In 1931 - 1932 he was on
construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal and was released as a “drummer”
Belbaltlag with the right of residence throughout the entire territory of the USSR." In 1934 - 1938
Likhachev worked in Leningrad. branch of the publishing house of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Turned on himself
attention when editing the book. A.A. Shakhmatov "Review of Russian chronicles"
vaults" and was invited to work in the department of ancient Russian literature of the Pushkin House,
where did he go from ml. research fellow to full member of the Academy
Sciences (1970). In 1941 Likhachev defended his Ph.D. thesis "Novgorod
chronicle vaults of the 12th century." In Leningrad, besieged by the Nazis, Likhachev in
cities", the region appeared during the siege of 1942. In 1947, Likhachev defended his doctorate
dissertation "Essays on the history of literary forms of chronicle writing of the 11th - 16th centuries." Likhachev
gained worldwide fame as a literary critic, cultural historian, textual critic,
popularizer of science, publicist. His fundamental study "The Word of
Igor's regiment", numerous articles and comments made up an entire section
domestic medieval studies. Great value for historical science has it
monograph "Textology. Based on Russian literature of the X - XVII centuries."
When dealing with special issues, Likhachev knows how to talk about them simply,
intelligible and not for a specialist. In the book. "Man in Literature" Ancient Rus'"
Likhachev showed how styles changed in ancient Rus. literature, giving the opportunity
for the modern reader to perceive the work of the past. We managed to do a lot
Likhachev as a teacher and organizer of science; he is a member of many
foreign academies, twice awarded State. awards (1952, 1969), in 1986
became a Hero of Social. Labor. In 1989 Likhachev was elected people's deputy of the USSR.
a little over a year. During this time, a new edition of it was published
“Memoirs”, and in the Moscow “Art” a book appeared that included
articles, texts of reports and scattered notes, in the manner of Pascal’s “Thoughts”
recent years. The book is beautifully designed, but very simply titled:
"Russian culture"
In the book of his “Memoirs,” Likhachev says that in 1923 he began
study ancient Russian literature because “I wanted to keep in my memory
Russia, how they want to keep in their memory the image of a dying mother sitting next to her
children's beds." He writes that the love for the homeland of himself and the friends of his youth
“least of all was pride in the homeland, its victories and conquests.” AND
Dmitry Sergeevich survived the siege of Leningrad and left amazing stories about it
records. This is perhaps the most powerful thing that has been written about the blockade. Read
These pages are scary and at the same time necessary for everyone. "They opened up
heaven, and God was visible in heaven,” says Likhachev, talking about the blockade.
“In famine, people,” says Dmitry Sergeevich, “proved themselves. Naked
freed themselves from all sorts of tinsel: some turned out to be wonderful,
unparalleled heroes, others - villains, scoundrels, murderers, cannibals.
There was no middle ground. Everything was real."
I believe that Likhachev can be called a man of the 20th century. His works are impossible
overestimate. I consider him my contemporary because despite the fact that
he died, he is remembered, he is read, quoted, and as long as this continues, he
will live among us.
Doctor of Cultural Sciences, Professor A. ZAPESOTSKY (St. Petersburg).
November 28, 2006 marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev. The scientist passed away in September 1999, and the relatively short historical distance was enough for a very thorough expansion of ideas about the role and essence of his scientific heritage. The current year 2006 was declared in the country as the “Year of the Humanities, Culture and Education - the Year of Academician D. S. Likhachev.”
Science and life // Illustrations
Opening of an exhibition of works by the teaching staff of the Humanitarian University.
Dmitry Sergeevich at the discussion of the Declaration of Cultural Rights. Saint Petersburg. Palace of Beloselsky-Belozersky. April 10, 1996.
During the discussion "The Fate of the Russian Intelligentsia."
Participants in the discussion "The Fate of the Russian Intelligentsia." The hall of the palace of the Beloselsky-Belozersky princes is full. 1996
On March 12, 1998, a significant ceremony took place - the name of the wonderful musician M. L. Rostropovich was included on the memorial plaque of the Humanitarian University.
Honorary citizens of St. Petersburg Academician Likhachev and head of the Department of Physical Education of St. Petersburg State Unitary Enterprise Professor Bobrov on Librarian Day. April 27, 1999.
Academician Likhachev and writer Daniil Granin are like-minded people in many ways.
It is curious, but during the life of Dmitry Sergeevich, recognition of his contribution to science was limited to literary criticism - since 1937, Likhachev’s main place of work was the Department ancient Russian literature Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House) of the Academy of Sciences. The scientist’s colleagues in the literary department almost immediately appreciated the significance of his works such as “Russian Chronicles and Their Cultural -historical meaning" (1947), "Man in the literature of Ancient Rus'" (1958), "Textology. Based on the material of Russian literature of the X-XVII centuries" (1962), "Poetics of Old Russian Literature" (1967) and others. The greatest academic recognition for D. S. Likhachev was brought by studies related to written monuments: "The Tale of Igor's Campaign", "The Tale of Temporary “x years”, “Teachings of Vladimir Monomakh”, “Messages of Ivan the Terrible”...
At the same time, the academician's articles and books about Russia - about its culture, history, morality, intelligentsia - were not subjected to any serious scientific analysis; colleagues classified them as journalism. Oddly enough, but even such fundamental works as “Three Fundamentals European culture and Russian historical experience", "Culture as an integral environment", "Petrine reforms and the development of Russian culture", or the lecture "St. Petersburg in the history of Russian culture", given by Dmitry Sergeevich at our university in 1993, did not receive a timely assessment. Moreover, in 1995-1996 years, under the leadership of D.S. Likhachev, the Declaration of the Rights of Culture was developed - a kind of scientific and moral testament of the scientist, a document of exceptional, global significance. Meanwhile, some researchers of his legacy until recently believed that in the final decade of his life the academician did not create anything. significant.
Today, D. S. Likhachev’s enormous contribution to the history and cultural studies of Russia is already undoubted; his works attract the attention of philosophers, art historians, teachers and representatives of other branches of science. Unfortunately, what is still not full meeting the academician’s writings, holds back full-fledged studies of his work. And yet it is obvious that Likhachev’s works enrich a wide range of humanities. Analyzing the scientific heritage of the scientist, you understand how, as he studies ancient Russian literature, he becomes cramped within the framework of classical philology. Gradually, Dmitry Sergeevich appears before us as a scientist of the synthetic type, freely working in almost all areas of humanitarian knowledge relevant to his time.
First of all, attention is drawn to the bright and holistic concept Russian history, proposed by Likhachev. Today, many argue about what Russia is: part of Europe, a combination of European and Asian principles (Eurasia) or a completely unique, original phenomenon. According to Likhachev, Russia is the most European part of Europe. And Dmitry Sergeevich justifies this very logically, with specific and very impressive examples. Polemicizing with his opponents, he writes: “Russia had extremely little of the eastern itself. From the south, from Byzantium and Bulgaria, a spiritual European culture came to Rus', and from the north another, pagan warrior-princely military culture - Scandinavia. It would be more natural to call Rus' Scando-Byzantium , rather than Eurasia."
Likhachev’s special attention is drawn to key, turning points in the history of the fatherland, for example, the specifics of the 14th-15th centuries, which he defines with the concept of “Pre-Renaissance”. The scientist shows how the formation of Russian national culture took place at this time: the unity of the Russian language is strengthening, literature is subordinated to the theme of state building, architecture increasingly expresses national identity, the dissemination of historical knowledge and interest in native history grow to the widest sizes, etc.
Or another example - Peter's reforms. Dmitry Sergeevich considers their generally accepted interpretation as a cultural transition of a power from Asia to Europe, accomplished at the will of its ruler, one of the most amazing myths created by Peter himself. Likhachev argues: when Peter came to reign, the country was European, but a transition from medieval culture to the culture of modern times, which is what the great reformer accomplished. Meanwhile, in order to implement the reforms, the sovereign needed to seriously distort ideas about previous Russian history. “Since greater rapprochement with Europe was necessary, it means that it was necessary to assert that Russia was completely fenced off from Europe. Since it was necessary to move forward faster, it means that it was necessary to create a myth about a Russia that is skeletal, inactive, etc. Since it was necessary new culture, which means the old one was no good. As often happened in Russian life, moving forward required a thorough blow to everything old. And this was done with such energy that the entire seven-century Russian history was rejected and slandered,” writes D. S. Likhachev.
From the academician’s works it follows that Peter’s genius manifests itself (almost primarily) in a radical and rapid change in public opinion: “One of the features of all Peter’s actions was that he knew how to give a demonstrative character to everything he did. “What indisputably belongs to him is the change of the entire “sign system” of Ancient Rus'. He changed the clothes of the army, he changed the clothes of the people, changed the capital, pointedly moving it to the west, changed the Church Slavonic script to a civilian one.” Likhachev believes that the basis of these actions is not the whims and tyranny of the tsar and not the manifestation of the instinct of imitation, but the desire to speed up ongoing phenomena in culture, to give conscious direction to slowly occurring processes. Relying on the historian Shcherbaty, he writes that without Peter, Russia would have needed seven generations to implement similar reforms. However, the reforms were natural, and their course was prepared by “all lines of development of Russian culture, many of which go back to the 14th century.”
Dmitry Sergeevich not only acts as the author of his own concept of Russian history. His historicism is multifaceted. On the one hand, we can talk about it at the level of a scientist’s understanding of various specific phenomena of life. On the other hand, his works contain enough material to understand the general patterns of historical processes.
The scientist’s works (especially during the period concluding his scientific biography) indicate that Likhachev understood human history primarily as the history of culture. It is culture, according to the deep conviction of the academician, that constitutes the meaning and main value of the existence of humanity - both peoples, small ethnic groups, and states. And the meaning of life at the individual, personal level, according to Likhachev, is also found in the cultural context of human life. In this regard, D. S. Likhachev’s speech at a meeting of the presidium of the Russian Cultural Foundation in 1992 is characteristic: “We do not have a cultural program. There is an economic and military program, but there is no cultural one. Although culture has a primary place in the life of the people and the state.”
In essence, the scientist proposes a culture-centric concept of history. In accordance with it, he evaluates individual historical figures not by successes in wars and seizures of territories, but by their influence on the development of culture. Thus, D.S. Likhachev has a clearly negative attitude towards the personality and activities of Ivan the Terrible, although he recognizes the tsar’s undoubted talents, including literary ones. "The state took upon itself to resolve all ethical issues for its citizens, executed people for deviating from ethical standards of all kinds. A terrible ethical system of Grozny arose... Grozny took on an incredible burden of responsibility. He flooded the country with blood in the name of observing ethical standards or that seemed to him to be ethical standards."
It was the political terror of Ivan the Terrible, according to D. S. Likhachev, that contributed to the suppression of the personal principle in artistic creativity and became one of the reasons that prevented the flourishing of the Renaissance in Russia.
In the general flow of cultural transformations, the academician highlights the dominant question of the historical selection and development of the best. And the best for him is highly synonymous with humane. As a result, Likhachev creates a truly humanistic concept of historical development.
A special interest in culture, combined with unique scientific erudition, allowed Dmitry Sergeevich to be on the crest of interdisciplinary scientific research in the humanitarian sphere, which led at the end of the 20th century to the formation of a new branch of knowledge - cultural studies. If from the standpoint of modern scientific knowledge Looking back into the past, we can say that next to Likhachev the philologist at the end of the last century stood the figure of Likhachev the culturologist, no less significant, no less large-scale. Academician Likhachev is a great culturologist of the 20th century. No one, I think, comprehended the essence of our culture better than him. And this is precisely his greatest service to the country. Dmitry Sergeevich’s gaze was able to capture the culture of Russia in the dynamics of its historical formation and development, in its systemic integrity and in its amazing, beautiful internal complexity. Considering Russia in the powerful flow of the world process of development of civilizations, D. S. Likhachev invariably denies any attempt to talk about Russian-Slavic exclusivity. In his understanding, Russian culture has always been European in type and has carried all three distinctive features associated with Christianity: personal origin, receptivity to other cultures (universalism) and the desire for freedom. Wherein main feature Russian culture is its conciliarity - according to Likhachev, one of the specific principles characteristic of European culture. In addition, among distinctive features Dmitry Sergeevich mentions a focus on the future and traditional “dissatisfaction with oneself” - important sources of any movement forward. Clearly defining the essence of Russian national identity, the scientist believes that our national features, characteristics and traditions have developed under the influence of broader cultural complexes.
Tracing the formation of the culture of Ancient Rus', Likhachev considers it especially important to introduce the Slavs to Christianity. Without denying the Tatar-Mongol influence, the scientist nevertheless characterizes it as alien and generally rejected. Rus' perceived the invasion as a catastrophe, as “an invasion of otherworldly forces, something unprecedented and incomprehensible.” Moreover, for a long period after liberation from the Tatar-Mongols, the development of the Russian people went under the sign of overcoming the “dark ages of the yoke” of an alien culture.
The academician considers the origin of Slavic culture in connection with the Greek-Byzantine cultural layer. In a number of his works, he very convincingly, in concrete and impressive detail, shows how this mutual influence took place, arguing that it corresponded to the deep needs of the development of Russian culture. At the moment of its formation at the national level (XIV-XV centuries), Russian culture bore, on the one hand, the features of a balanced, self-confident ancient culture, based on the complex culture of old Kyiv and old Vladimir, on the other hand, it clearly showed an organic connection with the culture of the entire Eastern European Pre-Renaissance.
Despite the fact that the development of Russian culture then took place mainly in a religious shell, its monuments (in their highest manifestations) allow us today to talk about attention to the individual, human dignity, high humanism and other features that determine Rus'’s belonging to a broad, pan-European cultural complex.
And, finally, the broadest context in which Dmitry Sergeevich views our culture is global. As a starting point for analysis, he chooses the first great historical work, “The Tale of Bygone Years” ( beginning of XII century). Varangians in the north, Greeks on the shores of the Black Sea, Khazars, among whom were Christians, Jews, and Mohammedans. Close relations of Rus' with the Finno-Ugric and Lithuanian tribes, Chud, Merya, Vesya, Izhora, Mordovians, Komi-Zyryans. The state of Rus' and its surroundings were multinational from the very beginning. Hence the most characteristic feature of Russian culture, running through its entire thousand-year history, - universality, universalism.
A special place in the works of Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev is occupied by the cultural study of St. Petersburg, his conclusions shed light on a lot here too. The scientist identifies features characteristic only of St. Petersburg, characteristic of the three centuries of its existence. First of all, an organic combination of the best Europeanness and the best Russianness. According to Likhachev, the uniqueness of St. Petersburg is that it is a city of global cultural interests, combining the urban planning and cultural principles of various European countries and pre-Petrine Rus'. Moreover, the essence of St. Petersburg culture is not in its similarity to Europe, but in the concentration of the best aspects of Russian and world culture. Dmitry Sergeevich considers an important feature of St. Petersburg to be “its scientific connection with the whole world,” which also turned St. Petersburg into “a city of global cultural interests.” Another significant side of St. Petersburg is academicism in all its manifestations, “a penchant for classical art, classical forms. This manifested itself both externally - in architecture, and in the essence of the interests of St. Petersburg authors, creators, teachers, etc.” The academician noted that in St. Petersburg all the main European and world styles acquired a classical character.
It was in St. Petersburg that that special, and in some respects the highest, “product” of world culture, called the intelligentsia, appeared and developed. According to Likhachev, this is one of the peaks of the development of the European spiritual tradition, a phenomenon that formed on Russian soil in a natural way. There were heated discussions at our university about what constitutes the essence of the concept of “intellectual” and about the role of the Russian intelligentsia. Dmitry Sergeevich actively participated in them. As a result, a definition was born: an intellectual is an educated person with a heightened sense of conscience, who also has intellectual independence. “Intellectual independence is an extremely important feature of the intelligentsia. Independence from party, estate, class, professional, commercial and even just career interests,” wrote Dmitry Sergeevich.
In a general philosophical sense, an intellectual is characterized by a special kind of individualism of a social person, associated with society by ethical imperatives, in Russian transcription - by conscience. An intellectual is guided by the interests of the people, not the authorities. And in pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg, the intelligentsia spontaneously, “from below,” united into “societies and communities,” “social formations,” where people united by specialty, mental or ideological interests gathered. The system of such informal societies independent of the state gave birth to public opinion - a tool no less powerful in some situations than political or legislative power. “These public associations,” writes Likhachev, “played a colossal role, first of all, in the formation of public opinion. Public opinion in St. Petersburg was created not in state institutions, but mainly in these private circles, associations, at journals, at meetings of scientists, etc. It was here that people’s reputations arose.”
For the intelligentsia, morality as a double-edged category, as a synthesis of personal and social, is the only power that does not deprive a person of freedom; on the contrary, it is conscience that is the true guarantee of freedom. Combining into a single whole, will and morality create the core of a person - his personality. That is why “the greatest resistance to evil ideas is always provided by the individual.” The formation of such a layer of people can be regarded as the highest humanitarian achievement of Russia, a kind of triumph human spirit, lying in line with the European (Christian) tradition.
Thus, Peter’s great undertakings to overcome backwardness from the West in the fields of science and education end with unconditional and quite obvious success. Petersburg culture asserts itself as one of higher manifestations global culture.
The Declaration of Cultural Rights, created by a group of employees of the St. Petersburg Humanitarian University of Trade Unions under the leadership of D. S. Likhachev, became a kind of pinnacle of his life’s journey. This is the scientist’s message to the world community, a message to the future. The idea of the Declaration is as follows. Modern stage The development of civilization has given rise to the need to officially accept by the international community and state governments a number of principles and provisions necessary for the preservation and further development of culture as the heritage of mankind.
The Declaration formulates a new approach to defining the place and role of culture in the life of society. It is no coincidence that it says that culture represents main meaning and the global value of the existence of both peoples, small ethnic groups, and states. Outside of culture, their independent existence becomes meaningless. The right to culture should be on a par with the right to life and other human rights. Culture is a condition for the continuation of a meaningful life, human history, further development of humanity.
The Declaration introduces the concept of “humanitarian culture,” that is, a culture focused on the development of creative principles in man and society. And this is clear: an unregulated, uncivilized market enhances the expansion of inhumane values of mass culture. If this continues, we may witness the loss of culture of its essential function - to be a humanistic guideline and criterion for the development of civilization and man. That is why states must become guarantors of the cultivation of humanitarian culture, this spiritual foundation and the possibility of development and improvement of man and society.
It is interesting that in the Declaration D.S. Likhachev gives his own, alternative understanding of globalization. He sees in it a process driven primarily not by economic, but by cultural interests of the world community. Globalization must be carried out not for the “golden billion” of residents of individual countries, but for all of humanity. It is incorrect to understand it only as the expansion of global corporations, the flow of personnel and raw materials. Humanity must build a concept of globalization as a harmonious process of world cultural development.
At various Russian public forums, the Declaration received the approval of the country's scientific and creative intelligentsia. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs ensured that a number of its provisions were reflected in the UNESCO Declaration on Cultural Diversity (2003) and the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (2005). On the agenda is work towards its holistic acceptance by the world community.
The personality of Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev - the brightest phenomenon of Russian and world culture - has become one of the symbols of its greatness. Professor of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Sussex, Robin Milner-Gulland, rightly said of Likhachev: “With the true internationalism of his views, he is the most convincing advocate of the richness of thousands of years of Russian cultural experience known to our generation. We will still benefit from the fruits of his tireless work for a long time.” .
See the issue on the same topic
The main (but, of course, not the only) way of one’s intellectual development is reading.
Reading should not be random. This is a huge waste of time, and time is the greatest value that cannot be wasted on trifles. You should read according to the program, of course, without strictly following it, moving away from it where additional interests for the reader appear. However, with all deviations from the original program, it is necessary to draw up a new one for yourself, taking into account the new interests that have arisen.
Reading, in order to be effective, must interest the reader. It is necessary to develop an interest in reading in general or in certain branches of culture. Interest can be largely the result of self-education.
Creating reading programs for yourself is not so easy, and this should be done in consultation with knowledgeable people, with existing reference guides of various types.
The danger of reading is the development (conscious or unconscious) of a tendency towards “diagonal” viewing of texts or various types of speed reading methods.
“Speed reading” creates the appearance of knowledge. It can be allowed only in certain types of professions, being careful not to create the habit of speed reading; it leads to attention disorders.
Have you noticed how great an impression is made by those works of literature that are read in a calm, leisurely and unhurried environment, for example on vacation or during some not very complex and non-distracting illness?
Literature gives us a colossal, vast and profound experience of life. It makes a person intelligent, develops in him not only a sense of beauty, but also understanding - an understanding of life, all its complexities, serves as a guide to other eras and to other peoples, opens the hearts of people to you. In a word, it makes you wise.
If you didn’t read the work carefully the first time, read it again, for the third time. A person should have favorite works that he turns to repeatedly, which he knows in detail, which he can remind others about in the right environment and thereby either lift the mood, or defuse the situation (when irritation against each other accumulates), or make them laugh, or simply express your attitude towards what happened to you or someone else.
My literature teacher taught me “disinterested” reading at school. I studied in the years when teachers were often forced to be absent from classes - either they were digging trenches near Leningrad, or they had to help some factory, or they were simply sick. Leonid Vladimirovich (that was the name of my literature teacher) often came to class when the other teacher was absent, casually sat down on the teacher’s table and, taking books out of his briefcase, offered us something to read. We already knew how he could read, how he could explain what he read, laugh with us, admire something, be amazed at the art of the writer and rejoice at what was to come.
So we listened to many passages from “War and Peace”, “The Captain’s Daughter”, several stories by Maupassant, an epic about Nightingale Budimirovich, another epic about Dobrynya Nikitich, a story about Woe-Misfortune, Krylov’s fables, Derzhavin’s odes and much, much more. I still love what I listened to back then as a child. And at home, father and mother loved to read in the evenings. We read for ourselves, and some of the passages we liked were read for us. Read Leskov, Mamin-Sibiryak, historical novels- everything that they liked and that we gradually began to like.
“Disinterested” but interesting reading is what makes you love literature and what broadens a person’s horizons.
Know how to read not only for school answers and not only because everyone is reading this or that thing now - it’s fashionable. Know how to read with interest and slowly.
Why is TV now partially replacing books? Yes, because TV forces you to slowly watch some program, sit comfortably so that nothing disturbs you, it distracts you from your worries, it dictates to you how to watch and what to watch.
But try to choose a book to your liking, take a break from everything in the world for a while, sit comfortably with a book, and you will understand that there are many books that you cannot live without, which are more important and more interesting than many programs. I'm not saying stop watching TV. But I say: look with choice. Spend your time on things that are worth spending. Read more and read with greater choice. Determine your choice yourself, depending on the role your chosen book has acquired in the history of human culture in order to become a classic. This means that there is something significant in it. Or maybe this essential for the culture of mankind will be essential for you too?
A classic is one that has stood the test of time. With him you won't waste your time. But the classics cannot answer all questions today. Therefore you need to read and modern literature. Don't just jump at every trendy book. Don't be fussy. Vanity causes a person to recklessly spend the largest and most precious capital he has - his time.
I only recently learned about academician Dmitry Likhachev. No, of course, I knew that there was such a scientist Likhachev in Russia, but in what area and what he was known for I had no idea. I am sure that I am not alone, because Academician Likhachev died in 1999, and a lot of time has passed - enough for the man to simply be forgotten. A whole generation has already grown up that does not remember Dmitry Likhachev. Paying attention to the interests of modern society and young people, I am almost sure that knowledge about the works of Dmitry Sergeevich, about the greatest legacy of the scientist, has been reduced to a minimum, and we should all be ashamed - schools, universities, state institutions. structures, parents... After all, Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev is the heritage of Russia, a national hero and patriot of Russia, whose life became a great feat of standing up for the spirituality of our people, for our native culture, for everything that is good and beautiful.
The greatest gift of this great son of Russia to his people is his books, articles, letters and memories. His literary works were addressed not only to scientists, but also to himself to a wide circle readers, including children. They are written in surprisingly simple and truly beautiful language.
Throughout his life, Dmitry Sergeevich wrote more than 1000 articles, left about 500 scientific and 600 journalistic works. Including more than 40 books on the history of ancient Russian literature and Russian culture, many of which have been translated into different languages. He made a significant contribution to the study of ancient Russian art. Likhachev's range of scientific interests is very wide: from the study of icon painting to the analysis of prison life of prisoners. By the way, the first treatise Likhachev was published while serving his sentence in the Solovetsky special purpose camp - “Cardboard Games of Criminals.” (He was arrested on February 8, 1928 for participating in the student group “Space Academy of Sciences” - he served 4.5 years.)
Throughout all the years of his activity, he was an active defender of Russian culture, a promoter of morality and spirituality.
One of the most interesting and valuable books by D. Likhachev is the book-testament: “Letters about the good and the beautiful.” These “letters” (46 letters) are not addressed to anyone in particular, but to all readers. First of all, young people who still have to learn life and walk its difficult paths. The advice you can get from reading this book applies to almost all aspects of life.
This book is being translated in different countries and into many languages. This is what D. S. Likhachev himself writes in the preface to the Japanese edition, in which he explains why this book was written:
“In my deep conviction, goodness and beauty are the same for all peoples. United - in two senses: truth and beauty are eternal companions, they are united among themselves and the same for all peoples. Lies are evil for everyone. Sincerity and truthfulness, honesty and selflessness are always good.
In my book “Letters about the Good and the Beautiful,” intended for children, I try to explain with the simplest arguments that following the path of goodness is the most acceptable and only path for a person. It is tested, it is faithful, it is useful - both to the individual and to society as a whole.
In my letters, I do not try to explain what goodness is and why a good person is internally beautiful, lives in harmony with himself, with society and with nature. There can be many explanations, definitions and approaches. I strive for something else - for specific examples, based on the properties of general human nature...
...I will be happy if the reader, no matter what age he belongs to (it happens that adults also read children's books), finds in my letters at least part of what he can agree with. Harmony between people, different nations, is the most precious thing and now the most necessary for humanity.”
“From Letters About Kindness” I really liked one of the most wise sayings scientist:
“There is light and darkness, there is nobility and baseness, there is purity and dirt: one must grow to the former, but is it worth descending to the latter? Choose the worthy, not the easy"
I will definitely devote a large article to this work and publish excerpts from the most interesting, in my opinion, letters of advice. For the most impatient, I leave a link to the book. Read online or download.
Today I will publish Dmitry Sergeevich’s most disturbing thoughts about Russia and Russians, about Russian culture and art, about the Russian mentality and the character of the Russian person. The most interesting excerpts from the most famous scientific works, interview.
“I have been studying Russia all my life and there is nothing more dear to me than Russia”
About the national idea:
Russia does not and never has had any special mission! The people will be saved by culture, there is no need to look for any national idea, this is a mirage. Culture is the basis of all our movements and successes. Living on the national idea will inevitably lead first to restrictions, and then intolerance arises towards another race, towards another people, towards another religion. Intolerance will certainly lead to terror. It is impossible to strive for the return of any single ideology, because a single ideology will sooner or later lead to fascism.
About Russia:
Now the idea of so-called Eurasianism has come into fashion. A part of Russian thinkers and emigrants, disadvantaged in their national feeling, was tempted by an easy solution to the complex and tragic issues of Russian history, proclaiming Russia a special organism, a special territory, oriented mainly to the East, to Asia, and not to the West. From this it was concluded that European laws were not written for Russia, and Western norms and values are not at all suitable for it. In fact, Russia is not Eurasia at all. Russia is undoubtedly Europe in religion and culture.
“Russia will be alive as long as the meaning of its existence in the present, past or future remains a mystery and people will rack their brains: why did God create Russia?”
On the difference between patriotism and nationalism:
Nationalism is a terrible scourge of our time. Despite all the lessons of the 20th century, we have not learned to truly distinguish between patriotism and nationalism. Evil disguises itself as good. You have to be a patriot, not a nationalist. There is no need to hate every other person's seven, because you love yours. There is no need to hate other nations because you are a patriot. There is a deep difference between patriotism and nationalism. In the first - love for one's country, in the second - hatred of all others. Nationalism, fencing itself off from other cultures, destroys its own culture and dries it out. Nationalism is a manifestation of the weakness of a nation, not its strength. Nationalism is the heaviest of misfortunes human race. Like any evil, it hides, lives in darkness and only pretends to be born of love for its country. But it is actually generated by anger, hatred towards other peoples and towards that part of one’s own people that does not share nationalist views. Peoples in which patriotism is not replaced by national “acquisition”, greed and misanthropy of nationalism live in friendship and peace with all peoples. We should never, under any circumstances, be nationalists. We Russians do not need this chauvinism.
On defending your civic position:
Even in dead-end cases, when everything is deaf, when you are not heard, be kind enough to express your opinion. Don't remain silent, speak up. I will force myself to speak so that at least one voice can be heard. Let people know that someone is protesting, that not everyone has come to terms. Each person must state his position. You can’t publicly, at least to friends, at least to family.
About conscience:
Conscience is basically memory, to which is added a moral assessment of what has been done. But if what is perfect is not retained in memory, then there can be no evaluation. Without memory there is no conscience. Conscience is not only the guardian angel of human honor, it is the helmsman of his freedom, she makes sure that freedom does not turn into arbitrariness, but shows a person his true path in the complicated circumstances of life, especially modern life.
About the events of August 1991:
In August 1991, the people of Russia won a great social victory, which is comparable to the deeds of our ancestors during the times of Peter the Great or Alexander II the Liberator. By the will of a united nation, the yoke of spiritual and physical slavery, which had shackled the natural development of the country for almost a century, was finally thrown off. Liberated Russia rapidly began to pick up speed towards the highest goals of modern universal human existence.
About the leaders of the State Emergency Committee:
Do not fall for the hypocrisy of the so-called leaders - the leaders of the conspiracy. Which of the usurpers of power in former times did not swear to the people on their interests? Don't believe it. Because they could protect the interests of the people much earlier. They were responsible for the situation in the country; they already had power.
About Stalin's repressions:
We suffered huge, millions of victims from Stalin. The time will come when all the shadows of the victims of Stalin’s repressions will stand before us like a wall, and we will no longer be able to pass through them.
About the trial of the CPSU:
All so-called socialism was built on violence. Nothing can be built on violence, neither good nor even bad, everything will fall apart, just as it did for us. We had to judge the Communist Party. Not people, but the crazy ideas themselves that justified monstrous crimes unparalleled in history.
About the intelligentsia:
To the intelligentsia, in my opinion life experience belong only to people who are free in their convictions, independent of economic, party, and state coercions, and not subject to ideological obligations. The basic principle of intelligence is intellectual freedom, freedom as a moral category. An intelligent person is not free only from his conscience and his thoughts. I personally am confused by the widespread expression “creative intelligentsia” - as if some part of the intelligentsia could generally be “uncreative”. All intellectuals “create” to one degree or another, and on the other hand, a person who writes, teaches, creates works of art, but does this on order, on assignment in the spirit of the requirements of the party, state or some customer with an “ideological bias”, from my point of view, not an intellectual, but a mercenary.
About love for the Motherland:
Many are convinced that loving the Motherland means being proud of it. No! I was brought up on a different love - love-pity. Our love for the Motherland was least of all like pride in the Motherland, its victories and conquests. Now this is difficult for many to understand. We didn't sing patriotic songs - we cried and prayed. I wanted to keep Russia in my memory, just as children sitting at her bedside want to keep in their memory the image of a dying mother, collect her images, show them to friends, talk about the greatness of her martyr’s life. My books are, in essence, memorial notes that are given “for the dead”: you can’t remember everyone when you write them - you write down the most dear names, and such were for me precisely in ancient Rus'.
About murder Royal family In Ekaterinburg:
The century began in Russia with a terrible, unheard-of crime - the execution of the Tsar, children, and servants. And without any semblance of a trial. And the fact that at the end of the century we realized this and repented simply asks to be included in a textbook for the edification of posterity. The century began with a murder and ends with the funeral of its victims. This moral event will certainly affect future fate Russia.
About protecting animal rights:
A person must protect the rights of animals, regardless of whether he needs them on his farm or not. Dolphins, whales, elephants, dogs are thinking but dumb creatures. For them, a person is obliged to speak, write, even sue. The consumer attitude towards living things in the world is immoral.
On attitudes towards the death penalty:
I cannot help but be against the death penalty, because I belong to Russian culture. The death penalty corrupts those who carry it out. Instead of one killer, a second one appears, the one who carries out the sentence. And therefore, no matter how much crime grows, still death penalty should not be used. We cannot be in favor of the death penalty if we consider ourselves people belonging to Russian culture.
About jargon, about slang:
“And our language is becoming poorer...”
“Flaunting with rudeness in language, as well as flaunting with rudeness in manners, sloppiness in clothing, is a very common phenomenon, and it mainly indicates a person’s psychological insecurity, his weakness, and not at all about strength. The speaker tries to suppress in himself with a rude joke, harsh expression, irony, cynicism the feeling of fear, apprehension, sometimes just apprehension.<…>The basis of any slang, cynical expressions and swearing is weakness. People who “spit words” demonstrate their contempt for the traumatic phenomena of life because they bother them, torment them, worry them, because they feel unprotected against them.
A truly strong and healthy, balanced person will not speak loudly unnecessarily, will not swear or use slang words. After all, he is sure that his word is already significant.”
About the little things in life:
“...there are no unimportant matters or responsibilities, no trifles, no “little things in life.” Everything that happens in a person’s life is important to him... In life one must have service - service to some cause. Even if this thing is small, it will become big if you are faithful to it.
...In the material world you cannot fit the big into the small. In the sphere of spiritual values, it is not so: much more can fit into the small, but if you try to fit the small into the big, then the big will simply cease to exist.
If a person has a great goal, then it should manifest itself in everything - in the most seemingly insignificant. You must be honest in the unnoticed and accidental, only then will you be honest in fulfilling your great duty. A great goal embraces the whole person, is reflected in his every action, and one cannot think that a good goal can be achieved through bad means...”
Academician Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev. Yurchenko/RIA Novosti An excerpt from an article by academician Dmitry Likhachev, published 20 years ago. Reflections on the Russian character:
“...I do not preach nationalism, although I write with sincere pain for my native and beloved Russia. I am simply for a normal look at Russia in the scale of its history. The reader, I think, will eventually understand what the essence of such a “normal view” is, in what features of the national Russian character the true reasons for our current tragic situation are hidden.
...The fate of a nation is not fundamentally different from the fate of a person. If a person comes into the world with free will, can choose his own destiny, can take the side of good or evil, is responsible for himself and judges himself for his choice, dooming himself to extreme suffering or to the happiness of recognition - no, not by himself, but The Supreme Judge of its participation in good (I deliberately choose careful expressions, because no one knows exactly how this judgment takes place), then any nation is in the same way responsible for its own destiny.
And there is no need to blame anyone for your “misfortune” - neither on treacherous neighbors or conquerors, nor on accidents, because accidents are far from accidental, but not because there is some kind of “fate”, fate or mission, but due to the fact that accidents have specific causes...
One of the main reasons for many accidents is the national character of Russians.
He is far from alone. It crosses not only different traits, but traits in a “single register”: religiosity with extreme godlessness, selflessness with hoarding, practicality with complete helplessness in the face of external circumstances, hospitality with misanthropy, national self-spitting with chauvinism, inability to fight with the suddenly manifested magnificent features of combat perseverance.
“Meaningless and merciless,” Pushkin said about the Russian revolt, but in moments of rebellion these features are directed primarily at themselves, at the rebels who sacrifice their lives for the sake of an idea that is meager in content and poorly understood in expression.
“The Russian man is broad, very broad—I would narrow him,” declares Ivan Karamazov in Dostoevsky.
Those who talk about the Russians’ penchant for extremes in everything are absolutely right. The reasons for this require special discussion. I will only say that they are quite specific and do not require faith in fate and “mission”.
Centrist positions are difficult, if not simply unbearable, for Russian people.
This preference for extremes in everything, combined with extreme gullibility, which caused and still causes the appearance of dozens of impostors in Russian history, led to the victory of the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks won partly because they (according to the crowd) wanted more changes than the Mensheviks, who supposedly offered much less. These kinds of arguments, not reflected in documents (newspapers, leaflets, slogans), I nevertheless remembered quite clearly. This was already in my memory.
The misfortune of the Russians is their gullibility. This is not frivolity, far from it. Sometimes gullibility appears in the form of gullibility, then it is associated with kindness, responsiveness, hospitality (even in the famous, now disappeared, hospitality).
That is, this is one of the reverse sides of the series in which positive and negative features in country dance of a national character are usually lined up. And sometimes gullibility leads to the construction of lightweight plans for economic and state salvation (Nikita Khrushchev believed in pig farming, then rabbit farming, then worshiped corn, and this is very typical of the Russian commoner).
Russians often laugh at their own gullibility: we do everything at random and hope that “the curve will take us out.”
These words and expressions, which perfectly characterize typically Russian behavior even in critical situations, cannot be translated into any language. This is not at all a manifestation of frivolity in practical matters, it cannot be interpreted that way - it is faith in fate in the form of distrust of oneself and faith in one’s destiny.
The desire to escape from state “guardianship” towards dangers in the steppe or forests, to Siberia, to look for a happy Belovodye and in this search end up in Alaska, even move to Japan.
Sometimes it is faith in foreigners, and sometimes it is the search for the culprits of all misfortunes in these same foreigners. There is no doubt that the fact that they were non-Russians - Georgians, Chechens, Tatars, etc. - played a role in the careers of many “our” foreigners.
The drama of Russian gullibility is aggravated by the fact that the Russian mind is not at all bound by everyday concerns; it strives to comprehend history and its life, everything that happens in the world, in the deepest sense.
A Russian peasant, sitting on the rubble of his house, talks with friends about politics and Russian fate - the fate of Russia. This is a common occurrence, not an exception!
Russians are ready to risk the most precious things; they are passionate about fulfilling their assumptions and ideas. They are ready to starve, suffer, even go to self-immolation (as hundreds of Old Believers burned themselves) for the sake of their faith, their beliefs, for the sake of an idea. And this happened not only in the past - it still exists now. (Didn’t voters believe in the obviously unrealistic promises of Zhirinovsky, now sitting in the State Duma?)
We, Russians, need to finally gain the right and strength to be responsible for our own present, to decide our own policies - both in the field of culture, and in the field of economics, and in the field of state law. Based on real facts, on real traditions, and not on various kinds of prejudices associated with Russian history, on myths about the world-historical “mission” of the Russian people and on their supposed doom due to mythical ideas about some particularly difficult legacy of slavery, which we didn’t have, serfdom, which many had, the supposed lack of “democratic traditions” that we actually had, the supposed lack of business qualities, which were abundant (the exploration of Siberia alone is worth it), etc. and so on.
Our history was no worse and no better than that of other nations.
We ourselves need to be responsible for our current situation, we are responsible to time and should not blame everything on our ancestors, worthy of all respect and veneration, but at the same time, of course, we must take into account the dire consequences of the communist dictatorship.
We are free - and that is why we are responsible. The worst thing is to blame everything on fate, to chance and hope for a “curve”. The “curve” will not take us out!
We do not agree with the myths about Russian history and Russian culture, created mainly under Peter, who needed to build on Russian traditions in order to move in the direction he needed. But does this mean that we should calm down and consider that we are in a “normal situation”?
No, no and NO! Thousands of years of cultural traditions oblige us to many things. We must, it is extremely necessary for us to continue to remain a great power, but not only because of our vastness and population, but because of the great culture that we must be worthy of and which, not by chance, when they want to humiliate it, is contrasted with the culture of all Europe, all Western countries. Not just any country, but all countries. This is often done involuntarily, but such a contrast in itself already indicates that Russia can be placed next to Europe.
If we preserve our culture and everything that contributes to its development - libraries, museums, archives, schools, universities, periodicals (especially the “thick” magazines typical of Russia) - if we preserve unspoiled our rich language, literature, musical education, scientific institutes, then we will certainly occupy a leading place in the north of Europe and Asia.
And, reflecting on our culture, our history, we cannot escape the memory, just as we cannot escape ourselves. After all, culture is strong in traditions and memories of the past. And it is important that she preserves what is worthy of her.
For the first time, Dmitry Likhachev’s article “You Can’t Get Away from Yourself” was published in the magazine “ New world", 1994, No. 6. Its full text can be read.
To be continued…
The article uses materials: gazeta.ru, lihachev.ru.
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