Philologists will gather at the Institute of World Literature (IMLI) of the Russian Academy of Sciences and discuss the contribution of Maxim Gorky to the development and development of Belarusian literature. This will be an exciting conversation. At one time, Alexei Maksimovich, after meeting the young Yanka Kupala and Yakub Kolas, was enthusiastic about their work. In one of the letters, he admitted: "These are very interesting guys! They write so simply, so affectionately, sadly, sincerely. Ours would have a little of these qualities. Oh, God! It would be nice!"
On the eve of the "round table" columnist "SOYUZ" interviewed the director of IMLI RAS, Doctor of Philology Vadim Polonsky.
Vadim Vladimirovich, who owns the idea of holding the forum?
Vadim Polonsky: The idea to try to take a fresh look at the literary cooperation between Russia and Belarus arose about two years ago at the level of the Union of Writers of the two countries. We have implemented several initiatives. And in May this year, the Belarusian Embassy in Moscow hosted a round table on this issue. And the idea to get together was born in the course of a recent competition for the best lesson in literature of Belarusian and Russian teachers "#SilaSlova", in which employees of the Institute of Literature and Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences took part as experts. When summing up and awarding the finalists in the presence of the State Secretary of the Union State Grigory Alekseevich Rapota, the idea was voiced that the ties between Russian and Belarusian literature in the 20th century are largely associated with Gorky's initiatives and personality. By the way, our institute also bears his name...
I think that this is not the only connection between your institute and Gorky?
Vadim Polonsky: We have a unique archive of Gorky, the wealth of which has not yet been fully disclosed. And it seemed natural to us to remind the teachers - contestants of the Union State that the huge potential of the archive is connected with Gorky's program for studying the mutual enrichment of national literatures of the peoples of the world. We invited the finalists to visit the Museum-Apartment of Alexei Maksimovich, where on October 26, 1932, at a dramatic turning point in our common history, writers - "engineers of human souls" gathered to discuss the creation of a single Union of Writers in the presence of Stalin.
And now, 84 years later, the thought was voiced that the time had come to "remember everything", including the best that was in Russian-Belarusian literary relations, which today would help to rely on the good "power of the word."
It is hard to imagine a more suitable platform for this than your Institute. But why did this topic come up now?
Vadim Polonsky: It arose spontaneously, but there were also prerequisites. One of them is the upcoming anniversaries: the 85th anniversary of our Institute and the 150th anniversary of Gorky's birth. Besides us, many people are preparing for the celebration, especially the regions associated with the name of the writer. The celebration was given special meaning by the humanitarian component of the activities of the Standing Committee of the Union State, constantly reminding us of the historical kinship between Russia and Belarus, the close interweaving of the destinies and cultures of our peoples and the undoubted success of this interaction.
It is known that Gorky did not know the Belarusian language and translated into Russian only one work by Yanka Kupala - the poem "And who goes there?" Some philologists consider the translation faulty. And Gorky himself later apologized to the young Belarusian poet for his translation. And yet, how do you assess the contribution of the author of "The Song of the Petrel" to the development and formation of Belarusian literature?
Vadim Polonsky: I think the key stage here is connected with the historical and cultural context of the early twentieth century, including the events of 1905. Circumstances stimulated free thought and gave impetus to the development of national Belarusian culture. Time gave our peoples outstanding writers: Maxim Bogdanovich, Yakub Kolas, Yanka Kupala, Zmitrok Byadul, Francis Bogushevich... Their work revealed not only to Gorky the treasures of Belarusian folklore, original stories from the life of Belarusians, but also, for example, Lev and Alexei Tolstoy. .. In turn, the work of Pushkin and Gogol, Nekrasov and Saltykov-Shchedrin, and later - Vladimir Korolenko, Gleb Uspensky, Leonid Andreev and the same Gorky served as a creative stimulus in the formation of Belarusian writers. The influence of Gorky's revolutionary romanticism is felt in Kupala's poems "My soul is free to chalaveks" and "I song, I am a falcon, I am", and Gorky's fairy tales helped Belarusians to rethink and literary rework their own folklore, which is clearly felt in Kolas' fairy tales and poems. We recognize the lush landscapes of the Russian classic in the images of the Volga created by Maxim Bogdanovich.
All these people not only read each other, but also closely communicated.
Vadim Polonsky: Of course, and this is the main thing! In June 1910, Gorky rests in Capri and receives a group of teachers from Russia. From them he learns the names of Kolas and Kupala. Immediately, he becomes eager to get to know each other and soon receives by mail collections of poems "Zhaleyka" by Kupala and "Songs of Pity" by Kolas. Begins to subscribe to "Nasha Niva" and books published on Belarusian language. And after meeting Gorky very quickly becomes a kind of moral support for young Belarusians, acts as an experienced "mentor-impresario" who loves his wards. And most importantly, he tries by all means to draw the attention of both Russian and Ukrainian writers to them. It was at this time that Alexei Maksimovich translated the poem by Kupala you named. And it's not about how successful the translation is. And what it was made for. Gorky's goal, as he himself writes in the article "On Self-Taught Writers", is to draw the attention of "skeptics" to the "young literature of Belarusians", to their pristine lyrical purity. He emphasizes "the deep meaning of this song - which, perhaps, will become the national anthem of the Belarusians for a while." She became, as you know.
I would like to hear your assessment of the contemporary literary interaction between Belarus and Russia?
Vadim Polonsky: This is one of the constant themes of the research program of our Department of Literature of the Peoples of Russia and the CIS - the only scientific department of its kind in the country. Practically in every collective work published by them, materials devoted to Belarusian subjects are published. Recently, the Academic Council of the IMLI RAS approved for publication the next issue of the scientific series "Classics in the Dialogue of Cultures", which contains two major works: "Ales Adamovich - a dialogue with time" and "The last publication of Valentin Rasputin in Belarus". Our employees lively respond to Belarusian literary novelties, acting not only as academic researchers, but also as critics. For example, the first volume "Belarus - Russia" from the "Consonance of Hearts" series, recently released in Minsk, aroused our lively attention. Articles about the most prominent writers of Belarus are systematically published in our collective monographs and serial publications. We regularly participate in scientific conferences held annually at BSU, at the Pedagogical Institute. M. Tanka. And, of course, we are always glad to see Belarusian colleagues at scientific events organized by our Institute.
How do you work with the Standing Committee of the Union State?
Vadim Polonsky: Amazing! A striking event that determined our interaction was the second edition of the amazing literary monument created by Simeon Polotsky - the poem "The Russian Eagle". The book was prepared by the chief researcher of our Institute, Lidia Sazonova; it contains a facsimile reproduction of the author's manuscript - a most valuable artistic object. The preface to the publication was written by Grigory Alekseevich Rapota.
What problems do you see?
Vadim Polonsky: We have something to remember and something to study. Thus, the Department of Manuscripts stores the works of repressed Belarusian and Russian writers - these are complexes of materials that are waiting for thoughtful and painstaking researchers. I think they will help in stereoscopy to reconstruct our common history literature. One of critical issues- the absence of regular publications of translations from Belarusian in mass periodicals in Russia. It is very sad that the monthly supplement to the "Literaturnaya Gazeta" - "Lad" - has been closed. Its editor, Belarusian prose writer Ales Kozhedub, regularly introduced the Russian reader to the works of Belarusian colleagues. True, there have also been reverse processes. As if to compensate for the loss of "Lada" in the journal "Literary Studies" (by the way, the project of Maxim Gorky!), publications of translations from Belarusian resumed. Thus, the works of Gennady Buravkin are to be published in the December issue.
Is it possible to use the successful experience of Russia's cultural interaction with other countries? It is known, for example, that the Japanese are translated into Russian more often and more readily than Belarusians... What is the commercial component here, in your opinion?
Vadim Polonsky: Experience with different countries- different. Let me just say that the commercial demand for certain literary phenomena can largely grow thanks to targeted educational and popularization activities, preferably with the support of the authorities. state power and influential public organizations. It would be good for us to use the cultural experience of the same Gorky. It makes sense to present the literary heritage as part of a broad, rich and attractive cultural field. We must study our archives, delve into the micro-processes of cultural interaction and offer our ministries of culture, the Standing Committee a long-term program of joint action. In the near future, we would like to meet with the leadership of the Institute of Literary Studies. Yanka Kupala, who was recently recreated in the system of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, talks about the prospects for systemic cooperation. Possibly on a regular basis. We are convinced that they can open here great opportunities. And for our Institute, this is one of the priority research areas.
Yakub Kolas, classic of Belarusian literature:
There were nine hundred years ... Gorky walked with gigantic strides, gathering thousands of audiences of young people, freeing the minds from the tedious mold of decadence. A new word sounded, and the eyes of those who were looking for a way to new life. I have forever kept in my heart a deep gratitude to Maxim Gorky for his sensitivity to the first steps in literature that Yanka Kupala and I took.
A conversation between the director of the Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vadim Polonsky, and the correspondent of the Izvestia newspaper, Elena Loria, about the impact of the revolution on art, contemporary literature and the phenomenon of rap battles.Vadim Polonsky. Photo: Izvestia/Alexey Maishev
- Now there is a lot of arguing about the causes of the October Revolution and its role in the history of the country. Could literature somehow influence those events?
- This is a question for long philosophical reflections. One thing is certain: in a situation where the free expression of public opinion is restricted—and it was throughout the 19th century—literature becomes a channel for the transmission of meanings. Those things that are usually required for self-expression of the parliamentary tribune, means mass media. This was not always possible in Russia. During the reign of Nicholas I, only literature was a platform from which an unofficial message could be addressed. The role of literature was formed, going beyond the limits of actual literaryness. In this sense Russian culture unique in Europe at that time. Messages of a socio-political and public nature were often first uttered by writers, and not by public figures.
- It turns out that the literature of that period played the role of modern social networks?
- In a way, yes. An interesting phenomenon popular literature. On the one hand, it is clear that aesthetically, these are usually second-class products. But she has an extremely interesting social role. Mass literature, as a rule, turns out to be much more amenable to assimilation of the new in the ideological sense than high literature. Mass literature, in essence, plays the role of a media cell that senses with its scent where a new smell comes from. In Russia of the 19th century, this role was expressed quite actively. One of the loudest-sounding names of the last third of the 19th century is Pyotr Boborykin, a writer almost no one remembers today. The culture has included the concept of “poking around”, that is, bungling up a novel on the topic of the day - 600 pages within a month. It was Boborykin who, in many respects, was the first to introduce the Russian public to the latest ideological phenomena coming from the West. Nietzscheanism, suffragism and other fashionable ideological currents were often first broadcast by literature. The Russian writer was not only a writer, but also a philosopher, public figure. In this function, he often set not only meanings, but also determined the vectors of movement of social activity. From this perspective, we can say that in many ways literature produced future cataclysms, expecting a revolution, it largely called for it, generated it.
- Did the revolution give something good to culture?
- The turn of the century is an extremely complex, painful, internally sophisticated and extremely aesthetically rich time. One of the greatest Russian novels of the 20th century, Andrei Bely's Petersburg, is filled with the expectation of catastrophe. It is about the imperial organism, pregnant with a catastrophe, a downfall. The expectation of a catastrophe gave rise to a striking poetics, which in many respects anticipates the further world art of the 20th century. It was the first cubist novel in world literature. The revolution gave birth to a unique phenomenon of early Soviet prose, which for the first time tested the artistic constructions that later took hold in Europe: expressionism, collage, and the poetics of montage. The revolution, as a major tragic event, predetermined the language of the artistic transmission of the total crisis, the collapse of humanism. Without the experience of the Russian revolution, Picasso, German expressionism, the poetics of cinema, as it was formed in the end, are inconceivable. Finally, the revolution pushed art into the square, forced it to speak with the crowd, included the masses in artistic communication.
- Even 20-30 years ago, literature played a serious social role, now it is not. Is this good, bad, or just normal?
- It is a fact. Cultural institutions are changing. This is a global process. Past hierarchies are fading away, we are at the point of paradigm shift of the cultural model. But I don't know where we're going. I don't think this is visible today.
- We were once considered the most reading country, but this title has long been lost. What is it connected with? It is unlikely that only with the development of technology. Why did the habit of reading disappear?
- I believe that this is a consequence of the deep social trauma that our society experienced during the collapse of Soviet Union. Tens of millions of people were thrown into new conditions, and they just had to survive. A woman who used to go to the service and read in between New world”, was forced to grab a checkered bag and rush to Turkey to buy clothes in order to feed her family. She no longer had time to read.
Is mass reading the prerogative of successful countries?
- The prerogative of stable societies or societies where other channels for the transmission of meanings are closed, as was partly the case in Russia before the revolution. In the world of freedom of information, literature is gradually acquiring the role that was assigned to it at the beginning of its emancipation from other areas of culture - a role in the space of pure aesthetics. And there are not so many consumers of aesthetic meanings.
What period are we returning to, if we keep in mind the role of literature in the life of society?
- In the XVI century, if we talk about Europe. And in something - in a situation early XIX century, when mass reading is being formed in Europe, there is a market for this bookishness and there is a narrow stratum of intellectuals.
- Academic scientists are a poor contingent for answering such questions, because we are turned more to the past. I do not have enough time to follow the actual literary process. We comment on monuments and are a bit snobbish about it. But I believe that Evgeny Vodolazkin will remain, the novel Laurus will remain. Maybe Mikhail Shishkin will stay. I cannot say that I see the stars rising into the sky.
- Recently, Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets said that rap battles are being formed in Russia new language, and this leads to a gap between generations. But changes in language, she said, cannot be ignored. Do you think adults need to catch up and study modern slang, literature, trends?
“This is an oversimplified scenario. It makes sense to try to break through the husk to the essence of things. The same Oksimiron is a phenomenon, worthy of attention.
— Literary phenomenon?
- Yes. Oksimiron is a literary sophisticated person. His lyrics are well done. From the point of view of the technique of literature, he is a master, deserves serious literary attention to himself. At the same time, he is a representative of a subculture that is perceived by people of the middle and older generation as alien. The super-relevant subculture, on the one hand, seems to be mainstream, and on the other hand, the specificity of the modern cultural situation lies in the fact that what seems to be mainstream in essence turns out to be marginal. Oksimiron is a sophisticated avant-garde culture.
- Don't you think that Oksimiron has replaced not so much literature as rock music? Our rock musicians do not give birth to anything new, and he occupied this niche.
— Yes, I agree. He occupied this niche in the special Russian conditions, when rock music is a textual rather than a musical phenomenon. I do not know what will happen tomorrow - while we are only groping our way. The subculture of rap battles is one of the vectors of movement. Is it dead end? Don't know. At the same time, it requires a certain cultural level, preparation. All this is required for an adequate perception of Oksimiron's texts. In man a good education- it's palpable.
- Writers for many years or even decades foresaw future events, phenomena. Now there are works that can turn out to be prophetic?
- Literature always predicts, and often it comes true amazingly. The famous words of Akhmatova: "Poets, do not predict your death - it comes true." There are a lot of examples. They like to talk about Andrei Bely, who predicted his death from the sun. And here is a recent example. Literally on the eve of the terrorist attack in the Bataclan theater in Paris, Houellebecq's novel is published in Russia Soumission(in France it came out ten months before the attack. — approx.). The time of action is the near future, the beginning of the 2020s. The French intellectual, philologist, researcher of Huysmans' work, a lonely person, suffers from a loss of semantic orientations. Huysmans experienced a similar crisis more than a hundred years ago and found a way out in Catholicism. The hero of Houellebecq tries to save himself by implementing the same scenario, but does not come out. Outside - new reality: coming to power of an Islamist government. The hero of Welbeck is weak, breaks down. He accepts Islam. He has soumission - subordination. And after the release of the novel, there was a terrorist attack in the Bataclan. Welbeck falls silent, does not comment. He is dumbfounded.
Should writers be more careful?
Olga Orlova: Philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev called the Silver Age a spiritual and cultural Renaissance. But at the same time, he wrote, Russian souls were seized by a premonition of approaching catastrophes. Russian poets saw not only the coming dawns, but also something terrible approaching Russia and the world. Why should we listen to poets today? On the Hamburg account, we decided to ask the director of the Institute of World Literature Russian Academy Sciences Vadim Polonsky.
Hello, Vadim Vladimirovich.
Vadim Polonsky: Good afternoon.
O.O.: We are very glad to see you in our studio.
V.P.:Thanks, it's mutual.
Vadim Polonsky. Born in 1972 in Smolensk. In 1994 he graduated from the Philological Faculty of Lomonosov Moscow State University. In 1998 he received the degree of candidate of philological sciences. Since 1998 - Senior Researcher at the Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Since 2006, he has been in charge of the Department of Russian Literature of the End XIX - early XX century. In 2008 he defended his doctoral dissertation on the topic "Mythopoetic Aspects of Genre Evolution in Russian Literature of the End XIX - early XX century". Since 2010, Deputy Director for scientific work. Since 2015 - Director of the Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Author of over 170 scientific publications.
O.O.: Vadim Vladimirovich, your institute, you and your colleagues publish another volume of "Literary Heritage" about once every 3 years. And the last issue was devoted to the biographical materials of Andrei Bely. And it's a very complex figure. A figure that is almost such a peculiar bridge from past life, tsarist Russia, associated with the flourishing of the younger symbolists, very closely associated with Blok, Bryusov. But Bely died already in 1934. He died in Soviet Russia. And the obituary is published in Izvestia. What materials in this volume can give us some details or shed light on some questions related to his fate? Why did he escape the fate of Nikolai Gumilyov? Why was he so lucky to die a natural death in 1934?
V.P.:I don't think he was that lucky. He died quite a young man, though. He was under 54 years old. He escaped the fate of Gumilyov, but his own fate was not so enviable. It must be said that in 1931 he almost accidentally escaped arrest. Then they took all his inner circle. It was an anthroposophic environment. At that moment Bely was absent from Moscow. He was not in Kuchino, where he lived in recent years.
OO: Yes, where he lived in recent years.
V.P.:At that time he was in Detskoye Selo. And, apparently, this predetermined his absence among those who were taken.
OO: So it's just a coincidence?
V.P.:Apparently yes. At the same time, his materials were arrested. They took away the chest with his manuscripts. And for Bely it was a big blow. Bely received back the materials of his chest, with the exception of the most important one. Missing was the manuscript of the central work of his later years, the manuscript of his diary. Bely was frightened by the fact of the arrest of his inner circle.
The materials of his diary were used in the preparation of a note by the secret political department of the OGPU to the leadership of the state on the anti-Soviet activities of the intelligentsia in 1931. This document was recently discovered and published. It contains excerpts from Bely's diary. He begins to diary in detail on the threshold of the 1920s. When he has already returned to Russia, but then leaves for Germany, but then he soon returns again, he experiences a break with Asya Turgeneva, his first wife, and at the same time his relations with Western anthroposophists worsen. And all this, of course, is superimposed on the experience of social cataclysms: first the First World War, then the revolution, Civil War. In Bely's mind, all this adds up to a total sense of crisis, the way out of which (and here this is an anthroposophic plot) is work on one's own self, autoreflection.
O.O.: Do I understand correctly that such purely human loneliness still forces him to start keeping this diary?
V.P.: Certainly.
O.O.: Because this is such a terrible combination of circumstances - foreign policy, one's own destiny and a way to somehow survive it, to reflect.
V.P.:Absolutely right.
O.O.: And this should have been reflected there.
V.P.:Yes, absolutely true. Bely's autobiographical work developed in different genres. Let's say Blok's death spurred him to sit down for memories of Blok. What follows is a series of large memoirs. Their fate is different, their ideological component is different. The first edition of the book at the beginning of the century was published in Berlin. It is still free from self-censorship caused by the Soviet context. Two other volumes of his memoirs are not free from this.
With the beginning of memoirs and with the anthroposophic category of the mystical education of memory, Bely's later literary texts are connected - "Kotik Letaev", "The Baptized Chinese", "Notes of an Eccentric", and so on and so forth. But a number of texts remained outside these genres, which nevertheless had a literary outlet. This is what the compilers of this book call autobiographical codes. These are two types of texts that were written for themselves.
Firstly, these are texts that record, so to speak, an intimate biography. Experiences, reflection, live impressions. And texts fixing the external circumstances of life. Cultural events, events of social and political life, lectures, reading circle, meetings with other people and so on. And then he moves on to daily records. And what is worth paying attention to here? The two main texts in this book are the so-called "Materials for a Biography" and "Foreshortening to a Diary". Here I want to dwell on the second text - on the "Perspective to the diary".
This is an extremely interesting education. And in fact, this is a summary of another large diary, which Bely begins to keep from 1926 and keeps until 1931 - the year of the arrest of the anthroposophical entourage. This is the same text that disappeared.
O.O.: Excuse me, Vadim Vladimirovich. Why keep a diary? Why keep two parallel texts in fact?
V.P.: It's a mystery.
OO: And you don't know the answer to it yet?
V.P.:Apparently, Bely's diary was conceived by him as perhaps his main, central work. In Bely's creative self-awareness, any stage of work implied several sub-stages. And "Rakurs" was a preparatory stage for the actual diary entries, apparently.
"Foreshortening" is a synopsis that allows us (hypothetically, of course) to reconstruct with some verifiability what was in that big diary.
The diary was indeed very large. It's about 150 sheets. Why do we know this? Because Bely in "Foreshortening" fixes the number of pages that were written in the previous months.
V.P.:Yes. This is about 150 author's sheets. The author's sheet is 40,000 characters. Can be enlarged. This is one of Bely's largest texts. And, apparently, he is recognized by him as the final one. And with a high degree of probability, we can assume that this text could become one of the central, most important texts in Russian literature. XX century. Perhaps this loss can be compared with the loss of the burned volume of "Dead Souls".
O.O.: Vadim Vladimirovich, are you sure that it has been lost?
V.P.:There is hope. Negative answers followed from the FSB. But the compilers of this book undertook additional searches through the relatives of the repressed anthroposophists. And traces were found in the cases of the repressed anthroposophists. Lengthy quotations from Bely's diary came to light. Of course, chosen tendentiously to show his anti-Soviet nature. And attached to the case separately printed extract from the diary. Collectively, this is one author's sheet.
O.O.: But there are no signs that the text was destroyed at all, either? So there is no such evidence?
V.P.: No.
О.О.: What directions of search can be? Anyone have personal archives?
V.P.:Various funds inside the FSB archive.
O.O.: That is, they simply searched badly inside.
V.P.:I think yes. In addition, relatively recently, a certain archival fund was put up for auction in Paris. Our state archives could not buy it. The stakes were outbid. It was purchased by a certain oligarch.
O.O.: Not Russian?
V.P.:We can't discuss it. But since it was acquired, firstly, it is possible that it may contain relevant texts. And, secondly, after all, we cannot rule out that sooner or later these texts will become available.
Now I will return to the appearance of the relative well-being of Bely's fate. Bely's entourage believed that the story of the arrest of anthroposophists hastened his death. Relatives were convinced that this was not their own death. Conditionally speaking. That is, metaphorically.
OO: This is what is called "bringing to ...".
V.P.:Yes exactly. And this trouble was reflected even in the story with the obituary that you mentioned. Indeed, after Bely's death, an obituary was published in the Izvestiya newspaper written by Sannikov, Pasternak and Bilnyak, his friends. The obituary is weird. The obituary that stunned everyone. Because there were put on paper things that were completely impossible in the ideological context of that time. First of all, two things. There Bely was called a genius and the founder of an entire literary school.
O.O.: Yes. What, given the already developed Soviet literature, Soviet - in the worst sense, already dominant in some way, it sounded like a challenge.
V.P.:And as such it was accepted. Why was it published? The chief editor at Izvestia was Gronsky, a figure already quite influential and courageous. We know from testimonies that his first reaction was very wary - "this cannot be printed." But then he took the risk anyway. And it is possible that this played a role in removing him from his post, because a month later he ceased to be the editor-in-chief of Izvestia, and after N th number of years was repressed, as you know. When he was released, he was no longer allowed important positions in the ideological department. He was allowed to work as a junior researcher at IMLI.
OO: He worked at your institute.
V.P.:Yes exactly. But the publication of this obituary caused a scandal. And in fact, he broke out already over the coffin of Bely in essence. And it was decided to immediately issue a whole series of materials that disavow the characteristics that are dubious from an ideological point of view, given in this obituary. And literally a day later, on the pages of the same Izvestiya, Kamenev's correct text appears, where everything is put in its place, where Bely is called "a person alien to our modernity" and so on, so on, so on. This correct text was signed by Kamenev, the first director of, again, IMLI, by the way.
O.O.: I understand that your colleagues and you at the institute are engaged not only in studying the legacy that remains from the literature of past centuries, but also quite modern, as they say, tabloid literature, or mass literature. You have published a collection on the genesis of mass literature, and a collection of "Poetics of the Detective Genre" is being prepared, that is, what we are used to reading in the subway, on the beach as such entertainment.
Not so long ago, such an event took place, probably surprising for literary critics: 21 million views of the battle of rappers Oksimiron and Slava CPSU, and this is 21 million views only on Youtube. At the same time, this is an event that is being discussed in the top Yandex.News, this is an event that is being discussed on central television channels, this is an event that is being discussed in the State Duma. Just two modern rappers met in a closed audience and talked in obscene verses for an hour. Please tell me what you think about it.
V.P.:I watched this battle with curiosity. Talented guys, of course.
OO: Talented?
V.P.:Yes, definitely. And this is a cultural phenomenon.
O.O.: Sorry, one of the participants has an education " English literature"(Oxford) - Oksimiron (Miron Fedorov). And already by his pseudonym there is some hint of his certain literacy in this. Did you feel his literary background? It was noticeable.
V.P.:Oh sure. He is quite a sophisticated fellow. Sophisticated in a good way. Both of them are people with a certain cultural background. Probably even a lot. Well, this is felt at the level of citations, allusions, reminiscences and more. Here it must be said that their texts are not overloaded with this. It is there, but it does not stick out of all the cracks, as it should be in such classic postmodern exercises. In the case of Oksimiron, for me, an indicator of his education is the sophistication in the use of rhythmic patterns, rhythmic modulations, his rhetorical sophistication.
O.O.: Yes, rhetoric techniques.
V.P.:Yes. Understanding the structure of the text and even its, if you like, diachrony, as it were, the history of these techniques. All this is also played in an interesting way by him. I was pleased with his use of rare, exquisite rhythmic solutions. Let's say a hyperdactylic rhyme is a rhyme when the stress falls starting from the fourth syllable from the end. A rare thing for Russian poetry. In fact, it began to be introduced in ... only in such a developed Silver Age. This is somewhere between 1900-1910s.
O.O.: So you liked how it was done?
V.P.:How it's done, yes. As for the phenomenon as a whole, the very genre of this kind of battle makes us remember the so-called agon - a verbal duel, which is an important part of the genre of Attic comedy (Aristophanes). In fact, it is already present in Euripides. Many mythological traditions know this as an important part of such word mythology. Turkic akyns, their verbal fights, which also consisted of scolding their counterpart in the best possible way, are from the same series. Skaldic poetry knows this. Greek antiquity knows a wonderful genre, the genre of psogos - reproach. If we wish, we can take all this into deep archaism completely, recall twin myths, where there is a cultural hero (an analogue of Oksimiron) and a trickster attacking him, deconstructing him in a blasphemous way. You can play around with this theme here. We can recall poetic fights closer to us Silver Age and early Soviet years, the duel between Mayakovsky and Severyanin, and so on and so forth.
O.O.: Tell me, please. You always refer to Oksimiron. And then he won the battle Glory of the CPSU.
From your point of view, do you agree with how the judges voted?
V.P.: Yes.
O.O.: Slava won.
V.P.: Yes.
OO: I confess to you that I am a big fan of Oksimiron's work. I was at his concert, I drive with his records to work in the car, I listen to him all the time. I love and respect him very much. But when I watch a battle, it was physically hard for me to watch. Although he did not use profanity in this battle. But he usually uses, and at concerts. And here Slava CPSU used it a lot. It's hard for me to watch battles because of this.
How do you perceive it?
V.P.:Quietly, to certain limits, of course.
O.O.: That is, you seem to be tolerant?
V.P.:My reaction is the same as yours.
O.O.: Just now there was such a story when Alexandra Elbakyan, the creator of the famous pirate resource sci- hub, where the most relevant articles are available free of charge in electronic form recent years. And scientists can get them from all over the world. Not all of our viewers simply know that getting a scientific article in general is expensive. Just in order to read it on the site - this is about $ 30 on average, a scientist has to pay to read the article of his colleague. Many scientists believe that this is not normal. And Alexandra Elbakyan, together with her associates, created such a resource. She is from Kazakhstan. Hiding, as far as I know, on the territory of Russia, because he is doing a dangerous thing that she started. And so she took offense at some popularizers and some scientists from Russia for political reasons and closed access to all Russian scientists. This problem, which is now so widely discussed, of accessibility scientific knowledge She hasn't gone anywhere. And indeed there are journals that do not allow it, but there are scientists who say: "Let's make it all accessible."
You, your colleagues, have made as many as three new philological journals that are published in paper form, which is unusual in itself, you have made available to everyone. Magazine " Studioliterarum", the journal "Literature of Two Americas" and "Literary Fact". Here are three new journals. I went in and checked. Indeed, any article is available. And this is amazing. Your attitude to the problem of access to knowledge.
V.P.:We decided on this, of course, not by chance. This is a position. It seems to me that the great evil of the modern scientific infrastructure is the monopolization of subscriptions and citation indexes by several large companies, which dictate the conditions thereby, sharply inflate prices, put their own filters. And in the end... Okay, purely commercial restrictions - this is extremely unpleasant. It can interfere with science. But even that can be dealt with. Although calculations have been made and such a figure has been proposed as working material, that a modern graduate student, if he works with an average intensity, but tries to shoot the articles necessary for himself, must spend about $ 1,000 per week at current rates. Who has these resources?
O.O.: I’ll just note that some of our viewers may think, who doesn’t know, that scientists from Russia need this pirated resource the most ( sci- Hub), but most downloads come from the US, Western Europe, and China. That is, these are the three places where science is best funded. But even there, even from there, scientists prefer to download for free from sci- Hubbecause they don't have the money and their organizations don't have the money to pay the amounts they need to advance science and continue research.
V.P.: Yes exactly.
O.O.: Then let’s get back to your magazines, to the fact that, on the one hand, you started such an archaic action - to publish paper magazines, and on the other hand, such a progressive one - to make the contents of these magazines available to everyone, and not required by subscription. That is, you also entered into a kind of polemic with the policy of world publishers?
V.P.:Yes. This is indeed our position. I must say that paper is archaic, of course, but it is pragmatic archaic. In the long run of culture, paper lives longer. Any blockout - and where is your figure? Earthquake in California - servers crashed. Plus there is the natural evolution of technology. And the previous services may remain unavailable, non-convertible, and so on. Paper still lives longer. There is some demand for paper. He is. And in the end, there is simply a sign, symbolic component: we still remain in the space of Gutenberg culture. It exists next to the digital culture, for God's sake. We can live side by side, we can live peacefully.
And general availability. Yes, it is very important for us. It is important for us not to play simulacra. Knowledge as such is important to us. Articles that serve knowledge as such must reach the consumer. Knowledge as such is a shared value. It cannot be restricted. This is a public space of culture, a public space of human consciousness. We want direct access to the reader. The principle of multicolor is important to us. And a magazine Studia literarum accepts articles on five main European languages: in Russian, in English, in German, in French, in Italian and in Spanish. This diversity is important to us. Not unification. Articles on English are published in English? Perfectly. An article on Spanish studies can be published on Spanish articles. In Russian studies, it is most natural to write in Russian, which does not prevent, of course, if there is such a need, to write in other languages. Let's welcome polyphony.
OO: Thank you very much. Our program included the director of the Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences Vadim Polonsky.
V.P.:Thank you very much. It was extremely pleasant.
