Valentin Semyonovich Nepomniachtchi declined to be interviewed.

Forgive me! - said. - I'm sick.

But is it possible now not to write about Nepomniachtchi, a famous Pushkinist, a generous person? On May 9, Valentin Semyonovich turns 80 years old. It's time to thank him for the beauty and wisdom that he gave to us, his contemporaries.

"Eugene Onegin. Reads and tells Valentin Nepomniachtchi”, “Pushkin. A Thousand Lines About Love”… These and other multi-part television films can be watched and rewatched endlessly. And discover something new every time. Nobody reads Pushkin better than Nepomniachtchi. "Eugene Onegin" - knows by heart!

VALENTINE AND VALENTINA

Nepomniachtchi was born in Leningrad. He said that their family lived on Ligovka. A five-year-old man remembered how his mother read books to him. It was then that he first met Pushkin. And he listened not only to fairy tales, but also to The Bronze Horseman. What could the child understand then in this story? But he understood something. Poems were imprinted in his soul.

And my mother loved to sing. She had a good voice - soprano. She sang romances, arias from operas. She gave her son the right direction in life - towards beauty, harmony.

Then there was the war, the evacuation from Leningrad. The family did not return there: the father's lung was shot, the bullet was never removed. He could not live in the humid Leningrad climate. Settled in Moscow.

They lived poorly. Valentin loved classical music, listened to operas, dramatic performances. All this was broadcast on Soviet radio. And he joked that radio taught him.

But most of all, he is still grateful to his mother. Valentin Semyonovich's book about Pushkin was reprinted several times with the laconic title Poetry and Fate. There is a short dedication on it: "In memory of my mother - Valentina Alekseevna Nikitina."

She is Valentina. He is Valentine. Is it by chance?

A NEW LOOK

Valentin Nepomniachtchi entered the Moscow State University in the department of classical philology. Studied ancient Greek, Latin. I did not think to study Pushkin, although I learned a lot of his poems.

He went to work in a factory newspaper. For some reason, newspapers that were published not in numerous, but in very small circulations were called so.

Coats were sewn at the Vympel factory. Nepomniachtchi walked around the shops, sat at meetings. And in free time Gathered friends and recited poetry. We listened to symphonic music together.

Valentin Semyonovich studied at the theater studio of the Rusakov House of Culture. Ordinary working house of culture.

This studio existed - with a gulkin's nose, - Nepomniachtchi's wife Tatyana Evgenievna told me.

Here they met - for life. Since then, 58 years have passed. And here Valentin Semyonovich met Pushkin for life. In a new way.

"Little Tragedies" was staged in the studio. Is it by chance? Nepomniachtchi was given the role of Don Juan. The young man easily read Pushkin's lines from the stage. And suddenly the director stopped him:

Keep in mind: the hero says one thing, but thinks of another.

For Valentin Semyonovich, this was a revelation: Pushkin has two plans?! And he wondered: what is inside?

"SCREAMING" AND CALLING

An article by Valentin Semyonovich about Pushkin's Little Tragedies was published in the journal Questions of Literature. "Screams" - so cheerfully shortened his name among the people.

Nepomniachtchi wrote the second article about "Monument". Valentin Semenovich said in a book: “... this is one of the most precious memories for me. In the summer of 1965, at the end of the day, I was sitting on the granite parapet of the square on Pushkin Square, not far from the monument ... "

Unexpectedly, “a man with an inconspicuous face, in an orderly tattered jacket, grayish, unshaven” turned to him and asked him to explain the words of the poet: “And he called for mercy on the fallen.”

In Nepomniachtchi's bag was a fresh issue of "Questions of Literature" with an article where he wrote that this line speaks of mercy, tolerance for people, and not about class struggle (then art was evaluated by political categories). Valentin Semyonovich still lived by this article. Began to tell. He spoke passionately. And heard in response:

Exactly ... Excuse me, I felt like that myself ...

As if Pushkin called Nepomniachtchi: “Both I and the readers need to be understood. Explain please!"

“TELL ME WHO YOUR FRIEND…”

Thinking, writing, talking about Pushkin became his air, meaning. He came to schools and talked with high school students. He introduced them to the lively, joyful Pushkin. Appeared in the homes of pioneers. He told, asked the children questions - and, it happened, the guys revealed to him something that an adult who had lost the simplicity of perception could not understand.

Nepomniachtchi was convinced that Pushkin is the solar center of our history (as the philosopher Ilyin claimed). And "Pushkin's world is a cosmos, which in Greek means "order", "arrangement": an arranged whole in which everything is not accidental, everything is not without reason, everything is meaningful and inherently beautiful. “... this is a world of universal connection and unity: an image of a holistic being, that very real Life, which is always unfavorable, but always beautiful, because it is Life, and the very presence of any number of shadows in it still speaks of the presence of light.” “This world is flooded with light and therefore shines itself, therefore its trouble does not climb into the eyes.”

Nepomniachtchi's life changed. He learned French because Pushkin wrote and thought in it. Became a doctor of science. I clearly heard how “in Pushkin, the whole bulk of the universe sounds, exists, happens and is accomplished for the sake of man.” I understood the meaning of life. Came to God.

In general, Nepomniachtchi found a friend - and his life was illuminated by Pushkin's light.

"EUGENE ONEGIN"

Pushkin is the sunny center of our history. And "Eugene Onegin" is the center of this center. Valentin Semyonovich Nepomniachtchi is convinced of this.

"Eugene Onegin" Pushkin wrote seven years. Started at twenty-three, finished at thirty. He experienced a lot during this time and was very attentive to his soul. I saw how two principles struggle in it. One is lofty, corresponding to the purpose of man: to stand with your forehead towards Eternity, to remember the ideal, the truth. The other is pragmatic: snatch more money, pleasures, always achieve what you want, without thinking about the consequences.

Tatyana Larina is the personification of the best part of the poet's soul, Eugene Onegin - the egoistic. They fight among themselves - and at the same time they form a whole. This is how Russia fights. It seems that it will completely disappear, then it will again remember conscience, fidelity, purity.

I think that Russia, with all its experience - catastrophic, tragic, heroic, ridiculous, foolish - shows that it is impossible to build a paradise with such humanity, that a technological, scientific, commercial paradise is impossible, - Nepomniachtchi believes. - That paradise is quite another: not progress, but a person who becomes a person in the full sense of the word.

HINT FROM TCHAIKOVSKY

Once Valentin Semyonovich listened to Tchaikovsky's opera The Maid of Orleans. Pyotr Ilyich wrote it immediately after "Eugene Onegin". And suddenly the musical intonations of the final explanation of Tatyana and Onegin sounded in the performance. It was Joan of Arc who was talking to the man she loved, and he was from the enemy camp.

Nepomniachtchi says:

Tchaikovsky repeated the artistic logic of Pushkin, who finished "Eugene Onegin" - and immediately proceeded to the novel "Roslavl", where there is a Russian woman Polina, partly with the soul of Joan of Arc, who has some kind of mutual attraction with a captured Frenchman, also an enemy . This Frenchman informs Polina about the Moscow fire - with grief, horror, because he understands: Napoleon is dead. And she says:

Our honor has been saved! Never again will Europe dare to fight a people who cut their own hands and burn their capital!

And Tatyana came to the one she dreamed about, whom she saw in a dream, considered as the ideal of a person. He fell at her feet, and she burns like Moscow, but does not yield.

What a wonderful, free life! Russia is one, but there are two Russias in it, which are fighting each other. And Valentin Semyonovich concludes:

It depends on which of them wins whether my Fatherland, my Motherland, goes under water, like the city of Kitezh, like the cruiser Varyag - or whether it helps humanity to remain humanity and be saved.

VILLAGE. RUSSIA.

The series "Eugene Onegin. Valentin Nepomniachtchi reads and tells” was filmed in the village house of Valentin Semeinovich and in the vicinity of the village of Makhra.

In general, Valentin Semyonovich is a man of mild disposition, but here he showed perseverance - says Tatyana Evgenievna. - Even in his youth, when he gave some work to a publishing house, he said: “Nothing can be edited without me! If I put a dash, then let there be a dash!”

Most of the events of "Eugene Onegin" take place in the village. In Latin, the village is called rus. Russia. Russia.

Nepomniachtchi reads, talks against the background of music - Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov ... He is surrounded by an unusually beautiful environment.

And our house is boards, and not the best ones, - Tatyana Evgenievna continues. - But the TV people transformed it. They brought some curtains, bedspreads, rearranged the furniture.

The film was shown on the TV channel "Culture". The environment in it was perceived as very rich. Tatyana Evgenievna was even frightened:

I was afraid that we would be robbed.

MYSTERIES OF BEING

“I need to put my house in order,” these were Pushkin's last words before leaving for another world. But Pushkin is now putting his house in order - a huge, hard-living Russia. Connects people, generations. He speaks to us in great Russian.

"Pushkin's harmony is an ordinariness in which the secrets of being open up." So wrote Nepomniachtchi.

The waters are deep

They flow smoothly.

wise people

They live quietly.

So Pushkin wrote on the bookmark.

Natalia GOLDOVSKAYA

In a review of the two-volume work by Valentin Nepomniachtchi, published in 2001, the well-known Pskov critic Valentin Kurbatov writes: “I almost don't understand how it's done. Two volumes of articles, a thousand pages about one, well-known (so we are sure) hero - A.S. Pushkin. And about "school" things - about "Monument", "Onegin", "Anchar", "Prophet". And I often read and heard the author (for ten years we have been sitting side by side at the Pskov Pushkin Theater Festival, watching the same performances, exchanging books and have already understood the affinity of views). But I read this thousand separately, as if known pages, and I feel a completely non-literary feeling of continuous happiness and confusion.

Indeed, no matter how great Pushkin is, so much has been written about his life and work that it is difficult for even the most talented Pushkinist to surprise a non-professional reader. Valentin Nepomniachtchi surprises and pleases not only readers, but also viewers. Each of his articles, each TV Broadcast becomes an event. But he has been studying Pushkin for more than forty years! How does he manage to re-discover his favorite poet to readers and viewers every time? It seems to me that the point is that Valentin Semenovich himself discovers Pushkin for himself all his life, and only then joyfully and generously shares his discovery with others. Of course, in order to write interestingly or talk about a great poet, one must have talent for writing, diligence, and education. But the main talent of Valentin Nepomniachtchi is the talent of the heart. Archpriest Artemy Vladimirov once accurately noted that after Nepomniachtchi's articles or broadcasts about Pushkin, one gets the impression that Valentin Semenovich had just talked with Alexander Sergeevich in the living room over a cup of coffee. Nepomniachtchi's approach is not superficial familiarity, but a heartfelt reading of Pushkin. Apparently, a very long time ago, the sensitive heart of the researcher felt a spiritual closeness with the great poet. And it was thanks to this feeling, multiplied by an outstanding literary talent, an inquisitive mind, inner freedom and intellectual honesty, that Valentin Nepomniachtchi became one of the brightest Russian writers and thinkers of the second half of the 20th and 21st centuries.

In my opinion, Valentin Semenovich is not just a Pushkinist, but a thinker, a worthy successor to the best traditions of Russian religious philosophy. Not just a Pushkinist, not in the sense of "a poet in Russia is more than a poet" - the meaning of these words is completely incomprehensible to me. Unlike many people of his generation, Nepomniachtchi did not "hide" behind literature in order to express seditious ideas in Aesopian language. No, from early childhood he fell in love with poetry, as well as classical music. He perceives the artistic word as music. (It is not surprising, therefore, that one of the admirers of his talent was Georgy Vasilyevich Sviridov, and Valentin Semenovich, in turn, Sviridov's music is so close that he, not a musicologist, wrote an article about the book "The Musical World of Georgy Sviridov", which Georgy Vasilyevich considered the best what is written about his music). He hears the music of the word. To be convinced of this, it is enough to hear at least once how he reads poetry. Nepomniachtchi's rare poetic ear is recognized even by his most implacable opponents.

But with all his love for art, Valentin Semenovich never treated it as a "bead game". A graduate of the classical department of the Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University, he knows perfectly well true meaning the word "culture". Translated from Latin, it means "cultivation" - the cultivation of the spirit, soul, mind. The work of Valentin Nepomniachtchi is an example of such cultivation. Such an approach does not fit into the framework of academic literary criticism. It is no coincidence that it was in the academic, formally native, environment that Nepomniachtchi was always criticized more than praised. The modesty with which he takes this criticism is astonishing. Yes, they say, I'm rude for academic literary criticism. Is Nepomniachtchi being rude?! Valentin Nepomniachtchi with his taste, genuine aristocracy, amazing intelligence! However, he sincerely accepts criticism. Accepts, but continues to work as the heart tells.

That is why his talent was appreciated by the mentioned Georgy Sviridov, Anna Akhmatova, Alexander Tvardovsky, Korney Chukovsky, Yuri Dombrovsky, Viktor Astafiev, Georgy Tovstonogov and the now living Alexander Solzhenitsyn - artists who created not only with their minds, but also with their hearts. And in their hearts they felt in Valentin Nepomniachtchi a kindred soul - the soul of an artist. How much earlier Valentin Semenovich himself felt a kindred spirit in Pushkin.

Valentin Nepomniachtchi came to God at a mature age, but did not, like many neophytes, disdain secular culture, to which he owes a lot. “Yes, secular culture was born in a fallen world and is subject to its infirmities, but aren’t these the same infirmities that each of us, also born in a fallen world, bears the burden of Adam’s sin? Why mock at what is similar to us? Or are we saints?– he wrote in 1999 in the article “Ministry of the Church in the modern world and the fate of secular culture”. The highest professional, Valentin Semenovich does not tolerate amateurism. Therefore, he did not "retrain" as a theologian, but continues to do what he understands. “Any significant work of Russian literature, Russian culture is an occasion for deep reflection on how the power of God is accomplished in different ways in human weakness”, - Nepomniachtchi wrote in the same article . His articles, books and broadcasts are such reflections. Therefore, they do not leave indifferent people who are interested in the meaning of life.

All the works of Valentin Nepomniachtchi are distinguished by honesty and intellectual fearlessness. He does not "filter" his favorite poet to present him as an exemplary Christian from a young age. On the contrary, it shows how painfully the struggle went on in Pushkin's heart. But the same struggle goes on in the heart of any person, as Dostoevsky beautifully said. Not all artists win this fight, but true art is always striving towards eternity.

Valentin Semenovich will never allow himself to condemn artists in a pharisaic way, who still failed and ended their lives tragically. He knows perfectly well how fragile the soul of a person is, and even more so the soul of an artist. And he knows not only from books, but also from personal experience. According to him, he and his wife became churched largely thanks to their son Pavel. Here is what Valentin Semenovich said about him in an interview given to our website last year: “This is an extraordinary person, an adult child, such people were called blessed in the old days. Defenseless and in many ways helpless in the “low life”, alien to our usual conventions in everyday life and communication, childishly simple-hearted, but spiritually very smart, unusually talented musically; when he wants to, he composes romances, plays the piano, and it's great; when he wants, he writes poems and stories in which the dramatic perception of life by a person “without skin” is combined with stunning humor, of an unexpected, unlike anything character; when he wants, he draws amazingly. Sings on the kliros. His language is incredibly bright and expressive to the point of originality.

After such a frank story, the dedication of the book “Pushkin. Russian picture of the world": "Tanya (wife - L.V.) and to my son Pavel – my dear helpers, inspirers and teachers.” Valentin Nepomniachtchi believes that he is still a purely worldly person. This is true because he lives in the world and is engaged in secular culture. But does not his humble and wise acceptance of his cross speak of the depth of his faith?

Valentin Nepomniachtchi rarely speaks on political topics in print. Not because of the lack of a civic position, but because of the already named dislike for amateurism. But in 2002, one of the laureates literary prize Political scientist Alexander Panarin (now, unfortunately, deceased) became Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and Valentin Semenovich, a member of the jury, spoke at the awards ceremony with a speech about his book “The Revenge of History: Russian Strategic Initiative in the 21st Century”. Everyone who read this word (it was published in the Literary Gazette) was convinced that the famous Pushkinist was interested in politics and carefully read the works of one of the largest political scientists.

On May 9, Valentin Semenovich Nepomniachtchi turns 70 years old. This is easy to believe if you read his biography or list of works. But it is impossible to believe this - Valentin Semenovich still admires the beauty of God's world like a child and conveys his admiration to readers and viewers with Pushkin's ease. I congratulate a wonderful person and a tireless educator on his anniversary, I wish him health, strength and new creative discoveries! Many years, Valentin Semenovich!

Dear brothers and sisters, the outstanding Russian Pushkin literary critic Valentin Semenovich Nepomniachtchi is in need of pure prayer and material assistance.

If you love Pushkin, then you should know this name: Valentin Semenovich Nepomniachtchi.

For several years, V.S. Nepomniachtchi's health problems - depression, insomnia, fatigue - are the result of hard intellectual work, according to doctors. Nepomniachtchi once wrote that a Russian person is by nature inclined to work not for money, but for an idea / “Against the background of Pushkin”, 1 volume /. And Valentin Semenovich himself, as a representative of this type of real Russian person, devoting his whole life to the cause of Russian literature, did not earn and did not save up for a rainy day.

Now his family needs funds for treatment and medicines for Valentin Semenovich. We appeal to all people who cherish Russian culture and its co-workers to help financially the Nepomniachtchi family by donating any amount to their target account. Believe me, this is the case when this sacrifice is necessary not only for his family, but also for all of us who read the books of V.S. Nepomnyashchiy and feed on his lofty literary and anthropological discoveries.

Short reference: Valentin Semyonovich Nepomnyashchiy (born May 9, 1934, Leningrad) is a Russian literary critic.

Writer, Doctor of Philology, Head of the Pushkin Research Sector, Chairman of the Pushkin Commission of the Institute of World Literature Russian Academy Sciences (IMLI RAN). One of the leading domestic researchers of Pushkin's work (the first work on Pushkin was published in 1962), the author of the books "Poetry and Fate" (M., 1983, 1987, 1999) and "Pushkin. The Russian Picture of the World" (M., 1999; awarded State Prize of the Russian Federation).

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Sberbank of Russia card: 67619600 0081426174

Specify: For the treatment of Valentin Semyonovich Nepomniachtchi

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I learned to read spontaneously, imperceptibly (I think at the age of five I suddenly read some kind of sign). I heard Pushkin before I read it, that's for sure. The Bronze Horseman, for example, and many poems by Pushkin and other Russian poets, Longfellow's "Song of Hiawatha" translated by Bunin - I know all this by ear, also from the age of five or six. It's all about my mother, Valentina Alekseevna Nikitina: she very often read to me - by heart - before going to bed Pushkin, Lermontov, Maikov, A.K. Tolstoy, Nekrasov, Apukhtin, Mayakovsky, Yesenin, and who knows what else ... She constantly sang some folk songs, romances by Rimsky-Korsakov and other composers, arias from operettas. All this formed either a tone or a vector of my inner - and later creative - life.

- Who was your mother?

My parents - one might say, intellectuals in the first generation. However, my mother’s father was a nobleman, a traveling engineer (I don’t know much about him, because my mother’s parents separated early), and her mother, my grandmother, had peasant roots (as a child, I spent a lot of time with her relatives in the Tver region, and since then, the village has been as much an integral part of my soul and life as poetry). From a young age, my mother worked at a factory in Leningrad, then as a secretary-typist in various institutions, and in her fifties she entered the institute, received higher education, worked as an engineer. But many hereditary humanists could envy her erudition and taste. In general, she was a person of many talents, in particular, very handy (which was partly transmitted to me). Just in my childhood, New Year trees that had been banned before were allowed - this is how she made toys herself, and delicious ones - I remember, for example, a wonderful paper guitar with strings-threads ...

- Did your father somehow influence you?

Perhaps less. Firstly, he, an impractical enthusiast, was always completely occupied with work, so that his mother was both the main educator, and the master in the house, and "the man in the family." Secondly, when I was half my childhood, I didn’t see my father for almost the entire war. Before the war, he was a court reporter, and in June 1941 he went to the front as a volunteer - in the militia, became a military journalist. He proudly wore the badge of the guards, earned the Order of the Red Star, several medals and a serious wound: he returned with two fragments in his right lung; this brought him to the grave twenty years after the war, at the age of 59. He was a man of rare kindness, extraordinary (as they sometimes say, pathological) honesty, disinterestedness and great courage (he, however, did not really agree with this last one - he said: what a brave man I am, I just have a slow reaction). These features of his are an unforgettable example for me. But in creative terms, the mother played a decisive role.

- How did you survive the war?

Like many. Before the war they lived in Leningrad. When my father went to the front, the maritime department, where my mother served, sent us to evacuate to Dagestan: my grandmother had lived in Makhachkala for many years with her second husband and family. Then the Volga came into consciousness (and then more than once) Volga: we were taken on a steamer. I spent the entire war in Dagestan. I went to school - immediately into the second grade, because I knew how to read and write - I got to know the "blue mountains of the Caucasus" quite well, spent several months in auls. I read a lot. For the rest of his life he fell in love with radio: children's programs, symphony and opera concerts, radio performances. In 1946 they moved to Moscow, where their father got a job. In 1952 he graduated from high school and enrolled in philology at Moscow State University.

- Was it a conscious choice?

In a general sense, of course. True, from adolescence he dreamed of music - to become, for example, a symphony conductor. But I was not taught music, and there was no opportunity. And the love for poetry, for the Russian word, has long been. So I applied to the philological faculty, to the Slavic (in company with a classmate) department. But that year there was a shortage in the classical department - and without asking, they enrolled me there. I was upset and outraged! Why do I need these ancient languages? It was only later that I realized what great luck I had been given and why classical subjects - ancient languages ​​and literature - were at one time one of the foundations of Russian humanitarian education. Together with my classmates, I read Anacreon, Catullus, Caesar, and most importantly, Homer in the original, and I cannot convey what a great happiness it is, what a school of intellect, taste, culture, how the study of ancient Greek and Latin disciplines the mind and teaches you to think conceptually.

There was, however, a second "university", and it gave me no less, if not more, than Moscow State University, although my "study" there lasted only about three years. Here, in the second half of the 50s, I acquired a huge, by my standards, creative and human experience. It was a theater studio - the first large amateur studio in Moscow in many years, in Sokolniki (Rusakov Club). It was organized by a last-year student of the directing department of GITIS, now deceased, Boris Skomorovsky. A competition was held: out of more than three thousand people, more than 30 were selected. Boris's dream was to create a new theatre. From this, I will say at once, nothing came of it; but we worked a lot and with rapture: stage speech, acting, sketches, excerpts, even puppet theater ... In excerpts, I played Hamlet, and Richard III, and Gorky Ryumin ("Summer Residents"), something else and more - and in the end I realized that the actor from me, if it turns out, then ... so-so. But on the other hand, while studying the art of the theater, I began to better understand and human psychology, and a literary text, it is better to navigate in life empiricism and metaphysics, in the sphere of values, in a word, I learned a lot in the general humanitarian and human terms in general. Finally, in the studio I found my dearest friends and... wife Tatyana, a woman of unique charm, talent, intelligence, humor, a bright personality, a true friend and like-minded person.

My second (after childhood) serious (now they would say "fateful") meeting with Pushkin also took place in the studio. Our leader, preparing for the exam in the director's specialty, chose the last scene of Pushkin's "The Stone Guest". Dona Anna was played by Nelli Shevchenko, now a wonderful TV director (now, when we are talking, she is editing my TV cycle "Pushkin. A Thousand Lines About Love", filmed in the spring of 2002). The role of the Statue of the Commander went to Nikolai Afonin, the current rector of the theater school. Shchepkin, and I played Don Guan. It was then, while working on this little performance, on the role, in pronouncing Pushkin's text, something began to open up in Pushkin that made me a Pushkinist in the future. Then, I think, some foundations of my future research methodology began to be determined, and among them - reading Pushkin aloud. Such reading, including public reading, is one of my indispensable research "tools": after all, poetry is by nature a sounding thing, especially Pushkin's poetry. His word, read only with the eyes, devoid of its sound in context, conceals from us huge layers of its meaning. Once, having listened to my reading of poetry at an evening arranged by me at the faculty, the director of the then Club of Moscow State University asked me: "Young man, have you tried ... to write?" That's something I didn't expect at the time! Whether it was not long before I played in "The Stone Guest" and, carried away by Pushkin's "Little Tragedies", read and re-read them - I don't remember; but, one way or another, after some time I wrote something about "Little Tragedies" and took it, on the advice of that director, to the then WTO (All-Russian Theater Society). Just at this time, having graduated from Moscow State University, having received a diploma of "teacher of Greek and Latin, teacher of Russian language and literature in high school", began working at the garment factory No. 3 (now it is the Vympel association on Sushchevskaya Street) - he made factory circulation there.

- Did you intend to study antiquity?

What kind of antiquity is there ... I was not going to become a teacher, I did not have this craving - and what was I to do with ancient languages and literature? All this remained for me an invaluable cultural baggage, but it never occurred to me to devote myself to ancient philology, and I was not a person of a "scientific" warehouse. Here is my classmate, Academician Mikhail Gasparov - even then he behaved and looked like a real scientist. And I was, in general, a lazybones, ran to the conservatory, studied for some time in a vocal circle, sang in the choir of Moscow students, became interested in my theater studio ... And when my father got me a job in a factory circulation, I enthusiastically set to newspaper work : made reports from the workshops, wrote notes for the workers and foremen, processed the transcripts of all meetings and conferences, etc. Since then I have been a professional editor. I love this work very much, or rather, the art that I learned for real, working later in the Literary Gazette, and then, for many years, in the journal Questions of Literature.

- From the factory newspaper you moved to the "Literary"?

It’s not that he moved, but my university friend, now a well-known critic Stanislav Rassadin, dragged me there. But this was possible thanks to the fact that I joined the party while still at the factory.

- By conviction?

Well, how can I say... I was an ordinary Soviet young man with the usual, in general, Soviet ideology - in this case, the sixties, so to speak, spill. Work in the newspaper was considered work "on the ideological front", and I was simply forced to join the party - however, without any resistance on my part; After all, then, after the 20th Congress, there was an opinion among the intelligentsia that "decent people should go to the party" - in order to improve it, "corrupted" by Stalin.

- From this we can conclude that your parents were unbelievers?

Certainly. Soviet people... True, my mother was a believing girl until she was twelve years old. But when in the 1920s a wave of "fight against religious prejudice" began - propaganda, Komsomol enthusiasm, the destruction of churches - something in it shook. Once, in the village, she began to pray on her knees in front of the icon, asking the Lord to give her a sign that He still exists. There was no sign, the girl stood up and dusted off her knees ... forever. Many, many years later, when I was already a believer, I had very difficult conversations with her. She was a convinced person, very intelligent, well-read, able to argue and argue, but I was an inexperienced neophyte. But something inside her still went on by itself - and at the very end of her life (mother died before she reached the age of eighty, vigorous and with a clear mind), she, as the sisters told me, once put on a cross herself ... That before my father, then, as far as I know, he was never concerned with such a topic at all, and died long before my conversion. But, remembering his kindness, honesty, disinterestedness, I see a soul that is truly "by nature a Christian."

- Did your Pushkin studies begin with Literaturnaya Gazeta?

In general, yes. I was the editor of the Department of Russian Literature, articles by great writers and critics came through me, it was a great professional school. Pushkin at that time had already tied me tightly. And just approaching 1962, 125 years since the death of the poet. So I remembered that work about "little tragedies" - and decided to take up the topic again, write an article. Wrote. And the journal "Questions of Literature" published it immediately, in the 2nd issue for 1962. Soon I learned from Vladimir Lakshin that A.T. liked the work. Tvardovsky. It was an event for me. The second article, in the same journal, on Pushkin's modernity today (it was titled with Stanislavsky's words: "Today, here, now!"), was also a success; after her, a remarkable figure in our culture, the late Alexander Krein, the creator of the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, on Prechistenka, then st. Kropotkin, invited me to his museum, which for many years became one of the most brilliant cultural centers capital, but for me - a school public speaking Pushkinist. But the real, I will not be modest, glory was brought to me by the third article, "Twenty Lines", with the subtitle "Pushkin in last years life and the poem "I erected a monument to myself not made by hands." The article was young, romantic, cocky, naive, and not without stupidity, but the grain of my method arose in it: through one work, almost all of Pushkin is "seen" - his life, the great context of his work.

Older people remember that at that time a literary article could become a bestseller. That's what happened here. First, it had a very unusual approach to Pushkin - as a completely living phenomenon (and not just the subject of scientific "knowledge"). Secondly, it was in the spirit of the time, sixties liberalism with its Aesopian language and half-hidden allusions (when, for example, they scolded the "Nikolaev regime", but in fact meant Soviet censorship and the regional committee of the CPSU). Thirdly, for the first time in Soviet Pushkin studies, a religious theme was heard in it. How it happened, I still don’t understand: I considered myself an unbeliever! Apparently, I simply followed Pushkin's "material" obediently, and it was he who led me to this topic completely apart from my intentions. This topic was stated rather illiterately: in that first, magazine ("Questions of Literature", 1965, No. 4) version, it was said, for example, that the hero of the famous poem "A poor knight lived in the world" believes in "something greater than God" (the last word , naturally, was written then with a small letter). For me then it was self-evident that the word "God" meant a certain mythologeme, while intuition suggested that there was something higher that truly required faith. That is, only the name did not suit me... One way or another, the theme of faith, the theme of "the command of God" involuntarily sounded to me in a way that it had not sounded to others before, and people noticed it. After all, there were not only stupid things there. Therefore, I recently included this early article, in an abridged form, in a two-volume edition of my selected works (M., "Life and Thought" - JSC "Moscow Textbooks", 2001).

The article ended with a long quote from Akhmatov's "Words about Pushkin", 1962. I soon learned that Anna Andreevna had read the article and was praising it. Through the poet Natalya Gorbanevskaya, with whom we studied at Moscow State University and were friends, I was invited by Akhmatova to visit: "She will have an hour and a half of time," Natasha said. I remember that this clarification scratched me: just something? here's another! And at the same time, what am I going to tell her? I am Akhmatova!? In a word, pride and cowardice prevented me from meeting this great woman... I can't forgive myself.

- And how did the Pushkinists treat your works?

Without any excitement. My direction and my methods of research - all this was decidedly alien to them. After all, Soviet Pushkin studies, like all our philological science (and not only philological), were purely positivist: everything that went beyond factology, in general, the materialistic approach, concerned questions of the soul and spirit, human values, religious issues, albeit in the broadest sense, philosophical and moral sense - was rejected from the threshold, proclaimed unscientific, subjectivist, etc. The outstanding Pushkinist and wonderful woman Tatyana Grigorievna Tsyavlovskaya once said: "I really like the way you write, but I don't like what you write at all." And another patriarch of Pushkin studies D.D. Blagoy - he simply smashed my article about the "Monument" on the pages of the journal "Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences." In his article, as I saw as I grew up, there were some moments that were not useful for a young researcher, but they were buried under a thick layer of Soviet materialistic ideological ideology. In previous years, such criticism could have radically ruined the life and fate of the criticized, but the years were already in the sixties, and in 1966 I gave a detailed and sharp answer in Voprosy Literature (No. 7) to my venerable opponent; in essence, it was an attack on the methodology and manner of all Bolshevik literary criticism. This caused a noise, perhaps, no less than that article of mine; I received an enthusiastic letter from Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky, with whom I became close as a result and who later played a significant role in my life.

You are talking about Soviet scientists, albeit of a different scale. But Sergei Georgievich Bocharov is a believer, and he also criticizes your work.

And when was it that all believers walked in one crowd, one road "from point A to point B" and agreed on everything? How many disputes were there in the Church in which they participated, with different parties and saints! - let us recall at least the confrontation between the Josephites and the Trans-Volga elders. What can we say about worldly people who are engaged in worldly art and science ... Sergey Bocharov is a deep, subtle scientist, philologist-thinker, philologist-artist; but we have different angles of view, different dominants: our "silver" age is closer to his views, to mine - to the "golden", his main subject is beauty, and mine is truth; or better so: his subject is the truth of beauty, and mine is the beauty of truth. I am - how should I put it - a little simpler and coarser in my aspirations, and this does not suit him. However, this conflict of ours (we are personally friends with him) is presented in its entirety in the collection "Literary Studies as a Problem", published by IMLI RAS in 2001 - there is also his harsh criticism of me, reprinted from his book "Plots Russian Literature "(M. 1999), and my no less harsh answer (in abbreviated form -" New world", 2000, № 10).

- You say Bocharov is a scientist. Do you consider yourself a scientist?

How can I say... I am a professional philologist, and I solve all my research tasks, including those of the most philosophical order, primarily on the path of philological analysis of texts. Even the most irreconcilable adversaries do not refuse me the ability to do this. But the definition of "scientist" I do not really relate to myself. Not because I was an ignoramus, but because this definition does not fully convey the specifics of my approach and method. I am rather a philologist-philosopher, a philologist-writer. This does not mean that I fantasize like a writer on philological grounds (this is precisely what positivist scientists quite often do). After all, a real writer is a researcher of life and the human soul. Here I am doing the same, but I am not dealing with fictional characters, destinies, events, phenomena, but with the real-life Pushkin - a phenomenon, text, personality, fate. In this sense, I am certainly not an academic scientist. When I started studying Pushkin, I had almost no idea about Russian religious religious philosophy at the turn of the 20th century (I knew only Gershenzon, with whom, by the way, I argued in the article about "Monument"). And so many years have passed, I finally got acquainted with the works of such thinkers as Father Sergius Bulgakov, S.L. Frank, I.A. Ilyin - and was surprised to find that, not knowing them, he essentially continued their work, sometimes to the point of complete coincidence in approaches and ideas ...

- Did you become a doctor of sciences?

I became because it was required - not even in my personal interests, but - in the work, in the position in which I found myself. After working for thirty years in the journal "Questions of Literature", I was invited to IMLI: the leadership of the institute had an idea to revive the Pushkin sector, which was not in IMLI for several years after the death of D.D. Good, - so I had to become something of a successor (in position) to my implacable critic. It was in 1988, they started with the fact that they established the Pushkin Commission of the IMLI - an informal association, which included both employees of the institute and specialists "from outside". I became the chairman of this commission, which to this day works regularly, becoming, in its own way, a permanent Pushkin conference in Moscow. And ten years later, the Pushkin sector was recreated, and I became its head. It was then that I was "pressed": defend yourself! In fact, it's nonsense: an academic institute, and the head of the sector is not even a candidate of science. If I were required to write a plump dissertation in an appropriate scientific style, I don’t know how it would end: even earlier, when they offered to defend my Ph.D., I refused with horror. But in my current situation - many years of experience, many publications, two big books, serious (despite all the difficulties) scale of reputation, etc. - it turned out that it was possible to defend "on the report" in 2 printed sheets (now this liberties, defense on the report, and even bypassing the candidate's degree, seems to have been canceled). But even with the report it was not easy: the then chairman of the dissertation council rejected half of what I wrote, and I had to redo it (and one of my most important printed works came out of the rejected one). One way or another, at the very end of the jubilee Pushkin 1999, my scientific status changed.

Hard to say. By the way, the voting at the defense was not perfect... For all that, as far as I know, I am now included in the All-Russian Pushkin Commission - the "highest authority" of academic Pushkin studies; a few years ago this would not have been possible. No, I am not offended by my colleagues, very many treat my work with interest, respect, understanding (although, of course, not without disputes and criticism), but so that I meet in a professional environment the same understanding and recognition as Akhmatova or Chukovsky, Tvardovsky or Tovstonogov, Dombrovsky or Astafiev, Sviridov or Solzhenitsyn - this is rare. And thank God: it would be much worse if "adepts" and "followers" appeared. After all, my main theme is the spiritual and human content of Pushkin's work, his inner path, the truth of which concerns any of us - all this is such a subtle, such a delicate and, in a certain sense, dangerous topic, it is so easy to stumble, fall in one direction or another from that truly a blade on which you have to walk (and this happened to me, and it happens) ... It is precisely personal professional and spiritual path, and not someone else's, it's impossible to be a "follower" here ...

- You named several great names. Did you know all these people?

With Anna Andreevna - no (through her own fault, as already mentioned). I only spoke to Tvardovsky on the phone. But with Yuri Osipovich Dombrovsky, we were really friends. He was an amazing writer and an amazing, very large and powerful personality. I have a rather long essay about him ("New World", 1991, No. 5). In 1990, Viktor Petrovich Astafyev himself, as they say, came to me, having read the article “We Suppose to Live” in the Literary Gazette in the fall of that year with the subtitle “Pushkin. Russia. “Highest Values.” What wonderful, wise, tragic letters I I didn't get to meet him, Viktor Petrovich left... But fate brought me personally to Georgy Vasilievich Sviridov: he responded to my TV shows about Pushkin, read some of my stuff, sometimes called, congratulated me on the holidays. invited me to write about the book "The Musical World of Georgy Sviridov", I - not a musicologist and not a master of the genre of reviews - miraculously wrote an article in one night, this is probably because his music is very close and intelligible to me. I am proud of that that he called this short article the best that has been written about his music (this is in the just published book of his notes "Music as Destiny", M. 2002). His very existence in our culture, in Russia, in the world supported, instilled hope and confidence feeling of loneliness. Do you remember Tolstoy's words about Dostoevsky's death: "It was as if some support had bounced off me"? These words came to my mind when Sviridov died, and I was not the only one who could think so...

And I met Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn just a few years ago. True, long before that I already knew that he was interested in my work, following it and supporting me. Now I sometimes see him and never tire of being amazed at the scale of his personality, the spiritual power of this extraordinary person, a real Russian hero. And the fact that it is now actually "written off" by our "progressive", our liberal "public opinion" only indicates that it is formed mainly by pygmies.

- It was these artists, and not philologists, who were your teachers?

My teachers are my mother ancient literature and classical philology, symphonic music, Russian village, Volga; and more - Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin and some other remarkable people of Russian culture. In a word, my teacher is the Russian tradition, the head and banner of which is Pushkin, my main guide.

- Was it the Russian tradition that brought you into the bosom of the Church?

It is possible to say so. In everyday reality, there was an interweaving of many threads of life. At this time, I wrote my first serious, as I think, work: a book about Pushkin's fairy tales. It started almost by accident; and in the process of writing, I now and then voluntarily or involuntarily ran into religious themes, something came out from under the pen that I had not thought about before. More and more people appeared around who were in more or less close relations with the Church: in the late 60s, "leaving" for religion was one of the forms of opposition to the regime and ideology of Bolshevism. Just at that time, it happened that I, having never been a dissident (but having friends and acquaintances among dissidents), organized a collective letter about the case of A. Ginzburg and Yu. trial for compiling a "white book" about the famous trial of Sinyavsky and Daniel. Unlike dissident appeals and letters, this was not noisy, not loud, but a very calm letter, based solely on data Soviet press, from which it followed by itself that lawlessness was being created. The letter was signed by 25 people, among them Paustovsky, Kaverin, the outstanding pianist Maria Yudina, V. Maksimov, V. Voinovich and others. It was this tolerant letter that caused the greatest fury "at the top". I was immediately expelled from the party, demoted in position and salary in the magazine (thank you - they didn’t kick me out, but they could), for a while they banned me from publishing, refused to publish a book about fairy tales. With all this, the exception was a great happiness: I received freedom, threw off a stone from my neck, which was then already a party card for me. This, too, in some serious way moved me on the path to faith. Evgeny Schiffers, a theater director from Leningrad, one of the brightest people I have ever met, played a role here. He tirelessly "converted" my wife and me, but we resisted: they say that you are dragging us by the hair, we must come to this ourselves! To which he yelled: "I'm pulling you out from under the train, and you are resisting!" But, perhaps, our son Pavel played a decisive role in our churching. This is an extraordinary person, an adult child, such people were called blessed in the old days. Defenseless and in many ways helpless in the "low life", alien to our usual conventions in everyday life and communication, childishly simple-hearted, but spiritually very smart, unusually talented musically: when he wants, he composes romances, plays the piano, and is excellent; when he wants, he writes poems and stories in which the dramatic perception of life by a person "without skin" is combined with stunning humor of an unexpected, unlike anything character; when he wants, he draws amazingly. Sings on the kliros. His language is incredibly bright and expressive to the point of originality. Once with him, still very young, we were in the Novodevichy Convent, where we walked as in a "museum" place. At that time, a service was going on in the temple, and he wanted to go in, and he liked it there. In general, to tell for a long time, but in the end, thanks, perhaps, to him, his features, we ended up in the Church.

- Did you and your wife go to church at the same time?

Yes, we are with her, despite the difference in characters, for a long time one.

- Is she a philologist too?

No, Tanya is an actress. For some time she studied at the Shchepkinsky school, then she graduated from the Shchukin school. Those who once saw her in a small, short-lived, but traveled all over the country theater-buffoon "Skomorokh" remember this to this day. In the 1970s, the Allied fame was brought to her by the TV show ABVGDeyka, where there were four clowns: Senya the clown (S. Farada), Sanya the clown (A. Filippenko), Vladimir Ivanovich the clown (the late V. Tochilin) ​​and Tanya the clown. It was played by children in the courtyards of the entire Union. Tanya was recognized everywhere, at night we were given free rides by cars and empty trolleybuses. Many viewers remember her from a very funny episode of A. Mitta's film "Shine, shine, my star." This is an actress of great tragicomic gift. But she did not make a career, devoting herself to her son. She is my main interlocutor, adviser and critic, she has the most precise taste. I simply steal many sayings and thoughts from her.

- Valentin Semenovich, after baptism, were there any problems with churching, with the search for a confessor?

At first we "grazed" at the father of Dmitry Dudko. And when he was run over by a car and his legs were broken, he sent us to Father Alexander Menu. He was an unusual, bright, pure, fascinating interlocutor. We went to him to confess and take communion, but still something was missing in our hearts: there was a feeling of "our brother" - an intellectual ... When the surveillance of him intensified, he himself ordered us not to go to him: I think he was worried about Pavel. We remember him warmly, pray for the repose, commemorate him in the church. Some time passed, and God brought us together with one hieromonk, a wonderful, deep, perspicacious man, a real prayer book. We consider him a spiritual father, although we rarely see each other: he is now an archimandrite, a vicar in a distant monastery.

- Did the circle of friends change in the process of churching?

Yes, the circle was reduced, but not only for religious reasons, life itself went on like that. With the liberals, mutual alienation has been going on for a long time and steadily. In addition, I don’t have this amazing “talent of friendship” that Alexander Sergeevich possessed, I don’t have enough for constant communication: institute and creative work, household chores, maybe age ... I am a slow person, and there is no time left . "In the light" is rarely. For all that, I love my old friends very much. There are no writers in a close circle, although he is familiar with many.

- Are you on the jury for the Alexander Solzhenitsyn Prize?

Yes, for several years now.

- As a member of the jury, you cannot become a laureate of this award?

No. Much to our regret. By the way, just at the first meeting of the jury in 1998, we thought for a long time, discussed possible candidates - and suddenly Alexander Isaevich slammed his hand on the table: “Oh, V.S., we invited you to the jury too early: we wouldn’t suffer today!” So I can consider myself a "winner of the zero cycle".

- How do you choose the winner?

You know, according to the Charter of the Prize, the awarding process is closed. The only thing I can say is that everyone makes their own proposals, substantiates them; then all this is thought out and discussed - and in the end, a majority of votes gathers around some candidate. Difficulties, of course, happen, but I have no right to publish the details.

Valentin Semenovich, Rasputin and Nosov could decorate any literature, but they were known back in Soviet time. Are there any worthy candidates among younger writers?

Unfortunately, the nature and level of modern literature greatly complicates the task of the jury. Therefore, the Charter, at the initiative of the founder of the award, was recently expanded: now it is considered not only literary works, but also significant publishing and museum projects, achievements of philosophical and social thought - for example, among the laureates past year there was, as you know, a philosopher, historian, political scientist, culturologist Alexander Panarin; the award ceremony was opened by my speech about his book "The Revenge of History: Russian Strategic Initiative in the 21st Century", which was later published in Literaturnaya Gazeta.

When they talk about the high achievements of Russian literature of the Soviet period, they most often mean villagers. Can you expand this list?

Villagers are, of course, a huge phenomenon in Russian literature of the 20th century, its historical role will still be comprehended - against the backdrop of the tragic history of the Russian peasantry in this century, the village - this foundation of everything great that was in our culture ... It’s scary to think about this topic now - for where will this story go, today in its own way no less tragic than in the era of the "great turning point" and the extermination of the peasantry "as a class" by the Bolsheviks? I will never forget the recent phrase of my neighbor in the village where I have been living for many years: "We are the last peasants." The last peasants - where? In Russia! This is terrible to repeat. It is in this context that we must now evaluate the phenomenon of village literature... But, if we return to the question, it was not alone in Soviet times. With all the nightmares and hardships of these seventy years, Russia has managed to continue the great traditions of its culture. Not to mention peaks like " Quiet Don"or" Vasily Terkin "- how much deep and unique was created by Platonov, Bulgakov, Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Green, Bazhov, Shergin, Zoshchenko, Evgeny Schwartz, Mayakovsky, Yesenin, Klyuev ... yes, you can list for a long time ... And Gaidar with his "Blue Cup" (and not only)? Yes, it's creepy that such an idyllic work was written in 1937 (remember the final phrase: "And life, comrades, was quite good"?) But real poetry is a strange thing, it is measured by its standards, and no matter what time it speaks of, no matter when it was created, it is not tied to time.Of course, the writers I have named come from the tradition of the 19th century, but there are also those whose roots are already in the 20th century: this is Rozov, and Volodin, and Slutsky, Iskander, Rubtsov, Chukhontsev, Bitov, Shukshin, Kazakov, Vampilov - a real Russian classic of the 20th century - like Belov's "The Usual Business", V. Rasputin or F. Abramov. No, the list is endless. what an amazing children's literature - smart, funny, humane! Russian song is truly a huge cultural phenomenon! I do not deny that there may be a different attitude to almost every one of those names that I just remembered and named, but it is impossible to deny that all this is great literature, which with amazing dignity in the most difficult conditions "pulled", continued the great tradition of Russian classics, remaining - I have repeated this and will repeat - the most, perhaps, humane of the national literatures of the past century. And even now, in the midst of the dreary landscape of modern literature, no, no, yes, and there is something encouraging. For example, Alexei Varlamov's story "The Birth" took me by the heart, I even read it all aloud to Tatyana. I consider the "idyll novel" by Alexander Chudakov (one of our greatest philologists) "Darkness Falls on the Old Steps" to be an outstanding phenomenon of modern prose. A wonderful work that combines a memoir, a "family chronicle", a novel, a "physiological essay", and an autobiography, and all together - a picture of how the Russian tradition (in the broad national, cultural and social sense) existed and survived under the Bolshevik regime.

Valentin Semenovich, not only modern literature is going through a crisis. In the cinema, in the theater, in painting, in music, things are no better.

Things are so not only here, but in the whole world culture. Culture - and it is always based on ideals - is crowded out and driven out by a civilization that is always based on interests. The omnipotence of the market is such that sometimes the thought comes: hasn't art exhausted its possibilities? is it capable of producing masterpieces? didn't it end? As far as I know, the composer Vladimir Martynov claims something similar; Let's remember, by the way, Hermann Hesse's "The Glass Bead Game"... If so, it becomes uncomfortable. If so, it means that the person essentially refused the gift of creativity granted to him by God. I clarify: not from creativity in general, but from creative work on oneself (this is the essence of culture), - he refused for the sake of satiety, comfort and other conveniences in the further consumption of the world given to him by God. But this is death, the end of humanity. We all know that the end of history will come sooner or later, and not because of this we feel uncomfortable, but ... because this end can be shameful for humanity. Shameful because of humanity's loss of its dignity. I would like to hope that it will not come to this, that at least a small herd will be preserved - including in the field of secular culture. Here the main hope for Russia. I think that our mental structure, our spiritual genotype, our, if you like, cultural "atavisms" will prove to be sufficiently resistant to resist spiritual Americanization, this temptation of a joint purposeful run to the abyss. Let us recall the era of Peter the Great: everyone shaved off their beards, put on camisoles, smoked tobacco, spoke not in Russian, but in a foreign language. It seemed that Russia was over, a new nation was emerging, dynamic, pragmatic, "civilized": it was no longer Russia with its lofty - perhaps too lofty, but precisely because of this, life-giving ideals. It seemed ... but just at that moment Pushkin appeared, in whose activity Russia overcame everything destructive that was in the "Peter's revolution" (by the way, this is Pushkin's expression), and put at its service everything that was creative in it. Our epoch, as I have said more than once, is parodic, tragically similar to that of Peter the Great. And I want to believe that Russia will be able to respond to this challenge, as it did two hundred years ago. Main collision modern world- not at all in the confrontation of states, ethnic groups, social groups, religions, but in the global, total confrontation between self-interest and conscience; there has never been such a collision in human history. To preserve our spiritual system, our national, human dignity, our ideals - that is, to revive and continue the Russian tradition, Russian culture - means to survive and win.

28 / 01 / 2003

Valentin Semenovich Nepomnyashchiy - Doctor of Philology, famous Pushkinist, head of the sector and chairman of the Pushkin Commission of the Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IMLI), laureate of the State Prize in the field of literature and art.