Almost every month we learn about the creation of a new writers' union. The Russian Union of Writers recently appeared. Send a specified amount and receive a membership card for this public organization. If things go on like this, then, lo and behold, in ten years almost the entire adult population of our vast Motherland will be members of the writers’ unions. And what? If you have learned to write a note in a newspaper, a protocol, an anonymous letter, a poem for the birthday of your wife or husband’s second cousin, etc. - that means a writer. And if you have a membership card in your pocket, then you are truly a writer!
It’s not for nothing that such an anecdote appeared. Reporting meeting of the Union of Writers of the Tula Province after the revolution. The speaker says proudly: “Before the revolution, there was only one writer in our province. After the revolution there are already a thousand of them.” Question from the audience: “Who was there before the revolution?” Speaker - quieter: “ Lev Tolstoy».
They say on the sites Proza.ru And Poems.ru already three million writers and poets. What is this? “Mass race” into literature? And what’s typical is that all the “race participants” are trying to take literary magazines by storm. Some editors of “leading” literary magazines have already pretended that they have not yet purchased computers and, therefore, do not accept texts from authors by e-mail; other editors are constantly “losing” “masterpieces” sent by regular mail. However, new literary geniuses are trying and trying. Well, how can I not remember I. Ilfa And E. Petrova: “Don’t hit your bald head on the parquet.”
The current state of affairs is saved by “new technologies.” Yes, yes, the Internet. I opened the website, threw out the slogan “Literary Magazine” and - “no nails.” Does what is posted there have anything to do with literature? - the question is rhetorical. You see the “Literary” sign, which means that everything below this sign is literature. But the quality of the published “product” is another matter.
If the text is completely unreadable, the author of this opus can be safely presented as a prominent representative of conceptualism, or as an academician of the Zaumi Academy, or as a talented follower of post-conceptualism, or as a participant in the “zero style” poetic movement, or as an active supporter of the “neo-primitive”, or as a theoretician -grotesque poetry. And then there is metarealism, continualism, presentalism, polystylistics, poetry of the disappearing “I”. Yes, what’s not there! If the writing does not fit into this framework, then you can come up with a new “ism” and loudly declare that this is the “latest fashion” in literature today. And it does pass. There, Sergei Sutulov-Katerinich invented a new term “poellada” - and everyone is happy: both the authors of poems and the authors of ballads. Some authors of ballads are already beginning to think that they are also authors of poems. Of course, the author of the invention himself is apparently pleased most of all.
Or here's another one. The study of poetry has been introduced into some school curricula. Yuri Kuznetsov. The recommendations for studying the work of Yu. Kuznetsov in the school curriculum say: “...how to preserve our identity, our worldview, our view of good and evil, truth and lies, preserve our attitude to life, our conscience, our shame? How not to disappear from the face of the earth, not to dissolve in other nations? We find the answer in many of the poet’s poems.” Schoolchildren will not find answers to these questions in the poems of Yu. Kuznetsov during the day with fire. Victor Barakov in his article “Notes in the Margins” he writes: “Critics approached the last poems of Yuri Kuznetsov in most cases traditionally, with their own standards, without understanding the true nature of the symbol, without discerning its spiritual basis.” But let me! Even if literary critics “don’t understand” and “don’t see it,” then how will schoolchildren understand and see it. What is this? Sabotage disguised as stupidity?
The Unified State Exam in schools is not only annoying, but infuriating. They say that in five years, when checking dictations, they will reduce the grade for missing emoticons. High school students do not even read what is assigned to them according to the program. They don’t even read “War and Peace,” but tell each other the following joke:
How I hate “War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy! Four volumes! You can be stunned!
What, have you read?
Kirill Ankudinov in his article “Inside After” he writes: “There are situations when there is too much information (including artistic information), but the need for it is small”. K. Ankudinov does not specify the quality of fiction, the need for which is small. He further writes: “There has been an information flood.” Apparently, K. Ankudinov choked in this flood - and blurted out something wrong. The need for high quality literature has always been great. And a hundred years ago they read M.Yu. Lermontov, A.N. Tolstoy and other classics, and they are still read today. They do not read or honor graphomania, which outwardly has signs of poetry or prose. There were 10 thousand writers in the USSR Writers' Union. Which of them are being read today? Well, about a hundred or two prose writers and the same number of poets. Where are the other 9 thousand 600 “engineers of human souls”? Aww! - Can not hear. Apparently, the “diplomas” of these “engineers” were fake. It’s even funny to talk about this.
By the way, about humor. With what interest did we once read the last page of the Literary Gazette or watch the TV show Around Laughter, hosted by Alexander Ivanov. Today, neither in “LG” nor on TV there is a trace of worthwhile humor. But there is so much humor in our literary critics today. For example, the same K. Ankudinov writes in the above-mentioned article that “the literary process simultaneously exists and does not exist” or “poetry has acquired the status of invisible.” Like this? His further explanations of these theses are chaotic and contradictory.
The desire to throw almost all Soviet literature overboard of the “Literary Ship of New Russia” led to the fact that the best traditions of Russian classical literature were left behind. And the holds and decks of the new “Literary Ship” are filled with ugliness, twists, anomalies and marginality. And who will clear these Augean stables - only God knows.
Almost all modern writers have already forgotten what a “beautiful person” is in Russian literature. And if the theme of the “little man” appears today, then the authors no longer treat it as “carefully” as our classics did.
Detective stories already dazzle your eyes when you enter bookstores or approach the Rospechat kiosks. It would seem, why would a killer kill a killer's killer, but stop Dontsov- this is already from the realm of fantasy. If the idea of Harry Potter had come to her mind, it’s scary to imagine how many books would have appeared on the shelves. It’s not for nothing that someone came up with the following phrase: “Daria Dontsova’s attempt to paint a ballpoint pen ended with another two-volume book.”
You read new books and think: a generation of proofreaders has grown up who do not know Russian. In a word, wherever you look there is yin, wherever you look there is yang.
We made it! American Word checks Russian spelling.
And the speech of our major officials: “And in general, I have a large vocabulary... this... what’s his name...”.
When readers accuse modern writers of the low quality of their texts and exclaim “Where is the new Pushkin!”, some literary critics mumble something about the presumption of innocence. To paraphrase Irina And Leonid Tyukhtyaev, the dialogue between reader and writer today looks something like this:
I'm so tired of you! It would be better if you weren't here.
“And there is no one better than us,” the writer answers.
You can, of course, not analyze modern literature. In other words, as the English writer said Helen Fielding: “I realized that the secret to losing weight is not to weigh yourself.”
Enough! I'm tired of writing about all this. How's it going? Igor Guberman? “Sometimes you wake up like a bird, a winged spring on edge, and you want to live and work, but by breakfast it goes away.”
I am sure that not everyone likes what I write about and how. Someone has already given me the name “Literary Budyonny,” but you must agree that in literature it is better to have such a name than not to have any.
Zorkin Boris Ivanovich (literary pseudonym Valery Rumyantsev) born in 1951 in the Orenburg region in the family of a judge. He graduated from high school with a gold medal. He studied at the Kuibyshev Aviation Institute, at the Faculty of Law of North Ossetian State University. After graduating from the philological faculty of the Voronezh State Pedagogical Institute, he worked for three years as a teacher and head teacher in one of the schools of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. After graduating from the Higher Courses of the KGB of the USSR, he served in the state security agencies for thirty years. He retired from the FSB of the Russian Federation with the rank of colonel. Married, has two children and four grandchildren.
Lives in Sochi.
Lyrical and humorous poems, fables, epigrams, literary parodies, laconicisms; Realistic, satirical and fantastic stories by Valery Rumyantsev were published in 150 publications in the Russian Federation and abroad (including 47 literary magazines).
Ten books by Valery Rumyantsev have been published:
1. “Day and Night” (poems, wreath of sonnets). Sochi. 2003
2. “The amazing is nearby” (poems, fables, parodies). Sochi. 2003
3. “From thinking” (laconicisms). Sochi. 2003
4. “There’s nowhere to put it in short” (laconisms). Sochi. 2003
5. “From the back door” (satirical novel). Sochi. 2004
6. “Thought preserved in words” (poems, laconisms, fables). Sochi. 2004
7. “Responsible assignment” (poems, laconicisms, stories). Sochi. 2004
8. “At the crossroads of life” (poems, laconicisms, stories). Sochi. 2005
9. “The Ninth Model” (stories, laconicisms). Sochi. 2005
10. “Time Machine” (stories, laconicisms, poems). Sochi. 2007
Disclaimer: 1) a renunciation of any claim to or connection with; 2) disavowal; 3) . Though it"ll go without saying ten minutes or so into these proceedings, View Askew “ru_bykov" would like to state that this film text is - from start to finish - a work of comedic fantasy, not to be taken seriously. To insist that any of what follows is incidental or inflammatory is to miss our intention and pass undue judgment; and passing judgment is reserved for God and God alone (this goes for you film critics too... just kidding). So please — before you think about hurting someone over this trifle of a film, remember: even God has a sense of humor. Just look at the Platypus. Thank you and enjoy the show. P.S. We sincerely apologize to all Platypus enthusiasts out there who are offended by that thoughtless comment about the Platypi. We at View Askew "ru_bykov" respect the noble Platypus, and it is not our intention to slight these stupid creatures in any way. Thank you again and enjoy the show.
“If we talk about Dmitry Lvovich Bykov”
Dmitry Bykov as a mirror of modern Russian poetry
I recently met with a friend of mine whom I had not seen for many years. We talked for a long time, discussing many topics, including modern Russian poetry. And unexpectedly for me, he called Dmitry Bykov a genius in literature. To be honest, I was stunned. How can I not know the work of a modern genius? I had previously read about two dozen of his poems - poetic journalism with a claim to originality and nothing more. And after that meeting, I decided to get to know one of the authors of the projects “Citizen Poet” and “Good Mister” better.
I typed “Dmitry Bykov, the best poems” on the Internet and the website of the “Askbook of Literature” popped up. And it contains exactly what I ordered: “Dmitry Bykov - the best poems”, there are more than thirty of them on this site. I read the first poem:
Everything has been said. And even ancient Rome
I have to put up with satiety.
Everything was. Only you are unique
And therefore, don’t be afraid to repeat yourself.
They spent their lives in magic and divination,
They fell into the abyss, climbed into the wilds...
Write, buddy, only about yourself:
Everything else was told before you.
We must guess for ourselves what “satiation” of ancient Rome the author is talking about. Either from the excess of the slogan “Bread and Circuses!”, or from the numerous wars that Rome waged, or from the excess of gladiator fights, or for some other reason. It is not clear: the “you” in the third line is Rome or the “friend” whom the author addresses in the penultimate line of the poem. Again, it is not clear who those people who “spent their lives in magic” and “fell into the abyss...”? Those who lived in Rome, or those who lived or live now in Russia, in Europe? Or both of them combined?
There are no artistic discoveries in the poem. Thoughts are expressed somehow “approximately”; in six out of eight lines of the poem, a touch of “literary fog” is visible, behind which it is difficult to see anything interesting.
I'm reading another poem:
August-August, my month is anapest!
It hasn't been this warm for a long time.
The inscription on the bench is erased
“Alexey plus Natasha equals...”
The breeze blows over the river,
There is freedom and, in general, peace.
And there is no such thing as happy love,
There is absolutely none.
The line “The breeze blows over the river” is trivial. Compare about the wind in A. S. Pushkin’s “And the wind, caressing the leaves of the trees” or in M. Yu. Lermontov’s “And the fresh forest rustles with the sound of the breeze.” It is not clear what kind of freedom the author is talking about in the line “There is freedom and, in general, peace.” About political, financial, sexual freedom? Why is it “there is no such thing as happy love”? It still happens! If a poet is not capable of being happy in love, then he should not proclaim such generalizations. Apparently, deep down he is a soulless person. And the statement that there is “no such thing as love at all” characterizes him as a person who is completely ignorant of life. And if this is so, then let him at least know what the greats said about love. For example, L.N. Tolstoy: “Love is a priceless gift. This is the only thing we can give, and yet you still have it.”
In the last stanza of the poem, the first two lines talk about the breeze, freedom and peace, and the last two lines talk about love. Somehow all this does not fit in and is perceived as “there is an elderberry in the garden, but in Kyiv there is a guy.” An analogy can be drawn with the “poetic” lines: “There is a pharmacy on the corner, no one gets married, and who cares, they slammed their cap.”
The next poem is:
Brilliant August, the finest anesthesia.
There is a statue in the garden
Sad, but sparkling. No complaints, no tears -
Sheer radiance.
There is already death in everything, the disintegration of language,
Flaw, avalanche, -
But white clouds float in blue
And they look innocent.
The August sun burns through them,
Although it is burning out.
That's how my soul doesn't hurt -
She is dying.
When you read the epithet “radiant,” the concept “your excellency” immediately arises. And not by chance. In the Explanatory Dictionary of the Modern Russian Language: illustrious (outdated, now ironic) having the title of excellency. The author, apparently, cannot really explain what this “subtle anesthesia” is. And what kind of statue is there in the garden, which “sad, but sparkles,” remains a mystery to the reader. Therefore, it is better to end this stanza with the phrase not “complete radiance”, but “complete rubbish”.
In the second stanza, all this nonsense continues: “... already death, the disintegration of language, a flaw, an avalanche.” The only thing we are convinced of after reading all this is that the author really has a “disintegration of language.”
“Through them the August sun burns, although it is burning out.” So is it still burning or burning out? If the sun burns out, it can no longer burn, especially since the sun passes “through them,” that is, through the clouds. And even more so in August, when “everything is already ruined.” D. Bykov has a strange soul: he dies, but does not hurt. He directly challenges the phraseological turn of the Russian language “the soul hurts.”
In the poem “Everything is falling out of my hands. Early snow, cold November..." we read:
Bottom dweller, slum citizen
Clearly he wants the devil to kill me.
It is not clear why a “citizen of the slum” would have such, at least, a strange desire. Yes, this “dweller of the bottom” is not at all interested in poetry, he has no time for it: how and where to earn a penny and feed his family.
The phrase “we play the pipe from Chuchmekistan to Hindustan” causes indignation in this poem. Why insult the peoples of Central Asia? Together with them, during the Great Patriotic War, our fathers and grandfathers defended their Motherland and won, so that all of us, including D. Bykov, could be born, receive an education and enjoy life.
I remember well how in 1982 I found myself in Tashkent at the same table with Uzbeks and how one of them respectfully said: “Russians are our older brothers.” What, D. Bykov doesn’t understand this? The question arises: to whose mill is he grist?
The poem under analysis ends with the following stanza:
And when on the innocent you from the dank darkness
It smells like dirt, rot, and the grave, -
Don't fall for autumn: it's all us, us, us,
No one else can do that.
In the poem “Whenever there is a turn towards spring,” there are also lines that are incomprehensible to the reader: “Someone’s gaze is following me everywhere, burning my cheek.” Why is it “the cheek”, and not, for example, the buttock, when they are watching, they go from behind. Or does D. Bykov have so many fans that they jointly organized external surveillance in such a way that they also exercise control in front?
For the poet, not only is he accompanied by a woman’s gaze, he “takes higher”:
Is it really God watching over me?
With your clear gaze:
Either he will throw up a two-ruble piece, then a box,
That's bread and butter.
God has nothing else to do but toss D. Bykov a two-ruble coin, a box, or bread and butter.
Let's move backwards - and what will you dig up there?
In addition to the desire to sleep and cultural memory.
D. Bykov admits that we have the right to be proud of the literature and art of the Past, but refuses us to be proud of the Great October Socialist Revolution, which changed the whole world for the better; industrialization of the 30s, thanks to which the Russian people, together with other fraternal peoples, won Victory over the European “barbarians”. I write “European” because many have already forgotten that in addition to the Germans, Hungarians, Romanians, Slovaks, Italians, Spaniards, Dutch, Finns, and representatives of other “civilized” countries fought against us. And at the same time, Dmitry Bykov denies us the opportunity to be proud of our victories in science, space and much more.
The voluminous poem “The soul sleeps under happiness, as the earth sleeps under the snow...” ends with the following stanza:
Someday later I will remember the smell of hell,
All this stupidity, all this rot and suspension, -
Someday later I will remember everything I need.
Then, when I wake up. But I won't wake up here.
The author sees in Russia (and this reading of this stanza is confirmed by his public speeches) only “the smell of hell”, “stupidity”, “disgusting” and informs the reader that “I will not wake up here.” What is the author hinting at? Maybe for your imminent emigration? Probably yes. Well, as popular wisdom says, good riddance.
In the poem “I feel sorry for those whose youth was lost...” the poet admits: “Friendship does not seem like a support to me.” Apparently, D. Bykov does not know how to make friends; he does not have enough personal qualities for this. Otherwise he would not have said so. But friendship is one of the most valuable components in the concept of “human life.” And as Cody Christian wisely said about this: “You need to value friendship, because only it can pull a person out of where love cannot.”
In the penultimate line of this poem, D. Bykov continues to share his thoughts: “I feel sorry for those whose homeland has disappeared,” thereby declaring that Russia has no future.
Let’s remember with what words N.V. Gogol admonished us: “You don’t love Russia yet: you only know how to be sad and irritated by rumors about everything bad, whatever is happening in it, all this produces in you only callous annoyance and despondency.... No, if you really love Russia, then by itself that short-sighted thought that has now arisen in many honest and even very intelligent people will disappear in you, that is, that at the present time they can no longer do anything for Russia.”
In the poem “And the gray clouds are pulled by a thread...” D. Bykov states:
From our news, brother, -
Just courts.
And a few lines later:
Here, if anyone is not a thief yet,
That's an extremist.
There is an expected horror over everyone,
Invisible sin
And to return consent,
They'll put everyone in prison.
The poem ends like this:
There's nothing to be done here
And to no one.
This is the season for the whole country,
All elites.
All that remains is to wait for spring.
Or get out.
D. Bykov continues to inspire his fans and, above all, young people, that in Russia there is not and will not be an opportunity to live for pleasure, that one must emigrate before it is too late. However, he never said that you can live for your own pleasure only at the expense of someone else. And such “creativity” bears fruit: since 1992, about 3 million Russians, including many active youth and scientists, have left for permanent residence in other countries. And this bleak process continues. And the leaders of Russia have been looking at the “art” of all kinds of “citizen poets” for a quarter of a century and pretending that nothing terrible is happening, but only repeating that “the economy is growing,” not forgetting to periodically throw out the slogan “There is no money, but you hold on.” !
In one of the quatrains, D. Bykov tries to engage in irony and self-irony: “Not in order to shine brighter or to leave a couple of chests for the children, - You have to live in such a way that you get tired to death, And I’m just working on this.” But Igor Huberman does this much better: “I was by no means a monk-ascetic-philosopher; Yes, Lord, I have sinned a lot, but keep in mind that in a natural way.”
I’m not talking about artistic and visual means in the poems I read: there is little interesting there. D. Bykov often “indulges” in swear words - and this offends the discerning reader. Does the poet tell the truth in his works? Yes, but his truth is completely false. D. Bykov's reputation has already been tarnished by the flow of fame. His poetry is poetry for one-time reading: used and thrown away. There is no desire to re-read, much less learn by heart.
Listening to D. Bykov’s public speeches on issues of the history of the USSR, you come to an interesting conclusion: to become a dissident, you don’t have to think. Many people forget that the chosen destiny is not accepted back. Dmitry Bykov shows great promise, but only for himself. There is no doubt that his texts will be included in Russian literature, but they will no longer reach the reader in the same way as the works of Demyan Bedny, Anatoly Sofronov, Nikolai Gribachev and other “high-profile” writers of their time.
So why does D. Bykov’s poetry have numerous fans? I think there are two main reasons. He writes opposition poetry, and the dissatisfaction of Russians against the backdrop of the fattening thieves’ “elite” is growing every year. There is another, no less important reason. Over the past quarter of a century, and during this time a new generation has grown up, the state has done everything possible to ensure that the reader’s artistic taste is deformed - and this, unfortunately, has happened.
And what else is characteristic? You go into a bookstore, go to the poetry section - books by D. Bykov are everywhere. But I have never seen collections of poems by either Mikhail Anishchenko, Nikolai Zinoviev, or our other most talented contemporary poets. Something to think about! Is not it?
In his article “Literary magazines are going through hard times,” the editor-in-chief of “Roman-Gazeta” Yuri Kozlov writes: “...Yes, most literary publications - “New World”, “Moscow”, “Znamya”, “Yunost”, “October” ", "Roman Newspapers", "Literary Russia" - an interesting story and great services to society."
Well, that's right. It is unlikely that anyone will seriously argue with this. But the trouble is that the merits mentioned by the editor remain in the distant past. What merits do these publications have today, or at least over the last ten to twenty years? Someone, of course, may consider it a notable phenomenon that Znamya published the “masterpieces” of former minister A. Ulyukaev five times, and the editor-in-chief of Novy Mir, A. Vasilevsky, tends to regularly publish his wife’s poems. (Well, how can you not please your loved one). However, readers noticed this, but did not classify what they read as significant events in modern Russian literature.
Let's look at one of the main “achievements” of “leading” literary and art magazines. The circulation of “The Banner” in 1990 was 1 million copies, in 2016 – 2 thousand copies. “Friendship of Peoples” had a circulation of 1 million 100 thousand copies in 1989, and 1200 copies in 2017. The circulation of “New World” in 1990 was 2 million 700 thousand copies, in 2017 - 2300 copies. “Neva” had 675 thousand copies in 1989, and 1,500 copies in 2017. The circulation of “October” in 1989 was 380 thousand copies, in 2016 - 1 thousand copies. “Youth” in 1989 - 3 million 100 thousand copies, in 2015 - 6500 copies.
These figures simply “scream” about the obvious trouble both in literary magazines and in the country.
Let's return to the above-mentioned article by Yuri Kozlov. He suggests: “The “golden” list should (without discussion) include “New World”, “Our Contemporary”, “Znamya”, “Moscow”, “Roman-Gazeta”, “October”, “Youth”, “Literary newspaper", "Literary Russia", "Neva", "Zvezda", "Siberian Lights", "Volga". And further: “The government... makes an indefinite decision to annually finance, through a separate budget line, a mandatory subscription to this “package” for at least five thousand of the largest Russian libraries and educational institutions where they study modern literature.”
But the question arises: why no discussion? Just because 30-50 years ago these publications published the best works of Soviet writers? The argument, frankly speaking, is unconvincing. And why should the government finance this particular package? Because many editors-in-chief prefer to publish themselves, each other, their friends, buddies, etc.?
The editors-in-chief at least read what was being written about their magazines on the Internet. Here's just one example. “I was recently in Moscow. I witnessed how in one of the bookstores they laid out a stack of “thick” literary magazines (already outdated issues) at the entrance, apparently not sold at the time. The store “cleaned” its shelves in this way. Unfortunately, these magazines were lying around for free: not a single buyer took a single copy from this pack in my presence. And, judging by the thickness of the pack, few readers were interested in them. It’s become a great shame for modern writers!”
The government, of course, urgently needs to finance the publication of literary magazines, but editorial boards must first change the vicious practice of selecting texts for publication.
In a conversation with director Ella Agranovskaya, the editor-in-chief of the Znamya magazine S. Chuprinin talks about the decline in the circulation of his magazine by 500 times over the past 25 years and names three main reasons: “Public issues have largely gone to the Internet, to television, to mass publications . Further, along with the paper version, we have an electronic version, and there are many more people who read it than those who pick up a paper copy. And the third reason, perhaps the most serious: ... Reading in Russia ... has become incomparably less than it was in the years of our youth.”
S. Chuprinin is right, but only partly. There is only one main reason: reading has become catastrophically less. But Chuprinin is either afraid to fully admit this main reason, or is being disingenuous, which is why he bashfully hides behind the introductory words “maybe.” Otherwise, you will have to admit your incompetent policy in selecting texts for publication.
We open the latest issue of the Znamya magazine available today (No. 11 for 2017). We take the first (according to the contents of the magazine) poet Andrei Permyakov and read his poem, which is called “Elnik”:
- You yourself are a cuckoo, and this is a zigzitz!
- If it crows, it means it’s a cuckoo!
- And if it’s zigzagging, what’s zigzagging?
- If it’s zigzitsa, it’s probably hibernating.
- No, if it hibernates, it means it’s a frog!
And at this time I’m kicking a snag
Drive along the path.
And at this time I make mash with my hands
To pass on to each other,
Not mash, but store-bought mash - Elahu.
The can makes a wet imprint on the jacket.
When you hear a sudden capercaillie, you will certainly gasp in fear.
Between the two of us we are well into our nineties.
Ashes to ashes.
And these are poems that should be on the pages of a “leading” literary magazine?! Is it the editor's artistic taste or something else? (Prose writer Alexander Karasev was apparently so angry with the editors-in-chief that he titled his notes “Crime and Betrayal of Thick Literary Magazines in Russia”). And having read such rubbish (I wouldn’t dare call this nonsense poetry), we can safely assume that the prose in this magazine is most likely just as “highly artistic.”
That’s why “reading has become catastrophically less.” This is a significant contribution to the editors-in-chief. By the way, on the Internet you can find many reviews from both writers and readers about editors-in-chief. There is Evgeny Stepanov, who is known as the publisher and editor-in-chief of the literary magazines “Children of Ra”, “Futurum ART”, “Foreign Notes” and the newspaper “Literary News”. The author of the anonymous article “One Thread at a Time” (not everyone is as brave as Alexander Karasev) very accurately described this editor: “Evgeny Stepanov is a strange character in the literary space and what he does also smacks of some kind of amateur performance.”
I typed on the Internet the phrase “Why don’t they read modern literary magazines?” and received hundreds of responses from readers. Let's read some of them:
- “... because these magazines do not contain what is relevant today, there is no voice of honor, dignity and pain for what is happening... I often think, what would Vysotsky say now?..”;
- “I don’t read for several reasons: it’s difficult to buy, fear of wasting time on boring reading”;
- “In the late 80s I read just a huge amount. They didn't fit into the mailbox. And recently I tried “New World” - no, it’s not quite the same feeling”;
- “Modern youth cannot and does not like to read! Because there’s nothing special to read: modern literature is in deep decline”;
- “If society degrades, then music, cinema, and literature degrade (I read it and threw it away) - which we are successfully seeing now. Real talents disappear, because they have no promotion, no patrons, only a huge number of incompetent, inflated competitors, crushing with their majority and advertising”;
- “I take magazines, naturally, from the library (these are houses where they give books to take home for free to read, who doesn’t know)”;
“And it’s not even a matter of the decline of the literary and journal tradition. In my opinion, the problem is in literature itself: it has ceased to be a mouthpiece for fresh thinking”;
- “You know, there is such a joke. Pobedonostsev arrives in some provincial town, goes into a local newspaper, asks the editor-in-chief, what are you writing about, how are you living? A wizened old man comes out and answers: “Let’s feed, your highness!” That’s how it is now”;
- “Brevity - p. T.! Plus the clip-like thinking of young people, the internet in leaps and bounds and a liquid brain that can thicken for a few seconds and again... uh, I forgot what I wanted to say...";
- “Before perestroika, I regularly read “New World”, “Foreign Literature”, “October”, etc. These magazines were like a ray of light in our lives, they gave a lot of food for the mind, broadened our horizons. I'm not reading now. I don’t find anything interesting for myself.”
Reading the first poem:
Should we be frightened with all sorts of nonsense?
like the eyes, his mother, Bataille?
In the spring this melts in our country,
Oh my God!
In our multi-channel walk-through yard
You can only move on the map.
And what was still breathing and moving in December,
Became a purple "snowdrop" in March.
Most likely, M. Okun, when he wrote these lines, simply suffocated with inspiration.
The collection of poems by the above-mentioned poet is completed by the following “work”:
"Are you cold?" -
Mom asked.
To me this cold
It hasn't been cold for a long time.
How can one not recall the aphorism of the unforgettable V.S. Chernomyrdin “This has never happened before and suddenly - again!” I believe that comments on this “poetry” are unnecessary (is this why the Ural magazine today has a tiny circulation, although in 1991 its circulation was about 2 million copies?) But how nice it would be to see real poetry in this place! For example, read Mikhail Anishchenko, or at least his poem “The Lady”:
The pain is delayed. Conscience is unclear.
There is darkness over the country, but the thoughts are darker.
What are you doing, incredible Motherland,
Are you moving to the shadow region?
Don't go, please stay
Freeze in the cold, get wet in the rain,
Fall and lie, pretend and complain,
Just please don't leave.
Dear homeland! In fear and rage
Let me figure it out for myself...
Or am I doomed mentally?
Always drown the little dog Mumu?
The river splashes in the morning haze
Someone's voice flies straight towards me:
“We must kill not the dog, but the lady,
Vanya Turgenev will understand and forgive.”
It’s sad that all kinds of “perch” writers easily “moor” to the editorial offices of literary magazines, and such talented poets as Mikhail Anishchenko die in obscurity and poverty.
Writers often share on the Internet their impressions of communicating with literary officials. This is how one young author describes a visit to the editorial office of Novy Mir: “I ran into a short, slender man of retirement age - the editor of the prose department (?). He interrogated me: “What was the last thing you read in our magazine?” I did not offend him with the truth (that there was nothing special to read there), but answered that I had read “various things”, without naming a specific one. He angrily said: “You don’t read us - why should we read you?!” and almost threw the manuscript at me.”
Well, why not a plot for a short story? However, this topic deserves a separate discussion.
Valery Rumyantsev lives in Sochi, writes fables, parodies, stories, laconicisms. Published in literary magazines "Southern Star", "Golden Pen", "Luch" and others.
№ 2016 / 33, 22.09.2016
Mikhail ANDREEV (Tomsk), Alexander BALTIN, Yulia VELIKANOVA, Boris ZORKIN (Sochi), Nikolay POLOTNYANKO (Ulyanovsk), Oleg BUDIN
Mikhail ANDREEV
SHADOWS
Leaves, fly back to the branches,
people, go home
the stars in the sky are as rare as horses,
and winter comes.
It's like the clouds are kneeling -
so they float away
only fire does not give its shadow -
You understand this too.
Winter will quickly spread through the veins,
I’ll sit down and dream too,
and hopeless grandeur and plaid
I will cover the fields.
And bullfinches, road traffic lights
they see the dawn with a piece of glass,
It's like doctors are looking at a drop of blood
under my microscope.
TOMSK
Mikhail Vasilievich Andreev born in 1954 in the Tomsk region. He graduated from the Tomsk Institute of Automated Control Systems and Radioelectronics in 1976 and from the Higher Literary Courses in Moscow in 1985. Winner of the Lenin Komsomol Prize.
Photo by Mikhail Dudarev
Alexander BALTIN
* * *
We of the twentieth century moved boulders,
The cruelest centuries have known bends,
Meat grinders of Verdun, Amiens, Stalingrad.
And breakthroughs of consciousness almost into the beyond.
Our lives together have experienced boredom and aimlessness.
And in art there was a strong pressure from the Black Square.
Heisenberg, who gave the quantum of mechanics to the city.
Labyrinths in the brain become clearer - argument
In favor of how much atheism? But Mendel is a monk,
And the Bishop of Ukhtomsky was... Airplanes
They float in the distances of the sky. Proust will tell you who you are
In a different way than Pavlov. Everyone is touched by fear.
The Armored Bearer has come - yes, we know! - in the dark.
Anecdotes and vodka flow vigorously.
The Union is cumbersome and majestic like a dinosaur.
The infinity of research institutes and circles is so cozy.
Hope for the future? This is crazy.
But the collapse changes the Soviet composition.
The seventeenth was revealed as a campaign for happiness.
The ninety-first is marked by participation
Capital, whose power was not read then.
We of the twentieth century were moving boulders.
Should I thank him for the bruises?
But experience is most valuable, gentlemen.
Alexander Lvovich Baltin born in Moscow in 1967. He was first published as a poet in 1996 in the Literary Review magazine, and as a prose writer in 2007 in the Florida magazine (USA). Honorary employee of the Financial Academy under the Government of the Russian Federation. The poems have been translated into Italian and Polish.
Yulia VELIKANOVA
* * *
Each has its own story and main characters.
We are books, we build our own plot.
We are a cry of the elements dumped into a computer.
Terrible! But that's just who we are.
Everyone has their own silence. Others are verbose.
We are writing. Everyone is dissatisfied.
We ourselves are the embodiment of all cries.
They screamed!
They were outraged!
And they fell silent.
Everyone has their own story and a bunch of circumstances.
We are all written down in books. Seizures
We are geniuses and geniuses of excess.
But no one writes about us better than us...
Yulia Velikanova was born in Moscow in 1977. Graduated from VGIK (Faculty of Economics) and the Higher Literary Courses at the Literary Institute. Gorky (poetry seminar). Poet, editor, publicist. Organizer of a number of literary and musical evenings. Mother of three daughters.
Boris ZORKIN
* * *
Tomorrow is a holiday: we go to the polls.
We choose our gentlemen.
Maybe we could live without masters,
But our people are accustomed to them.
That's why we wait resignedly,
That Mr. will appear
And he will take care of all the troubles.
Myself. One.
He will give us a decent life.
Will fight back thieves and lies.
Troubles with wars will go away from us.
Then we'll live like in paradise.
Tomorrow is the holiday of democracy.
Democracy is no small matter.
After all, without our participation
The enemy may break through to power.
Suddenly he deprives us of the right to choose,
Will he appoint gentlemen himself?
Suddenly he starts thinking about profit.
But how to feed the people?
After all, then we will have only one thing left:
Rally in the cold.
And dream that everything will settle down
And they won't give a damn about us.
So tomorrow things are serious:
We choose the further path.
Tomorrow is a holiday. You and I are significant.
Our newsletter stores the choice.
And there is no need to rock the ship:
Rats have been sick for a long time already.
SOCHI
Zorkin Boris Ivanovich(literary pseudonym Valery Rumyantsev) was born in 1951 in the Orenburg region in the family of a judge. He graduated from high school with a gold medal. He studied at the Kuibyshev Aviation Institute, at the Faculty of Law of North Ossetian State University. After graduating from the philological faculty of the Voronezh State Pedagogical Institute, he worked for three years as a teacher and head teacher in one of the schools of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. After graduating from the Higher Courses of the KGB of the USSR, he served in the state security agencies for thirty years. He retired from the FSB of the Russian Federation with the rank of colonel. Married, has two children and four grandchildren.
Nikolay POLOTNYANKO
Muteness
I can’t hear the music and I’m afraid,
That the world has forever lost its harmony.
And I won’t ascend to a star with my dreams,
She herself is in agony.
It will flare up and then go out. And around
Only darkness and silence of space,
Republics and kingdoms perished in it,
Heroes and peoples. The sound died.
Neither Bach's fugue nor Homer's speech
The silence of the Universe will not be voiced to me.
And it will forever torment my soul
The verb I couldn't light up with
Hearts of people. And he's halfway there
Left to burn in my chest.
ULYANOVSK
Polotnyanko Nikolay Alekseevich born on May 30, 1943 in the Altai Territory. Graduated from the Literary Institute named after A.M. Gorky. Lives in Ulyanovsk.
Oleg BUDIN
* * *
Kicked out of my native culture in the back
To the riotous thieves' bazaar -
Nowadays it is not profitable for Russians to be
It’s even indecent, I would say.
In the springs of national resin
The age-old dollar has dried up.
For some, Russia is their place of residence.
For me it is a haven for the soul.
Bright epics still live there
Since the times of the Slavic stubble,
Where are Oslyabi and Peresvet located?
Against foreign crooks.
Gentlemen, you missed the main thing -
Don't look important in front of mirrors:
Europe still has you as slaves,
As Tyutchev predicted in Russia.
Book and oral literature will be revived
Not for the euro, not fun for...
And vassals in the back is a Russian word,
So that the Earth is filled with hearing.
Oleg Budin was born in the Moscow region - the city of Noginsk. After serving in the army, he entered the University named after M.I. Ulyanova at Moscow State University and graduated with honors. Along with newspaper reports, articles, and essays, Oleg published a book on local history in 1994 at the publishing house "Russkiy Dvor" JSC, and in 2002 the publishing house "Knizhnik" published the poetic fairy tale "About the Snake-Gorynych and his three heads" in 2004, a collection of poems “Yellow Dwarf”, in 2014, “Common Car”. Graduate of the Literary Institute named after A.M. Gorky, seminar by S. Arutyunov.