Writer, playwright and essayist Venedikt Vasilyevich Erofeev was born on October 24, 1938 in the village of Niva-2 in the suburbs of Kandalaksha, Murmansk Region. The Chupa station of the Loukhsky district of the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, where the Erofeev family lived, is recorded as the place of his birth.
Venedikt was the youngest child in a family that had four more children besides him. In 1946, his father, who worked as the head of the railway station, was arrested and convicted on charges of anti-Soviet agitation. The family was left without a livelihood. The mother went to work with her sister in Moscow, and the younger children ended up in orphanage No. 3 in the city of Kirovsk. Venedikt was in an orphanage from 1947 to 1953.
In 1954, after his father was released, he returned to his family. In 1956 my father died.
In 1955, after graduating from a school in Kirovsk with a gold medal, Venedikt Erofeev moved to Moscow, where he entered the philological faculty of Lomonosov Moscow University. For a year and a half, he studied well and received an increased scholarship, but due to numerous absences from military training, he was expelled.
For some time, Erofeev lived in a dormitory at Moscow State University on Stromynka, where in the mid-1950s he began his first essay, Notes of a Psychopath (1956-1958; the manuscript was considered lost, first published in 1995).
Until 1958, he also wrote poetry, and in 1962 he finished the story "The Good News", created under the influence of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (not completely preserved).
© Photo: Publishing house JV "Interbook"Cover of the book by Venedikt Erofeev "Moscow-Petushki", publishing house JV "Interbook", 1990. Artist Huseynov V.V.
Repeatedly Venedikt Erofeev tried to continue his education. In 1961 he entered the Vladimir Pedagogical Institute. For very good academic performance, he received an increased scholarship, but a year later he was expelled. Also, Erofeev was expelled from the Orekhovo-Zuevsky and Kolomna Pedagogical Institutes.
The longest work of Erofeev was the service in the communication system. For ten years he was engaged in the installation of cable communication lines throughout the country; on these works around Moscow, in the area of the city of Zheleznodorozhny, Erofeev began, and two months later in the area of Lobnya-Sheremetyevo finished the poem "Moscow-Petushki" (1969), which brought him world fame. The text of the novel began to be distributed by samizdat within the Soviet Union, and then in translation, smuggled to the West. The poem was first published in 1973 in Jerusalem, and the first official publication in the original Russian appeared in Paris in 1977.
During the years of glasnost, the poem "Moscow-Petushki" began to be published in Russia, but in a greatly curtailed form - as part of a campaign against alcoholism. Only in 1995, 18 years after writing, the novel was completely, without cuts, officially published in Russia.
In 1972, "Petushki" was followed by "Dmitry Shostakovich", the draft manuscript of which was lost, and all attempts to restore it were unsuccessful. Articles about the Norwegian writers Henrik Ibsen and Knut Hamsun are also considered lost.
In subsequent years, everything written by Erofeev was put on the table, in dozens of notebooks and thick notebooks. The only exception was an essay about the Russian religious philosopher and thinker Vasily Rozanov, published in the Veche magazine under the title "Vasily Rozanov Through the Eyes of an Eccentric".
Since 1978, Erofeev lived in the north of Moscow, where he wrote the tragedy "Walpurgis Night, or the Steps of the Commander" (published in Paris in 1985, at home - in 1989), a documentary collage "My little Leniniana" full of mournful and humorous reflections (published in Paris in 1988, in Russia in 1991), began the play "Fanny Kaplan" (not finished, published in 1991).
© Photo: Vladimir OKC The monument "Moscow-Petushki" based on the work of Venedikt Erofeev is installed in the park on Struggle Square in Moscow. Sculptors Valery Kuznetsov, Sergey Mantserev
In the mid-1980s, Yerofeev developed throat cancer. After a long treatment and several operations, he lost his voice and was able to speak only with the help of an electronic sound machine.
Erofeev died in Moscow on May 11, 1990. He was buried at the Kuntsevo cemetery.
Since 1999, Erofeev Literary Festivals have been held annually in Kirovsk in conjunction with the Murmansk branch of the Union of Russian Writers.
On May 11, on the day of Erofeev's death, admirers of the writer's talent gather to lay flowers at the memorial plaque on the building of school No. 1, which he graduated from.
On October 24, 2001, the Khibiny Literary Museum of Venedikt Erofeev was opened in the Central Library named after A.M. Gorky of the city of Kirovsk. The museum exposition "Kirovsk-Moscow-Petushki" includes thematic sections "Venedict Erofeev in the Khibiny", "Years of study", "On Vladimir land", "Moscow-Petushki" - an encyclopedia of Russian life in the 1960s", "Friends of Erofeev "," Departure to immortality "," Works of Venedikt Erofeev in the theaters of the world ".
The museum of Venedikt Erofeev contains his personal belongings, industrial furniture, foreign publications, autographs and the most rare photographs.
Venedikt Erofeev was married twice. His first wife was Valentina Zimakova, in 1966 their son Venedikt was born. Erofeev entered into a marriage with his second wife Galina Nosova in 1974.
The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources
The biography of Venedikt Erofeev should be well known to all connoisseurs of Russian literature without exception. This is a famous Soviet and Russian writer. He went down in history as the author of a poem called "Moscow - Petushki". In this article we will tell about the fate of the creator, his personal life.
Childhood and youth
Let's start telling the biography of Venedikt Erofeev from 1938, when he was born in the village of Niva-2 in the Murmansk region. He was the youngest in a family of five children. His father worked at the railway station, and his mother ran the household.
When the Great Patriotic War began, the Erofeevs moved to the Khibiny station, and soon they were evacuated to the Arkhangelsk region. However, due to the famine they faced in their new place, they had to return back.
In 1941, the grandfather of the future writer was arrested; he died in prison three months later. In 1945, my father was accused of anti-Soviet propaganda and sabotage.
In the biography of Venedikt Erofeev, it was a difficult time. At the same time, he learned to read by the age of six. In 1947, the family was left without a livelihood. To get money for food, the mother went to Moscow to work, and handed over the children to an orphanage. Venechka studied diligently, he was even awarded a trip to a pioneer camp.
The father returned from the colony in 1951, the mother came from the capital, the family was reunited. True, not for long. Vasily Vasilyevich was arrested again two years later. He spent three years in prison in Olenegorsk due to being late for work. When he was released, his health was completely undermined. In 1956 he died.
The hero of our article graduated from school with a gold medal, without exams he was admitted to the philological faculty of Moscow State University. In the hostel, he met the literary critic and philologist Vladimir Muravyov, who had a significant influence on his views.
Education and first job
There were several universities in the biography of Venedikt Erofeev, since he could not graduate from Moscow State University. In 1957, he was expelled for academic failure and systematic absenteeism. After that, he went as an auxiliary worker to the Remstroytrest construction department.
In the dormitory at the enterprise, he organized a literary circle, in which everyone who wished to read his poems, and Benedict himself read excerpts from classical works. The management did not like these meetings, they fired him.
Yerofeev spent two years in Ukraine. When he returned to the capital, in 1959, he again entered the philological faculty, but this time at the Orekhovo-Zuevsky Pedagogical Institute. At the university, he published a literary almanac, but a year later he was expelled again.
Over the next few years, the writer changed many professions, never staying anywhere for a long time. He also tried to graduate from the Kolomna and Vladimir Pedagogical Institutes, but due to problems with discipline, he was constantly expelled.
creative career
There are very few works in the biography of Venedikt Erofeev. He managed to finish only five works. Even in his youth, he began to write "Notes of a Psychopath". In the format of diary entries, he set out his own stream of consciousness, in which complete nonsense and base thoughts were combined with lofty ideas. The book was first published in 2000.
Telling briefly the biography of Venedikt Erofeev, it is necessary to mention the story "The Good News", on which he has been working since 1960. It has not been completely preserved. The work was strongly influenced by Nietzsche, whom Erofeev was studying at the time.
In 1970, the hero of our article completed the main work of his life - the poem "Moscow - Petushki". The biography and work of Venedikt Erofeev merged in this book, since much that is described in it happened to the writer in reality.
The main character is also called Venya, on the train he goes to his mistress and child. Drinking on the way. As a result, it turns out that he took the wrong train, went in the opposite direction. Venya returns to the capital, where strangers kill him.
The poem "Moscow - Petushki" by Venedikt Erofeev is composed of chapters, the names of which correspond to the names of the railway stations on the main character's route. The work was instantly disassembled into quotes, it became incredibly popular, although it was not officially published.
An interesting fact from the biography of Venedikt Erofeev is connected with the fact that for the first time the poem "Moscow - Petushki" was published in 1973 in Israel. Then the book was published in Paris and London. In the USSR, the work was published in the journal "Sobriety and Culture" in an abridged version at the end of the 80s.
Artworks
Among other works of the author, it is necessary to note the essay "Vasily Rozanov through the eyes of an eccentric" and "Sasha Cherny and others", the play "Walpurgis Night, or the Steps of the Commander", a selection of Lenin's quotes called "My Little Leniniana", the unfinished play "Dissidents, or Fanny Kaplan ".
Erofeev claimed that he also wrote the novel Shostakovich, which he either lost on the train or was stolen. Many critics suspect that this was one of his hoaxes.
In 1994, information appeared that the novel had been found and would soon be published. But only a passage appeared in print, which most consider a fake.
Personal life
In the biography of Venedikt Erofeev, personal life played a big role. He met his first love when he lived in a hostel at Moscow State University. It was Antonina Muzykantskaya, with whom they met for about a year.
In autumn, the writer met Yulia Runova. She fascinated him, Erofeev persistently courted the girl, offered to go with him to the Kola Peninsula. In 1961, they broke up, but mutual feelings between them remained. The hero of our article repeatedly tried to find Runova, but their meetings resumed only in 1971, when Julia got married and gave birth to a daughter.
It is known that in 1964 he had an affair with Valentina Zimakova, who lived in the Petushinsky district. At the beginning of 1966, their son was born, they signed and settled in the village of Myshlino in the Vladimir region. However, the writer practically did not live with his family. He spent the night with friends and acquaintances, drank a lot. The marriage finally broke up in 1975.
The second official wife of Erofeev was Galina Nosova, whom he married in February 1976. A year later, the couple received an apartment in Moscow. But all this time, Venedikt constantly meets with Runova, which greatly complicates his family life.
Alcohol abuse
Erofeev drank a lot. In 1979, when he and his wife were visiting brother Yuri, he was hospitalized on Christmas Day with delirium tremens. At that time, according to his diary entries, he drank every day for a long time. In 1982, the writer went to the capital's clinic to recover from alcoholism.
After being discharged, he set sail with his friend Nikolai Melnikov on the lakes and northern rivers to the White Sea. Throughout the journey, the writer greatly missed Runova, wrote letters to her. At the same time, there were other women in his life, after returning from swimming, the family was on the verge of divorce.
In 1983, Erofeev again ended up in a clinic due to alcoholism. In the spring, his wife transferred him to a psychiatric hospital.
Death
It is believed that he had a genetic predisposition to alcoholism. His father and brother drank a lot. In his youth, Erofeev did not touch alcohol at all. He claims that everything started suddenly. He saw a bottle of vodka in the window, bought it, drank it, and since then he could not stop.
In 1985, Venedikt was diagnosed with throat cancer. The tumor was removed, but the writer lost his voice. In Italy, they made a special device for him with a microphone that had to be applied to the larynx.
A year later, French doctors promised to restore his voice, but the Soviet government refused to let him out of the country.
In the last year of his life, popularity came to Erofeev after the publication of the poem "Moscow - Petushki". Fans and numerous journalists greatly annoyed the writer.
In addition, his health deteriorated and he became depressed. In 1990, doctors discovered that the cancer was progressing again. The writer was hospitalized and prescribed chemotherapy. But soon they were forced to refuse treatment, as the condition was very serious.
On May 11, 1990, Venedikt Erofeev died at the age of 51. He is buried at the Kuntsevo cemetery.
Venedikt Erofeev is 75 years old. Olga Sedakova recalls the writer.
Philosophy of drunkenness
- In your memoirs about Venedikt Erofeev, you said that his alcoholism was not trivial - you even raise the question of "serving the Kabak." What is this phenomenon? Protest? Some kind of "philosophy of drunkenness"?
He wanted it to be understood that way. He spoke directly about the symbolic nature of his drinking: everyone revels in his own - some vodka, some something else ... It is not known who is drunker. It was important to him that the alcohol story was not taken too literally.
In reality, the matter was more complicated, he also had a hereditary predisposition. Venichka's father was an alcoholic, brother... In his youth, he did not touch alcohol. Everything happened suddenly. I am passing on his story. Entering the Moscow State University, in Moscow, wandering along some street, he saw vodka in the window. I went in, bought a quarter and a pack of Belomor. He drank, lit a cigarette - and more, as he said, did not finish this.
Probably, doctors can describe it as instant alcoholism.
Foolishness or protest?
- It makes you think about foolishness. Was he interested in this topic?
No. And he certainly did not study foolishness. Maybe he didn't like it - except in Mussorgsky's opera. It seems to me that the traditional Russian foolishness was not at all in his style. He did not portray himself as a fool, a freak, a fool for Christ's sake. He liked to be handsome, brilliant, witty. If we only consider his resolute desire to take a position under the social ladder, to descend to the very bottom of society as foolishness ... But the prophetic "insane", dark speeches of the holy fool are not at all in his spirit. It was not in his spirit to provoke people with eccentric behavior.
It does not seem to me that it is right to think of Venichka in this direction - foolishness. But the refusal to be included in the social structure with all the ensuing consequences (poverty, homelessness) - yes, it was his choice. The conformist society (and the Soviet society was totally conformist) obviously did not attract him. He preferred - in his words - "to spit on every step from below" of this staircase.
Venichka felt himself the initiator of some kind of movement. Not a sect, of course. But he was always surrounded by followers who, after him, abandoned everything - family, studies, decent work - and went into this lifestyle. "We will die frankly." For him it was important to carry along. In “Petushki” there is a preaching intention: “All your stars are worth nothing, only the star of Bethlehem ...” It was a kind of protest, including a spiritual one ...
"Moscow - Petushki": a story from life
- "Moscow - Petushki" - is it a fiction or an autobiographical work?
There is no fiction at all. We met when he wrote this thing, so I managed to get there - as a "crazy poetess" who comes to her birthday. This thirtieth birthday, which he celebrated in someone else's apartment, is remembered somewhere close to the beginning of the story. By this time he managed to write only the first pages, and the notebook lay on the table. Everyone around him already knew that “something” was being written. His previous “things” at that time were considered missing without a trace, but some quotes were cited from memory.
When I read this notebook for the first time, I had the feeling that it was just a diary, I did not immediately understand that this was literature. Indeed, in life he spoke in the same style, and all the people, realities, and incidents mentioned there were directly “from life” and are familiar to me. Vienna really happened to fall asleep in the entrances and go astray, as in the story of Petushki. It is likely that he did not really see the Kremlin either. Fantasy appears only in the last scenes. According to the text of "Petushki" one can make an extensive real commentary: Chernousy, Borya S., etc.
- How did it happen that you, a girl from an intelligent family, a student of the philological faculty in your youth, got into this company?
Yes, it was an adventure. One of his faithful followers and admirers studied with me on the same course. He was older than us. We were 17 years old when we entered, and he was 29. He was from Vladimir acquaintances of Venichka. He is a rather prominent character in "Petushki" - Borya S., "Prime Minister" in the revolutionary government of Petushki, who died in the plot because Venichka declared himself "above the law and the prophets."
So, Borya S. told me all the time in the first year what a brilliant friend he had, and how to see him. He brought me to him.
freedom teacher
Of course, I never dreamed of what I saw there. I have never met people so free from everything "Soviet" - from ideology, from general fear and conformity, from the then accepted "properties". In addition, each newcomer had to pass an exam. In my case, it was a requirement to read Horace in Latin and recognize the conductor who conducted the Mahler symphony on the record. Not that I really understood conductors and knew all of Mahler - I just had such a record. So I found out and they accepted me.
I am grateful to fate that I did not get too involved in this circle, in this matter of general disappearance. Other teachers, one might say, pulled me over to their side. S.S. Averintsev, N.I. Tolstoy, Tartu circle. I wanted to “become on a par with the age in enlightenment”, but among libations and feasts this will not work.
But meeting Venichka is one of the most significant events of my life. I even called him my teacher once. They were surprised: what could he teach me? The fact that freedom is possible to a greater extent than we imagine it, subject to circumstances. And what, they say, to do? and everything is so ... And the circumstances are not fatal, and the political system, and generally accepted opinions - all this is not fatal for your freedom.
Death and memory
Why does Erofeev constantly repeat the theme of death, madness and riddles? In "Petushki" - riddles of the Sphinx in the train, ultimately death. In the play "Walpurgis Night, or the Commander's Steps" - the action takes place in a lunatic asylum, as a result - death, the theme of riddles also occurs: "And when my throat was already above the Gorkom's point, and the Gorkom's point was under my throat, - right here - then one of my rower friends, in order to amuse me and distract me from the blackness of my soul, asked me a riddle: “Two little pigs run eight miles in an hour. How many piglets will run one mile in an hour? “Here I realized that I was losing my mind” ...
Venichka was constantly thinking about death and experienced transience strongly and painfully. I think that the theme of death, the theme of the irreversible movement of time did not let him go. There are people who are born with such questions. Venichka was one of those.
His fabulous memory is connected with this fear of transience. He remembered the smallest events from life, with dates and places of action. He could say: “Do you remember, on August 26 of such and such a year, you said something there ...”. I once asked him how he remembers everything so well, and he replied that he was terrified from childhood that everything passes, and therefore he began to remember everything as early as childhood.
I think in his youth he was influenced by Nietzsche. His first thing (I found out about it late, at that time it was considered missing) - "Notes of a Psychopath" was written at the age of twenty in a completely Nietzschean style. I don't see anything like that in Petushki. It is likely that the idea of "last pity" supplanted the "superman".
Catholic who did not become a Catholic
It is known that Venedikt Erofeeev was critical of Orthodoxy, although at that time there was not even a hint of any state Orthodoxy, but nevertheless, he preferred Catholicism. Why?
He knew history. He did not like the Byzantine symphony of church and power (and in the post-Petrine era, the subordination of the church to earthly power). By the way, Brodsky had the same attitude. I had to hear from him that when he wanted to be baptized, he rejected Orthodoxy precisely because it is a Church that is not free from the state.
The other side of Venichka's Catholicophilia - Catholicism for him was the embodiment of world culture. He, a music lover, listened to Latin "Requiem", Stabat Mater, Kyrie ... He adored Latin not only as a language of culture, but also as the language of Christianity. There was no such kind of concert Orthodox music.
And on the third hand - at that time neophytes appeared in his circle. And there were problems: terrible stylization, something very insincere and unpleasant, which repelled him. People fell into "sacred nonsense", began to denounce Pushkin, Dostoevsky and all those around them for insufficiently correct spirituality. For some, this neophyte behavior has passed over the years into normal churchness, and some simply departed from the Church.
About his acquaintances, who so urgently corrected themselves, he said: “They got on the tram and think that this tram will take them, but I want it with my own feet.” He did not like at all to take some ready-made, not personally hard-won rules.
For some reason, he had no complaints about Catholicism (like the Inquisition, etc.). It probably didn't bother him that much.
And finally, his friend V. Muraviev, whose opinion he greatly respected, was a Catholic.
However, it cannot be said that he actually became a practicing Catholic. I don't know if he even attended Catholic services after his baptism.
Antiquity of Venichka Erofeeva
— You say he loved Latin. Did he know her well?
He studied Latin at the university, but from time to time he taught himself. He seemed to memorize the entire Latin vocabulary. Venichka had two cultural passions - Latin and music. He said they were similar to him. Yes, more poetry! He could read poems by heart for hours. Fiercely loved Tsvetaeva.
He listened to music constantly, and different. The composition of the work following Petushki was based on some things by Shostakovich (as in Petushki the railway stations became chapter titles). He spoke of this novel as a "Russian Faust". Nobody read it, it is lost and has not yet been found. I think Shostakovich was chosen as Venya not because he was his favorite composer. But I find it difficult to name his favorite music. Romantics, composers of the twentieth century, then very little known in our country (mentioned Mahler, Messiaen, Stravinsky).
Here he did not like ancient music, Bach and pre-Bach. He was surprised at those who love Bach, and believed that this is fashion and they all pretend.
Why, with his love for Latin, did he gravitate toward Greek images - both in Petushki and in Vasily Rozanov through the eyes of an eccentric?
Latin and Greek antiquity are not antitheses. He revered all antiquity. For example, with the greatest respect, he spoke of Averintsev: "The smartest man in Russia." They did not meet in person (here Yu.M. Lotman came to him, B.A. Uspensky - great admirers of his prose; I brought him to visit N.I. Tolstoy). Venichka, however, made up a story that the three of them - with Averintsev and Trauberg - met and sat under a plane tree. There are no plane trees in Moscow, and this plane tree is clearly from Plato.
But he went to Sergei Sergeevich's lectures. Together, I remember, we listened to his lecture about Nonnus of Panopolitan, the Byzantine poet, at IMLI. His phrase is known: “I don’t remember who, either Averintsev, or Aristotle said ...”. He loved Aristotle and, coinciding with Averintsev, said that Russia lacks Aristotle. And too much Plato.
Vasily Rozanov was another of his favorite thinkers.
-Due to the fact that Rozanov has a lot of critical comments on Russian history and Russian Orthodoxy?
No, he never talked about it. He simply liked Vasily Vasilyevich's very view of things, the special Rozanov poetry, shocking frankness.
In the work of Erofeev, the image of Oedipus is constantly repeated - is it just an artistic device or was he interested in him, perhaps through Freudianism?
No, the image of Oedipus was in no way connected with Freudianism. It was a personal experience of the archetype, in Jungian terms. Another equally important archetype in him is Hamlet. He saw himself as the Prince of Denmark. He laughed at Freud. He said that a healthy person according to Freud is nothing more than a sailor.
Your circle
-Literary predecessors of Erofeev?
I will not name direct predecessors, at least in Russian literature. He himself always mentioned Lawrence Stern. "Sentimental Journey", notes - he found in them a manner of laid-back narration, a fantasy of the word, one might say.
I also really love Stern.
But to say that Erofeev is Stern's successor is impossible. He does not directly join any line and any author. But, I would say, it belongs to literature in general - these are not notes of an amateur, a person from the outside. These are the notes of a man who read and compared a lot, who thought about professionally literary things.
By the way, in the rhetoric of "Petushkov" one can hear the language and pathos of the "Confession" of Blessed Augustine. Sometimes very close.
- Did he communicate with any of the writers? Appreciated someone from his contemporaries?
He began to associate with writers only in recent years, when he became famous. Our acting writers were looking for a meeting with him. And before that, he lived in the circle that is described in "Petushki". There were no writers. In recent years, he often visited Akhmadulina, whom he revered. But in a very peculiar way: "This is the new Northerner." It should be noted that this is not a condemnation: he loved Severyanin very much. In my presence, when asked about his favorite poet, he replied: “Two. Dante Alighieri and Igor Severyanin. But in general he spoke sympathetically about many of his contemporaries. His grade was measured in grams of alcohol: “I would pour 200 grams for Vasil Bykov,” etc. Most of all, as far as I remember, was due to Nabokov.
Was he uncomfortable in this circle?
There was a huge difference between the "writers" and Venya. Another life. Venya had her own company. When I met him, it was already an established circle of followers (for example, from the Vladimir Pedagogical Institute). They, too, were not trivial drunkards.
- Did Vadim Tikhonov study with him, to whom Erofeev dedicated "Moscow - Petushki"?
- No, in my opinion, Tikhonov just graduated from high school. He was, as it were, a lowered shadow of Venechka, like Shakespeare's jester under the king. But he, too, was not an ordinary person at all! He always worked in the most “unsuitable” places: he guarded the cemetery, worked as a stoker in a mental hospital ... And then one day he calls me from one such job and says: “I read Joyce,“ A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man.
Here's the rubbish! (I soften his review) He can't write at all, dunce. It would be better to read Tolstoy's Childhood.
Irresponsible writer?
- Is it true that Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin highly appreciated "Moscow - Petushki"?
There were such rumors. But there is no written evidence of this. The “Rabelaisian” or “carnival” understanding of “Petushki” is associated with these. But Bakhtin could fall in love with "Moscow - Petushki" not at all because it looks like Rabelais. Maybe because, according to Bakhtin, a great work is born on the borders of the "aesthetic", very close to "life". The "professional" writer works somewhere closer to the center.
- Was Bakhtin's idea of "art as responsibility" alien to him?
- Yes, in general, he did not share "art" and responsibility. He was not a writer, a writer in the usual sense: a worker in a literature factory. For him, the first kind of creativity was life itself.
You wrote in one of your articles that Venichka dragged as many people to the bottom with his "Petushki" as Goethe did with his Werther.
Yes, it really was. Young people who did not read too thoughtfully (like many of Werther's at one time) extracted the simplest thing from Petushki: to become an inveterate drunkard and spit on the social ladder. If there were only two of these options: either climb this ladder or spit on it, I would prefer the second. But my teachers and friends have shown me that there are other possibilities. Work. Service.
Parody is not blasphemy
- You noted that Erofeev's work was characterized by such a technique as a parody of the Gospel. But at the same time, he did not tolerate blasphemy ...
- Parody does not necessarily mean ridicule, in the literary sense. He just took this grid, the narrative basis. There is a large study by Boris Gasparov (philologist and musicologist) about the gospel substratum "Petushkov".
Venichka did not like blasphemy, because he generally did not like rudeness and aggression. After reading, many people have a false idea that since a person is a drunkard, he probably swears and is prone to all sorts of outrages.
And he could not stand ugliness and arrogance. With me, he never cussed. Once someone began to express himself in this spirit, and he said: “What are you? There are two women and Sedakova here.”
- You wrote that Venichka had a rejection of everything heroic - for example, he did not tolerate Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. Why?
“The official cult of heroism, that's what he didn't like. He wanted a person to be thought of humanly, so that his weakness and fragility would be accepted. And not: "Nails should be made of these people."
He paid dearly for Zoya: he was expelled from the Vladimir Pedagogical Institute precisely because he wrote a mocking wreath of sonnets about her.
But even outside of ideology, by the very nature of his character, Venichka did not like heroism. He loved, as he said, strange and humble people, thoughtful and bewildered. His theme was humanity: compassion, pity for a person, and not demanding all sorts of feats from him. To love a person for who he is, and in the most unattractive way too. So that he was not brought up, but pitied. In general, everything that was positive in the world of Soviet propaganda was negative for Venichka. In this kenotic ethic of his, he is a very traditional Russian writer.
Why do they read "Moscow - Petushki"?
The world that is described in "Petushki" no longer exists, we live in a different country, and even the province has become, perhaps even more terrible, but still different, there are no such electric trains. Nevertheless, "Moscow - Petushki" is still read and studied.
As I said, when I read this thing for the first time, I thought it was a diary. When I read the first phrase for the second time: “Everyone says: “Kremlin, Kremlin”,” it became clear to me that this was a classic. The rhythm of victory sounds in the very first paragraph.
You say: we now have a different country. But not as different as England, let's say. But "Petushki" received instant, widest success in other countries! They translated it into many languages at once, then for the second, third time into English, French, Italian, German, Finnish, Swedish, and so on ... In London, there was a play based on "Petushki" (I don’t remember exactly in what year): it was a bestseller. It surprised me then: how can one understand this outside of our context, say, without all these Marxist and Leninist formulas that are stuck in everyone’s teeth here (Venichka crushed idol after idol).
Apparently, Venichka was accepted there in a different way, not in the actual political, as we have: perhaps, bringing them closer to Zhenya, to the “damned poets”. A carefully commented edition was published in Germany. The comment was made by Y. Levin.
So, if he was enthusiastically received by the world, which did not know anything similar to the reality described in "Petushki", then there is nothing strange in the fact that we still have him.
First, this thing is brilliantly written. Nobody knows how to write like that. Rhythm, vocabulary, speed of thought. Aphorism. The freshness of the fact that all this was the first time, perhaps, has now faded somewhat: the techniques of the "Petushki" have entered our very language.
What else touches the reader? I think the image of the narrator is the protagonist. It was he who fascinated the reader: a suffering and thinking being, a tragic victim of this cruel world.
Non-writer
It turns out that Venedikt Erofeev posthumously shared the fate of his beloved Vasily Vasilyevich Rozanov? Hundreds of people also tried to imitate him, but no one managed to write anything like "Solitary".
Oh sure. Despite the fact that Erofeev influenced many authors and people, they did not succeed in anything like him.
There is a closeness between his writing and that of Yuz Aleshkovsky. I remember that some works by Aleshkovsky (“Do not steal”) were attributed to Erofeev. But the difference is that, after all, Aleshkovsky is a writer, he composes characters and plots. And Venichka, as I said, followed his own life. In this sense, his writings remind me of such things as the autobiographical notes of Cellini or Casanova. And - Blessed Augustine, as already mentioned.
- But sometimes you can come across such an opinion: “A miserable alcoholic, mediocre alcoholic literature” ...
Passion Man
-Do you think he was close to God?
This is a difficult topic. In any case, he was closer to the gospel story itself than many of those who lead a normal church life. He accepted each of the Beatitudes unconditionally, he loved them. I don’t know what a statistical parishioner will say if he is asked: “And you, personally, would you like such bliss for yourself - to be crying? Or exiled? Venya wanted. The themes of pity, mercy for the fallen and voluntary humiliation are his themes. The earthly fate of Christ, the crucifixion - what he was constantly busy with. He talked about it as if it happened yesterday.
Was the theme of the Resurrection just as real to him? I think no. One day I told him: “It seems to me that you read up to Good Friday, and then you didn’t read further.” To which he said to me: “And you read Christmas, and then immediately Resurrection.”
You know, anonymous old masters were often called according to the plots: “Master of the Passion”, for example, or “Master of the Annunciation”. So, in my impression, Venya was the artist of the Passion - or the contemplator of the "Descent from the Cross." In Rembrandt's performance.
Interviewed by Leonid Vinogradov
Work on the text: Maria Senchukova
Writer, playwright and essayist Venedikt Vasilyevich Erofeev was born on October 24, 1938 in the village of Niva-2 in the suburbs of Kandalaksha, Murmansk Region. The Chupa station of the Loukhsky district of the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, where the Erofeev family lived, is recorded as the place of his birth.
Venedikt was the youngest child in a family that had four more children besides him. In 1946, his father, who worked as the head of the railway station, was arrested and convicted on charges of anti-Soviet agitation. The family was left without a livelihood. The mother went to work with her sister in Moscow, and the younger children ended up in orphanage No. 3 in the city of Kirovsk. Venedikt was in an orphanage from 1947 to 1953.
In 1954, after his father was released, he returned to his family. In 1956 my father died.
In 1955, after graduating from a school in Kirovsk with a gold medal, Venedikt Erofeev moved to Moscow, where he entered the philological faculty of Lomonosov Moscow University. For a year and a half, he studied well and received an increased scholarship, but due to numerous absences from military training, he was expelled.
For some time, Erofeev lived in a dormitory at Moscow State University on Stromynka, where in the mid-1950s he began his first essay, Notes of a Psychopath (1956-1958; the manuscript was considered lost, first published in 1995).
Until 1958, he also wrote poetry, and in 1962 he finished the story "The Good News", created under the influence of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (not completely preserved).
© Photo: Publishing house JV "Interbook"Cover of the book by Venedikt Erofeev "Moscow-Petushki", publishing house JV "Interbook", 1990. Artist Huseynov V.V.
Repeatedly Venedikt Erofeev tried to continue his education. In 1961 he entered the Vladimir Pedagogical Institute. For very good academic performance, he received an increased scholarship, but a year later he was expelled. Also, Erofeev was expelled from the Orekhovo-Zuevsky and Kolomna Pedagogical Institutes.
The longest work of Erofeev was the service in the communication system. For ten years he was engaged in the installation of cable communication lines throughout the country; on these works around Moscow, in the area of the city of Zheleznodorozhny, Erofeev began, and two months later in the area of Lobnya-Sheremetyevo finished the poem "Moscow-Petushki" (1969), which brought him world fame. The text of the novel began to be distributed by samizdat within the Soviet Union, and then in translation, smuggled to the West. The poem was first published in 1973 in Jerusalem, and the first official publication in the original Russian appeared in Paris in 1977.
During the years of glasnost, the poem "Moscow-Petushki" began to be published in Russia, but in a greatly curtailed form - as part of a campaign against alcoholism. Only in 1995, 18 years after writing, the novel was completely, without cuts, officially published in Russia.
In 1972, "Petushki" was followed by "Dmitry Shostakovich", the draft manuscript of which was lost, and all attempts to restore it were unsuccessful. Articles about the Norwegian writers Henrik Ibsen and Knut Hamsun are also considered lost.
In subsequent years, everything written by Erofeev was put on the table, in dozens of notebooks and thick notebooks. The only exception was an essay about the Russian religious philosopher and thinker Vasily Rozanov, published in the Veche magazine under the title "Vasily Rozanov Through the Eyes of an Eccentric".
Since 1978, Erofeev lived in the north of Moscow, where he wrote the tragedy "Walpurgis Night, or the Steps of the Commander" (published in Paris in 1985, at home - in 1989), a documentary collage "My little Leniniana" full of mournful and humorous reflections (published in Paris in 1988, in Russia in 1991), began the play "Fanny Kaplan" (not finished, published in 1991).
© Photo: Vladimir OKC The monument "Moscow-Petushki" based on the work of Venedikt Erofeev is installed in the park on Struggle Square in Moscow. Sculptors Valery Kuznetsov, Sergey Mantserev
In the mid-1980s, Yerofeev developed throat cancer. After a long treatment and several operations, he lost his voice and was able to speak only with the help of an electronic sound machine.
Erofeev died in Moscow on May 11, 1990. He was buried at the Kuntsevo cemetery.
Since 1999, Erofeev Literary Festivals have been held annually in Kirovsk in conjunction with the Murmansk branch of the Union of Russian Writers.
On May 11, on the day of Erofeev's death, admirers of the writer's talent gather to lay flowers at the memorial plaque on the building of school No. 1, which he graduated from.
On October 24, 2001, the Khibiny Literary Museum of Venedikt Erofeev was opened in the Central Library named after A.M. Gorky of the city of Kirovsk. The museum exposition "Kirovsk-Moscow-Petushki" includes thematic sections "Venedict Erofeev in the Khibiny", "Years of study", "On Vladimir land", "Moscow-Petushki" - an encyclopedia of Russian life in the 1960s", "Friends of Erofeev "," Departure to immortality "," Works of Venedikt Erofeev in the theaters of the world ".
The museum of Venedikt Erofeev contains his personal belongings, industrial furniture, foreign publications, autographs and the most rare photographs.
Venedikt Erofeev was married twice. His first wife was Valentina Zimakova, in 1966 their son Venedikt was born. Erofeev entered into a marriage with his second wife Galina Nosova in 1974.
The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources
“I am a superman, and nothing superhuman is alien to me…”.
Venichka Erofeev
Russian writer and alcoholic, best known for the story "Moscow-Petushki", written in early 1970. In the text of the story there are a lot of parodies of the stamps of that time, but there is no accusation ...
He was brought up in an orphanage. Graduated from school with a gold medal.
“Venichka always carried a green notebook with him, in which he wrote down observations and notes about the people around him. There was also an unfinished manuscript of the poem "Moscow-Petushki". Venichka did not part with this notebook and did not show it to anyone. Once Igor came to his brigade. Friends, as usual, drank, and Avdiev decided to steal the cherished manuscript from a friend. Waiting for Venichka to fall asleep, Igor took a notebook from under his pillow. Even in the train, he read it from cover to cover and returned to Moscow completely stunned. Taking a taxi, he rushed to Tikhonov, and friends read the manuscript all night, laughing and crying with delight. Venichka showed up in the morning, not himself from the loss that had befallen him. But from the faces of Igor and Vadim, he immediately realized that they had the secret notebook. “Thank God I found it. Let's slap a little," he sighed with relief ... "
Petrovets T.G., Stars scandalize, M. “Ripol-classic”, 2000, p. 210.
At one time, the writer wrote out for himself the British understanding of the novel by Nikolai Ostrovsky: "In the British Encyclopedic Dictionary: "Kak zakalyalas stal" - "the success story of a young cripple."
Erofeev V.V., From notebooks / From the bottom of the soul, M., Vagrius, 2003, p. 452.
“... a whole galaxy of “humble” writers arose, whose patriarch can rightfully be considered Venedikt Erofeev. His "weakness" - Venichka's angelic drunkenness - is the key to the transformation of the world. In the poem "Moscow-Petushki" alcohol performs the function of a "generator of unpredictability." Intoxication is a way to break free, to become - literally - not of this world. (Again, a curious parallel with the Taoist texts: “A drunken person, when falling from a wagon, even a very sharp one, will not break to death. His bones and joints are the same as those of other people, but the injuries are different, because his soul is whole. He sat down in cart unconsciously and fell unconsciously.") Vodka in Erofeev's poem is the midwife of a new reality, experiencing birth pangs in the hero's soul. Each sip rejuvenates the “hard”, ossified structures of the world, returning it to the ambiguity, proteicity, amorphism of that chaos pregnant with meanings, where things and phenomena exist only in potentiality. The main thing in the poem is an endless stream of truly free speech, freed from logic, from causal relationships, from responsibility for meaning. Venichka calls out of oblivion random, like unpredictable hiccups, coincidences: everything here rhymes with everything - prayers with newspaper headlines, names of drunks with the names of writers, poetic quotations with obscene language. In the poem there is not a single word spoken in simplicity. In each line, an unprecedented verbal matter conceived by vodka boils and swarms. The drunken hero plunges headlong into this speech protoplasm, foolishly confessing to the reader: “I, as a phenomenon, have a self-increasing logos.” Logos, that is, integral knowledge, which includes analysis and intuition, reason and feeling, “self-grows” with Venichka because he sows words, from which, like seeds, meanings sprout.
Genis A.A. , Ticket to China, St. Petersburg, "Amphora", 2001, p. 97-98.
Sample text: "I like it. I like that the people of my country have such empty and bulging eyes. This gives me a sense of legitimate pride. You can imagine what kind of eyes there are. Where everything is sold and everything is bought ... deeply hidden, lurking, predatory and frightened eyes ... Devaluation, unemployment, pauperism ... They look from under their brows, with unceasing care and torment - these are the eyes in the world of Chistogan ... But my people - what eyes! They are constantly protruding, but there is no tension in them. The complete absence of any meaning - but what power! (What spiritual power!) Those eyes won't sell. Nothing to sell and nothing to buy. Whatever happens to my country. In days of doubt, in days of painful reflection, in the time of any trials and calamities, these eyes will not blink. They are all God's dew ... "
Venedikt Erofeev, Moscow - Petushki.
“Vodka is the essence and root of Erofeev's creativity. As soon as we honestly read the poem "Moscow-Petushki", we will be convinced that vodka does not need to be justified - it justifies the author herself. Alcohol is the core on which Erofeev's plot is strung. His hero goes through all the stages of intoxication - from the first saving sip to the painful absence of the last, from the store closed in the morning to the store closed in the evening, from a hangover revival to a sober death. In strict accordance with this path, the compositional canvas is also built. As we move to Petushki, elements of delirium and absurdity build up in the text. The world around swirls, reality closes on the painful consciousness of the hero. But this clinically accurate picture describes only the outer side of intoxication. There is another - deep, ideological, philosophical, let's face it - religious. His close friend, Vladimir Muravyov, wrote about Erofeev's religiosity, who persuaded him to accept Catholicism, convincing Venichka that only this denomination recognizes a sense of humor.
Muravyov writes: "Moscow-Petushki" - a deeply religious book [...]
Venichka himself always had the feeling that a prosperous, ordinary life is a substitute for real life, he destroyed it, and his destruction partly had a religious connotation.
Genis A.A. , good news. Venedikt Erofeev / Two: Investigations, M., "Eksmo"; "Horseshoe", 2002, p. 58.