The frames of fate

In 2019–2020, the writer, co -organizer of the Enlightener Award, Alexander Arkhangelsky, published two books from the series “Happy Life”: “Disagent Theodore” about Theodore Shanin and “Russophile” - about Georges Niva [ 1 , 2 ]. In September 2020, during the International Moscow Book Fair, these books were presented [ 3 ]. We publish fragments of the author’s story about our heroes 1 .

- How did the Happy Life series appear?

-Firstly, I was interested in working on her. To begin with, the plan of the book about Theodore Shanin arose, and to start with it, from the point of view of the book market, was the wrong decision. It was necessary to take stars, and if you do lifetime biographies, then about those who are obvious to most readers. And if you take a person obvious to a narrow circle, and try not to make a scientific book, but a biographical novel, then both the author and the publishing house risk.

What was I hoping for? The fact that for the 20th and XXI centuries there were people, on the one hand, closely connected with Russia, and on the other hand, it did not belong to it, who looked at it from the inside and through which the great history of the 20th century flowed. And she flowed most often with a bloody way.

Theodor Shanin was born in Vilna in 1930, when the city had already moved from German to Polish hands, from Polish to Lithuanian, then again to Poland, then twice to the Soviet Union. And all these perturbations were reflected in the fate of Theodore and his family. At the age of 11, a link to Siberia was waiting for him ... At the same time, Soviet repression saved him and his family from the Holocaust, because two weeks later the Germans entered Vilna, and his grandfather and younger sister shot.

And Theodora was waiting for hunger, the theft of bread in Samarkand, a wonderful deliverance from the Siberian exile, the return of Polish citizenship, the legal flight - which is also difficult to imagine - to Poland, from Poland - to France, and so on, the war in Israel, the gap with Israel (since Theodore was left -wing views, and Israel became the right one). The person who received the education of a social worker becomes a Russian peasantman in England, creates one of the first and one of the few viable universities in the new Russia, quarrels and puts up with Soros. This is a dynamic, bright, novel fate. At the same time, this is a deep person who can comprehend his own fate, and this is incredibly interesting. The book about Theodore was written when he was alive, he managed to see it, but did not manage to imagine in the living room a “non-fiction” because he went to the hospital ...

Then a book about Georges Niva, a man no less amazing fate, born in 1935, was published. The man who comes to Russia after the 20th Congress ... If someone saw Andrei Smirnov’s film “Frenchman”, then the director borrowed several episodes from the life of the Niva, creating the image of the hero. Here, in Russia, he was associated with the circle of Olga Ilyinskaya, through her - with her daughter, with Boris Leonidovich Pasternak. And the student is involved in that layer of Russian life, which is Russian inside the Soviet.

At the same time, Georges thinks differently than Theodore. This is such a French version of great lifelong love, when it is not at all assumed that you are delighted, that happiness is something like a flying one. Happiness is a result, it is a result, this is what you are going to, move. This is such a skeptical lifelong love that he talks about with incredible events in this life. And this is a story about life related to Russia and with love for Russia without delight.

Then he was waiting for completely clear poisoning, and he miraculously survived. He got into the Soviet hospital twice - most likely it was poisoning. Fortunately, after the first time he was taken to France, they pumped it out there, he returned-and again he went to the hospital with something like. But this does not cancel this love.

- Why is the series called "Happy Life"?

- If we work in the canons of Russian classical literature, then, of course, we should talk about suffering: the author suffers - the hero suffers - the reader suffers. However, suffering is not the only thing that is in life, and when we pass through suffering - the meaning is not in suffering, but in the fact that we pass through it. We are not obeying us, but we subjugate them to ourselves.

Those who read both books see that in many respects, theodore Shanin and Georges Niva passed through the same historical points: this is the Second World War, these are changes in the Soviet Union after 1956, these are dissidents, these are visits to the increasingly boring Soviet Union of the 1970s. These are hopes associated with perestroika, and war.

Both fought; This is very important to me - both front -line soldiers. Only one fought in Algeria, and the other in Israel. Shanin once said that when he received the Order of the British Empire, everyone was waiting for Prince Charles. And while they were waiting, Shanin talked with a professor of the Arab look. They began to recall youth, the professor said: “I remember the events of 1948-1949. We set the heat to these Jewish terrorists. ” To which Shanin replied: “Well, yes, I was the same Jewish terrorist. We lay with you through the same road. ”

It was important for me that the heroes of two books are very different. One world history, two versions and the same degree of involvement, but with completely different assessments. I, like Chekhov’s shower, love the hero what is he. It is important for me not what ideology he professes, but how he lives.

For all that, this is not a scientific monograph that restores historical truth. We restore another - the truth of the psychological residence of history: this is the truth about what dominants for this person, what he saw, was not what was the main, secondary and third -rate from the point of view of great world history, and what left the trace in it. Therefore, for Theodore Shanin, these are anti -war manifestations in London and Birmingham, this is Vietnam, it is the bombing of the USA North Vietnam, the capture of the South.

And for Niva, these are Parisian events to which he belongs ironically. I did not even try to bring him to these topics. It was important for me not what it was, but what I remember. Moreover, Niva has a reasoning that not all readers accept: that “the memory is arranged in such a way that in history it is necessary not only to remember, but also to forget” and that the story of the past without figures is impossible.

Probably, when the time comes for other biographies-biographies of scientific, complex, multi-component, criticizing sources, with comparing different positions on the same issues-probably something will not be confirmed from their versions. But it doesn’t matter to me: I wrote books that will read here and now.

- And what will the next book of Happy Life be?

- This will be the third version of fate in the XX - XXI centuries. Her heroine is the translator Inna Lee, half Russian, half the Chinese woman who lived in China. She, on the one hand, is the daughter of the co -founder of the Communist Party of China, on the other hand - from the boyar of the Kishkins; Born and raised in Moscow, since her dad was here in exile. Then her father was called up to Harbin by the boss, and then transferred to Beijing. She talked with Mao Zedong, participated in the Chinese “cultural revolution” of 1967-1968. Of course, being a student, she came into contact with the movement of the Hunweibons, and her father fell victim to these same hunwebins.

But then the Golden Beijing Youth turned into a family of outcasts. Inna, her sister and her mother, one of the founders of Chinese Russians Lee Sha (actually Lisa Kishkin), lived in prison on the same floor and did not know for several years that they were living nearby. And then-a village, re-education, a ban on talking in Russian. And then - a paradoxical story when China began to put up with the United States, but was still in a quarrel with the Soviet Union; Communist Soviet books were prohibited, and the products of the emigrant publishers of the Imka-Press or “Sowing” were available in China. That is, in a paradoxical way, the right to read in Russian returned through what was prohibited in the USSR.

The book about Inna Lee will be the third. I really wanted her heroine to be a woman, because it is impossible to have only a male heroes. The XX century is so arranged that the male heroes are more than female heroes.

- How is such a book done?

- With each hero of the book, we first talk for a long time. Just like that. We talked for many years: with Georges Niva - almost thirty years, with Theodor Shanin - about fifteen years old. With Inna and Lee, which was almost a hundred years old, I met in Beijing in 2004, and gradually the frame matured during these conversations-because the story should be short, dynamic and verified. The episodes go through the screening: they are suitable-they are not suitable, they say something about the hero-they do not say. Just do not need details - you need a frame of fate. In both cases, there were documentary films: “Disagreed Theodore”, which can be watched in the public domain on the YouTube resource “Arzamas” [4] (there are 19 small episodes); The film about Georges Niva should be shown at the end of autumn or early winter on the Culture channel.

We are now discussing the opportunity to make a book on the basis of endless conversations with a deceased person, to work with these texts, as in the Middle Ages-not as scientists, but to make a book-record, linking some pieces. But so far I have not decided for myself whether I am ready for such an experiment or not.

Two times I tried to talk with possible heroes only for the book - nothing came out for me, and two books did not take place. It happens. There seems to be material, but there are no books - it does not grow. What is the secret here - I have no answer. Books are still either folding or not. And you, unfortunately, until you finish it, you can’t say: it has developed or not.

Photo by Tatyana Sorokina and Natalia Demina

1 Kirill Glickman's presentation conducted.