PATRIARCH

PATRIARCH Our friend and regular contributor to Novaya Gazeta is finishing his book The End of the Feast of Disobedience, about the fate of non-state television in Russia and the characters in its history. With the care of the Ford Foundation, the book will be published next spring...

``` A stubborn, direct nature is not good, but one cannot help admiring natures who, given the legitimate and necessary concessions of time, have enough strength and vitality in themselves to defend and save their inner personality from the demands and autocratic claims of what is called the new order or simply fashion.
P.A. VYAZEMSKY

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``` If I didn’t know for sure that, despite his age, the eternal dean of the Faculty of Journalism of Moscow State University did not have the pleasure of knowing Prince Pyotr Andreevich personally, I would argue with foam at the mouth that the portrait painted by the prince was painted from Yasen Nikolaevich Zasursky. And he looks like two drops of water in this portrait.
I hope we have already managed to accustom the reader to the idea that the choice of characters in this book in no way claims to be objectively balanced. However, there is no voluntarism in including Zasursky in the gallery of persons involved in the story about the fate of non-state television in Russia. For several years, Yasen Nikolaevich was the chairman of the II Licensing Commission, this time under the Federal Television and Radio Broadcasting Service (FSTR) from 94 to 97, where I had fun (for some reason, which I can’t name below). it is an honor) to be one of his two deputies, to observe him, to cooperate with him, to marvel at his active wisdom and be upset by the selectivity of its application.
Most of the current journalists went through Zasursky's school, if not directly, then comprehending the basics of the profession or admiring its heights on the pages and on the screens where his graduates settled. However, this is not surprising, given that the experience of Ya.N. in the position of dean of the Faculty of Journalism is approaching half a century. Another thing is surprising: graduates of the 60s and 70s in those years appreciated Zasursky much less than today, and he had never had such unconditional authority as he had gained in the last decade and a half. The “legitimate and necessary concessions” to the time of the dominance of the communist doctrine, especially cruel in such a super-ideologized sphere as the training of journalists, hardly contributed to Zasursky’s popularity among the best - i.e. the least infected by this doctrine are the graduates of the faculty of journalism. It is now that his half-century deanery looks like a brilliant career, once it seemed the result of a lack of ambition in a man in a case. But there were, there were ambitions and there were opportunities to realize them, at least through serving the party cause in the main forge of promising personnel - the ideological department of the Central Committee. He resisted and, like few of his contemporaries, it turned out, saved himself for the future. Diamaters, historians, historians of the CPSU, Marxist-Leninist aesthetics and party shepherds of literature and culture - how many of them rushed to trample and trample down the ideological field that until recently provided them with their daily bread; what redheads and mummers we have seen over the years! But Zasursky did not change, he only ceased to hide the shy skepticism that was characteristic of him at all times and has become today one of the most expressive features of his personality.
He probably has something to regret, remembering, but nothing to repent of. He was not at that school and did not aspire to be the first student, if we recall Shvartsev's "Dragon". What helped him to “defend and save his inner personality”? And what imprint did the orders and fashions of the past tense leave on it? Every time I meet him, mentally or personally, I ask these questions and - not being familiar with him so briefly as to ask him about it - I look for my answers.
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Yasen Nikolaevich's ability to participate without imitating himself, to be present but not to get involved, to be present but without manifestations of activity is striking - it is hardly acquired and refers only to the activities of his modern times. Rather, it resembles a technology of life behavior worked out to the point of sophistication. Once I happened to hear from Anatoly Efros: "I do not refuse a single creative proposal, unnecessary ones will disappear by themselves." At any meeting (conference, "round table", etc., etc.) devoted to the problems of journalism, the state of the media, freedom of speech, the latest graces of legislation, etc., you will always find a dim, not attracting special attention, emphasized the modest figure of Zasursky. With the same confidence it can be argued that he will either not appear at first, or will not stay to the end, modestly and dimly, but will speak out on the case and disappear after a while, rarely bringing his participation to the signing of protests, appeals or resolutions - I already, it seems , mentioned his shy skepticism, he seems to be always at a crossroads: it’s embarrassing not to participate, to participate is ridiculous.
It's amazing, but over the years, especially as favorable changes again began to turn into empty hopes, Grandfather - such is one of Yasen Nikolaevich's nicknames known to me - more and more often reveals temperament in speeches and readiness for signing: whether age dulls the sense of self-preservation, then whether there is no longer enough strength to restrain the temperament that has been trampled for many years, but not completely lost.
The Licensing Commission, in which we were members, was no longer, like the first one, an "illegal comet", it had already been counted and set to serve as something like a democratic fence, our faces turned to public opinion, enclosing the territory of the FSTR, where behind our backs are many decisions. I will write more about this in detail, but here I would like to complete the portrait of Yasen Nikolaevich by telling the story of how we decided to leave this commission.
The story with the fence did not appear immediately and not for everyone. Its ritually significant meetings in the hall of the boards of the former State Radio and Television on Pyatnitskaya could for a long time maintain in the members of the commission, at least in those who were not personally interested in the decisions being made, the illusion of the meaningfulness of their participation in it. But, as they say, no matter how much the rope winds ... the moment came when participation threatened to turn into complicity, and reconciliation with the fate of the fence could affect one's own reputation. It was about a year before the liquidation. We talked with Yasen Nikolaevich and decided that it was already indecent to stay, I especially insisted on this, but Zasursky had no serious objections to this either. Nothing prevented me from doing this alone, but my resignation would not have given the necessary resonance - it was important not only to leave, but to leave scandalously, with a public statement of the reasons, depriving the commission of the very possibility of further functioning.

By agreement with Zasursky, I wrote a draft joint letter addressed to the then chairman of the FSTR, Valentin Lazutkin, but not narrowly official, but clearly directed outwards, and handed it over to Zasursky, who took several days to think it over.
Yasen Nikolaevich said that everything in the letter suited him, but perhaps it was still premature. Then, for some reason, he could not sign it, then ... in a word, several months passed, I rewrote the letter, replacing the pronouns from the plural to the singular, and left the commission. As I expected, my solo performance did not attract the proper attention of the public, and six months later the commission quietly died in the process of yet another reorganization of the industry's governing bodies. This story did not tarnish anyone's reputation, and the end of it, as Yasen Nikolayevich apparently assumed, did not sound at all, the historical bell did not ring for anyone.

Poor , poor Yasen Nikolayevich, how uncomfortable and embarrassing he felt during those months when I, albeit without much zeal and also feeling awkward, pestered him with this "our letter." Some one hundred and eighty years ago, during the days of the Decembrist uprising, the so-called Trubetskoy syndrome was born, well known, judging by the entry I cited by Vyazemsky. Its essence was that, prompted by heroic feelings, fashionable in the pre-December period, friendly affections and borrowed radicalism, Prince Trubetskoy agrees to head the headquarters of the December uprising, i.e. assumes obligations or seeks to commit acts to please the “autocratic claims of fashion”, trampling on his true essence, and on December 14 he does not go to Senate Square. In our case, everyday mediocrity cannot hide the obvious similarity of motives and actions. Loud slamming of doors is not in Yasen Nikolayevich's nature. Giving his person a historical significance, even in the history of a bureaucratic institution, which was the FSTR, is alien to him. And he, having crossed the temporary awkwardness, did as he probably always did: he did not try on the Napoleonic cocked hat - and left without scandal, quietly and undemonstratively, upsetting me, but remaining true to himself.
Bravo, Zasursky! God forbid I learn this from you, Yasen Nikolaevich!

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